A master of illusion, Zeke Berman makes photographs in
which all is not as it seems. Here, the table that appears from a certain
distance to be a solid object bearing the weight of a book and glassware shifts
upon closer inspection, revealing itself to be an arrangement of wood and
cardboard flat against the studio floor. The white paws of a cat in the upper
corner further confuse the optics of the space. Open at center is The Tale of Genji, an 11th-century
Japanese book generally regarded as the first novel for its depth of
psychological insight, a tongue-in-cheek addition to a photograph questioning
how we know what is real. Trained as a sculptor, Berman has used such deceptive
compositions to test the boundaries of perception, highlighting the way that viewers
often project three-dimensional spaces onto two-dimensional photographic prints.