Chris Anthony’s Venice, showing at Randall Scott Projects through February 22, is an exploration into photography as an ambiguous narrative—the beauty of the images isn’t what they seem. He’s trying to create a story through a type of stage production, where the viewer is given the actor and a selection of props. Anthony writes, “Relationships are made within the scene and a ‘play’ develops in which the viewer becomes the playwright.”
In Venice, Anthony substitutes the traditional, draped theatrical stage and synthesized scenery for the chilling ocean and vast sky. His players perform on the shoreline, highlighting his “underlying theme [of] a society that has developed in and on water”. This is the Venice of Italy and the beach in California; the series was shot in both.
