March 2005 We all have boxes; their contents, neither dead nor alive, lie in a limbo of sorts: clothes still new, never worn but kept just in case; presents we cannot bring ourselves to throw out; manuscripts never published; letters neither re-read nor burnt. And, for most artists, boxes and boxes of work that never fit the assignments, the exhibitions or the books. Usually these images are better left alone but, it turns out, not for Charles Traub. As he was walking the streets of Jerusalem or Sumatra, New York, Orvieto, Tokyo or Columbus, some uncanny images were tossed his way. At the time he snapped them without, perhaps, clearly knowing why. But later he recognized what he had seen. As he connected the dots, the 101 photographs shot twenty years ago or the day before yesterday started to make new sense. [ Click above to view works ] Traub brings to the medium the irony of Umberto Eco in his Travels in Hyperreality, and a theatrical sense that evokes Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri. He is equally at home (or equally disconnected) in the United States and abroad, so that if the reader resists the urge to check out the captions she'll never know where he's taken her. He's hooked us by what Luigi Ballerini calls an abstract narrative that unfolds quirkily from one page and place to the next. The book's sequential device - no text, clusters of images that are centered around one, then two, then three, finally a crowd of people or things - presents itself as disingenuously as a children's book. Traub's gaze activates, precipitates, creating magnetic fields within frames. Reality is made doubtful, fretful, while things and people jump out of order, towards the edges. The photographs defy easy description and, healthily, resist commentary. Under his gaze the world has undergone a subtle transformation and for a split second ceases to resemble our expectations of it, turning itself inside out like a glove. Secret glances are revealed, as are parallels, asymmetries, doubts. Equivocal shadows glide, mirrors question, mannequins move. Two real Indian girls in pink stroll in front of a fake Taj-Mahal seemingly erected out of whipped cream by a deranged baker. A runner stretches his leg against a wall so that his shadow sprouts of his hand and becomes a live arrow. Some rare moments encapsulate both life and our secret commentary on it: Traub has captured such moments and frozen them into the still life. -- Carole Naggar In the Still Life, by Charles H. Traub. introduction by Luigi Ballerini., Quantuck Lane Press Traub's photographs can be seen at Tom Gitterman Gallery until April 2nd 170 East 75th Street New York, NY 10021 212-734 0868 www.gittermangallery.com