Gopnik on Yo

WOW! What a surprise in the WaPo

If Yo were shooting, say, in 1972 -- just when her technology was fiercely up to date -- she'd be on the cutting edge, as good as anyone, and her future would seem certain. All she'd have to do is keep developing the skills that nature gave her. Nowadays, however, to fully realize her promise, she'll have to aim at redefining what a photograph can do, not just at taking yet another telling shot.

Yo is acutely aware of the predicament that she, and her entire art form, is in. "The future is scary," she says. But she trusts in her vocation.

"I love photography, and I will be an addict until the day I die."

That newspaper's chief artc ritic, Blake Gopnik has a very glowing article on Corcoran student Michelle Yo.

I recently caught up with Yo in the house she's sharing just up from the bars of U Street. She showed me a portfolio that's amazingly mature.

The article does make Yo's work sound interesting (the compliments from Andy Grundberg and Terri Weifenbach confirm her photographic presence) and also puts her forth as a really nice kid as well.

Shot on a Corcoran trip to El Salvador, Yo's image of a local woman seems perfectly "straight." Yet it achieves a quietly artistic balance between zones of leaf-green (two well-groomed shrubs) and of pale blue (the woman's skirt and a patch of mural). To complicate its vision and temper any artiness, it also throws in some out-of-focus branches that are almost illegible. That makes it all the more artful. -- Blake Gopnik (By Michelle Yo)

I also find interesting the need to disclose that Gopnik's wife (the superbly talented and elfin-like Lucy Hogg) "teaches in fine arts at the college, but does not know Yo." Call that the Tyler Green policing effect on the world of fine arts writing.

Update: By the way, Gopnik doesn't mention it, but the exhibition where he saw Yo's work was curated by Terri Weifenbach and the very hard-working gallerist Jayme McLellan from Civilian Art Projects.