Hands up, who’s taken a picture of a sunset? Or sold a television on Craigslist? Check the web, or the current exhibition, “Penelope Umbrico: Future Perfect” at the Milwaukee Art Museum and maybe your vision will have contributed to the show. She is a contemporary artist who works with what might be described as found photography, using pictures gathered online as a means to reflect on societal trends.
The exhibition includes thousands of pictures, with hundreds contributing to single installations. The Suns (from Sunsets) project is one example. Searching Flickr, Umbrico looked for images tagged with “sunset.” The first time she did this, the query yielded more than half a million results. Pictures are selected and then modified by cropping out everything but the sun, and then each is enlarged to a 4-by-6-inch print.
Ultimately, the photographs of the sun are all hung together, adjacent to each other so they form a peculiar celestial tapestry. It is like seeing the sun in all sorts of moods—the color of sky and clouds changes, and even the tonal temperature of the glowing orb. Umbrico sees the ubiquity of these pictures as a way we merge our lives with virtual spaces of technology. The images are uploaded to the cool digital recesses of the internet, bringing moments of our personal lives into the public realm.
Even more intimate and revealing is the series For Sale / TVs From Craigslist. This project also begins on the internet. Umbrico uses photographs of televisions listed, cropping the image until the picture is solely of the black screen. In the glare of photographic flash, the TV screen becomes a black mirror, reflecting the room and even the person taking the picture. It is a curious and unguarded peek into rooms, and an unlikely result for such a utilitarian purpose.
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Other series by Umbrico also address the way digital images can become a potent collective commentary. It is a striking and thoughtful exhibition, and marks the way contemporary photography is responding to the proliferation of the preserved image, especially in the online world.
Through Aug. 7 at the Milwaukee Art Museum, 700 N. Art Museum Drive. Gallery talks with the curator will take place at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 26 and Tuesday, Aug. 2.
