Tami Bahat’s recent show of photographs at Building Bridges Art Exchange, in Santa Monica (USA), offered an unusual sensory experience, one that took viewers deeper into the gorgeous prints on the wall. The Los Angeles based artist staged the gallery with props she had used while making her photographs and hired models, posing them around the room in the costumes her subjects had worn. The result was an intensified experience for viewers as they looked first at the photos, then discovered the objects seen in the pictures then turned back to the photos and looked again. By having the tables, chairs, fruit and flowers from the pictures real and present in the gallery she offered a dialog, a connection between the real and the seen that offered viewers a glimpse of the experience the artist has every day.
The show titled Dramatis Personae, presents us with scenes of life apparently captured in the 16th century, staged, lit and peopled lovingly. Only the live animals posed with the subjects offer us a hint that something else is going on here. There are stories being told here, hints of rich lives that started before the camera snapped and will continue on after we have turned away. Who are the Twins? Where is it they live? How did they come to be standing there with the tarnished tea service in the dimly lit room and how did that large snake come to be intertwined in their arms? Was it a present from their absent seafaring father? Who did they grow up to be, how did they live their lives after the picture was made. Obviously they are from an earlier time; whoever they are their stories are finished and not known to us except for this instant. In this way Tami Bahat’s pictures capture the best of what we love about found photos, their obvious reality and yet their ultimate unknowability.
“I feel like I’m channeling another lifetime” says Bahat and as if to demonstrate this she intertwines life with art, living among the props she has assembled for her work. The animals lend the photographs a quirky unpredictability, striking poses and creating meanings of their own. One of my favorites is a photo of the artist Gershom painting in his created 16th century studio as a Baboon steals a brush and starts to make her own work. Bahat chooses to works with friends rather than professional models and she has chosen carefully, each face unique. She reminds me in some ways of William Mortensen, who cast his characters with great care, setting them in their own world and using the character stamped on their faces to bring you into the story.
The photographs, made in moody light and taken in front of dark walled sets bring you into a special world. The prints, dark and quiet, invite you to stand closer, spend a moment letting your eyes adjust, then reward you with a world of poetry and imagination. Seen on the dark walls in the prepared environment of the gallery the photos create an illusion – clearly contemporary pictures…somehow made in another time.
Andy Romanoff
Andy Romanoff is a photographer and writer based in Los Angeles, USA.
Tami Bahat, Dramatis Personae http://www.tamibahatphotography.com/
Andy Romanoff – stories https://medium.com/stories-ive-been-meaning-to-tell-you
Pictures – http://andyromanoff.zenfolio.com/
