William Harper. “Transmigration”
RECOMMENDED
Organized loosely around the theme of environmental conservation, this juried show including photographs by thirty-seven artists is intended to address the question of what images can “tell us about our connection to nature in an age of rapid mutation and climate change.” Too diverse in subjects and approaches to convey a coherent message, “Field Study” is more accurately a survey of the main contemporary ways in which the natural and cultural objects and scenes in the world around us are represented photographically. Culled from more than 1,000 submissions by more than 300 artists, the works—mostly color, chosen by curators Katherine Ware and Meg Noe—run the gamut from constructivist to realist, beautiful to socially critical photography, funky to serious and experimental to conventional. As they are mixed on the gallery walls, the viewer is impelled to consider each image on its own merits. This compels a primarily photographic evaluation of the works, rather than reading them as components of a broader aesthetic or social milieu.
Lindsay Hutchens. “Solticecream.”
Most of the works are strong exemplars of their genres, and some arrest attention powerfully. The most compelling image is William Harper’s “Transmigration,” a brilliant, nighttime time-lapse study of the sky streaked by involving tangles of lines of light made by flickering stars and airplanes. Harper shot the image from Evanston and captured a miniature Chicago skyline defined by tiny points of light as a large half-moon decomposes into a welter of curved lines above it. The effect is breathtaking; we see a wild light show, as though mounted by the gods, dwarfing even the highest skyscrapers. It is a perfect instance of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s “New Vision,” his idea to deploy photography to reveal to us sights we could never glimpse with our naked eye. Another noteworthy image, involving a very different street photography approach, is Lindsay Hutchens’ “Solticecream,” in which a little girl devouring an ice cream cone in the foreground is oblivious to a middle-age man intently shooting the ruins of Stonehenge. There is much more to delight the eye in this exhibition. (Michael Weinstein)
Through October 3 at David Weinberg Photography, 300 West Superior.
Elliot J. Reichert is a Chicago-based curator, critic, and editor. He is a currently a Hatch Projects Curatorial Resident at the Chicago Artist Coalition and Art Editor of Newcity. Formerly, he was Assistant Curator at the Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University. His writing has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, the Journal of Visual Culture, and Newcity.
Related Stories
Exhibiting a Lesser-Known Pioneer of Contemporary Photography: A Review of "Picture Fiction; Kenneth Josephson and Contemporary… A survey of the pioneering, Chicago-based experimental photographer includes his work alongside the work of his peers.
Stumbling Through A Stony Field Two recent scholarly trends have construed our relationship to stone in different ways. The first, influenced by actor-network theory and object-oriented ontology, is exemplified by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s “Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman” (University of Minnesota Press, 2015). In this view, lithic objects have their own agency and timescales. Listening to the time and force of stones can help…
Amidst Stardust and Rubble: A Review of David Criner at A+C Architects Painter and teacher David Criner’s show of new, large abstractions sees the artist revisiting themes from his days as a student, when you can imagine it was easier to look at the world eyes agog.
Transcendent Humor: A Review of David Leggett at Shane Campbell Gallery Leggett reveals antidotes of society to us through black icons.
Trauma In The Longue Durée: A Review of “Traversing the Past” at the Museum of Contemporary Photography Three photographers confront personal and political trauma in suites of compelling, enigmatic photoessays.
Fluid Bodies, Still Pictures: A Review of Disruptive Perspectives at the Museum of Contemporary Photography Photographs portraying touching moments of queer intimacy.
