Celebrating the heartwarming people and places of the Sweet Home, Chicago Tribune writer Rick Kogan’s column, “Sidewalks,” and former Trib photog Charles Osgood’s accompanying color photos introduce us to a frozen version of WGN TV’s old segment “Chicago’s Very Own,” which featured mini-bios of the special-yet-humble good folk whom we might like to think represent our nitty-gritty city. Reproduced in this exhibit as wall text, the columns are dwarfed by the pictures, which are self-explanatory even when we do not know who their subjects are by name or particular virtue and accomplishment. From boxing clubs to barber shops, from buskers to bikers, it is all so feel-good that the images and stories threaten to bring on a molasses high. For a rare dollop of bizarre cutefallen off the cliff into absurd grotesquerie, glom on to Osgood’s shot of a polar bear caught underwater earnestly addressing a battery of nightly-news microphones at Lincoln Park Zoo on the day of a conference on global warming. Where are Nelson Algren and Art Shay when we need them? (Michael Weinstein)
Through February 28 at the Chicago Tourism Center, 72 E. Randolph
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