"Untitled (Fireflies inside the body of my camera, 8:37 - 8:39PM, June 26, 2008)," 2008
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Whichever one of the wildly varied photographic experiments that she undertakes, Aspen Mays always takes us into an unfamiliar world that is constructed out of the most humble and common things transmuted into eerie impressions. Possessed of the desire to see a “photograph of the whole universe,” Mays ends up shooting out in any direction that tickles her fancy and zooms to its outer limits. Put some fireflies into your camera and you will end up with a glossy, gaudy and glowing patch of color that abstracts from its subject so much that it looks like a precise photograph of a color-field painting. Through all Mays’ endeavors runs a play between absence–indeed vacancy and lack of distinction–and an audacious fullness that makes us keenly aware of what is left out at the same time that we are drawn into the subject. In sync with our improbable age, Mays is a postmodern mystic. (Michael Weinstein)
Lost in Translation: A Review of Crip* at Gallery 400 The strongest works in the exhibition succinctly express the ways the artist relates to their own body while calling out how the artist’s body and body of work has been perceived or coded against norms or ideals.
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.
