Newspaper Article

VISUAL ARTS REVIEW \A Centennial Exposed: Celebrated Photographers 1896-1996\ \Joe McNally: Naked Power, Amazing Grace\ \Carla Maria Casagrande: The 1936 Olympics\ Jackson Fine Art. 3115 E. Shadowlawn Ave. N.E. Through Aug. 24. 404-233- 3739. THE VERDICT Overcrowded and uneven but definitely worth an extended visit. Crowded composition Intriguing Olympic photo exhibit comes off overexposed

April M. Watson STAFF WRITER

1996

Overview

[Jane Jackson] makes a wise move in pairing [Carla Maria Casagrande]'s 1936 Olympic documentations with [Joe McNally]'s uninspired shots; one that rescues (at least partially) the latter from complete mundanity. Intended to cash in on his concurrent spread in Life magazine, McNally's slick black and white portraits of this year's athletes are predictably conceived, posed and presented. How difficult is it to make a bad picture in our body- obsessed society when your subjects, photographed nude (but not too nude, to entice without offending Puritan reserve) are paragons of physical perfection? McNally's attempts to convey the \"naked power\" and psychological intensity of these athletes falls flat in the presence of overdramatized posturing. Of course, perhaps we shouldn't fault McNally for his failure to show anything too deep - it was probably never his intention. And in an interesting way, McNally's \"Naked Power, Amazing Grace\" is the logical outcome of [Lewis Hine]'s \"Powerhouse Mechanic,\" presented, again shrewdly by Jackson, nearby. Body and machine, shown as physically separate but metaphorically parallel in Hine's early modern photograph, are fused in McNally's views into singular, slick-surfaced creatures. McNally's are images of men and women engineered to perform as both athletes and valuable cash commodities; human beings whose true fervor, frailty and courage - in the juggernaut of technology and media hype - are sadly vacant beneath their seamless flesh.

• Publisher: Atlanta Journal Constitution, LLC