Robert Frank
Alec Soth
Larry Sultan
Through September 22 - Silver Curtain at Stephen Wirtz Gallery. This is a photography group show grouped around the idea of the curtain, namely what is revealed and what is hidden (sometimes in plain sight) in a picture. It's also just an excuse to show some excellent images with windows in them, as in Robert Frank's arresting shot of Allen Ginsberg in bed. I also loved the spare simplicity of Alec Soth's row of windows, shades drawn and light leaking through, and the way the newspaper fills almost the entire frame in Larry Sultan's Business Page. There are few pictures that feature merely the ghost of a human form, as in Ralph Gibson's Hand through Door and Catherine Wagner's College of Chinese Medicine, while the luminosity of several kinds of silver screens is beautifully studied in photos by Todd Hido and Daido Moriyama. And instead of a Hiroshi Sugimoto movie theater we are treated to the open door of a boathouse as photographed by Mark Citret, a different kind of portal into light. With nearly 30 images on display the theme has to stretch a bit in places, but there is still plenty to be transported by here.
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