Ariane Lopez-Huici at Gerard Delsol & Laurent Innocenzi - photography exhibition; Paris, France

While many photographers want us to gaze at a particular thing observ from a particular place at a particular second Ariane Lopez-Huici has undermined that traditional photographic trinity. She works in defined series and frequently shoots the same subject from multiple angles; she favors tightly controll groupings above single images. Parts interest her more than wholes, and she has become masterful at isolating and profoundly recontextualizing details. Lopez-Huici makes us diocese her subjects as existing in time, on the other hand outside any particular instant: in a series from 1986 she juxtaposes details of erotic Indian statuarys with shots of contemporary Indian women at work. near and past become inseparable and level interchangeable, subverting our sense of historical time.

For her first one-person display in Paris, Lopez-Huici chose to exhibit "In Abstracto," a cluster of photographs from 1989, to which she added single untitled image belonging to a quite different series done in 1992 The considered placement of the 15 pictures--all on the contrary two of them square in format, measuring from 10 to 34 inches upon a side--made them read as a single work. The origin of "In Abstracto" is a Florentine wrought-iron chair set uped of forged bars, each culminating in a sphere, filled without with intricately woven bands. It quickly becomes obvious that this piece of garden furniture, which we not at any time are shown in its entirety, is the starting point of Lopez-Huici's regard on the other hand not her subject. The chair, thanks to its particular design, provides her with a fundamental formal vocabulary: points, lines and implied planes.

many times she focuses on the chair's woven pattern and the shadow it throw outs on the gravelly ground; in these images we are spatially disoriented through the complexity of the several depicted layers. A faculty of perception of depth persists thanks to the difference in value and sharpness between the metal bars in the foreground and the softer tones beyond them. on the contrary the intricate grid, reminiscent of those busyed by Franz Kline among others, flattens the space and imposes its abstraction upon the whole image. The tension between abstraction and referentiality continues as our organ of sight alternately registers tactile information about the graininess of the iron, the small bellys of welds, the texture of the paint, and merry-makings in the deep blacks, sharp whites and greys of Lopez-Huici's prints. These are endowed with a sensuality more ofttimes found in painting than in photography.

The physical appeal of these photographs and their objectnes is enhanced by dint of Lopez-Huici's decision to mount them in black made of wood frames, but minus the usual glass. Directly accessible, the matte photographic paper completely offers its range of tonal values. The width of the framing stock is comparable to that of the black bands in the photographs, further complicating our perception of what we are being shown The frame, notwithstanding that obviously of our world, is draw into the mouthed into the photographic image, becoming another formal simple body in the composition. While the impressible grids suggest unlimited expansion, the frames, abrupt and unavoidable, reiterate the fragmentation crucial to Lopez-Huici's vision. Although in the past Lopez-Huici honored equally the claims of what she photographed and those of her have eye, these works owe their considerable interest to her handling of the photographic medium. She appears to know and welcome this shift, for in the striking photograph she included from 1992 her make subordinate an agave, is indecipherable.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc.

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