“I’m telling a serious thing by way of joking,” writes Chinese color-scenario photographer Maleonn. The humor is obvious in Maleonn’s “Days on the Cotton Candy” series in which the sticky billowy white stuff—actually a simulation of it—blows all over and settles down in clumps in a kitsch-cluttered bathroom presided over by young housekeeping lasses who contemplate their handiwork, including a fine-spun man doll with a prominent phallus that one of them embraces, with varying degrees of irritation and admiration. It is far more difficult to determine what, if any, serious purpose lies behind Maleonn’s depictions of his staged messes, although he dedicates his series to his “life and fantasy,” which it is probably prudent not to explore too deeply. Freud might be interested in a maiden standing in a yellow bathtub, wielding a hand vacuum cleaner out of which pulses a viscous white cloud. (Michael Weinstein)
Through June 21 at Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery, 1044 W. Fulton Market, (312)492-8828.
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