Dedicated fashionista Helen Maurene Cooper has turned her considerable talents with the camera to shooting lush and vibrant flashing color studies of the “Chicago-centered trends in synthetic nail design.” Cooper’s compositions, despite her description of her subject, are at the antipodes of the photographic fare of the style magazine; going up close, her images are stunning nearly abstract visions of exquisitely involved multi-colored patterns extending from real fingers and placed on glowing settings of flowers and jewels. The Chicago school of nail adornment stresses interlocking swirls and curves that flare into wildness, yet remain disciplined by an underlying design. Indirect references to fauna and flora heighten the overall sense of vitality and dynamism. Cooper here is an art photographer, creating a total visual construction in her images in which the nails are only a component, albeit an essential one. (Michael Weinstein)
Through February 26 at Harold Washington College President’s Gallery, 30 E. Lake, room 1105.
Rising Heroes: A Review of Nikko Washington at Kavi Gupta This new solo exhibition by Chicago artist Nikko Washington pays homage to Black athletes and creates room for fresh insights into the roles of myth, folklore and heroism in contemporary American culture.
Lost in Translation: A Review of Crip* at Gallery 400 The strongest works in the exhibition succinctly express the ways the artist relates to their own body while calling out how the artist’s body and body of work has been perceived or coded against norms or ideals.
Repurposing AI: A Review of Stephanie Dinkins at Stamps Gallery While this show is timely for everyone, I consider its setting within a university art gallery and emerging tech hub like the city of Ann Arbor a subversive provocation which Dinkins invites the greater public—including members of the university community—to consider our own positionality to AI and technology.
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