Throughout the autumn, the walls of the new Iris BookCafé (1331 Main St., Over-the-Rhine), have been graced with black-and-white photographs by William Messer and Marc B. Suda. Selections from Suda’s Botanica Noveau series are assertive and austere in the midst of the elegance and quirkiness that is the café. The larger set of works by Messer roams through Claude Monet’s famous gardens in Giverny. But where Monet, and later the American Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell, responded to the impressions and veiled, dappled spectra of that region, Messer’s photographs are glimpses into intensely shaded tangles of garden that lean against the edges of the rectangular format. In these unpopulated scenes, drama nonetheless proceeds, as if characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream have just vacated the area. The most interesting prints look out the windows of the café onto the courtyard where a trellis sculpture by Thin Air Studios stands in welcome dialogue to some of the landscaping in the photographs. The exhibition continues daily through Dec. 31. On Dec. 14 at 2 p.m., Messer will lead an open critique at the café where area photographers may engage in mutual discussion. Get gallery details and find nearby bars and restaurants here.
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2008.
