Anthony Goicolea.

Sets the art world on its ear with disturbing provocative images--of himself

Of all the contemporary artists and writers who have turned their attention to the experiences of boys, few combine emotion and audacity like photographer Anthony Goicolea. Creating meticulously staged photomurals, he attempts to document the "hazy, bizarre boundary between boyhood and manhood."

One of Goicolea's most startling tactics is his repeated use of his own face. Wigs, body doubles, and computer effects enable him to appear as several different characters in a given tableau, always looking uncannily like a boy on the edge of puberty (in fact, he's 29). This lets him "take narcissistic fantasies one step further" while nodding cheekily at society's fascination with recent breakthroughs in genetic cloning.

If the preternatural knowingness of Goicolea's boys recalls that of creepy Danny in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, so much the better. He seeks to evoke fairy tales in all their innocence and horror, infusing patently artificial scenes with elements that tug at the viewer's emotions. In this way, he says, "scenes that would normally be considered threatening, dangerous, or repulsive are revealed to be more complex than they initially appear."