Stephen Wilkes

A1 was absolutely packed by the time I got there, so I found a free six inches of space on the floor with the intention of leaving after twenty or thirty minutes. Instead, I spent a full hour and a half straining to see the pictures on the screen and awkwardly rubbing against the total strangers squashed into the space beside me.

If that doesn't speak volumes about the power of Wilkes' work, I don't know what does.

Wilkes really IS all he was cracked up to be. I was particularly moved by his photographs from Ellis Island. The colors were absolutely unbelievable - the longer exposure added so much depth and brillance. Some of them were actually rather surreal in that sense; the color was so bright and pure as to be otherworldly.

Wilkes did occasionally wax ridiculous with his talk of "strange feelings" and ghosts, but there was a very strong, distinctly human mood in his architectural photos - I had to give him that. He has an incredible ability to capture feeling. The Ellis Island photos were particularly powerful, I think, because that feeling was so overwhelmingly tragic.

The China photos were, I thought, more unsettling than anything. Wilkes' portrayed China - both visually and verbally - as a speeding monolith on the verge of global domination. His factory photographs showed uniformed, uniform workers at state-of-the-art machines. He frequently spoke of China in terms of the "collective." It was certainly fascinating, but I didn't feel the same communion with the China photos as I did with the Ellis Island ones. Obviously they were all incredible, but the first set was my personal favorite.

I hope he has a show at Syracuse some time... I'd definitely recommend seeing it.