Under a banner announcing “EVERYTHING NOTHING” that fills one wall of the gallery space, Daniel Everett presents his sardonic photographic reflections on the way that technology has penetrated our psyches. Everett’s take on the managed environment is nowhere better encapsulated than in “Decoy I and II,” two straight black-and-white shots of surveillance cameras against pure white backgrounds; it turns out that the devices are fakes that are used to hoodwink innocent and credulous passersby into thinking that they are being watched. As if he needed to rub in our indignity more deeply, Everett serves up “Portals” in which we see an empty and forbidding underground parking garage, at the center of which is a vestibule glowing in heavenly white light that is backed by a bare wall instead of a door. Technology is a glitzy and deceptive trap from which there is no exit that seduces us at the peril of our strength and sanity. (Michael Weinstein)
Through May 2 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave.
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