Feelin' So Real

Although Damian Loeb's life seems more complicated than his photorealistic paintings, the artist's current show at the new Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea is bound to stir up controversy. The exhibit, titled Public Domain, features settings stolen from a selection of famous Hollywood films, such as The Graduate, The Omen and Boogie Nights, to name a few. According to Talk magazine, Graduate director Mike Nichols already saw the show and was impressed with Loeb's replication of Ben Braddock's shimmering aqua blue swimming pool and Mike Ovitz expressed admiration for the artist's depictions of the filmic backgrounds, but Loeb had some concerns with Hollywood's reaction on a legal level. In the press release for the show, he states: "Unlike my old stuff, hopefully angry photographers won't spend all their time trying to take my money and make me burn my paintings. Movies don't have photographers; they call them cinematographers... and no one can confuse that with someone who paints houses with Benjamin Moore eggshell white."

Loeb's no doubt reacting to a 1998 lawsuit in which he was sued by one of the aforementioned "angry photographers" after he used an already published image in one of his pieces. But he shouldn't worry too much about getting any flap for his mock matte paintings, since the scenes have been recontexualized into unique, hyper-real settings. Regarding the subject matter, Loeb says, "I've seen these things in real life and they never looked like this. Something always fucked it up. It's fun to be able to make stuff look they way you want and not the crappy way it happened." If only seeing were believing.

— BRITT SCHOENHOFF