Contributed by Amanda Church / What do we not see every day even when we are looking? Andrew Mer, aka @bigfusss on Instagram (where these photographs were first discovered), considers the question in his current show “Agog” – the filmmaker’s first exhibition of photography since moving to New York 30 years ago – at Mitchell Algus Gallery. The show consists of thirty 14 x 11-inch digital prints, shot on an iPhone starting in 2020, in editions of five with two artist’s proofs. The spontaneous photos of street scenes are in one sense classic Instagram moments, evanescent and transient. At the same time, they capture the so-easy-to-overlook minutiae of urban existence in precise compositions.
Mer isolates and amplifies the reflections, shadows and light, patterns, folds, superimpositions, and geometry of familiar sights. In this work, things both are and aren’t what they seem, which sets it apart from other photographers – William Eggleston, for example – who have engaged with the everyday. Mer has spoken of his love for all things obscure and oblique, and that’s his visual preoccupation. While formal considerations underpin every shot, Mer’s photographs transform and reconfigure what we see in an almost otherworldly way. In his eyes, identity is mutable. A heap of trash bags can become a mountainous landscape. Actual content is relatively unimportant, as suggested by his uniformly non-allusive titles.
In keeping with the street vibe, each photo is hung with pushpins at the two top corners, so that the bottom of the photograph swings out casually, like a flyer stuck on a pole. Abstract qualities tend to override what’s recognizable, as in Agog 10/19/24, in which a melting fluffy white cat face hovers over a horizontal expanse of straw or wood strips, or Agog 7/2/22, in which a spray of glittering broken glass and a few stray objects rest atop a field of dark grey cement. Other works, like Agog 7/13/24 and Agog 7/14/22, red and gold respectively, are essentially monochrome expanses that only hint at their referents. Through an essentially a mechanical means, Mer conjures a deeply personal alternate universe, more illuminated and alluring than real life, extending the range of contemporary abstract photography.
“Andrew Mer aka @bigfusss: Agog,” Mitchell Algus Gallery, 132 Delancey Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY. January 16 – February 15, 2025.
About the author: Amanda Church is an artist living in NYC. She is represented by High Noon Gallery and will be half of a two-person show at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects opening February 8.
