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MARNIE WEBER.


ROSAMUND FELSEN GALLERY

One can draw, paint, sculpt sculpt  
v. sculpt·ed, sculpt·ing, sculpts

v.tr.
1. To sculpture (an object).

2. To shape, mold, or fashion especially with artistry or precision:
, or digitally illustrate what doesn't exist, but photo-based practices generally necessitate that someone or something be there to be photographed. To depict unreality--fantasies, fairy tales, religious stories, etc.--the photographic artist must resort to staging, manipulation, editing, or a combination of these. A photograph or film thus can unfold a fiction and simultaneously document the strange reality of acting, choreography, set work, cinematography cinematography: see motion picture photography.
cinematography

Art and technology of motion-picture photography. It involves the composition of a scene, lighting of the set and actors, choice of cameras, camera angle, and integration of special
, and all the other "real" activities that figure into generating a "reel" experience. In some cases, this duality is heightened. Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ The temptation of Christ in Christianity, refers to the temptation of Jesus by the devil as detailed in each of the Synoptic Gospels, at Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13. , for example, is both a complex fantasy--a vision based on Paul Schrader's screenplay adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis's 1955 novel, which is in turn derived from the Gospels, the sources of which are a matter of debate--and, like many films, a self-conscious document of the staging and editing that went into the depiction.

It is by exploiting this odd dual role of photographic media that Marnie Weber tells strange stories while at the same time describing the strangeness of storytelling. Her photographs and films are engaging to behold and to think through, as they elaborate compelling fantasies through obviously concocted means.

The centerpiece of Weber's recent exhibition, The Red Nurse and the Snowman (all works 2000), is a video installation featuring an elf-scaled chalet with fake flowers, glitter, and an exaggerated ski-jump roofline roof·line  
n.
The profile of or silhouette made by a roof or series of roofs.
 that would fir into the backdrop for any shopping-mall Santa. Through the door and window of this winter-wonderland structure, one views two monitors playing Super-8 footage of a caped, masked, blond-wigged nurse who uses the very same chalet (placed outside somewhere) as a base of operations Noun 1. base of operations - installation from which a military force initiates operations; "the attack wiped out our forward bases"
base

air base, air station - a base for military aircraft

army base - a large base of operations for an army
 as she journeys across drifts of snow. Part superhero su·per·he·ro  
n. pl. su·per·he·roes
A figure, especially in a comic strip or cartoon, endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime.
, part fetish fantasy, part Nordic dream, she tends to the needs of a snowman who bleeds, a blind rat with bandaged eyes, and a bunny with a crutch. Any moral, meaning, or end to the story remains vague, which adds to the mystery, in terms of both the plot and Weber's intentions. The viewer is given the pleasure of reading, speculating about, and being entertained by the hints of story line as well as the sight of grownups in bizarre costumes and animal suit s playing nurse-and-patient in a make-believe house and romping around on some ski slope.

While the installation deals primarily with staging, of which the viewer is reminded by the presence of the chalet as a set for the video, Weber's photographic collages deal more with editing: These images are pieced together from obviously diverse sources to form new scenarios. Storybook sto·ry·book  
n.
A book containing a collection of stories, usually for children.

adj.
Occurring in or resembling the style or content of a storybook: storybook characters; a storybook romance.
 characters, animals with human faces, and human bodies with animal heads populate forests. Trees are decorated with strands of pearls, nude women socialize with swans, and a crow and a scarecrow square off over the abundance of a cornucopia cornucopia (kôr'nykō`pēə), in Greek mythology, magnificent horn that filled itself with whatever meat or drink its owner requested. . Elsewhere, animals that Mother Nature wouldn't allow within the same geographic zone stand together in a new order.

The pleasure of Weber's works is rooted in their ability to playfully remind us how much our relationship with images depends on a suspension of disbelief Suspension of disbelief is an aesthetic theory intended to characterize people's relationships to art. It was coined by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 to refer to what he called "dramatic truth".  that isn't reserved for the matinee and how much suspending that suspension can be just as intriguing and entertaining.
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Author:Miles, Christopher
Publication:Artforum International
Geographic Code:1USA
Date:Sep 1, 2000
Words:533
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