The New York Times
Friday, October 16, 1992

Mario Cravo Neto

Charles Hagen

Witkin Gallery
415 West Broadway (at Spring Street)
Soho
Through Oct, 24

In his elegant black-and-white pictures, the Brazilian photographer Mario Cravo Neto depicts models in delicate light, posed against rich black backgrounds and holding such suggestive objects as a shiny stone or a large balloon. One striking image shows a boy holding a live goose in front of his face. The bird's brilliant white feathers contrast with the boy's dark skin, while its beady eyes appears where his should be.

Many of Mr. Cravo Neto's other pictures feature a similar blend of enigmatic actions and formal grace. In one, a pregnant woman holds a bird's wing stretched in front of her like a garment, its frill of feathers curving beneath her glistening belly.

Mr. Cravo Neto relies on traditional devices of photographic portraiture, including tight framing, shallow focus and overhead lighting, to give these symbolic scenes a sense of drama. He seldom shows his subjects' faces, instead concentrating on their torsos and the props they hold, as well as the way the light picks out certain parts of the scenes.

His efforts to imbue the pictures with an air of ritual are more then a little self-conscious, though, and in case viewers don't get the point, he sometimes gives the works titles like "Sacrifice" and "Voodoo Figure". As a result, the pictures can seem stagy and implausible. But at their best, they convey a feeling of refined mystery, of primal forces barely contained within the quiet order of the photographs.