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The "Natura" series are black & white
photographs of simple objects taken from life and grouped
together according to generic identity. These pictures are
left untitled. However, brief, parenthetical descriptions
accompany each photograph, for example: "Untitled (feathers)."
This
conceit is effective because it reinforces the "objectivity" that
is part of the show's Conceptual grounding. While all the
photographs in this series are aesthetically pleasing,
they also suggest the sort of documentation that is common
in the natural sciences. One is reminded of those photographic
plates seen in encyclopedias, although some of these things,
such as the white pine needles, are virtually identical
to each other and therefore this particular photograph
undermines the suggestion of documentation in this sense.
What
is interesting about the photographs in this series, as indeed with
all the pictures in this show, is how they balance formal and Conceptual
concerns. Broches is well aware of the Conceptual uses to which photography
has been put over the past 40 years or so. Her new work involves
the recognition that photography not only enables us
to capture, in this case, the subtle beauty of the natural
world around us, it also amply demonstrates how its formal
usage is inseparable from the ideas that we have about
photography itself.
Excerpt from an online review by Paul Forte
of Broches' exhibition "Flora/Natura",
at the Flanagan Campus Art Gallery, the Community College of Rhode Island,
Lincoln, Rhode Island, February 2 – 27, 2004. Paul Forte,
conceptual artist, curator and writer, lives and works in
Wakefield, RI. |
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