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The New Yorker

Galleries - Chelsea

Mar 21, 2011

Michael Benson
Benson's photographs of the sun and planets been tweaked for maximum wow effect. Digitally constructed from dozens of images taken by robotic cameras on space probes during the past fifty years, the finished pictures are so polished they're dreamlike- more Disney than NASA. Uranus, a milky-blue marble, floats in a black void surrounded by wire-thing rings; the sun, spitting fire, appears ready to explode; and the Earth hovers into partial view, a dust storm swirling through the Sahara. Benson's brand of hyper-reality is super-slick but hard to resist. Trough March 26.