RECOMMENDED
Dealing from a full pack of photographic manipulations, most notably multiple exposure, and operating with several printmaking processes, Tamar Halpern usually ends up with modernist abstractions that mix cubist juxtaposition of figures with expressionist energy. With a feel of the fabled American expressionism of sixty years ago, Halpern’s dense and complex play with liberated geometry takes us back to a lost era of vibrant, optimistic and bold creativity. The studies in black and white are the most effective because they could have been conceived in the heyday of Chicago’s Institute of Design, when Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and his crew advanced under the banner of “light painting.” Halpern also offers some more representational images that instruct us about the compositional base from which her abstractions take flight, and teach us that the world is always with us, even simply as an excuse for fancy. (Michael Weinstein)
Through November 15 at Tony Wight Gallery, 119 N. Peoria. (312)492-7261
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