The photographs currently on exhibit at
A\V in the Public Market remind us of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still series or the documentary photographs in Nan
Goldin’s book, The Ballad of Sexual
Dependency. In their own ways, both of these photographers deal with the
complexities of gender, identity politics, and sexuality.
Goldin portrays the people that are
close to her and includes herself in the exploration of drugs, sex, love, and
friendship.ย The work is gritty, at
times erotic and sensual and at times violent, petty, and downright scary.
Sherman’s work explores woman-as-stereotype within film. She uses herself as an
ever-changing character that defines her as woman and, at the same time, makes
her the object of male desire.
Both of these bodies of work present us
with the complex and ambiguous world of relationships, and the photographs by
Scott Laird at A\V hint at yet another layer to be added to the problematics of
human relationships. The exhibition, two
please… , plays on these complexities by attempting to address both the
act of dating in general and the desire to please one’s date in particular.
According to the press release, Laird’s
photographs “examine the dating process” — a process reduced to the dinner
date within which is the “‘expectation’ of sex”. The photographs, which
predominantly depict a young woman and her intimate surroundings (i.e., the bedroom,
the bathroom), are meant to reveal a narrative that takes her from pre-date
clothing choices (she puts on her shoe in “too tight,” while in “to thong or
not to thong,” the woman has to decide which panties to wear) to aprรจs the sexual encounter where —
again, through the use of narrative titles — the viewer is taken from the
“afterglow” to the woman sitting in the bathroom wearing a man’s shirt looking
off melancholically somewhere beyond the frame in an image called “was it worth
it… “
Laird uses the ellipses in the
exhibition title and in some of the photographs’ titles to imply that something
follows, that there is more to it. But that “more” is exactly what is lacking
in the work. While Laird has given us some complex work in the past, in this
instance, a subject that could be quite rich has been reduced to surface or
superficial images. Yes, dating can be all about appearances but it is also
fraught with all the baggage that comes with it. What is interesting about
Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is that it was not really about sex but about all the other things that make us
human. We do want to please ourselves and the ones we love, but that is easier
said than done.
That said, there are some nice
photographs included, particularly the ones of the young woman. The images that
try to represent relationships through restaurant chairs fall short, however
— especially since the latter are digital prints while the former are
traditional color photographs. Joe Tunis’s sound installation, which consists
of recorded sounds from restaurants, bars, and other date locations, does add
another layer. But Laird’s examination needs more. How can the dating process
be reduced to the point where a girl/model/object contemplates dressing up, to
have or not to have sex, and then regrets it within the span of a few pithy
titles?
You should go
if the
dating scene has been less than “productive” lately.
two please… | photographs by Scott Laird and sound
by Joe Tunis | A\V, 8 Rochester Public Market, 2nd floor, through September 10. Closing reception: Saturday,
September 10, 7 to 9 p.m. | Hours: Thursday 7 to 10 p.m., Saturday and
Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 423-0320, www.avspace.org
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2005.
