Cruising the Galleries in Los Angeles

Martin Cox loves boats; ships, to be precise. His current exhibition at the Metro Gallery in Silver Lake chronicles this romance. "Transmigration and The Love Boat: A Photographic Archaeology of the Cruise Ship" is an exhibition of digital prints in sun-drenched color and silver gelatin black and whites. Through his deft arrangement of images, Cox draws us into his personal obsession. Beginning with a signature image of a gold-toned corridor seen through a porthole, Cox has crafted a way to seduce us gently into a world that resonates in the imagination long after we leave the gallery.

This exhibition take us on a cruise through the oceans of history, fantasy, luxury, and, ultimately, decay. Coxıs color prints in particular (all large and smartly framed) present glimpses most of us have never seen: Art Deco lounges; shipboard fountains; odd views of maritime architecture that read as striking sculptural enigmas. The inevitable underside of the fantasy is equally revealed: in a focal point of the exhibit, Cox shows a mournful maw of empty shipboard theater seats, a poignant metaphor for the nature of all ships, which are nothing without their passengers.

Sinking Cinema, gelation silver print, 9" x 20" edition 20 by Martin Cox

While his archeologist's eye traces the relationship of these vessels to contemporary culture, and reconstructs a never-before-seen story, these images stand alone as beautiful achievements in photography. An surreal ocean view from inside what appears to be a high-rise penthouse; a slice of a ship never seen between its construction and its destruction; an ocean of liquid blue mosaic; these and other images leap out vividly. The least technically polished section in the exhibit bears the strongest visceral impact: 90 webcam photos, taken in sequence over a month, taken on a damaged cruise ship under tow, the images reveal sun, sunsets, fog, rain, and occasional fleeting figures. Itıs like you're there, on the deck. Framed in a massive grid, this mini series brings a refreshingly functional, even ordinary aspect to this glamorous yet industrial topic.

Cox strikes a mythic nerve with his subject matter. He shows that ships transport not only passengers and cargo, they convey abstract social agreements of opulence, and vestiges of class. Cox's lens reveals that the most contemporary cruise liners are outfitted as art deco palaces from Hollywood's golden age; the implications grow more eloquent as the ships reach the end of their life cycles, to be dismantled and sold for scrap on the desolate beaches of India. But even this section is straightforward and compelling, despite its tragedy. These too are photographs one could live with.

Atlantic Game Room, from "Transmigration and the Love Boat", (c) Martin Cox, 2006, Metro Gallery

Photographers often search urgently for subjects to document. The beauty of "The Love Boat" is that Cox has turned his personal obsession into both an entree to a world obscured to most of us, and into a haunting artistic meditation as well.

Cox's shipboard photographs bring the spectator simultaneously into the worlds of aesthetic appreciation and his own emotional connection with the realm of vessels. There is one area where his merciless lens falls short: No matter how long you look at these photographs, you wonıt need Dramamine.

-Stuart Timmons, Los Angeles author and critic

Click here to return to Transmigration press release

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