RECOMMENDED Augmenting the recent welcome trend of high-quality group photography shows at grassroots galleries and underscoring the vitality and depth of Chicago’s scene, the four very different photographers here are all precise and compelling in expressing their respective romantic sensibilities. Dave Burk’s color studies of luminous sea animals like a hyper-phallic sea urchin are suffused with sensuality; Evan Thomas’s unpopulated industrial color cityscapes taken at night and bathed in garish street light are the quintessence of existential abandonment; and Rebecca Reuland’s crazy-quilt color photo-collages of urban facades teem with dense and playful excitement. Above all, Jeff Millies’ black-and-white and color portraits of burlesque queens convey his appreciation of them as beautiful women rather than cock-teasers. True to the idealized norms of their craft, Millies’ subjects all appear both seductive and self-possessed—you should look, but you’d better not touch. (Michael Weinstein) Through December 29 at Tojo Gallery, 1418 W. Division. (773)726-4545
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