Present Tense: The Photographs of JoAnn Verburg

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• Garrison Keillor
• The Museum of Modern Art
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That JoAnn Verburg isn't a Garrison Keillor-grade household name locally is nobody's fault but ours. A resident of St. Paul for more than 20 years, the photographer has built a body of work expansive enough to find her honored with a big, mid-career MOMA retrospective last year. Luckily for us, the show—"Present Tense"—is now at the Walker. Verberg's a wicked triple-threat artist, assembling series of portraits, landscapes, and still lifes—often simultaneously—that harbor subtle, weapons-grade narrative payloads perfect for the diptychs and triptychs she often favors. Secrets: Iraq depicts a drained coffee cup in one frame, the light passing through it distorting the text of the New York Times sitting next to it in the next frame as if we were reading through a funhouse magnifying glass. Care to generate a better metaphor?
Jan. 12-April 20, 2008