Katy Grannan – "The Westerns"

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January 9-Febuary 16, 2008

Few artists can attain the sort of success that entails two simultaneous New York gallery shows, complete with three successive advertisements in January's Art Forum, the third being for her concurrent show at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. Greenberg Van Doren and Salon 94 are helping Katy Grannan do just that, with her recent body of work, " The Westerns."

The title refers to Grannan's 2002 move from the east coast – where she exploded out of Yale in 1999 – to the frontier of the west, as it were. The work consists primarily of two succinct profiles. At Greenberg Van Doren Gallery uptown is a series that focuses on a woman named Nicole, whom Grannan has followed for two years. This series is entitled "Another Woman Who Died in Her Sleep," though no photographs depict a death. Downtown at Salon 94 is the Gail and Dale series.

Katy Grannan continues in the methodology she has become known for, displaying stark 40"x50" C-print portraits of raw, ambiguous human emotion. Her oeuvre developed through the process of placing classified ads for models in small town papers, shooting real, anonymous people in their homes, then moving the process into the woods, and now out to the west coast. These two specific series are the first in which the artist has followed a specific subject over a lengthy period; the time-endured relationship pays off in the work, which shows a range of despair, ennui and volatility.

Sexuality and form are ever-present here. Grannan confronts the body without exploiting it, offering a hand at intimacy, but staying strangely away. I do not feel like I know or understand these people. Their bodies seem intentionally awkward and contorted and their gazes are never alluring, but occasionally mesmerizing. Nicole, one can imagine, is on a constant verge of a breakdown, if not well into one. Her outfits settle at odds with her body, often revealing her crotch and breasts, which suggest a fragile, available sexuality. Gail and Dale, two middle aged transsexual best friends, seem to inhabit a specifically off-putting sense of femininity. It all feels weirdly macabre and decidedly un-sexy. The aim seems that one would be drawn into these strange lives, into their broken dreams, into their eerie self-obsession. I do not feel drawn in.

The work is technically perfect, of course. Most photography on sale in the $10,000 - $30,000 range is, if not all. The framing and presentation is fittingly sterile and modern; it complements Grannon's formalist veneer. There remains in her work a strong feeling of construction, in the narrative air of Gregory Crewdson, under whom she studied while receiving her MFA at Yale. None of the work feels spontaneous. Rather, the poses seem rehearsed, almost performed. This hurts the feeling of intimacy many of us crave when looking at the portrait of another person. And on the this formal and technical level, I want more: more parallel lines, more control of the entire mise-en-scene.

As a collection of work, "The Westerns" succeeds in showing us a deliberate discomfort in the warmth of Californian rays. It's a jarring union of place and subject; one that the world needs to offset the abundance of the media-induced lies of the Hollywood dream. Politically speaking, there is a combustible spark within this personal study. In terms of decoration and aesthetics, though, it caters to a very specific taste. The pictures are hardly pretty, despite the concise glossiness. It thus becomes an issue of taste, which always seems to pop up these days when taking art. With her overt and uncanny awkwardness, what does it mean that Katy Grannan is currently on top of the art world?