Playing off William Eggleston’s blockbuster show at the Art Institute, the Black Market gallery has brought in Yvette Dostatni and Alexandra Dietz to show us what Eggleston’s warmhearted and folksy democratic vision looks like in our present bizarre circumstances. If Eggleston were dead, he would be turning over in his grave from Dietz’s color photo-documentary of twenty-somethings at swingers’ clubs in pursuit of pleasure, if you can call it that. One look at a nubile young lady dressed for B&D and sporting a fierce pained expression will dispel any doubts that 2010 is not the year of the pleasure palace. Dostatni, who shoots in black-and-white, is somehow drawn to Chicago’s ubiquitous conventions, where she finds, among other strange things, Abraham Lincoln imitators whom she duly records in a group portrait in which a squat fellow sticking his tongue out is flanked by a beefy chap who cannot contain his mirth and a severe gentleman who has succeeded in plying to his persona and remaining in character. The cat is out of the bag and the toothpaste out of the tube in today’s American phantasmagoria. (Michael Weinstein)
Through May 31 at Black Market, 1026 N. Milwaukee.
