Casey Kaplan

Bruce Hainley for DOINGBIRD 2007

Jeff Burton's moody photographs--uncropped witnessings of desire hard at work figuring itself out with the only equipment it has at hand: the body--have long been favorites of those who consider pleasure (as famed filmmaker Jack Smith declared) a mode of thinking, not hedonism, not triviality, but thought in action. This is not an easy accomplishment, but Burton usually makes look effortless.

When I was starting to put together the list of artists I wished to include for a show I was planning in homage to the dark booze-driven narratives of Jean Rhys, particularly her novel, GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT, published in 1939, at a time when the world was about to implode, I knew I wanted to include Burton's work but never expected him to be the artist who would produce a cornerstone of the entire project.

In Untitled #228 (vanity mirrors), 2005 , I think one doesn't even notice, at first glance, that what's being looked at is a reflection in a type of looking glass which in Hollywood or Las Vegas would be called, not irrelevantly, a "vanity mirror," a tool used by professionals to apply makeup and/or to primp and preen before a performance--i.e., how one pays the rent. It is a somber affair, worthy of Vermeer: the girl with the pearl earring transformed into a guy lost in thought about the meaning of why he's just done what he's just done or is about to do and what it's worth. Whatever he's paid, it's not enough; displays of affection never are.

GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT, curated by Bruce Hainley, runs from 22 June to 31 July at Casey Kaplan in New York.

Jeff Burton, Leica Dole-Recio, Trisha Donnelly, Richard Hawkins, William Jones, George Kuchar, Lisa Lapinski and Mitchell Syrop