VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Houston Center for Photography (HCP) presents the exhibition David Politzer: When You’re Out There. Featuring work by the 2012 Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship Recipient. On View: May 4- June 23, 2012. Opening Reception: Friday, May 4, 6:30-8:30pm. Artist talk with David Politzer and Juror Christopher Rauschenberg: May 4, 5:30 p.m..

David Politzer’s photographs look at nature with a sense of humor but with a sense of longing too. It’s not a longing for nature itself as much as it’s a longing for nature to have a more profound meaning to us. There’s nothing “red of tooth and claw” here for us anymore, just pleasant decoration that we are so used to that we don’t see it any longer. David does see it, though. In his photographs, this simulacrum of nature is rising in intensity, moving from the background to the center stage. It’s as if the elevator Muzak has been turned up to 90 decibels so slowly that no one but David has noticed.

As the human-built environment encroaches on and shrinks wildlife habitat, animals have had to learn how to go about their business, adapt and live in our landscape. In these photos of David’s, they are on our walls, on our chests and looming over our parking meters, but the bald eagle doesn’t care about our national anthem, the cardinal doesn’t care about our sports teams and the sunflower pays no attention to the phone mounted on it. In these photos of David’s, the illusory depicted nature overwhelms the mundane reality of these offices and parking lots with a delicious combination of Magritte and Rousseau.

This exhibition is a subset of David’s project, “When You’re Out There.” The other half of this project is on view now at the Lawndale Art Center. The show at Lawndale consists of videos and photographs that explore what it means for us to go out into the natural world (maintaining our consciousness), whereas this exhibition looks at what it means for nature to manifest in our world (maintaining its consciousness).

-Christopher Rauschenberg, Juror

Pictured: David Politzer (Houston, TX), Wolf Drawing, Gunnison, 2011, From the series When You're Out There, Chromogenic print, 30 x 30 inches. Edition of 6 with 2 Artist Proofs. Courtesy of the artist. (detail above, full image below).