Work from the series Close, Please.
"Concealed human presences haunt the images of Anders Krisar, a Swedish photographer with an odd agenda. In ''Hiding the Hidden,'' three large and sharply detailed unpeopled photographs, made in parks on the outskirts of Stockholm, the focus seems to be a tree or two: decorous, well-barked trees nicely placed in manicured natural settings.
But in each of the pictures, the trees serve as hiding places for Mr. Krisar's parents, who are visible only by implication. The trees, in effect, become their surrogates. Make what you will of it.
Two other photographs, ''Flesh Cloud'' No. 1 and No. 2, depict a section of the brick facade and cobblestoned roadway of a medieval church in Stockholm's center. In each, a mysterious blur occurs, a result of a well-orchestrated performance. A dozen or so people (including the artist) were asked to meet at the site at dawn, strip off their clothes, then run around each other in a circle for a lens exposure of more than a minute. The long exposure time created a flesh-colored, bodyless haze in front of the building, an aura that seems to evoke the collective breath of generations.
Using the camera to conceal rather than disclose is nothing new in the annals of Conceptual art; still, Mr. Krisar gives the notion a bit of a tweak. Yet, like most Conceptual art, the photographs need explanation.
Eerily effective in a different key is a quintet of images titled ''Family Matter.'' For it Mr. Krisar cast in pewter stark, deadpan masks of the faces of himself and four close family members. He photographed each cast against black paper, then melted the pewter down to make another. The five photographs, with heads lighted from the right, are shown in a sequence along with the single small cube of pewter that contains within it traces of the faces. It's as if the photographer saw them all in death, which is, after all, the ultimate form of concealment."
ART IN REVIEW; Anders Krisar -- 'Close, Please'
By GRACE GLUECK
Galerie Lelong
528 West 26th Street, Chelsea
Found at The Exposure Project.
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