Detroit, MI
Art changes over time, because of chemical processes and environmental conditions and socio-political shifts. Mostly registrars and archivists work very hard to arrest these metamorphoses, while art historians work equally hard to notice them. In a series of photographs titled “Another Place, Another Time,” Christopher Schneider provokes them with a horrible beauty. Found slides, which look to be from some unknown family’s European vacation, are put through what Schneider describes as “torture,” then printed large and bright. The results connote organic ailments, more or less serious: wrinkled skin, cracked earth, blisters, warts, third-degree burns and ulcerative lesions. But photographs are not bodies, nor do these pictures show any human figures: what scenes can be deciphered include the Swiss Alps, a cathedral in side view, and a rural lakeshore. The people are absent, but it hardly matters. Art ages, too.
—Lori Waxman 11/29/15 2:22 PM