You could say he just shows what is. But he photographs between services, avoiding the parishioners and instead rooting around behind the scenes to emphasize the tacky stagecraft. Religious services can become entertainment (what's wrong with that?) or propaganda, but stories, parables, and performances are also a way we help one another understand the world, a way we build empathy. Johnson's behind-the-scenes photos make the churches look crass and cheap and shallow. They may be that, but his photos don't prove it. He's stacked the deck.
Read Greg Cook's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.Â
Related:
Preparing for a solo show, Slideshow: Karl Stevens, ''The Lodger'' (NSFW), We Like Bikes, More 
- Preparing for a solo show
I dropped off the work for my first solo show at the Carroll and Sons gallery the other week ...
- Slideshow: Karl Stevens, ''The Lodger'' (NSFW)
Artwork from Karl Stevens's gallery show at Carroll and Sons
- We Like Bikes
I Love My Bike, a book of street photography by Matthew Finkle, with text by Brittain Sullivan, has captured the imaginations of people in far-flung lands.
- Graduate programs in visual design teach more than just software skills
For me it was important to go back to school because while I had a BA in communication arts, I did not have the design history and foundation necessary to create designs that communicate effectively.
- Review: Goodbye First Love
The autobiographical third feature from French director Mia Hansen-Løve limns the ecstasy and tumult of youthful, sometimes self-destructive passion.
- Photos: Give Up the Ghost at the Wonderland Ballroom
Give Up the Ghost/American Nightmare reunite for two gigs after almost eight years -- with their first show ravaging a hearty crowd at Revere's Wonderland Ballroom on December 29.
- Photos: Solstice Circus welcome winter at Plough & Stars
Solstice Circus celebrated this year's winter solstice at Plough & Stars in Cambridge on December 22, 2011.
- Artists probe atrocities, the atmosphere, and yarn
For several months, Georgie Friedman has been collaborating with a couple of friends in Oregon who've been launching high-altitude balloons bearing cameras into the stratosphere. Now the Jamaica Plain artist finally debuts this æsthetic research in her show at Carroll and Sons.
- Photos: Neon Indian's South End ''secret show''
Neon Indian perform at the power station on Harrison Ave in Boston as part of the "Secret Generator Series" on October 3, 2010
- Review: A. Cemal Ekin's 'Touching the History' at PC
In June 2009, A. Cemal Ekin, a marketing professor at Providence College, found himself in Istanbul, Turkey, atop scaffolding rising some 16 stories high inside the historic dome of Hagia Sophia.
- The new Combat Zone?
As such savage acts often do, the quadruple homicide in Mattapan this past month lured platoons of journalists to Boston's communities of color.
- Boston activists infiltrate bankers' convention
On Tuesday, I got a tip to tail a fleet of activists to the Hynes Convention Center while they infiltrated the American Bankers Association's Business Expo and Director's Forum.
- Less
Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Walker Evans, Childe Hassam, Art Institute of Chicago, More
, Walker Evans, Childe Hassam, Art Institute of Chicago, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Laura McPhee, Edmund Tarbell, Frank Benson, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Joe Johnson, Joe Johnson, Less
