Art Review : ‘Diatom’ Art Novel Is Scantily Clad

In the 19th Century, European aristocrats amused themselves after dinner by dressing up as figures in famous paintings and staging detailed tableaux vivants .

The makers of “Diatom: A PhotoGraphic Novel� update this impulse to imitate images by dressing models in comic-book costumes, posing them on elaborate sci-fi sets and photographing them in comic-strip sequences.

Unlike the 19th-Century aristocrats, commercial photographer Dan Couto and costume designer/art director Glen Hanson do not participate in such theatrical undertakings for their own entertainment. Their goal is to sell a series of designer comic books in which glossy, retouched photographs replace mass-produced prints.

At Pheromone Salon d’Art, 32 enlarged prototypes are presented singularly as fine art photographs that follow the frame-by-frame sequence of comics. The story they tell is as cliched as the generic narratives that structure conventional pornography: Its only role is to provide a sketchy framework for the display of scantily clad bodies in provocative poses.

Couto’s and Hanson’s soft-core dramatization looks like the ill-conceived offspring of Joel-Peter Witkin’s photographs and a B-movie rip-off of “Star Wars.� In their corny black-and-white pictures, corporate wholesomeness seamlessly merges with sadomasochistic exploitation.

“Diatom’s� upscale photographic comic strips represent an avaricious attempt to cash in on camp. They trade the perversely sophisticated appeal of extreme artifice and ostentation for the uninspired ploys of a middle-of-the-road marketing campaign.

* Pheromone Salon d’Art, 8642 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 659-5075, through Wednesday. Closed Sunday and Monday.