JESSICA PAPPADIO

“Elad Lassry (Israeli, born 1977) defines his practice as consumed with “pictures”—generic images culled from vintage picture magazines and film archives. Lassry studied film at the California Institute of the Arts then earned an MFA from the University of Southern California. Tapping the visual culture of still and motion pictures, he engages traditions of story-building with images and the ghosts of history that persist in images long after they have been lifted out of their original contexts. “I’m fascinated by the collapse of histories and the confusion that results when there is something just slightly wrong in a photograph,” he has said. Lassry challenges the means by which a work is structured visually. His vibrant pictures—still life compositions, photocollages, and studio portraits of friends and celebrities—never exceed the dimensions of a magazine page or spread and are displayed in frames that derive their colors from the dominant hues in the photographs. In their pop-culture subject matter, Lassry’s works mimic commercial photography. Yet the shots that may at first seem the most direct are complicated by double exposures, an occasional blur, or the superimposition of multiple negatives. Lassry often displays his photographs beside 16mm film projections. The presence of Untitled (2009), a film featuring actor Eric Stoltz as a choreographer teaching a dance routine to a performer in a red bodysuit, provokes tension between the overall impression of a film strip and cinematic temporality.”

“Fisk-Vittori creates work about everyday objects and environments. Arrangements of objects are presented as photographs and installations that question the function, meaning, and history surrounding that object and display. The arrangements feature both deliberate and casual formation that satirize advertisements and lifestyle magazines. Her interest lies in the relationship between art and design, and the parallel between the gallery and ordinary spaces such as the living room. The plant life and natural elements in her work emphasize an awkward relationship between the natural and human-constructed worlds. Familiar objects are presented in situations that reveal material essence and create new visual conversations.”