»;ti *^J 'M. «& W. A World in a Lens If you happened on the PA campus last fall and thought you saw students and teachers wearing rubber helmets and waving giant breadsticks, don’t doubt your sanity. The creatures sprang from the fertile imaginations of Elson Artists-in-Resi dence Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick. The duo, who paired up as undergraduates at Washington University in St. Louis in the 1980s, specialize in inventing elaborate scenarios and capturing them in panoramic photos that appear to be documentary. In the past, Kahn and Selesnick have given substance to historical fantasies. The Addison Gallery’s fall show Referencing the Past, for example, featured their visual account of a fictional Scottish archaeological expedition in the 1930s. Scotland also figured in their Andover work, but for the first time they chose a futuristic motif, weaving a tale about stone cutters, shepherds and other trade guild members who have survived an apocalypse of sorts. Details are elusive—the artists have penned at least four separate possible plot lines—but the major theme is a jubilant parade of about 100 characters mirroring 15th century Italian painter Andrea Mantegna’s masterpiece “The Triumph of Caesar.” During the two-week residency, students ...
Andover Bulletin, Phillips Academy, 2000-2001
