Quiet Moments Spent with Friends: Press Release by Dena Muller, Director, AIR Gallery

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Diane Meyer, January 10- February 4, 2006, with a public reception for the artist Thursday, January 12, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm.

The solo exhibition Quiet Moments Spent with Friends is the main component of the artist's 2005-2006 Fellowship at A.I.R.

Diane Meyer uses photography to investigate American popular culture by focusing on contemporary myths and clichés, especially as they are expressed through the entertainment industry. Her interest in “restaging the staged” documents our shared obsession with celebrity and our collective desire to make celebrity banal.   This new series of photographs use the aesthetics of the snapshot to create scenes in which the artist participates in everyday friendly recreation with people we recognize as celebrities.    Meyer hired a series of impersonators to create each quiet moment.   As the viewer recognizes, or struggles to recognize each persona, Meyer's juxtaposes our voyeuristic fascination with capturing celebrities as “everyday people” and our desire to project ourselves into the world of the famous.

Meyer explains:   “I have long been interested in creating fictionalized landscapes inhabited by a cast of invented characters. My work explores an interest in American mythos, humor, narrative clichés, and cinematic traditions that become restaged in unexpected ways . . The photographs in “Quiet Moments Spent with Friends,” mimic the formal qualities of a snapshot, giving a sense of visual transparency to a fictive and staged scene.”

Meyer has an MFA from the University of California, San Diego.   She currently teaches at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.