JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 photographic works, variously installed against white walls and tiled printed murals in the main gallery space. The show also includes a video installation, shown in a darkened room in the center of the gallery.

The following works are included in the show:

• 3 archival pigment prints, 2024, sized roughly 80×44, 40×30, 33×26 inches, in editions of 3+2AP
• 2 archival pigment prints mounted on Dibond in silkscreen-printed artist’s frames, 2024, sized roughly 35×26, 51×41 inches, in editions of 3+2AP
• 1 archival pigment print mounted on Dibond in yellow artist’s frame, 2024, sized roughly 89×62 inches, in an edition of 3+2AP
• 1 archival pigment print mounted on Dibond in walnut artist’s frame, 2024, sized roughly 32×25 inches, in an edition of 3+2AP
• 4 metallic chromogenic prints, 2024, sized roughly 33×26, 49×59, 52×40 inches, in editions of 3+2AP
• 1 UV print on Red Hot car paint mounted on Dibond in metal artist’s frame, 2024, sized roughly 43×35 inches, in an edition of 3+2AP
• 1 UV print on Ermine White car paint mounted on Dibond in metal artist’s frame, 2024, sized roughly 43×35 inches, in an edition of 3+2AP
• 1 set of 5 archival pigment prints and metallic chromogenic prints mounted on Dibond in silkscreen-printed artist’s frames, 2024, sized roughly 34×183 inches overall, unique
• 1 diptych of archival pigment prints, metallic chromogenic prints, and laser prints mounted on Dibond, 2024, sized roughly 79×150 inches, unique
• 1 anamorphic video projection, digital video and 16mm film transferred to video, 21 minutes, sound, 2024, dimensions variable, in an edition of 3+2AP

(Installation shots and video stills below.)

Comments/Context: The “baby blue benzo” in the title of Sara Cwynar’s smart new show ostensibly refers to a car, in particular a sinuously light blue 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe with gull wing doors that sold for €135M in 2021, making it the most expensive car ever sold. And while this car does indeed make repeated appearances in Cwynar’s artistic project, as both a real automobile replica (that she briefly stands near, touches, and sits in), and later as an image cutout included in various studio setups, as is often the case with Cwynar’s work, that literal definition is almost certainly not the only “benzo” to which she might be referring. The “benzo” could just as plausibly be an allusion to the benzodiazepines of Valium and Xanax fame, the widely used pharmaceuticals used to treat everything from anxiety and insomnia to seizures. So right from the get go, Cwynar offers us an uneasy mix of aspirational luxury and 21st century nervousness, where fast cars and identity crises go hand in hand.

Over the past decade, Cwynar has taken a thoughtful, and sometimes overtly intellectualized look at the medium of photography, repeatedly interrogating how images function, what they mean in different situations and contexts, how they circulate, how they can be re-constructed, re-interpreted, deliberately hijacked, or collaged/layered together, and what constitutes cultural resonance and kitsch. Across both gallery shows and museum exhibits (as seen in 2021 here, in 2019 here, in 2017 here, and in 2014 here), and in both still photographs and increasingly in videos, she has built up an enviable early body of work, incrementally testing out alternate methods and strategies for wrangling photographic (and moving) images into larger discussions of consumerism, value, power, and desire. It increasingly feels like Cwynar is starting with an overarching framework of ideas she wants to explore, which then alternately take shape as short installations and performances (which are filmed and then linked together), layered assemblages and collages (which are filmed in motion), and precisely constructed still photographs, making it a bit hard to figure out where to start to follow her train of thought. But perhaps it doesn’t entirely matter whether one visual instance or iteration was the parent or child of another, as long as we can see how the larger puzzle of connected imagery loosely fits together.

Photographically, Cwynar employs a handful of different strategies in this show, adding extra layers of refinement and sophistication to approaches she has used before. She brings back her encyclopedia grid method, where individual examples of a given theme are “touched” by an encroaching finger, and then the assembled (and rephotographed) group is “measured” by an included ruler; here the theme is weather, mixing clouds, wildfires, and even one tornado into a heady climate change-amplified mix on a seething red backdrop. She also re-introduces her index approach, where a still life object is re-constructed from smaller images affixed to the original, generally following the existing color schemes or thematic taxonomies; an 1865 doll provides the scaffolding for the visual study here, with pink items layered into the billows of the dress, with an exhaustive set of explanatory notes appended to the bottom. Both works leverage visual systems we have seen before from Cwynar, but with engaging new subject matter.

Other photographs return to Cwynar’s interest in clichéd still life perfection, which she has explored before with isolated up-close images, particularly featuring gold watches and red and pink roses. Here she introduces a pink peony (set against a lush white textural backdrop) and two bright red apples (set against appropriated images of blue skies with white puffy clouds). Her peony essentially follows the pattern established in her earlier floral still lifes, but the apples go further, adding glitched repetitions to the backdrop and technical and administrative details printed on the interior edges of the frame, making it clear that this isn’t just a perfect apple, but a precisely constructed technical depiction of that ideal, leveraging magnification technologies, commercial lighting, and image databases. And with that engineered conception of perfection bouncing around in our heads, Cwynar’s nearby still life of a bank shaped like a pink bunny, her portrait of a body in pink tights, and her portrait of Pamela Anderson interrupted by draped plastic feel eerily similar, with different kinds of aspirations and desires seen with the same kind of clinically deconstructive eye.

The automobile theme pops up again (tying back to the “benzo”) in a pair of images using bright red Ferrari Formula 1 cars as their subject. Fragmented images of the cars have been printed out, folded, stacked into overlapping arrangements, set against a red backdrop, and ultimately rephotographed. The resulting images reassemble the mismatched pieces of the race cars into abstracted assemblages, the piles filled with the graphic detail of printed logos, tires, and the slashing curves of the chassis, all jumbled together into shifting stacks, like speedily flipped pages torn out of a fan magazine.

In recent years, Cwynar has been experimenting with ways to layer together all kinds of pictures, liberally mixing vernacular finds, archival photographs, stock shots, and her own work in dense setups that mimic the flowing all-overness and image saturation of our digital lives. In previous shows, she offered the surprisingly effective innovation of hosting imagery on plexi sheets seen top down from above, creating the illusion of transparency and layered depth. To handle more three dimensional objects like clothing, she has now added various metal scaffolds and other mechanical contraptions and wiring, creating “flattened” views of western wear, cheerleader and clown costumes, evening gowns, a pregnancy suit, and even a Little Red Ridinghood-like capelet, which she has then intermingled with further imagery on the surrounding walls and floors of her studio. The resulting rephotographed setups jumble the cultural references into an unruly hodgepodge, with female roles and “performances” hybridized into unlikely combinations. And when we peek behind the back of one of the mannequins, it turns out it’s an automaton, filled with unseen mechanical gears that make the body move, reinforcing the technological mechanization theme once more, which then sits as a clever foil to the inert carcass of meat found in another image.

As installed at 52 Walker, Cwynar’s photographs float and wander through the space, with some pinned directly to the walls unframed, others tucked into corners, and a few hung directly against wall-filling murals made up of appropriated images divided into rectangles (likely for ease of printing, but also resembling pixelization). Two multi-image works bring several still compositions into intimate dialogue, like friezes of imagery that might be decoded sequentially. And this sweep of one-after-the-other-ness naturally leads to the more fluid motion found in Cwynar’s central “Baby Blue Benzo” video. Shown across an extra wide screen (unfortunately somewhat interrupted by the architectural pillars of the gallery), the video sweeps back and forth, sometimes running full screen, sometimes in two- or three-channel modes, with the divisions constantly shifting forward and backward, like eyes flitting along a constant scroll. This motion feels even more pronounced when it is applied to Cwynar’s layered assemblages of imagery, which scroll past with unnerving speed, like an assembly line moving a little too fast for comfort or complete comprehension. In some of the video sequences, Cwynar makes use of a circular track in her studio, with models and objects traveling along the curved rails while the camera moves in an opposing motion, creating yet another sense of turning, shifting, and re-seeing (and being watched) from alternate and unstable vantage points. Even the soundtrack is layered, with one set of phrases read by a male voice, only to be commented on or corrected by the artist’s female voice, with further interruptions coming from revving motor engines and snippets of music. Structurally and compositionally, “Baby Blue Benzo” has a lot to unpack, even before the content of the imagery (and voiceover) are considered.

As the snippets of video flit past, mixing the famous car with models in various costumes, layers of aggregated imagery, a portrait shoot with Pamela Anderson, and ultimately some figure skating in red Ferrari driver jumpsuits, the voiceover uncorks some appropriately arch and witty philosophical commentary. Phrases and sentences like “you saw it, that’s good enough”, “looking is like owning”, “I am not an advertisement for myself”, and “I was a woman sick with suspicion” burrow into our consciousness, destabilizing any simple conception of the visuals passing by. “At whom is she smiling? Always at you” applies not only to Anderson and her mannered posing, but seemingly to any of the models or advertising images dripped into the river of imagery rushing by, offering a hollow ring to any “dream of wholeness” we might have. Seen as one artistic perspective, “Baby Blue Benzo” is quietly caustic and sarcastic, in a deliberately jittering mode that sweeps by so quickly we risk missing or misunderstanding its bite, which is perhaps exactly the point.

In this way, I expect that repeated viewings of “Baby Blue Benzo” would uncover countless more connections, echoes, and montaged visual interweavings that might have been missed the first time through, with the still photographs pulling out a handful of resonant instances for longer durational contemplation. What is clear is that Cwynar continues to deconstruct our stream-of-consciousness digital existence with incisive precision and wit. As busy with ideas as “Baby Blue Benzo” is, it never feels scattered, random, or lazy in its messiness; on the contrary, the aggregation of performative experiences feels carefully controlled, building to its own form of conflicted crescendo, filled with flashes of delusional fantasy and misinterpreted reality. As seen here, Cwynar continues to build impressive artistic momentum, crafting increasingly mature and sophisticated visual responses to our image overloaded way of life.

Collector’s POV: The photographs in this show are priced between $13000 and $80000 based on size, with the video installation priced at $120000. Cwynar’s work has little consistent secondary market history at this point, so gallery retail likely remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.