Jon Rafman’s Long-Distance Vision

THE DAILY PIC: Sure, this image isn’t all that clear – but then Jon Rafman’s eyes had to reach halfway around the world to see it. It’s titled 932 Loma Larga, Santa Catarina, NL, México, and it’s in a group show now at James Cohan Gallery in New York, where Rafman is presenting a series of strange scenes found among the millions of images preserved in Google Street View (note the little icon in my Pic’s top-left corner). Regular readers of this column will be tired of hearing me talk about how ostention – simply pointing at things in the world – is one major function of art that’s majorly neglected. Thanks to Google, artists’ fingers are now longer than ever before, and can point to all kinds of peculiar moments and places. (Courtesy the artist and Zach Feuer Gallery, New York)