Wijnanda Deroo at Robert Mann Gallery

Part of the experience of eating out involves the atmosphere, an idea Wijnanda Deroo tweaks by photographing empty restaurants. Some of the photos, showing at Robert Mann in Chelsea, depict idiosyncratic, instantly recognizable settings; others show bland, anonymous spaces that, absent the vibrant din of meal service, border on the alienating. Stripped of their purpose, drained of their blood, these vacant dining rooms wind up reflecting the viewers: you snidely recall Tavern on the Green, you ask what will ever become of the murals at Café des Artistes, you drive yourself crazy trying to remember the name of some humdrum diner. You are where you eat, after all.

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