AN OBJECT
It’s an understatement that the world we live in is deeply mired in uncertainty. It exists in layers, on political, social, environmental, and for our purposes, visual levels. We can submit to it, feel overwhelmed and confused, or as Rebeca Bollinger does, proactively embrace a sense of doubt. As the contents of this exhibition demonstrate, there’s a thrilling beauty to be found in the indeterminate.
The title of the show asserts that ambiguity is the core of this project. What are we looking at? In the parlance of contemporary art, these are digital images, video projection and sculpture, though in Bollinger’s hands, these media categories are woefully inadequate.
The artist refers to the images as ‘straight photos,’ a term that may describe their technical identity as pictures free of digital retouching, but visually, they’re anything but. These are images that are a wonderfully complex mixture of pure (and sometimes painterly) abstraction, crisp representation, and wavering perspectives. To look at them is to go through a sequence of perceptions. You might begin with glimmers of recognition—are those microscopic views of replicating cells, translucent pomegranate seeds, or the blurred neon lights of a commercial strip? After a time, the pictures float into more interpretive zones. The actual sources become far less important than their current condition, which is more often than not rather beautiful.
Generating so many possible interpretations may stem from Bollinger’s rigorous questioning of visual foundations. In these pieces, foreground and background are fractured, conflated and reordered. Vast expanses of these straight images are amalgams of almost ghostly circles, squares and meandering lines that suggest movement. While utterly satisfying compositions, you’d be hard pressed to identify the focal point.
This idea is splintered further, gloriously, in the “moving images,” which are presented upon an uneven “object”/screen/sculpture. Bollinger projects sequences of slowly morphing images on this freestanding surface, which is composed of squares that extend from or are cut out of a more expansive back drop. These sections add dimension, shadow and a parallel layer of image that is an active reference to cubism and its attempt to capture modernity’s multi-dimensional forward march. The pace is fluid and dreamlike. Vast expanses calmly shatter into smaller pieces that descend, evaporate and sometimes reappear. It’s difficult sometimes to remember where they came from. Ambiguity abounds.
Just about all the images were gathered in the arid climes of California, yet all exude a visual lushness—Santa Ana winds mingled with a balmy tropical breeze, in saturated living color. Printed on a matte paper, the static works exude a velvety porous vibe that is the antithesis of photographic gloss. The tool, it should be noted, is a camera fitted with a lens that allows the artist to observe from a distance and to capture all those layers between here and there. Bollinger notes that she’s never quite sure what the camera will register, though the results are hardly accidental. The sense of uncertainty is something that she’s wisely learned to trust and in turn actively engage with assurance.
-- Glen Helfand
