Jennifer Karady’s current project involves a study of humans whose lives are inexorably entwined with the lives of animals. After conducting extensive interviews with each subject, Karady scouts locations and props. She then stages a professional, controlled photo shoot that both contextualizes and problematizes the people and their lifestyles. Influenced by the drama, color and light found in tableaux painting, these works indulge viewers in an aesthetic world where fabrication and humor lead us seamlessly into pathos. Likewise, The bourgeois history of allegorical painting melds seamlessly with a privileged world where animals and humans symbiotically exist, dependant on each other not only for immediate financial and emotional support – but also for cultural self-worth, for purpose and meaning.

Claudia Weber’s installational work at Momenta uses corporate architecture and its renovation as a starting point. However, instead of using traditional building materials to reference these monumental forms, Weber uses simple materials like styrofoam, aluminum foil, wood, and wire. Whereas corporate power sets itself apart from everyday life, and more and more sets itself above governmental control, these works, which are modular and temporary, transform such pretensions of transcendence into transience, thereby shifting viewpoints and multiplying perspective.