Curated by Susan Aurinko, this third show of the season celebrating Barbara Crane in Chicago genially and revealingly pairs photographs from her 1966 thesis project at IIT and later images from her long and continuing career. The jewels of the exhibit are Crane’s black-and-white thesis studies, which experiment with showing the sheer beauty of the human form through a variety of abstract strategies ranging from attenuating the shapes of body parts to their peripheral lines against white backgrounds, to deploying the gray scale to print rich and involved takes of body parts shadowed in darkness. In all cases, the images hover between natural and sculptural, and representational and abstract modes of presenting the nude; and they are at least as sensitive and technically perfected as Crane’s later multifarious ventures. All of Crane’s sensibility is already here—the drive to balance and fuse form and content, and to evoke thereby a moment of zen concentration. The minimalist prints of shapely curves are the treats of the treats; they resemble exquisite line drawings, yet are vibrant with life. The later images show that Crane turned to different subjects and techniques while preserving her core vision. (Michael Weinstein)
Through February 1 at the Galvin Library, Illinois Institute of Technology
For Us: A Review of "Something from Something" at Engage Projects Kushala Vora and Adia Sykes’ collaboration "Something from Something" tells us as viewers that knowledge, art, creation, inspiration, love—really anything you can think of—has a place of origin.
Looking Down: A Review of Bob Tanner at Perspective After the loss of his wife, Bob Tanner made two photography series, “At Ocean’s Edge” and “At Winter’s Edge,” that are shown in this meditative show filled with graceful visual poetry.
Women Behind the Lens: A Review of "From Her to Eternity" Courtney Love curates on the street. Just west of Wabash on the corner of Eighth Street, there is a wall of stellar rock star images that includes a special collection made by women photographers over the years.
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