JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 color photographs, unframed and unmatted, and hung in the North and South gallery spaces. All of the works are c-prints mounted to Dibond, made in 2011. Most of the images are square format, roughly 26×26; the rest are rectangular, ranging from 28×16 to 32×26 or reverse. All of the images, regardless of size, are printed in editions of 5. (Installation shots at right.)
Comments/Context: Coke Wisdom O’Neal’s last project placed his subjects in an enormous plywood box, several stories high, dwarfing them in its immensity, allowing them the freedom to create their own environments. His recent nudes explore the other end of the spatial spectrum, where anonymous bodies have been pressed into small spaces, hemmed in by the edges of a clear Plexiglas box, forced into densely folded positions and pushed up against the walls.

Stand back a bit and legs and arms become abstract lines and curves, framed by the rigidity of the transparent exterior. To my eye, the images move between being nameless odd specimens, like those found in jars in natural history museum cases, and something more purely sculptural, bodies bending and flexing in formally beautiful ways.

My favorite image in the exhibit was C46_M66_Y79_K50, 2011; it’s not in any of the installation shots, as it is hung alone on a wall near the door to the gallery. I liked the swirling N shape created by the compressed leg and the vertical arm.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
- Artist site (here)
Through March 17th
531 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001