Kevin Crisp
19-Dec-2001, 14:40
There is a relatively unpublicized exhibit of Weston's work going on at the Los Angeles Public Library Central Branch, entitled "Life Work." It continues throu gh 3/17/02. I went there yesterday over the lunch hour. The good news is that you can walk in on Flower Street, go up a flight of stairs, and be in a room (es sentially alone, there were three of us) with 100 vintage Weston prints, includi ng ones from early in his carrier which are very rarely on display. The bad new s is that the lighting in most of the gallery is so dim that it is very difficul t to really see the prints. Prints are often mounted so that the lights illumin ate the space between them (just missed?). I was showing my companions his work for the first time and this twilight presentation made it difficult. Several t imes I got out my keychain LED light, shone it on a print and heard the other tw o say: "Wow." The photo of young Neil sleeping on the couch, for example, looke d like something piled on something else without some additional help from the f lashlight. For many of the prints, Zone IV looks like Zone I due to the lighting , which is frustrating. All that being said, I'm certainly going to go back. T here's a lot of "wow" there, even in the dark.