Like Michael Mittelman, Penelope Umbrico’s work mines catalogs as well, albeit catalogs likely viewed at a much lower altitude. Umbrico’s Mirrors (from Catalogs) are just that; she has scanned and enlarged the mirrors found hanging in the idyllic living spaces of “home decor / lifestyle” catalogs, printing them on plexiglass panels cut to resemble the shapes of the mirrors themselves. Umbrico’s ovals and circles, well detailed with characteristic beveled-edges, allow us visual slivers of these fantasy spaces; we see them as they would be seen in an actual mirror. Except, of course, the viewer is absent. To look into a mirror and not see oneself carries with it the connotation of death or spiritual absence; in Umbrico’s mirrors the viewer does not exist and all that remains are the objects intended for consumption.

Also on view are selections from Umbrico’s Instances of Books as Pedestals (Some Extreme) This series, too, emerges from catalogs and can be downright depressing to a bibliophile as her title is without irony. Stacks of books are topped with potted plants, lamps, bowls of snacks, etc. – it’s unsettling to see these proud vessels of knowledge reduced to the role of end table, having become things upon which other things are placed. I was left contemplating the souls with which we imbue inanimate objects and the transformation of raw materials – in this case paper, ink, board, glue and thread of books – to emotionally charged representatives of our imaginations.

Ad|Agency, featuring works from Penelope Umbrico, Michael Mittleman, Brian Ulrich, Dean Kessmann, Hank Willis Thomas, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Johnathon Lewis, Diana Shearwood, and Matt Siber, is on view at the Photographic Resource Center until Sunday (01/27).