In an age of passive image consumption, the artist reminds us that photographs require our full attention.

In technical terms, a&nbsp;showcaller&nbsp;is the person who, during a theatrical production, makes sure that all of the elements of the show run smoothly&mdash;from the lighting to the sound to the stage entrances.&nbsp;Show Caller is&nbsp;also the name of an app you can download that will identify the name of the person calling you,&nbsp;allowing you to avoid spam or otherwise unwanted callers. Both the true definition and the&nbsp;intent of the&nbsp;app can be used to describe the work of Talia&nbsp;Chetrit, who aims, in her broad range of imagery, to expose&nbsp;the machinations of the photographer in the creation of a photograph.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Chetrit has made a name for herself with imagery that is often unabashedly&nbsp;erotic.

Showcaller&nbsp;is, appropriately, the name of Talia&nbsp;Chetrit&rsquo;s&nbsp;first monograph,&nbsp;published by MACK in January. Encompassing a broad range of images taken between 1994, when&nbsp;Chetrit&mdash;who was born in 1980 in Washington, D.C.&mdash;first picked up a camera, and 2018, the publication is linked to the first retrospective of her work, which was held at&nbsp;K&ouml;lnischer&nbsp;Kunstverein&nbsp;in Cologne, Germany, in early 2018.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Without&nbsp;distinguishing&nbsp;between type&nbsp;or time period,&nbsp;the tome&nbsp;mixes&nbsp;a wide range of&nbsp;Chetrit&rsquo;s&nbsp;images:&nbsp;advertisements she shot for&nbsp;Helmut Lang and C&eacute;line;&nbsp;photographs of New York City streets&nbsp;taken&nbsp;with a long-range lens through an office building window;&nbsp;portraits&nbsp;of her&nbsp;teenage friends and her parents&nbsp;that have appeared in&nbsp;gallery&nbsp;exhibitions&nbsp;(including&nbsp;at&nbsp;Sies&nbsp;+&nbsp;H&ouml;ke&nbsp;and Kaufmann&nbsp;Repetto); explicit scenes of&nbsp;herself having sex with her partner in a sunny meadow; and&nbsp;nude&nbsp;self-portraits&nbsp;that recall both&nbsp;Robert Mapplethorpe&nbsp;and Courbet&rsquo;s painting&nbsp;L&#39;Origine&nbsp;du Monde. On paper, there&rsquo;s an obvious comparison&nbsp;between&nbsp;Chetrit&nbsp;and&nbsp;Nan&nbsp;Goldin, who also uses&nbsp;her&nbsp;own sex life and friendships as&nbsp;subjects. But&nbsp;Chetrit&rsquo;s&nbsp;images are far more clinical, even sterile, recalling the advertisements of the fashion&nbsp;collective&nbsp;Eckhaus&nbsp;Latta&nbsp;and&nbsp;portraits by Collier&nbsp;Schorr, who herself blends fine art with editorial and advertisement photography.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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In many images, Chetrit is her own subject, calling to mind the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin.

What link&nbsp;the&nbsp;visually disparate works&nbsp;together are&nbsp;Chetrit&rsquo;s&nbsp;stubborn reminders that images are performances. In&nbsp;Untitled (Outdoor Sex #1),&nbsp;2018,&nbsp;a wire connecting&nbsp;a&nbsp;remote button with the camera cuts a ragged line through the center&nbsp;of&nbsp;an image of&nbsp;Chetrit&nbsp;embracing her lover.&nbsp;The same button appears in&nbsp;Self-portrait (all fours),&nbsp;2017, in which&nbsp;Chetrit,&nbsp;with&nbsp;a stocking over her head, enacts a sexy image,&nbsp;rather than actually creating one. In&nbsp;Ever (Stairs),&nbsp;2016&nbsp;(which initially appeared&nbsp;in the magazine&nbsp;Hot and Cool)&nbsp;the model, a young girl, assumes a pose so unnatural that the viewer is immediately made aware that someone&mdash;the&nbsp;showrunner&mdash;directed her&nbsp;the&nbsp;purpose of composition.&nbsp;The origin&nbsp;of these explorations into the artifice of sexuality, femininity,&nbsp;and the act to posing&nbsp;can be found in&nbsp;Face #1,&nbsp;1994/2017. In the image, a&nbsp;teen licks a bright red lollipop;&nbsp;she is the simulacrum of&nbsp;Chetrit, who was 14 herself, and only beginning to explore her own sexuality.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

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In slicing&nbsp;open&nbsp;various&nbsp;photographic&nbsp;tropes&mdash;the selfie, the pornographic image, the fashion advertisement, the&nbsp;family portrait&mdash;with the precision of a surgeon,&nbsp;Chetrit&nbsp;forces&nbsp;viewers&nbsp;to actually look at her work.&nbsp;It&rsquo;s a&nbsp;rare feat in a time&nbsp;when&nbsp;most photographs just wash over&nbsp;our&nbsp;dulled senses in a never-ending scroll.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Talia Chetrit Wants You to Look Closer

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