Mexican filmmakers Jorge Estrada and Daniela Paasch reverse field here and offer us miniature and radically still meditative photographs of places and things in the small towns of their home country, through which they hope that “the relevance of a memory is subjugated by the aesthetic of a moment.” Like haiku poetry, Estrada’s color and Paasch’s toned images are all about emotion, using their subjects to trigger humor, poignancy and, most of all, that sense of intense absorption that we feel when we find ourselves contemplating an object or scene that has no special meaning, yet has attracted our unaware gaze. That mood is captured most exquisitely in Paasch’s sepia-toned studies of “forgotten” things, such as two metal chemical drums, one of them on its side, resting abandoned on a cracked and pitted street. In a film, no frame is self-sufficient; Estrada and Paasch understand that there is another mode of time than succession. (Michael Weinstein)
Opposites Attract: A Review of Nancy and David Bechtol at ARC Gallery No two artists could be farther apart in concept and style. While David’s long, long panoramic images are breathtaking in their portrayal of North American landscapes, Nancy’s wild, erratic and excitingly dynamic work is at the other end of the photographic spectrum.
Repurposing AI: A Review of Stephanie Dinkins at Stamps Gallery While this show is timely for everyone, I consider its setting within a university art gallery and emerging tech hub like the city of Ann Arbor a subversive provocation which Dinkins invites the greater public—including members of the university community—to consider our own positionality to AI and technology.
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