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Annette Kelm's photographs are characterized by formal rigor and a sense of objectivity; the works always maintain a distance from the objects they portray, which often look isolated, even sculptural. Taking a page from art-historically sanctioned post-Conceptual models from Gabriel Orozco to Christopher Williams (yet distinct from the latter's commitment to notions of institutional critique), models in which increased attention to questions of technique, surface, and composition replace the "marks of indifference" (to quote Jeff Wall) associated with the first generation of Photoconceptualists, Kelm has developed a matter-of-fact, generally frontal approach to her motifs in which their sometimes hidden cultural-historical import is often directly proportional to their seeming artistic insignificance. In this recent exhibition, simply framed color photographs...
