New York Times
January 10, 1986
by Vivien RaynorSplit vision (Artists Space, 223 West Broadway): This is an exhibition by 10 photographers, most of whom are about 30 years old, and, as chosen by Robert Mapplethorpe and Laurie Simmons, they seem to fit into two easily recognizable groups.
The best on Mapplethorpe's team is George Dureau, whose reputation has so far been confined mainly to London and his native Louisiana. And inexplicably so, for the photographer's specialty is sharp but contemplative black-and-whites of nude men, most of them black and several of them mutilated. Generally, the figures are posed against white paper and were it not for the sunshine illuminating them and the quality of the prints, they would be case studies.
This is confrontational photography in all its dubiousness; but unlike Diane Arbus's efforts in the same genre, Dureau's bespeak empathy for his subjects and a genuine physical longing for them. Whatever artistry the young Europeans Peter Berlin, Peter Blanca and Jean-Marc Prouveur possess is swamped by their subject matter, which is homoerotic in the extreme. For example, Berlin's blond "playboy" with iron-pumper's muscles has sexual organs that, already conspicuous through his transparent lace-up pants, are made more so by retouching. Blanca focuses on one man, his mouth crammed with eels, another man with his back etched bloody with a portrait of Mickey Mouse and a hand that's nailed to a plank. Prouveur, meanwhile, concentrates on the erotic implications of religion and death by setting up scenes of male arousal in church and on funeral biers draped as war memorials. Naturally, Mark Morrisroe's grainy chiaroscuro prints in color get lost in this context, and it's a pity because some, such as the half-length female nude with a rope of dark hair falling across her breast, are quite beautiful.
Laurie Simmon's surrogates also suffer by comparison, since their prints, mostly bright in color, aim at the mind rather than the viscera. Generally taking inspiration from the banal, the reproduced and the commercialized, these photographers, as the catalogue essay by the New York Times critic Andy Grundberg points out, require viewers to stand back and "rethink the grammar of persuasion rather than embrace it."
Some of the more compelling images in the show are by Jerald Frampton -- blown up slices of action that bring Robert Longo's drawings to mind. a memorable sequence is of one man punching another on the jaw, taken from various angles.
Also arresting are the large still lifes of Laurie Neaman -- a woman's handbag spilling its contents onto the floor, kicked-off women's shoes beside a broken alarm clock, a red phone hanging off the hook and so on. A series of incidents in a life lived alone, these large pictures build toward a climax that never comes. Also on the Simmons' team are Alan Belcher, Julie Wachtel and Lydia Panas (Through Jan. 18)