Born in Cuba in 1948, Morell came to this country with his family in 1962. The Morells moved to New York, and one can see the city's influence in the two earliest photographs here. "Central Park, Skating Rink" seems conventional, even touristy, until one realizes Morell was barely into his teens when he took it. Conversely, "Twins," which shows a pair of identical young men standing in front of a Greyhound bus, could have been taken anywhere. But the sensibility is pure - which is to say impure - New York street. Diane Arbus (twins) meets Robert Frank (bus). It's a picture taken by a young man waiting for something to happen who was also a photographer waiting for a sensibility to emerge. For all that "Twins" is a memorable picture, most of the memorableness derives from other, better photographers. Soon enough, the memorableness would be Morell's own.
The title "A Room With a View" is both witty and inadequate. It's witty because for some 15 years Morell has followed a distinctive procedure in many of his photographs. He'll set up shop in an interior space - often, but not always, a hotel room - that overlooks an impressive exterior. Morell will then reduce all incoming light to a single small source, in effect turning the room into a supersize pinhole camera, which projects an inverted image of what's outside. He then takes an actual camera to photograph the result.
Morell's recurring use of the camera obscura could seem like a gimmick, little more than a visual calling card, like the black frame lines on an Avedon portrait. Morell uses the device for so much more, though - and by no means does he use it exclusively (hence the inadequacy of the show's title). These camera obscura images collapse differences - not just inside and out, but rich and plain, familiar and novel - and give Morell a stage of his own making on which to induce the unexpected.
