Snowflakes are inimitable, as we have always been told, and if we need proof, turn-of-the-twentieth-century photographer Wilson Bentley provides it in his exquisite black-and-white studies of the ephemeral crystals. Micro-photography of nature always reveals unsuspected alluring organized detail, yet snowflakes take the lead, just because their symmetric perfection stands against their inherent transiency. How did Bentley consummate his feat? He would shovel up some of a fresh Vermont snowfall, put it on a table, search for beautiful crystals, isolate them with a broom bristle, put them on glass plates and shoot them quick as a bunny through a photomicroscope. Without the offices of contemporary technology, Bentley’s passion and discipline give us visual evidence of the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s dictum that the value of things is not dependent on their duration. (Michael Weinstein)
Through January 30 at Carl Hammer Gallery, 740 N. Wells
Related Stories
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.
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.
