Seer Unseen
(excerpt)
For several years, it was Joseph Podlesnik’s practice to photograph the suburban landscape in Phoenix. The images were often complex. Shadows and reflections were juxtaposed, creating unusually complex and carefully balanced abstractions.
It turns out that those mainly uninhabited streets and shop windows were hiding something: the photographer’s own face and body. This new series of self-portraits is a tremendous leap forward. He finds his body in the city: his head is a cast iron ornament on the back of a chair, his spine is the curve of a furniture ornament, his heart is a deer antler in a Christmas ornament, his heart is a Twizzler wrapper, his legs belong to antelopes, he becomes a bridal gown, or the rear end of the groom, he is wrapped in a torn sheet like a hospital gown, his body is emptied out into a garland. The people who pass by don’t notice him. And yet the lens discovers they are connected to him. A woman leans over to hug him, without even seeing him. A man walks by and is captured into Joseph’s body without feeling it. Joseph swaps his torso with a young woman. He merges with a fat security guard.
James Elkins
E.C. Chadbourne Chair of Art History, Theory, and Criticism
School of the Art Institute of Chicago