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Art In Review

by Holland Cotter

50 Artists Photograph the Future

The New York Times

5/28/2010

The 22nd century may not look a bit like anything predicted in 50 Artists Photograph the Future, but at least this large show in a tiny space makes for some exotic sights in the present. What are some of the developments envisioned? Anatomical alterations, for one thing. Mariah Robertson seems to see a sort of vegetable-human hybrid in the cards, while Claire Pentecost surmises that we’ll all be reduced to walking stomachs with multiple tongues.

Sex will not disappear any time soon, judging by its prominence here, in K8 Hardy’s sizzling self-advertisements, in Pradeep Dalal pictures of men popping out of Hindu temple floor plans, and in still lifes by Daphne Fitzpatrick (corncob-with-sneakers) and Paul Mpagi Sepuya (beefcake-with-Nina Simone).

On the fashion front, it is all about morphing. Luis Jacob and Chris Curreri push pink head-to-toe spandex bodysuits as the look of tomorrow; Julio Grinblatt designs cover-up couture with bandages.

And while Jaime Warren makes a case for electrified shoes, and Glen Fogel plugs cosmetology-as-collage, Derrick Adams goes straight for weirdo Space Age with a pyramidal Venusian-Egyptian helmet that Jack Smith, always light-years ahead of his time, and our time, would have loved.

And what about art? Is there a future in painting?

Yes, at least in paintings of mysterious airborne vehicles like the one in a city mural photographed by LaToya Ruby Frazier. And will we still be shopping? Yes, again, and there’s no time like the present to start.

Why not begin at Higher Pictures? Most of the work in the show, organized by the independent curator Dean Daderko, is for sale, and pretty cheap. When some of these 50 careers hit the stratosphere, you won’t be able to touch them. As every smart collector knows, the future is always now. HOLLAND COTTER

Higher Pictures

764 Madison Avenue, near 66th Street

Through July 3

 

More information available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/arts/design/28galleries-003.html