American Excess:
Twenty Years of Photographs by Ellen Vartanian-Maher

Exhibited at the Aurora Public Art Commission, Aurora, Illinois
Curated by Rena Church and the artist
Accompanying essay by Nate Larson

In the world of Ellen Vartanian-Maher, there is nothing unusual about a Jesus figure directing a massive rhinoceros, a giant chicken atop a striped Cadillac, or a tiny dinosaur emerging from an immense tipi. Vartanian-Maher has sought out the odd and unusual from American roadways since 1985, constructing striking black & white infrared images with universal visual appeal. Her photographs tap into a peculiar sort of American ethos, one of the roadside curiosity and carnivalesque aesthetic. The photographs function as a document of sorts, but the primary intellectual drive is one of construction, molding the medium to create intricate and strange new worlds. She uses these odd situational displays as a vehicle to playfully illuminate the culture that generated them.

Ellen Vartanian-Maher, Untitled		Ellen Vartanian-Maher, Untitled

These types of curiosities have had an irresistible pull for photographers since the inception of the medium. The medium of photography has always been linked to the notion of documentation because of the connection to the “real world” in front of the lens at the moment of exposure. Photographers make images of the odd and unusual as a sort of cultural record, to prove that these things really existed and to verify their place in the world. Among the American giants, Walker Evans had an affinity for ostentatious advertisements and signs throughout his long and distinguished career. Evans photographed everything from gas stations literally covered with hand-lettered signs in the Deep South to campy advertisements for suburban subdivisions. His photographs serve as documents, but also function as a tool for cultural analysis, inviting study of the culture that produced these artifacts. Edward Weston, best known for his tightly focused modernist abstractions, was also drawn to these types of objects later in his career. This is best illustrated by “Hot Coffee, Mojave Desert” (1935), which shows a dilapidated oversize plaster coffee cup with the words “hot coffee” printed on the side. The artist has turned the camera away from the context of the coffee shop, and instead, frames this oddity against the bleak and barren desert, creating an irony between the location and the advertised product. By shifting the context, Weston illuminates the humorous nature of this object and others like it.

In a similar way, Vartanian-Maher’s photographs function as testaments to the existence of these objects, but more importantly, transform and exaggerate these objects through the choices made in the act of photographing. These carefully composed photographs are designed to spotlight the absurd, heighten incongruous elements, and expose bizarre juxtapositions. These choices are enhanced through the use of black & white infrared film, which enhances the surreal and dreamlike properties of her compositions. With these choices, Vartanian-Maher re-contextualizes this strange subject matter to simultaneously create a new hyper-reality and expose the artificial facade of the roadside curiosity.

Ellen Vartanian-Maher, Untitled		Ellen Vartanian-Maher, Untitled

Her interest in this subject matter stems partially from living abroad in England in her early twenties. Her (then) husband was an English citizen living in America, and was drafted for the Vietnam War, despite previous assurances to the contrary. The couple moved to England to avoid military service, living there from 1971 – 1974. In England, Vartanian-Maher encountered a prim and proper culture, one where everything was carefully tasteful and historically refined. She was amazed to discover a cultural landscape without so much as a McDonalds. Upon her return to America in 1974, she was further astonished to rediscover the comparatively garish and vulgar American landscape. This culture shock would later lead her to make photographs in response to this landscape that she now saw through new eyes.

Since the early days of the project, her working process has been to wander and photograph curiosities easily sighted from the road. Only the occasional AAA travel guide and her instincts aided her in these early days. Now, with the advent of the Internet, she utilizes it as a tool to research possibilities and to help direct her path of travel. The Internet has also connected her to a community of kindred spirits, such as the web site Roadside America, which documents and catalogs like-minded roadside kitsch. Roadside America even borrows some of Vartanian-Maher’s photographs to illustrate their catalog of oddities, though tellingly has recently added a disclaimer that her photographs may exaggerate the spatial characteristics of the object. Her photographs function as a record of her travels and encourage others to do the same, tapping into the uniquely American mystique of the open road.

Ellen Vartanian-Maher, Untitled
		Ellen Vartanian-Maher, Untitled

All of us have encountered similar curiosities in our own travels and Vartanian-Maher’s photographs transform these constructions of commerce and tributes to the bizarre into fanciful flights of fantasy. Her carefully constructed compositions instill a sense of child-like wonder in the viewer, offer us a taste of the fantastical, and tease us with the lure of the road. Ultimately, these photographs invite the viewer to enter a new reality, one in which dinosaurs coexist with traffic signals and anything is possible.

- Nate Larson