Review: Ryan Zoghlin & Dimitre/Flatfile Galleries

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Covering both sides of the industrial street, Ryan Zoghlin and Dimitre bring us, respectively, into suburban residential neighborhoods where well-kept houses and manicured lawns coexist with factories, expressways and power plants; and cheek-to-jowl with one of those behemoth plants—an Exelon installation—captured in color at night in all its overweening majesty. Playing on his beloved NIMBY theme, Zoghlin’s lucid and bright color prints always put domesticity in the foreground, only to subvert it conclusively as the brutal and massive life-support system looms or lurks obtrusively in the background, finally dominating the image. Packing layers of assertive energy into his prints by shooting cables, stacks, power lines, grids and transformers—often from below—and always capturing them in flaring artificial and blazing moon light, Dimitre takes us back to the dystopic yet celebratory futuristic portrayals of modern industry from the movies of the pre-World War II period. For both artists, high-intensity production surrounds and engulfs us, so we would do well to find it pleasantly sublime. (Michael Weinstein)

Through October 24 at Flatfile Galleries, 217 N. Carpenter, (312)491-1190.

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