We didn’t know we had it so good. Dynastic heir Richie Daley is all right turning Chitown into Singapore-lite, but the sweet home’s first and only elected black mayor, Harold Washington, was something else—a consummate politico who worked his way up through the machine and learned to combine tactical ruthlessness in the back rooms with a folksy charisma and genuine warmth on the streets that made him the “people’s mayor.”
We can see the complexity of Washington’s personality in this ample exhibit of
forty-five photographs by Antonio Dickey and Marc PoKempner who capture through the lens Washington campaigning, politicking, governing and posing for their portraits. Among the well-crafted photojournalistic images here, the most revealing is PoKempner’s series of Washington presiding at a city council meeting, in which his expression mutates from brooding irritation, through abject exhaustion and impatience, to open-hearted delight. Our present leader might learn to be a bit more expressive. (Michael Weinstein)
Through June 27 at Roosevelt University Gage Gallery, 18 S. Michigan. (312)341-6456.
Weather Patterns: A Review of John Santoro at McCormick Gallery Talking about the weather, as painter John Santoro notes, was once just a mundane space filler. Now, with more than a few “warmest year on record” behind us, the weather has become a significant concern.
