Like the thousands of video surveillance cameras that hide in public, Wendy Richmond records people engaged in simple, personal actions. Shooting tiny movies with the stealth video camera in her cell phone, Richmond is a stand-in voyeur. She allows us to observe people in mundane routines so similar to our own: riding the train to work, striding along a city street, waiting at the airport, or just sharing a public space. Richmond’s particular way of seeing appreciates the formal relationships between people and their environments. Through her minimalist aesthetic, we see a graceful, reductive portrait of daily life. Her video grids call our attention to the ghostly calligraphic silhouettes inside a shop window or the posture and private ruminations of a subway rider, imbuing each with a lyrical, temporal presence. By discerning and then capturing the transient and often beautiful energy of public life, Richmond’s images evoke the voyeurism of Walker Evans’ subway portraits, the gold mining of street photographers such as Alex Webb, and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment. Such artful grids of small human incidences foster Walker Evans’ command for us to “stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop” — not just at others but at ourselves. Carol McCusker, |