Heather Rasmussen, "Untitled (New Orleans, Louisiana, September 10, 2005)," 2010
RECOMMENDED
Fascinated by the colorful and ruthlessly rectangular shipping crates that festoon California ports, Heather Rasmussen took to making miniature paper replicas of them; arranged her constructions to simulate documented accidents in which piles of containers crashed into each other, collapsed, or scattered in a mess; and shot her scenarios in color, leaving out any trace of context. The result, despite Rasmussen’s vague claim to social meaning, are beguiling abstractions of order falling apart that lack any sense of disturbance, because the colors are so graphic and arresting, and the sharp rectangles so precise and minimalist. By the time Rasmussen is done, shipping crates are long gone in the deep six. As a kind of foil to Rasmussen’s aestheticism, Katie Paterson’s images of totally black deep space, taken through a telescope, are all the same and interchangeable, even though they were shot at different times and aimed at different places. Deconstruction cedes to obliteration. (Michael Weinstein)
Through March 4 at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan
Serene Balance: A Review of Lygia Pape at The Art Institute of Chicago Featuring nearly one hundred woodblock prints, “Lygia Pape: Tecelares” is as expansive as it is focused. Offering viewers the unique opportunity to examine in-depth the late Brazilian modernist’s 1950s engagement with printmaking.
