The set for Untitled #001, 2000/1, Baer's latest work, is installed in UCR/CMP's main gallery. Like his earlier photographs, this image demonstrates the development of a photographic style that shares similar techniques with modernist paintings by Cezanne and the Cubists in the introduction of multiple, incompatible perspectives and light sources into a single composition. In a sense, Baer's work resembles the modern photographic equivalent of a Cezanne still life, plaster cupid being replaced, in this case, with human models. By deconstructing the way we understand the world, Baer's work not only questions perceptions of reality but also notions of the camera's functions and the ingrained belief that without digital manipulation the camera does not lie.

Untitled #001, 2000/1 presents a number of actors in connected narratives viewed from different perspectives. The photograph combines both interior and exterior scenes, as the wallpaper on the left side of the image is peeled away to reveal a stunningly blue, clouded sky. The sharp angle from which Baer forces the viewer to peer down the sides of two interior-lit skyscrapers contrasts sharply with that of the mountain, which is seen from a more or less level perspective. Against expectations, the focus does not run continuously through the buildings, but jumps in a way that would seem to be photographically impossible given the alignment of the forms.

The use of a set with actors each playing out their own separate yet interrelated dramas frustrates an easily digestible and coherent narrative. Baer has stated that, "while certain aspects of these images are intended to communicate specific messages, others are ambiguous enough for the viewer to bring them into connection with his/her own realm of experience."

Karen Patterson and Mitra Abbaspour

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