Images flash by in an instant, zooming in on the random minutiae of a life. A cat playing on a fence, the scenic backdrop of a mountain range, a happy couple in wedded matrimony. Laura Mackin’s video “Zoom (Dean 1962-2006)” from her solo exhibition, “120 Years,” splices, edits and reconfigures the personal home videos of a stranger named Dean. Mackin rearranges Dean’s films and edits in zoomed images, creating a disjunctive visual experience. However random or specific the scenes that Dean chooses to zoom in on, they are still oddly familiar. Moments from an anonymous life read like the images we keep in our own memory of blurred impressions, arbitrarily conjoined, resurfacing fleetingly.
In the video“Driving (Dean 1946-2006),” Mackin splices together scenes from Dean’s film taken from inside a car traveling down the highway. Again, the film creates sensations of nostalgia and déjà vu. Mackin alludes to the all-American experience of seeing the country from the back seat of a car.
Mrs. Ernest is Mackin’s second found object, her postcards from 1910-1968 recontextualized alongside a series of maps and grids. On a large roll of black paper laying flat on a table, the reproduced postcard images are arranged geographically according to where each was sent, creating a visual topography of a life overly simplified. Mrs. Ernest’s postcards are reconfigured as documentation of Americana.
“120 Years” launches private memories into the public sphere, as objects of speculation and scrutiny. Mackin’s work posits the experience of the individual as that of the greater whole, blurring the line between personal memories and public novelty. (Tara Quell)
Through February 25 at Three Walls, 119 North Peoria
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.
Microcosm: A Review of “Dialogues” at Patron Through each artist-relationship, "Dialogues" offers the viewer a rare opportunity to witness the direct connections that flow through the electric nervous system that both infiltrates and generates Chicago's art world.
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.
