Shooting in color and printing big, the Spanish husband-and-wife team Bleda y Rosa travel the world seeking out the sites where paleontologists of different eras believed that they had discovered the remains of the first human beings, and then photograph those places as they are today. Meant to “reflect upon time, space and memory within our collective history,” the images, which invite us to inhabit their subjects, often pull us into the present, as when we see orange-plastic or black-iron fencing, railroad tracks or graffiti intruding upon our meditations on mortality and continuity. As formally composed landscapes apart from their conceptual resonance, Bleda y Rosa’s studies exude tranquil beauty; from the perspective of their program, they open an unbridgeable gap between ourselves and our most distant ancestors. It will take more than a photograph to divest us of our cultural baggage and strip us sufficiently to appreciate from whence we came. (Michael Weinstein)
The Whole Package: Looking at the Art Matchmaking of “Not Just Another Pretty Face” at the Hyde Park Art Center Expect an especially exciting moment when the bell rings on the evening of September 14. White cloth that covers up all the artworks shall be pulled from the gallery walls inside the Hyde Park Art Center, unveiling some eighty commissioned works culminating from the latest two iterations—2021 and 2023—of the famed Chicago art matchmaker program.
