Ptak Expands Into a Gallery But Still Hearts the Web

Any first-time curator would be thrilled to see his or her exhibition take shape—unpacking the works of art and mounting them in place is akin to unwrapping presents under the tree on Christmas Day. But Laurel Ptak’s curatorial debut must have been doubly exciting as photographs she had once only seen through the computer screen acquired physical form.

Unlike most other curators, Ptak normally operates within the blogosphere. When she created her Web site www.iheartphotograph.com last December, she set herself the unassuming task of searching the Internet for any photograph that caught her fancy. The same spirit of freewheeling blogger autonomy recently made its way into the gallery environment when Ptak was asked to curate an exhibition of photographs showcased in her art blog.

The exhibition at Higher Pictures, titled “www.iheartphotograph.com/”, features the work of eight relatively unknown artists from around the world. According to Ptak, these artists were chosen because their works are cutting-edge and question the established conventions of photography. This challenging of boundaries in art is nothing new, but what is fairly novel is how the show explores the place of photography in today’s digital world—its manipulation on the computer, and its online and offline presentation.

In Grosser Roter by Ulrich Goerlich, one of the most visually striking works on display, a snapshot of a mountainside is overlaid with spaghetti-shaped scrawls in red, peach, white, and blue. The graphic intervention irreverently cuts across the picture and—except for a slight alignment in perspective—makes little attempt to conform to the photographic background. Instead, the intestine-like curls of ketchup and mayonnaise stand out like colorful graffiti on an otherwise sensible landscape.

In another Georlich piece, Gotthardpass, a rust-brown blotch appears to be eating up a picture of the countryside from the center out. These indiscreet combinations of photo-realism and computer graphic have the effect of toppling photography from its traditional place as an untouchable, documentary art. Empowered by digital technology, they openly violate the integrity of the photographic image.

Ptak’s own contribution to the show aims to devalue and perhaps democratize photography by revealing its overabundance. For Google Image Pile I and II, she performed a Google image search on the word “representation” and collaged the hits using her computer. The resulting photo-illustrations err on the chaotic, but the clumped-together composition of the found images makes the arrangements look almost floral.

When asked whether copyright was an issue in the making of Google Image, Ptak said that she sees no damage in appropriating images found online for her work, and therefore made no attempt to contact anyone for permission to use them. The same philosophy applies to the inclusion of other artists’ work on her Web site. So far this has been a win-win situation for all—unheard-of photographers get welcome exposure, and Ptak gets to run an increasingly influential photo blog.

Interestingly, Ptak thinks that her blog, despite its intensely personal nature, is more of a public space than the art gallery, which feels private by comparison. Her reasoning is that “www.iheartphotograph.com/” is more accessible on the Internet than it is in a small exhibition gallery.

Though to be sure, the transition from blog to gallery space did not dilute Ptak’s personal touch on the displayed artwork. We can see the blogger’s informal approach to presentation translated into the use of pink clips and other improvised accessories for mounting the pieces. Keeping some prints small—as if to retain their limited online resolution—and letting others bulge forward from the wall, the exhibition space plays with how the images are consumed online and how they are experienced in the flesh.

From day one, Ptak intended “www.iheartphotograph.com/” to be “a place for the photographic odds and ends that I encounter, adore and want to share” and the blog’s recent gallery appearance stays true to form. It’s disappointing that only a very limited number of the Web site’s featured photographs are on display, but this is unavoidable given the gallery’s restrictive size. For now, however, the Higher Pictures show offers a small, sweet sampling of some of the most interesting photography on the Web.