Finally got a chance to check out Paula McCartney’s solo-show Birdwatching at Klompching Gallery in DUMBO tonight. Stacy posted a great write-up of the show earlier this week on the 20x200 blog:
Since 2003, Paula McCartney has been creating a world where the birds sit still for her camera, come when called, and show themselves when asked. The project is a deliberately constructed theater as well as a kind of conceptual landscape photography, and through it she has managed to create a world that even the most die-hard naturalist would envy. What I’m most touched by in viewing these images is that the artifice has become an intrinsic piece of the art itself: she isn’t trying to trick you into thinking that these are anything but craft-store bought fake birds. An even more subtle “inside” joke are her captions that from scene to scene mix real life species with some more fancifully made up common names that are just close enough to real North American Birds to sound legit to the non-birder ear. These images are made with a tender humor, as well as an honest appreciation for what it really takes to be someone who learns to see the seemingly invisible in the natural world.
Lies, deception, and birds? Totally coveting the book.
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