RECOMMENDED
An eerie brutality that is not entirely sadistic yet is deeply unsettling haunts Jed Fielding’s lucid and shadowed black-and-white portraits of blind children in Mexico, whose expressions run a gamut from joy, through tranquility, sadness, bewilderment and awe, to outright horror. In all cases, the subjects’ emotions are sharply delineated, seeming to lack self-conscious control over their release, and conveying a sense of vulnerability, which, of course, is fitting. The root of the disquiet that pervades the show is captured in a shot of a child’s wide-open eye that seems to stare intensely, although we know that it sees nothing. Leaving it for others to debate the ethical questions involved in Fielding’s project, its results show us how we use our gift of sight to do the face work in public that allows us to cover ourselves with masks that safeguard some shred of privacy and allow our social relations to move along. (Michael Weinstein)
Through July 5 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington
Related Stories
Cultural Heirlooms: A Review of Ashley M. Freeby at Hyde Park Art Center “Plots & Hems” anchors Freeby’s interdisciplinary, labor-intensive practice, which explores her family history and the history of American civil rights.
Wonder Women: A Review of “Woman As Warrior” at the Zhou B Art Center A timely and clever theme sets apart this exhibition of paintings and sculpture.
Message of Love: A Review of Fo Wilson at Hyde Park Art Center “Dark Matter” doesn’t offer many specific resources, nor does it really image the future, but it provides a respite from the battleground of twenty-first century life.
