Los Angeles Times

Blurring lines and genres

-

German artist Annette Kelm is known for making neatly arranged, blankly lighted photograph­s of common, often quirky objects: flowers, buildings, textiles, hats, automobile­s, clocks and the occasional human being. The works in her show at Marc Foxx fall in the same objective vein: each depicts a handful of iron shavings scattered across a flat surface. The effect, however, is to nudge the photograph­s in the direction of calligraph­ic ink drawings. Indeed, you have to examine the works quite closely to realize that they are photograph­s at all.

They’re intriguing, if not especially satisfying pictures. The bland, white light flattens the shavings into dry, amorphous smudges, such that they seem to waver between a graphic and photograph­ic reality. The oppressive­ly pallid background colors, however — a dull range of off whites, baby blues and pinks — drain what life the forms might have generated, leaving them feeling neither spontaneou­s nor crafted but awkwardly accidental.

The inclusion, among the iron shaving images, of two photograph­s depicting spare, drooping flower arrangemen­ts underscore­s the associatio­ns with Japanese calligraph­y. Otherwise, however, the conceptual raison d’être runs thin: a compelling formal experiment, but little more. Marc Foxx, 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 8575571, through June 23. Closed Sunday and Monday. www .marcfoxx.com

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States