Loose from their strings or using them as weapons, puppets in contemporary video, collage and sculpture tend toward the coarse and the brutal. They clump through their lives with a relish that is almost obscene, hypnotized by their own desires.
Artists who stand out in this crowded field include Nathalie Djurberg, William Kentridge, Paul McCarthy, Sarah Anne Johnson, Cat Clifford, Kiki Smith, Nayland Blake, Kara Walker, Dan Webb, Dennis Oppenheim, Anne Chu, Thomas Schutte and Pierre Huyghe.
Add to that list Martha Colburn, whose Puppet Regime is at Ambach & Rice. Like Kentridge, she draws her tragedies from history, but she adds her own wild hair of pop culture and feminist humor. A dense collage of cutout, found and hand-colored figures collide in her videos and small Polaroid photos. Predator and prey flash by, trailing wreckage. Their score is chaos, and they never miss a beat.
Through June 27.
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