Omer Fast
Runs through January 3 at Betty Rymer Gallery
Fast's manipulated videos have a skeptical, post-modern sensibility speaking directly to the contemporary, sophisticated media consumer. "Looking Pretty for God (After GW)" lets us in on the joke, bringing the photography studio into the morgue, drawing sly, sharp parallels between both environments. But as soon as we draw our defenses against these industries of artifice, we're disarmed by a mortician's sober meditation on his waning profession, at times lip-synched (a la Gillian Wearing) by grade-school photography subjects. Even when his technique isn't completely fresh, Fast's flawless execution makes the heart race and the jaw drop. This locally commissioned revelation is paired with "The Casting," a four-channel video which collapses, in two deftly woven interviews, a soldier's personal strain in Iraq with a social melodrama far removed from that conflict.
Jowhara AlSaud and Preston Wadley
Runs through December 13 at Schneider Gallery
Photography meets contemporary mash-up, DIY culture to produce unexpected results. AlSaud's vanishing images powerfully represent a clash of societies and reflect her search for identity between an Arab upbringing and American training. She takes representational photographs, routine images that would prove controversial in her native Saudi Arabia, etches into the photo negatives and paints the outlines. Her pop-art flourishes undercut the expected emotional resonance, as scenes from daily life become self-censoring statements and memories fading before your eyes. Wadley turns the fetishization of found mementos on its head, creating beautiful albums inspired by and rewriting early 20th-century history. He links photos and mementos with humor and grace under the name "Pentimento," a pun referencing the artistic revision process and a Lillian Hellman portrait book.
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