Ambiguous Ambassador by Tseng Kwong Chi — showing at Boston’s Bernie Toale Gallery until the end of September — is classic deadpan photographic self-portraiture. Chi (1950-1990) appears in each photograph in his “Mao suit,” reflective sunglasses, bulb release in hand, (and occasionally with his official visitor’s ID badge) posing as an uberman world traveler, documented with all the tourist-beset treasures of the world.

The series is extensive, as is revealed by a quick paging through of Chi’s book of the same name. Toale exhibits only a fraction of these images, but the choices of images and sequencing are carried out wisely. Mixed in with those propaganda-poster tourist-shots are meditative images in which Chi’s ambassador character is very much a part of the landscape he is visiting. He is caught in transit, still stiff, but no longer so self-consciously posing; he simply observes and passes through these famous (though sometimes ambiguous) spaces of wonder.

This is particularly effective as one stands in front of a large crisply contrasty black-and-white print in person. I gazed over Chi’s shoulder into the Grand Canyon. Is it notable, perhaps, that this image is taken a decade later in his career, three years before the end of his life?

Is this character a commie time-traveler, or an art student with frequent-flyer miles? What does he think of all that he has discovered in this world? He seems rather bored after a while, or at least, he’s putting on the show of unimpressed dignitary, from wherever he is from, whoever he is. He evokes the prim unknowableness of early Gilbert and George, but in those moments in between postcard snapshots, forecasts the wanderlust of the everyman nowhere man of Robert ParkeHarrison.

A nice write-up of Ambiguous Ambassador on Utata Tribal Photography concludes “In the end, what began as a lark developed into a tongue-in-cheek sociological exploration of the notion of cultural and racial identity. Tseng’s self-portraits aren’t really self-portraits at all. He isn’t photographing himself; he’s not really even photographing that stiff-backed Maoist persona; he’s photographing the very concept of social and cultural identity.”

I’ve been staring at this untitled Walker Evans polaroid for two weeks; I found it on The Met’s website a few week’s ago. It is being exhibited as a part of their contemporary photo show, depicting everyday objects, called Hidden in Plain Sight.

This bouquet of bottle and jar scrubbers is given an intensely centered composition, one that seems decidedly amateur, but has come to resonate for me, particularly when such dumb, manufactured items are given the honor.

After all, don’t we dedicate our time and money to such things in excess throughout our lives? Sans dishwasher, how much time is given to washing dishes every day, despite the fact that we’d never think to focus our vision on these integral tools to the process? I adore the obscene red, the brooding shadows. That plastic-handled sponges speak with the lust and foreboding of a sneering pulp novel’s glossy, paperback cover — this is the power of polaroid.

There’s something so indisputably chemical about the color in polaroids. Absent is the grain of film, and yet I want to use the word, invoke “grain,” to describe the toxic texture that exists just beneath the plasticy surface of a polaroid object. Also, there’s the perfection of rendering such plain Objects within the one-of-a-kind polaroid format, a self-contained photograph that collects the weight of its unused dyes and processing liquids, but also of its unique thing-ness. Polaroids have the heft of a real object, not that two-dimensional phantom of most photographs.

The show concluded three days ago; I was unable to visit in person. But the online samples unveil another compelling objectsmith, of whose work I need to see more: Gabriel Orozco. In Dog Circle and Sand on Table he plays with the variant forms and qualities of sand, to delightful results.

Alec Soth puts forth some praise on Orozco’s body of work on his blog, and posts the following amazing image, revealing an admirable formal cleverness.

To follow a train of thought from a couple weeks ago, that is, a certain preoccupation with unique perspectives on otherwise cliche forms of beauty (as in Larry Chait’s captivating views of landscapes), I’ve been looking at clouds a lot lately.

The tone struck by Ken Fandell in his work is very much one I find myself admiring and striving to emulate — an often understated, deadpan sense of humor that exists underneath a real, sincere observation of the drama of the world and the emotions within it. His images of post-its demonstrate this quite well:

from the Thoughts I Had on a Hike in First and Second Person project

The light hitting the water at sunset, the translucense of the leaves and paper: it’s all quite postcard-beautiful. But there’s quite obviously something else going on, self-reflection, self-loathing. The post-it reveals this landscape to be a two-dimentional, unreal surface. Besides, every sunset is temporary. Where there is beauty there will soon be darkness.

Hundreds of Skies Above and Beyond Manhattan

Fandell’s somewhat more tonally ambiguous examination of clouds and sky — this is the work that has been on my mind lately. These works demonstrate an intense, painstaking craftsmanship — seamless, swirling conglomorations of gloominess and rapture, suggesting meticulous Renaissance fresco painting more than fanciful digital and photographic handiwork. Certainly the natural majesty of the sky is bent into labyrinthine contortions of time and space — like some sort of celestial intestinal tract. A method is laid upon these clouds (they are documentation of the sky in certain places the artist has experienced), but the put-it-over-the-mantelpeice glory of grandios cumulus is still there. Despite the digital knot-tying and visual acrobatics, the blue and gray and white remain striking because they began as a familiar cloudy blue sky.

The Sky Above Here (Seattle, WA, May 2003), The Sky Above My Home (10/6/2002 – 6/14/2003), The Sky Elsewhere (Northern California, Lower Austria and Northern Italy, 2003)