What I am on about is two very different shows that connected yet bounced off each other in a very... unsatisfying way.
The Haines Gallery, SF, is showing new work by Binh Danh including three of his signature leaf-portraits and a series of daguerreotypes. The series is called In the Eclipse of Angkor: Tuol Sleng, Choeung Ek, and Khmer Temples. There are photos of temple ruins, of young monks, of the museum displays in the killing grounds of the Khmer Rouge. These works reflect Danh's ongoing exploration into a period of time when a shadow passed over a culture. His work is an unearthing in a way, bringing to light a dark period, but in a delicate soft light as befits a memorial gesture.
In Cambodia, in the 70s, the Khmer Rouge regime killed some two million people in the span of a few years. Tuol Sleng prison and the area of mass graves in Choeung Ek are now memorial sites Danh visited and photographed. He makes a leap into the deep past by also photographing Angkor Wat, a huge, ancient temple site situated in the same region the Khmer Rouge originated. In Angkor, carvings depict Rahu, the dragon snake who periodically attempts to eat the sun and moon throwing the earth into a dangerous period of darkness.
Eclipse is just the right word for these works: in the daguerreotype the image is only seen when one passes before it. You see the ghost image in the shadow of your own reflection. These pics below do not do the objects justice, for until you stand in front of them, they appear as pearl-like, moon-like mirrors.
This is Ghost of Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum #1, 2008.
This the Killing tree against which executioners beat children, 2008.
The daguerreotype itself, as a medium, serves perfectly—as vague as memories, unclear, wavering in the changing reflection of the viewer's breathing. I found the experience of standing in front of them profoundly moving—the image of the dead, or the torture site, clarifying only against my own living body.
And then I turned and caught sight of the butterflies. In three frames, each with a leaf-portrait—faces are brought forward out of the shadows of anonymous history and printed on fallen leaves—and a butterfly, a sacrifice to the dead.
Iridescence of life #6, 2008, chlorophyll print, butterfly specimen & resin.
Walking, reflecting on the weighty experience of Binh Danh's transformative work, I go a few doors down the street and check in at the Marx & Zavattero Gallery. Boy howdy, an insect of another color. Just goes to show you it takes all kinds.
Paul Paiement paints insect-gadget hybrids with scientific precision in watercolor and egg tempera. Paiement is a popular-with-the-press painter, but not one to get on the band wagon, I gotta say I found a serious lack of oxygen in the room like when you fly too high. Pop! oh shucks, the balloon burst and here I am on the ground again.
Paiement is interested in imaging life forms in context of the technological which is to say he is interested in cyborgs, the fusion of the organic and inorganic. The Marx & Zavattero press release says these paintings provide optical amusement as well. Hmm. About as much amusement as synthetic sugar. Far too laboratorial for me.
This is Hybrids H - Hyalophora Xboxcontrolerae watercolor on paper, with attached bits ( “Ben Day dot/half tone patterns”), approximately 20 inches all around.
