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A paradoxical fusion of chaos and control is created by mixed media and photography in the “

Chaos and control are two concepts that people usually view as separate from one another. But these dichotomies are explored and reconciled by art Professor Jim Welling and four visiting art professors in the photography exhibit “Chaos or Control” in Perloff Gallery, on display through June 7.

The exhibit showcases the works of four visiting professors, all of which address the relationships between carefully planned out subjects and manufactured objects that would produce a very particular image (control), versus a much closer idea of reality by capturing the disorder brought about by everyday life (chaos). The title was chosen from a 1963 book on urban planning.

“‘Chaos or control’ describes the two choices photographers have today: make set-up photographs or shoot on the street,” Welling said.

The four exhibiting professors – Walead Beshty, Shannon Ebner, Eve Fowler and Arthur Ou – all of whom graduated from the MFA program at Yale and currently reside in Los Angeles, explore contemporary photography. Yet each photographer’s exhibit interprets the relationship between chaos and control in different ways.

Ou’s portion of the exhibit showcases still-life photography of cultural elements oriental in nature. His photography does not place emphasis on the subjective nor is he limited by it.

“My photography is not really subjective but based on ideas. The pictures I’m showing are series of life and things that are manufactured – these things resemble China and what is considered Chinese,” Ou said. “I’m not limited to subject matter.”

Beshty’s work is comprised of black-and-white photographs of still life and includes items reminiscent of the early 20th century such as vintage glasses, a fedora, a flask and a talcum-powder container. Most of Beshty’s photographs in the exhibit are inspired by the modernist artistic philosophy of Le Corbusier, a Swiss architect. The construction of each photograph emphasizes control, but Beshty tempers his works’ rigidity with a freer range of images.

Ebner tackles politics and art through landscape, adopting the concept that art can be used to convey political meanings and ask questions. For example, “Dead Democracy Letters” is a piece comprised of six letters made out of a cardboard and wire installation that spells the word “nausea” in black and white with a body of water in the background. However, the complementary piece, a colored photograph of the same image, has the letters “U,” “S” and “A” in a blue shade. The controlled presence of letters becomes somewhat disrupted by their loose and ambiguous arrangement. There’s a sense of fluidity in her work – not only evident in her photographs of containing rippling water but also in plays on perspective.

Fowler’s work – the only art in the exhibit to focus on humans as subjects – examines the relationship between people and sexuality, with the subjects seemingly dithering about the physicality of gender, yet eventually surpassing its constructed societal functions. The obscure femininity or masculinity of Fowler’s subjects seem to depict androgynous beings, which consequently heightens the sense of chaos within her works.

Chaos and control, ideas that are traditionally independent from one another, can also be intertwined, as depicted in the exhibit. Photography naturally lends itself to the exploration of their intersection, because what the artist sees through the lens of a camera does not always match what is produced in the negative.

“In photography, there is a part of it when you control the photography, but the outcome is mostly out of chance,” Ou said.