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Lolita's Carpet, Erotica ...
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aD2Ga5ckuM1w&refer=muse
Lolita's Carpet, Erotica, X-Rays in Bloom's ICP Show: Review
Review by Linda Yablonsky
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- True collectors stop at nothing in pursuit of a passion, be it for art, cookie jars or watches. The irrational prices they pay, particularly for art, tell us that.
So does ``The Collections of Barbara Bloom,'' a sweeping survey of the artist's object-and-image installations at the International Center of Photography in New York.
Bloom herself is so nuts about Vladimir Nabokov that she acquired all of the author's books -- and then redesigned the covers to marry her passion to his (for butterflies). Going further still, she had her annotated cover of ``Lolita'' made into a plush green carpet.
There are elegant arrangements that center on such disparate items as a white satin dress buttoned with images of her onetime Hollywood starlet mother; a bentwood chair paired with a photograph of filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
She makes sense of popular fixations by inference, association and thematic grouping, such as ``Stand-Ins,'' ``Framing'' and ``Innuendo.'' (The latter, one of my favorites, includes a copy of Playboy in Braille.)
For ``Blushing,'' Bloom veiled her photographs in translucent curtains, forcing us to consider not just how we look at pictures but how the pictures might feel about our looking at them.
In her 1989 installation, ``The Reign of Narcissism,'' Bloom dares to remake the visible world in her own image, putting her profile on chocolates, coins and teacups, and patterning Louis XVI upholstery with X-rays of her teeth.
Like most of this absorbing show, the work is both funny and biting.
On view through May 4 at the International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street. Information: +1-212-857-0000; http://www.icp.org .
(Linda Yablonsky is an art critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this review: Linda Yablonsky in New York at fabyab@earthlink.net .
Last Updated: January 29, 2008 00:03 EST
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