The Revolution Will Be Photographed

Comments (0) By Keith Bowers Wednesday, Nov 24 2010

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Cara Barer documents how things evolve — namely, the things that she helps evolve. Barer the sculptor takes objects — in this case, books — and turns them into art. Barer the photographer shoots the sculptures and turns them into more art. Her shots, part of the two-person exhibition "Cara Barer and Emilio Lobato," bear a certain resemblance to the works of Anselm Kiefer, who created great, heavy sculptures of books, pages, and files from lead. The names of some her pieces speak to what they now resemble: "Blue Eye," "Sea Nettle," "Cocoon." This micro-evolution points to the macro: Barer intends to raise questions about the changing way we get our information -- less from books, and more from computers and online networks. She says a "chance meeting" with a discarded phone book -- among the first victims of the Internet age -- was the primary inspiration for the project. Soon she found other books that were no longer of use, such as a Windows 95 manual. "After soaking it in the bathtub for a few hours, it had a new shape and purpose," she says. The organic images of Barer's work are complemented by the geometric forms of Lobato's. The paintings of Lobato, who comes from a family of weavers, mimic Hispanic and Native American textiles. The lines in his paintings are intended to represent the passage of time, a more figurative take on Barer's literal tracking of transformation.
Nov. 17-24; Nov. 29-Dec. 22, 2010