Abelardo Morell’s current New York exhibitions — “The Universe Next Door” at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery and “Groundwork” at Bonni Benrubi Gallery — reinvent conventional photographic landscapes. Using the age-old practice of camera obscura, Morell (b. 1948) casts outside scenes onto interior walls; other times, he sets up a tent, projecting his nearby surroundings onto surfaces ranging from a Brooklyn rooftop to a dried-up plot of Texas desert. Each space is transformed into a pinhole installation activated by daylight, which the artist then documents with his camera. Morell’s photographs bring the outside in and reflect on the materiality of both manmade and natural worlds.
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“The Universe Next Door” is on view at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery through this Saturday, December 18, 2010.
“Abelardo Morell: Groundwork” is on view at Bonni Benrubi Gallery through January 8, 2011
