The Collections of Barbara Bloom

The Collections of Barbara Bloom at the International Center for Photography (ICP) is a tongue-in-check retrospective of the photographer Barbara Bloom's work, curated by the artist herself and running until May 4. The ICP is a small and unassuming museum, lacking in any sort of the more typical "monumental" museum architecture found in New York City. Situated across the street from HBO's headquarters and with an ubiquitous ATM right outside, the experience of walking through the doors is more like heading to a job interview in an unfamiliar midtown office building than entering a cultural institution.

However, once the security guard rips your ticket and lets you behind the bank-like stanchions, what awaits you is a dream-like, layered exhibit that both defies easy categorization and makes us rethink the act of "looking."

It dawns on the viewer very quickly that more is going on there than first meets the eye. "Sometimes life is perfect" Bloom is quoted as saying in one of the wall cards and indeed there is an upbeat, playful quality to the entire exhibit. Bloom, the curator, is poking fun at the idea of a retrospective and the viewers are often left with the distinct impression that Bloom is poking fun at them, too.

The first discordant note in the exhibit is that all the wall cards are written in the third person and use "BB" to indicate Barbara Bloom, leading the viewer to wonder: "Is Bloom dead?" This concern is furthered by a replica of Bloom's tombstone which — upon further investigation — proves to be fake. Two Louis XVI style chairs, seen early in the exhibit, seem elegant sitting on a raised dais in a corner. Closer inspection reveals that one chair has been upholstered in a fabric with tiny repeating pattern of X-rays of teeth and the other has a curious pattern of tiny repeating mathematical formulas. A quick glance at the wall card reveals that these are not just any teeth, but "BB's" very own and what looked to be a mathematical formula was actually her astrological birth chart.

The central part of the gallery, and core of the exhibit, is filled with example after example of Bloom's sense of play, realized in various media and with varying success. A very successful section of the exhibit is her "Doubles" series. Here the method of display is particularly appropriate to the subject. Bloom created "butterfly" collection boxes filled not with butterflies, but folded pieces of paper printed with symmetrical "double" scenes (such as gardens with two statues on either side of a pathway) pinned just as a butterfly would be. Bloom has placed symmetrical installations of large-scale photographs of ancient classical statues and the butterfly boxes on either side of a doorway. It takes the viewer a moment to realize that the content on either side of the room is identical, and this delay has clearly been premeditated. The viewer needs to get close to the butterfly boxes to understand what they are (and to read the wall cards, which have uniformly tiny print). In being so intimately focused on the pieces of the exhibit, it is easy to loose sight of the whole, something Bloom subtly hints at.

The architecture of the museum and the organization of the exhibit don't readily work together, which leads to the feeling that the exhibit has been squeezed into the ICP's first floor and would very much enjoy spreading out onto the basement level. This sensation is so profound that viewers could easily wonder once they'd toured the exhibit: "Am I done"? This reviewer was so uncertain as to actually confirm with a guard: "Is this the entire Bloom exhibit?"

This exhibit feels like a collector's cabinet, with objects being displayed in a mixed fashion — some are behind glass (stamps, butterflies) and other are resting on the floor and still others perched high on the corners of the ceiling. The idea of "play" or juxtaposition is central to the exhibit with Bloom putting collecting, artistic retrospectives, narcissism and modes of display (in many ways, the display was the exhibition) all together and letting the viewer sort it out. More than anything, the viewer leaves the exhibit with a sense of the artist's mind at work and Bloom's relentless dedication to play.