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September 10, 2006=
For the Journal-Constitution REVIEW =
" =
Through
Oct. 21. Curator's/artist talk 6:30 p.m. Oct. 5. 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Mondays-Fridays; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. =
Verdict:
Beautiful, and deeper and more disturbing than it first appears. =
The
title of "Forest Primeval" comes from a poem by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, but the topics it covers are much larger than Longfellow's ly=
rical
awe. =
With the
work of only three photographers, curator Lisa Kurzner has touched on many
imaginative archetypes. One way or another, all three deal with the
traditional duality of nature vs. history. =
At the
same time, however, they offer straight pictures of "The Forest,&quo=
t;
as the title of the most subtle and well-known work in the show has it. T=
his
film by Israeli-born =
In this
now-quiet place, the Nazis hunted and murdered the region's Jewish
population. Thus the actions of the unseen tree-cutters are effective
metaphors for terrible historical events in an innocent landscape. =
By
contrast, =
Pecchio
is documenting natural processes, but the mix of diseased and healthy tre=
es
struck down by enormous forces suggests parallels in human lives. =
For this
very reason, Pecchio photographs selectively. She states that though she
lived in southern =
Jeff
Whetstone, like Pecchio, received his master of fine arts degree from Yal=
e in
2001 and lives in =
His shot
of storm-felled trees is titled "Power Lines, Lynch, Kentucky,"
even though the power lines occupy only the upper right corner of the
picture. His image of a slightly broken "Fishing Chair" present=
s it
front and center beside a misty autumn lake. The beer bottle next to the
chair cancels out the romance of bare trees and frozen weeds. =
The less
destructive alteration of Whetstone's "Jumping Tree" by the
addition of slats to form a ladder for swimmers shows that history and na=
ture
sometimes coexist comfortably. =
This
species of complex back-and-forth is why Kurzner's
tree-centered exhibition is much more provocative than an ordinary landsc=
ape
show. =
Slats
form a ladder for swimmers in Jeff Whetstone's 2005 "Jumping Tree&qu=
ot;
(left). =
Photo = Pamela Pecchio's photographs are meant to show a more gentle, inevitable culling of trees by nature (above).
Copyright 2006 The=
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