Lynn Davis: Cnapei:e

Dame-du-Haut (Architect: Le Corbusier 1950-55), Ronchamp, France. 2001 selenium-toned gelatin siiver print, 28 inches square; at Knoedler.

Audrey Flack: Marilyn: Goiden Girl, 1978, acrylic and oil on canvas, 48 by 60 inohes; at Gary Snyder.

rate or amplify serves, paradoxically, to enhance the majestic nature of the motifs Davis portrays. That the world is in a constant state of flux, of being built up or worn awayintentionally and unintentionallyis one of Davis's ongoing themes. The pristine appears in the sweeping lines of Saarinen's Gateway Arch or a oiose-up of an Oscar Niemeyer building, while erosion comes to the fore in the decaying structures of ancient eras. The extravagant shapes of icebergs have engaged Davis since the 1980s, and her most recent work (2010) examines the patterns etched by workers in the walls ot active Carrara marble quarries. Her photographs are predominantly empty of direct human presence, with no markers such as clothing or vehicles that might relate them to a particular time. The pieces in the exhibition were chosen to express the range of Davis's themes, and the installation emphasized esthetic similarities between disparate subjects. One grouping compared grids of windows, while another found corresponding crescent arcs in the curved wall of a Philip Johnson house, an iceberg, the sail of a boat in Kenya and the roof of Le Corbusier's famous chapel at Ronchamp. In a busy world, Davis has located the still points. Her subjects, regardless of their heterogeneous origins, become mute, solitary objects for veneration and reflection. To learn that Davis is a student of Buddhism comes as no surprise, for these monuments are like many images of the Buddha, presented in different guises. Carol Diehi

AUDREY FLACK

GARY SNYDER
This show presented anew Audrey Flack's Photo-Realist work, including three major paintings from the '70s and 20 of the color photos she used as the basis of these and similar paintings. Born in 1931, Fiaok found success in her 40s with imposing, laborintensive paintings that are both kitschy and saturated with personal meaning. The photographs have never been shown before, nor has a group of Flack's objects that were on display in a vitrine; this was the first time since the '70s that the paintings were seen in New York. In the painting Marilyn: Golden Girl (1978) the face of the film star in black and white appears once in full view and again at an oblique angle as if reflected in a mirror. Placed amid colorful lipstick tubes, a lit red candle and cherry-topped cupcakes, a painted biographical text recounts an incident trom Marilyn's childhood in which she was unexpectedly treated kindly by a teacher who powdered the girl's nose instead of beating her after she ran away from her orphanage. The last line reads: "For it gives a glimpse as the powder goes on and the mirror comes up of a future artist conceiving a grand scheme in the illumination of an instant one could paint oneself into an instrument of one's will." As if illustrating the point, two rainbows thickly applied with a palette knife break the otherwise smooth surface of the painting. Flack's audacity lies in treating the Marilyn icon with sincerity, avoiding any mockery or critique, and also with empathy, using those rainbows to draw a parallel between Marilyn's

self-invention and her own. Flack's photographs, dense with objectsclocks nestled among bright fruits and cosmetics set against candlesreframe the moralistic still life of European tradition and the American 19th-oentury trompe l'oeil. (You can see suspending strings and wires, which are eliminated in the paintings.) What's disarming, and by extension powerful, is the iack of irony in the choices she makes. Shooting in lush, deeply saturated color (her images were originally made as slides to paint from but were printed as Cibachromes for this show), using objects that point to the past but are noticeabiy contemporarythe orange is stamped "Sunkist," the dice are transparent green resinshe seems to relish seeing how far she can push the images while still conveying the underlying vanitas theme. Flack's allover compositionsartificially structured, impossible in realityand knowing yet earnest embrace of kitsch have led many critics to see her work as a precursor to Jeff Koons's paintings of collaged advertising imagery. Perhaps more striking is her impact on artists like Marilyn Minter and Dike Blair, who likewise use clichd photos as source images, and whose exacting techniques transform clichs into deeply personal meditations. Julian Kreimer

AN-MY L

IV'LRR,^ GUY
In her recent exhibition, VietnameseAmerican photographer An-My Le returned to the subject matter, if not the ambiguities, of her earlier work. Her previDECEMBER'IO ART IN AMERICA 141

An-My Le: Suppiy Distribution Convoy, Haiti,

2010, pigment print, 40 by 561/2 inches: at Murray Guy. Kirsi Mikkola: Untitled, 2009-10, painted paper construction. 393/8 by 271/2 inches: at Sue Scott ous documentary photographs addressed American militarism in its various forms. For her "Smaii Wars" series (1999-2002), she traveied fo rural Virginia to photograph a group of history enfhusiasfs reenacting episodes from the Vietnam War against the unlikely backdrop of soufhern pine forests. For "29 Paims" (2003-04), she fook picfures of training operations for the Iraq War in fhe deserfs of Soufhern California. The images follow fhe convenfions of war photography, but the scenes they depict often seem strangely unreal. There are explosions, firefights and hand-to-hand combat, buf fhese skirmishes leave no corpses behind. The phofographs casf a skepfical eye on fhe grand ficfions of American supremacy rather than focusing on its brutal realities or humdrum routines. The recent show, featuring nearly 20 photographs, was both broader in scope and less ambivaient in tone. Unlike "Small Wars" and "29 Palms," these pictures are aii in color, and they document L's excursions on Amehcan naval vessels in 2009 and '10 to far-flung places such as Haifi, Ghana and Viefnam. In these iarge-formaf phofographs (mosfly 40 by 561/2 inches), she offers scenes of fraining and relief missions. In one phofograph, a humanifarian supply convoy crosses fhe beach in posfearfhquake Haifi, and in anofher, a hospifai ship floats off fhe coasf of Viefnam. Other picfures present spectacular landscapes as they appear from fhe decks of naval vessels. For one five-parf piece (each parf 261/2 by 38 inches), she phofographed fhe Egypfian coasfline from the USS Eisenhower as it passed through the Suez Canal. The resulting photo essay is stun142 ART IN AMERICA DECEMBER'10

ning and aimost cinematic. The carrier filis fhe boffom of each frame whiie the iandscape beyond it changes. Like many of the works in fhis exhibifion, this group of prints shows us the world as it appears from the perspective of a baftleship's crew. In this context, L's inclusion of portraiturea new genre in her workis aii the more revealing. Three photographs (261/2 by 38 inches each) of women soldiers projecf the tension between military regimentation and individuai expression. A lookout's crooked glasses, a mechanic's sculpted eyebrows, an airplane inspector's faraway sfare: fhese subtle details suggest a personal realm beyond the conventions of milifary life. However admirabie, fhe sensitivity of the recent picfures comes af a price. The exhibifion powerfully presenfed fhe humanity of America's soldiers, but it seldom regisfered fhe compiex misgivings suggesfed by L's eariier work. Tom Williams

shiff her work has undergone. Mikkola refers fo her new pieces, execufed over fhe past few years, as "constructions," but they are only dimensional in their highly textured surfaces; ofherwise, they are completely flaf. She does nof call fhem "collages," even fhough her process involves gluing painfed paper shardsmere bifs and biomorphic squigglesinto complex patterns and isometric grids sometimes suggestive of landscapes. The dates indicate that each construction can take anywhere from fwo fo five years fo complefe (one piece fook eighf). Because most are no iarger than 18 inches high or wide, fheir compressed, hypnofic surfaces become a physical record of fime-consuming manual labor. In some of fhe pieces, Mikkoia compounded slivers of modulated grays and tans fo create rough latticed structures that evoke everything from sun bonnefs and raffia headdresses to primitive huts. Other constructions bring to mind scientific conceptsdark matter or the fourfh dimension. In fwo of her mosf sfriking efforfs, Mikkoia tightiy wove strands of color info what appear to be the x, y and z axes of an imploding grid, puiiing fhe viewer deep info fhe kind of space usually seen on a computer screen. Spectacular too is a work in which a sensuous, unduiafing mass of red coils seems fo confract and expand from deep wifhin fhe frame. Mikkoia unifies her work as much fhrough her color choices as fhrough her fechnique of aggregation. Flecks of pure chromapofenf reds, yellows, violefs

KIRSI MIKKOLA SUE SCO^

"Flex" was a greaf name for fhe first New York solo appearance by Kirsi Mikkoia in nearly 15 years. Sfrefching fhe formal conceits of modernisf collage bofh forward and backward in time, the exhibifion, containing 13 intricate works in paper, marked Mikkoia's debut with Sue Scoff Gallery. Born in Finland and currenfly residing in Berlin, fhe arfisf became known during the 1990s for colorfui, cartoonish plaster sculpfures. "Fiex" brought New York audiences up fo dafe on the enormous

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