A zen photographer, ever in search of intimacy through the camera, whether in nature or society, Barbara Crane took a Polaroid around Chicago twenty-five years ago and shot close-up spontaneous color portraits of the people who were out and about, coming up with images on the borderline between candids and posed studies, with a decided tilt to the former. Crane’s miniature color studies bring us closer to her subjects than they would let an outsider get and hone in on the details that rivet our attention when the barriers of personal space are broken. Crane’s most telling images do not even capture her subjects’ faces, as when we see a woman’s torso with a pair of wide-lens sunglasses dangling from her scant red t-shirt, or a woman in a green dress, whose head has been cropped out of the frame, enveloped in a tangle of arms out of which a big red plastic cup appears that dominates the intriguing scene. This is the autumn of Barbara Crane who has shows at the Cultural Center and the Illinois Institute of Technology running concurrently with this one that celebrate her adventurous career. (Michael Weinstein)
Through December 12 at Stephen Daiter Gallery, 311 W. Superior
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