Opinions
"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Photographer Waswo X. Waswo chooses his thousand words with care."
"…things basic come through with a truthfulness and a lyricism which are as eternal as they are subtly contemporary. The understated contemporaneity of these shots turns pervasive. It can be noticed in a slightly unconventional angle, which enhances closeness and empathy, an in the abbreviated figure of a man with an amputated palm. Generally, it permeates the artist's tender perceptiveness."
"Waswo X. Waswo's photographs remind us of how rarely we now attend to the theme of beauty in an affirmative mode, being habituated to addressing it in an interrogative vein. Once regarded as among the highest possible achievements of the visual arts, beauty is now viewed with suspicion, if not scorn. Let us confront the plain fact – since there are no evasions or half measures about Waswo – his is an outright appreciation of beauty."
"…amazingly like the sort of thing a cosmopolitan traveler might have brought back with him (or her) in the late 19th century: staid yet engrossing.
"There are no TV aerials or autos here, no motorboats or jet planes. Just palm trees and piers, sheep shearers and homeless people. Plus an occasional steamboat. And (for those who seek to avoid… or, conversely, to savor… such things), an austere yet voluptuous fertility shrine near the royal palace in Bangkok, Thailand.
"As a result, the show is like no other you're likely to come across this spring."
"A welcome relief from the scruffy, waiflike wide-eyed kids and the craggy-faced, poignant old men which predominate photography culled from exotic locals, Waswo's twenty-six piece show of sepia toned photographs...presented his world vision with an empathetic yet respectful eye."
"Waswo returns us to a languorous, sepia-toned glimpse of an idealized travelogue moment. And it's exactly what we crave: the precise vision of a clear sky under which a group of Maori Aborigines board their canoe for a fishing expedition. Everything is orchestrated into transcendent beauty, and all we have to do is watch from the beach. We want to believe these vistas exist, that there isn't a Burger King just out of the frame, but we're never quite convinced.
"When Waswo focuses on individuals, they look back at the viewer with a dubious, weary gaze. We can sense the desert nomad or the Portuguese fisherman peering into Waswo's camera with an "OK, I'll try to look exotic" or "Will he pay me to hold up my fish?" collusion, returning us to a harsher reality than the sepia tones might suggest. This edginess is what ultimately make the photos interesting."
"Waswo controls and reshapes the often obstreperous components of present-day life. He ventures back, in style and spirit, to the elegant and leisurely photographic images brought back to Victorian America by late 19th-century travelers.
"…Waswo presents us with a gold-toned picture of the gauzily romantic and tenaciously reactionary world that European adventurers encountered centuries ago.
"Not satisfied with merely capturing on film the surviving evidence of a sacred era, he makes prints that echo a long-dead sensibility.
"…death is a constant presence in his photographs, as is an inescapable, if subtly employed sensuality. Waswo's images are invigorated by the constant, if understated, interplay between artist and subject."
"Whether stalking images in the jungles of India or the coffeehouses of Amsterdam, photographer Waswo has shaped his own vision of different cultures and environments."
"To say that Waswo gets around is an understatement."
"A couple of noteworthy shows are closing…, so if you haven't done so already, check out Waswo's photographs… Waswo records his extensive travels, Russia and Portugal in this case, in rich, sepia prints. 'I'm not interested in documenting reality,' he writes, ' I want my photographs to be obscure fragments of tantalizing adventure.' Whoa."
"He focuses on beauty, and the magic and mystery that exists in places he comes upon in his meanderings around the planet. Waswo has an 'I've been to hell and back' appreciation for the beauty he considers 'magical'.
"Waswo morphs photography's pictorial tradition, the exoticism of travel photography, and the realm of contemporary personal experience."
