Mariana Cook’s latest exhibition of photographs is curated by Patricia Schulte, an avid collector of Cook’s work. Schulte envisioned each gallery wall as an extension of her dream home; one wall is dedicated to twenty-seven images of eatables. Another two walls are given to elegant quartets of branches immersed in clouds or sunlight. Seven images meticulously perched side by side on a ledge meditate on the manifestations of roundness in objects from the geometric ring of Tools – Traveler to the concentric circles of water, wetness, and metal rim of Stonemason’s Bucket. Another five pictures on a separate ledge highlight the delicate structures of flowers and plants.
The fifty-two silver gelatin prints are presented almost exclusively in their smallest size, although Cook prints them in a medium format (15 inches square) and larger (1 meter square) as well. The diminutive size of the photographs on display creates an atmosphere of intimacy that beckons the viewer to peer closer at each image. In doing so, one appreciates gorgeous abstractions like that of Eggplant, where the nightshade’s insides seem to spill out in glowing strands, or the intricate web of sinewy branches in pictures like Tree With Crows and Nests.
The small stature of Mariana Cook’s prints in this exhibition asks you to entertain a more focused gaze, and that attention is well worth the effort. Each picture offers a chance to escape into the beauty of detail, the dreamland of abstraction, and to find a moment of respite within. “It is especially consoling when big things are such a mess to remember that there is consolation to be had in small things,” wrote Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosopher and The Ethicist columnist at The New York Times.
Mariana Cook: Photographs
Cook Studio
962 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10028
USA
