Contemporary photographers go back to the roots of artistic practice in ‘Otherworldly’

Enchanted Landscapes, Fantastic Worlds, and Strange Encounters Abound in 'Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities,' a new exhibition that explores the Art of the Diorama.

On view at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York are site-specific installations, photography of fabricated worlds, and snow globes by 38 contemporary artists, including Joe Fig, Patrick Jacobs, Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz, Didier Massard, Charles Matton, and Charles Simonds among Others.

The artists showcased in the new show on view from June 7 – September 18, 2011 are connected by their dedication to traditional low- tech and hand-made processes. None of the photographic images included in the exhibition have been digitally altered or manipulated. Instead, the featured photographers construct small locales, both mythic and actual, which they then photograph using manual camera and lighting equipment.

For many of them, including Matthew Albanese, Lori Nix, and Frank Kunert, the exhibition will be the first time their built models are displayed for the public. Focusing specifically on dioramas and installations as works of art, the exhibition excludes dollhouses, theatrical sets, maquettes, and architectural models.

Rick Araluce explores loneliness and abandonment in his constructed claustrophobic and desolate spaces. Walter Martin and his Spanish-born partner Paloma Muñoz have become internationally known for the dark, and at times even sinister, scenes depicted in what is a traditionally light-hearted medium: the snow globe.

The late French artist Charles Matton drew inspiration from trompe I’oeil illusions of the 17th century and traditional Dutch cabinet houses. For his internationally recognized large-scale photographs, James Casebere takes inspiration from prisons, tunnels, flooded palaces, and the suburbs.

Joe Fig embarked on a series of in-depth artist interviews and studio visits that led to the creation of exact small-scale dioramas of the studio interiors. Didier Massard creates fictitious landscapes that are hauntingand eerily romantic. Mat Collishaw displays a three-dimensional, spinning, and strobe-light activated zoetrope

‘Otherworldly’ is organized by the Museum of Arts and Design and is curated by Chief Curator David Revere McFadden.

(Information courtesy: The Museum of Arts and Design, New York)