the village voice

by R.C. Baker

Although color photography was routinely looked down on by curators and museums before William Eggleston's 1976 breakout show at MOMA, this exhibition of work by six Europeans amply demonstrates that there was plenty happening across the pond during that decade. John Hinde's views of an English vacation resort are as richly saturated as Saturday-morning cartoons, with the theatrically posed figures feeling almost as unreal. Less magazine-oriented is the leached palette of grays and ochres in Luigi Ghirri's image of a bleak concrete building. And for sheer narrative force, check out Carlos Pérez Siquier's blond sun worshipper, who has slipped the straps of her aqua-green top, exposed an arc of tan belly, and troweled on silver eyeliner as thickly as an armadillo's hide. These lively gestures are abruptly thrown into relief when you notice that one of her hands is horribly disfigured; she's no great beauty, but she's got spirit to burn. Hasted Hunt, 529 W 20th, 212-627-0006. Through July 20.