Inviting comparison with astral formations, forests, gardens, deserts and seabeds, this exhibition of fifty intricately beautiful microscopic photographs of slices of the nervous system provides compelling evidence for the aesthetic unity of perceived nature. Amid the visual delights, ironies abound. Torsten Wittmann’s study of “Inhibitory Neurons in a Rat’s Cerebral Cortex” takes the honors for the most stunning and exquisite image, presenting us with a scene recalling a forest clearing rife with bright red flowers and spindly, spiny and sinuous fresh-green vines. In contrast, Inigo Azcoitin’s shot of the “Human Cerebral Cortex” reveals a patch of baked desert bearing fading impressions of footprints. These images are, indeed, the “landscapes” that the show’s title promises us, and they make us wish that we could inhabit them in real life rather than hold them inaccessibly inside our bodies. (Michael Weinstein)
“Neuron Landscapes” shows at Instituto Cervantes, 875 North Michigan, (312)335-1996, through February 1.
For Us: A Review of "Something from Something" at Engage Projects Kushala Vora and Adia Sykes’ collaboration "Something from Something" tells us as viewers that knowledge, art, creation, inspiration, love—really anything you can think of—has a place of origin.
Looking Down: A Review of Bob Tanner at Perspective After the loss of his wife, Bob Tanner made two photography series, “At Ocean’s Edge” and “At Winter’s Edge,” that are shown in this meditative show filled with graceful visual poetry.
Women Behind the Lens: A Review of "From Her to Eternity" Courtney Love curates on the street. Just west of Wabash on the corner of Eighth Street, there is a wall of stellar rock star images that includes a special collection made by women photographers over the years.
Microcosm: A Review of “Dialogues” at Patron Through each artist-relationship, "Dialogues" offers the viewer a rare opportunity to witness the direct connections that flow through the electric nervous system that both infiltrates and generates Chicago's art world.
Other Forces: A Review of Maw at Apparatus Projects Ailes and Lopez’s installations, images and sculptures function as a cosmos of life—worlds where the viewer is placed in a disordered exercise of cognitive sense-making between rather than sense-making of.
