NYAB Event - Henry Wessel "Incidents"

Henry Wessel "Incidents"

Pace MacGill

This event has ended.

"Incidents," is the first exhibition of 27 carefully arranged and never before published works from the artist's 2012 portfolio, "Incidents."

In 2012, Wessel assembled Incidents, a portfolio of 27 undated photographs, calling it a ‘work without words.’ Decisive and succinct, each Incident is laid down with the aesthetic immediacy of a snapshot, recalling Garry Winogrand’s quote that “There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described.” Cumulatively, moving from picture to picture, trace retinal memory persists, and structural parallels
are drawn and dissolve. The images, or occurrences, unfold in time, yet there is equal weight on each note, as in the nonarc narrative of a piece of Beat literature.

As with much of Wessel’s work, the light (California light specifically) is quintessential, the crisp white that blanches everything and radiates the distant glow of Hollywood. All the scenes are lodged in outdoor spaces, framed by concrete, telephone poles, and chain link fences. Yet evident is the friendly witnessing of life being lived with all its marvelous peculiarity. The viewer becomes involved in the unintentional act of seeing, often through the car window (a hallmark of the California experience), at the beach or in the park, in empty parking lots and non-descript apartment complexes. A lover of cinema and the complexity of Noir, Wessel gives just enough information to create intrigue without getting bogged down by content. He stage-lights the banal and elevates it to the level of spectacle, all the while channeling vintage California, cool, sun-baked, timeless.

[Image: Henry Wessel "Incidents No. 27" gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 in.]