Making it Real

Making It Real examines recent photographs that deliberately expose the artifice of their fabricated, set-up, and arranged subjects. The artist photographers in Making It Real treat the notion of photographic "truth" with skepticism but unlike postmodern photographers who consciously negate the principles of straight photography, the artists in Making It Real instead challenge these principles without ever really stepping outside their boundaries. Their subjects are examined directly and presented free of darkroom manipulations; they attempt to record things that exist in the world of situations, events, and objects. By making simulated reality their subject and deliberately exposing their setups, the artists produce photographs that are both deceptive and precise descriptions of reality. In this manner, they mock, and at the same time make operable, traditional claims of the photograph to truth, objectivity, and realism while questioning the validity of traditional dichotomies such as true and false, fact and fiction.