Having cut her photographic eye with incisive scenario shots of people recreating their most desperate, embarrassing and traumatic moments—some of which are on display here—Jill Frank has turned to capturing groups of young people enacting symbolic tableaux on the streets and in the parks. The results are radically funky, as in “For Ye Shall Be as an Oak,” where we see three husky college dudes raising a fourth on their shoulders as their arms jut out in an attempt to simulate the mighty tree. Since Frank snapped them in color bathed in luminous lamp light on a concrete path in the dead of a winter night after a fresh snowfall, we can only speculate about what they might have ingested at the time. Having explored life’s agonies in painful detail, Frank is obviously in the mood for its playful ecstasies. (Michael Weinstein)
Through August 30 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave.
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