In celebration of its fortieth anniversary, ARC Gallery has revived its “National Exposure Show,” a juried exhibition “examining the wide diversity of contemporary photography.” With Chicago photo-journalist Charles Osgood as the juror, the present installment remains true to its purpose, presenting fifty-nine images by forty-eight artists representing a variety of genres too numerous to mention, different approaches (modernist and postmodernist), and a plethora of formats and processes. There is no theme, which befits a survey; there is also nothing strikingly new that stands out as cutting edge, a sign of our times, at least in the USA. The most interesting works are feminist-inspired subversions of the idealized sculptural nude. In her “Creases and Folds” suite of nine color images, Bobbi Meier serves up a raw and raunchy feast of vaginas and buttocks that would send Harry Callahan and Edward Weston running helter-skelter back to the safety of their idyll of pristine female abstract-erotic perfection. Then Lauren La Rose administers the coup de grâce with a curvaceous take on the torso that is rudely interrupted by a scaly, cracking, off-white buttocks and thigh, recalling a mermaid that has seen better days. The male gaze has been effectively flummoxed. (Michael Weinstein)
Through December 29 at ARC Gallery, 2156 North Damen
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