Photographers capture dull reality of cheap-thrill sites

Bottom line: A group show whose photographers send up a contemporary society addicted to cheap glamour and fixated on excitement and surface thrills.

Hagedorn Foundation Gallery curator Brenda Massie has developed a reputation for bringing challenging, occasionally difficult work to Atlanta and injecting a broader art world vantage into the city’s art scene.

Her latest effort, the group show “Traces of Myth,” is a typically smart move from the curator. It’s a mix of conceptual photography by both Atlanta and farther-flung talent, the kind of work that expects a certain element of consideration and time to mentally unpack. It also happens to fit perfectly with the holiday season, when we can often feel as if we’re clinging to the vapors — or expectation — of excitement rather than experiencing it firsthand.

In a nutshell, “Traces of Myth” is this: frustrated desires. Attention is given to the unexciting, unexceptional, but humming-with-possibility rooms, buildings, locales and decor where excitement happens. The show focuses on the residual traces of something “big time.” Lisa Kereszi shoots stripper club poles, peep show interiors, night clubs, haunted houses, movie theaters and other sites where thrilling things occur. But rather than capturing those places in action and packed with people, Kereszi focuses on these sites when they are empty and depopulated, often in the unflattering light of day. Popcorn litters gaudy carpeting, the gold paint is peeling away from that stripper pole and the tacky signage and cheap paint jobs are unmasked. It’s like seeing Ronald McDonald without his makeup on.

New York-based photographer Chris Buck’s “Presence” series of photographs take a similar approach of denying our desire for visual thrills, though Buck trains his camera on far-loftier environs. He photographs the chichi marble bathrooms, modernist concrete homes, Plaza Hotel lobbies and other places where fame lurks. His photographs are titled with the names of famous people: David Lynch, Robert De Niro, Russell Brand. But those celebs are nowhere to be seen. Buck’s project, as the introduction to a book about his work asserts — is both canny and ridiculous. Buck shoots these scenes in which the named star is in the frame but hidden from view. The participants sign a document, however, attesting to their participation in the photo. It’s the ultimate letdown for a society founded on tabloid glimpses into the private lives of the famous. Buck teases at giving us access but never delivers.

In Hagedorn’s downstairs gallery the same idea of photographers capturing excitement’s margins continues. The talented local photographer Laura Noel shoots the undulating metal curve of a roller coaster in “Havana Roller Coaster.” You can practically hear the screaming and grind of metal-on-metal, but the image captures a moment of inaction and is suggestively silent. New Yorker Landon Nordeman has a wicked sense of humor as he shoots Times Square — a noisy, blinding, bottleneck of cheap thrills — from the defeated, deflated sidelines. In “Lunch” a couple eats in a restaurant packed with ridiculous paintings and sculptures of Times Square — the real thing is just feet away, and they’re surrounded by imitations.

Weighing in for the hyper-local, Paul Hagedorn shoots the demolition, the dank alleyways and gritty exteriors of Buckhead nightspots — again, broad daylight strips the scenes of any semblance of romance or fun. But it’s also the least compelling work in the bunch, perhaps selected by virtue of the photographer’s name on the gallery door.

“Traces of Myth” can get a little repetitive with too many photographers making the same point in different ways. Fewer pieces might have made the case more succinctly and powerfully. But you have to admire the way Massie ties together far better known talent with local photographers, showing how connected our art scene is to broader conversations.