Rob Pruitt

In describing the transformative aspects of his iPhone camera, Rob Pruitt cites the familiar analogy of Muybridge’s early photographs, which captured every second of a particular motion in order to convey a sense of continuity. For Pruitt, noted for project-based works that reference pop-cultural phenomena, this particular capacity of the trendy albeit pricey Apple device has had a similar, transformative impact on the way he views the world around him. This exhibition, “iPhotos,” attempts to convince the viewer of these revolutionary aspects with an installation that literally overwhelms, a physical manifestation of what the artist describes as his personal experience.

“IPhotos” seems as much a state-of-the-union address on photography, however, as it does on technology. Muybridge references aside, Pruitt’s subject matter ranges from high cultural (Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World, 1866, makes several notable appearances) to quotidian (repeated images of events that might seem insignificant to those without access to the artist’s personal experience). The contrast of high and low is only the most superficial of the exhibition’s connections, however; on further reflection, the viewer is forced to consider both the qualitative and quantitative importance of the anecdotal snapshot and the implications of attaching personal and cultural value to the Courbet as opposed to, for instance, multiple shots of a pan of brownies Pruitt presumably enjoyed a few weeks back. If most of the images on view matter primarily to Pruitt, is their value to us sentimental, aesthetic, or otherwise? The nature of the installation, in which photographs appear floor to ceiling—in some instances serially—throughout several rooms, enhances their immediacy, as well as the ambiguity of the relationship between each and to the artist himself. This mass physicality illuminates the developing relationship between technology, disposable images, and the acutely personal experiences they are designed to depict.