It’s Casebere’s baroque use of light and perspective that gives the images emotional depth.  ”Landscape #2″ captures the same neighborhood from directly above, in a view similar to those in Google maps. The landscape has an otherworldly bluish cast, which turns the colors of the houses to ugly, acidic hues. The long, oblique shadows suggest that a storm, eclipse, or Godzilla-type creature is on its way.
     These pieces are supremely engaging. The large size of the prints, the exquisite detail in the models, and the broad views of the photographs pull one right into the fictive landscape. The heightened tone of the images, the artificially sweetened optimism of the first and the horrific dread of the second, are cinematic in power and effect. They describe an existing landscape and also portend what comes next; and what comes next for this lovely neighborhood seems to be catastrophe. Casebere’s photographs might not be so out of place within the Biennial galleries after all. In their unapologetic artifice and knowing melodrama, they are also brash performances.