If Rene Magritte hadn’t already claimed “The Treachery of Images” as a title 80 years ago, Walead Beshty could have put it to good use.
In his Hirshhorn exhibit opening this week, the London-born, Los Angeles-based sculptor and photo-anachronist revives cameraless techniques developed by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray decades ago to create mesmerizing patterns of color.
The way Beshty manipulates his photosensitive paper before exposing it to light determines the prismatic geometry of the resulting prints. They’re like paper-cutout snowflakes made in a darkroom.
Beshty has built a career of probing the eternal rift between the corporeal world and its representation in images. Often he chooses subjects of minimal overt “content” — vacant strip malls, for example — to attempt to illuminate how the viewer’s projected thoughts will complete a piece deemed insufficiently nourishing on its own. His new works continue this exploration. They’re Rorschach blots for an age wherein seeing is not necessarily believing. But then, Beshty reminds us, it never really was.
If you go
Directions: Walead Beshty
Where: Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Seventh Street and Independence Avenue SW
When: Opens April 30; runs through Sept. 12
Info: Free; 202-633-4674, hmsg.si.edu
