In a tour-de-force of color photographic aesthetics, Sarah Hadley ranges from muted and finely blurred pictorialism, through standard realism in varied light, to sharp graphic precision in her quest to reveal the significance and quiet beauty of the most humble and familiar things. By diversifying her styles of presentation, Hadley insures that we are aware that the way in which we see the world determines our response to it. It is, indeed delightful to contemplate Hadley’s soft and nuanced image depicting a vase in her spattered sink, so reminiscent of a delicate impressionist painting. It is indisputably energizing to behold her bold representation of a blazing campfire at Indian Lake, Ohio. The most telling image in the exhibit is a straight-on still-life—after Vermeer—of a decaying pocked Golden Delicious apple appearing from the shadows on her sister’s dresser. All of Hadley’s photographs stir memories; the ones taken with an unprepossessing approach bring us back directly to what we felt when we glimpsed what she has seen fit to show us again. (Michael Weinstein)
Through September 3 at the Chicago Photography Center, 3301 North Lincoln
A New Vision: A Review of Milwaukee's Sarah Ball Allis Art Museum Curator Kate E. Schaffer has gathered a group of works by femme, women and nonbinary artists that interacts, intervenes and innovates with the museum’s permanent collection to reveal the life of the explorer, traveler, caretaker and collector Sarah Ball Allis.
Home Is Where the Family Is: A Review of Chicago Chiquito at Bridgeport Art Center This small but significant exhibition shows the history of Chicago Chiquito, or little Chicago, the nickname given to La Hacienda, a small town in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. Its families have migrated north to find work for over one hundred years.
Fleeing Desperation: A Review of Ada Trillo at Chicago Center for Photojournalism In this heartbreaking yet visually beautiful exhibition, Ada Trillo implicates herself within her subjects to shine a light on both the hope and the hopelessness of their lives. If you are not moved by these images, surely your heart is made of stone.
The Roots of Pride: A Review of Jerry Pritikin at The Chicago Center for Photojournalism The show “When Then Was Now” gives a glimpse of early LGBTQ+ life in San Francisco—Harvey Milk became mayor and gay activism was gaining momentum. Pritikin, a legend of reportage, takes us back to a time before AIDS reared its ugly head and shows us how the movement looked all those decades ago.
