Gregory Colbert: ashes and snow codex

from ashes and snow, 2002
Gregory Colbert

Photographer Gregory Colbert’s striking images of animals interacting with people have appeared in various venues since 2002; up next is a Tokyo exhibition, starting in March 2007. Colbert’s work is not collaged or altered, which makes these graceful convergences of human and animal form more remarkable than they may first appear.

It’s interesting that such simple and elegant photos are surrounded with a cocoon of hype. Colbert has published a series of attractive books and exhibition catalogs, but they’re pricey, apparently because he elected to have them handbound in imported papers. Fair enough; expensive art books aren’t new. But his exhibition spaces are also over the top, featuring faux-temple architecture and towering reproductions of his photos. When ashes and snow visited New York in 2005, the Times reviewer called it “spectacularly vacuous.” Ouch! Apparently the use of eco-friendly materials to construct the venue wasn’t enough to redeem it.

Luckily, you can see Colbert’s photos in a less baroque setting, as virtual books at the Codex ashes and snow website. The web presentation keeps things simple, framing the photos as if they were pages in vintage travel journals. This slows the viewer down – you can only flip the virtual pages so fast – and renders the photos eerily filmlike, as closely related frames dissolve into one another. The Codex moves a little too slowly (reminding me of the sad days of dialup) but if you have half an hour to spend browsing, it’s beautiful work.

On the other hand, there is still that pervasive travelogue aesthetic, which prompted the Times to comment,

Mr. Colbert’s sepia-toned images prove once again that while colonialism may be dead or dying, its tropes are ever with us. In these pictures, beautiful non-Western women and children interact with exotic animals in faraway places and at revered ancient sites. . . Many of these images are striking for their simplicity, serenity and how-did-they-do-that? drama. Who doesn’t love majestic animals, or ”nature’s masterpieces,” as Mr. Colbert calls them? But you would barely think twice about these photographs if you saw them framed under glass in a Chelsea art gallery. They’re too derivative.

They take us back to nature along the familiar routes of fashion photography, spare-no-expense ad campaigns and National Geographic cultural tourism. They evoke Richard Avedon’s 1955 fashion classic ”Dovima With Elephants,” Irving Penn’s images of stoic Peruvian peasants, images of the young Dalai Lama and bus stop posters for expensive spas. They hark back to the 19th century, when early photographers traipsed the globe to record the alien glories of empire for the folks back home, and the early 20th, when Isadora Duncan was photographed dancing among Greek ruins.

There’s little I can add to that. The concerns about colonialism are valid. In the Codex, I was struck by the pages which contain no photos, only woodblock prints of apparently Asian characters. To me, these pages are unintelligible; no translation is given, even though the website is clearly intended for English-speaking viewers. The text is presumably expressing something, and I’d rather appreciate those insights than the decorative but inarticulate symbols. I’m interested in the cultures whose artifacts and human representatives are depicted in the photos, but I wonder sometimes if those cultures’ perspective is coming through at all, or if they’re simply window-dressing.

On the other hand, even if Colbert’s work is not stunningly original, it is lovely, and (I believe) respectful. It may romanticize the exotic, but at least it publicizes it; millions of people saw Colbert’s shows in New York and Santa Monica. Accessible depictions of nature like these can make people think seriously about our place in the network of life. I just hope that awareness lasts long enough to prompt visitors to do something about conservation.