Mario Lalich

After stumbling upon Mario Lalich’s website, his tongue-in-cheek approach had an immediate appeal. Sifting through “art” photographer after “art” photographer, finding someone who didn’t center on a sleazy subculture, or arrangements of the nude or morbid was a relief. Instead of bogging the viewer down with the preconceived, over-serious notions of what art should be, Lalich simply presents the familiar with a twist. However, he approaches it as a stand-up comedian would,

taking the elements of the stereotypical familiar (creating a standard expectation) and creating an unexpected punch line. In fact, I found myself chuckling as I perused through his, Portfolio One on his website. One of my personal favorites includes the depiction of a brain exchange between a man and a dog. Apparently the photograph was taken after the exchange. The man (now with the mental capacity of the dog) sits, with a Frankenstein mechanism attached to his head, with the crazed look of a hyper pouch. Meanwhile, the dog sits similarly (now with the mentality of a human) with an expressionless, yet pensive face. Others to note is the cultural clashing image of the Amish on motorcycles, the representation of an astronaut stepping out of an apparent New York City sewer, and the man who has just delivered a child. Which, by the image, seems an everyday occurrence to the doctor and nurses in attendance.

Although much of his portfolio seems on the “art” side of things, his bio reveals that he’s quite the commercial photographer with clientele such as American Airlines and Capitol Records. Furthermore he has had some pretty high profile appearances in the New York Times Magazine and Rolling Stone.

Interestingly, Lalich has recently meandered into the motion picture realm with his 1999 short film, Davenport (Unfortunately his website’s link to this film is inoperative). And currently he has switched gears to a feature length documentary (still a work-in-progress) combining both 16mm film and digital video. Unfortunately, he has delved into the art cliché of the drug underworld for this one.

For more info, visit http://www.mariolalich.com/