Melanie Schiff, Spit Rainbow, 2006

RECOMMENDED

In a reflection on how light can be deployed by photographers to reverse its familiar function of making the world manifest, this show, featuring works drawn from the museum’s collection, brings together eight artists who create abstractions with the help of glare. Shooting the empty rooms of a house built by Mexican architect Luis Barragan, Luisa Lambri lets light pass through a window and comes up with a pink-toned image of open shutters dissolving in a blazing, deeply-textured white-hot mist. Lambri’s blinding incandescent study sets the standard, but the others are not far behind. Melanie Schiff shot herself spitting out water to get the effect of effacing herself in an ethereal rainbow and Adam Ekberg played with his camera lens to bathe a forest in concentric rainbow circles. Light painting, slow shutter speed, ambient fog, the photogram and soft focus do the same trick for the remaining contributors. (Michael Weinstein)

Through October 4 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave.