No one doubts that we are living in hard times, especially young artists. Video and photo-artist Kasia Houlihan and photographer Aidan Fitzpatrick draw us into their discontent, the first with a sense of futility and the second with a sentiment of existential unease. Houlihan’s video “Hold On” shows her young female model jump-running aimlessly around a mowed field in a random, abrupt and staccato motion, exhausting herself and looking it—wasting herself. In a color photo, we see the model sitting in her panties on a slightly rumpled white sheet covering a bed, her head turned over one shoulder and one of her hands fingering the edge of a lobster-red sunburn, a doleful expression on her lips and her eyes shut. Fitzpatrick’s color studies of mundane scenes and details are by turns clear and blurred, and representational and abstract; but in all cases edgy and eerily disquieting, almost surreal. We see a muted sore foot reposing on a rough wood floor like a piece of meat that had been dropped there. In another image, we see the foot of a person standing on some grass with the scab of a scratch and the too-white-for-comfort imprint of a hand on it. Don’t look too closely, Fitzpatrick is saying; you’ll get seduced and you might not like it. (Michael Weinstein)
Through October 26 at Comfort Station, 2579 North Milwaukee
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.
