REVIEW:
Taken by Design: Photographs From the Institute of Design, 1937-1971
Through May 12
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Avenue
Barbara Crane: Chicago Loop, 1976-78
The Great Fire of 1871
Vera Lutter: Chicago Obscura
Through June 15
Barbara Crane: Urban Anomalies, 2000-01
Through May 18
The Museum of Contemporary Photography
600 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago Shots
By Laura Thompson
Chicago is getting a pat on the back with a number of photography shows at the moment. The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP)
features German photographer Vera Lutter's Chicago Obscura, a series of large-scale negative prints made without a camera, using a room
as a camera obscura. As a result of this process, images that would otherwise be quite straightforward and unremarkable are twisted and i
mbued with mystery. The city appears to be lit up against an ominous black sky creating a surreal, almost nightmarish effect. Interestingly,
the buildings transcend their status as subject matter and become an integral part of the imagemaking process itself. Lutter's cityscapes
suggest a post-apocalyptic future of surveillance where buildings take pictures of each other.
Barbara Crane's series of black and white photos, entitled Chicago Loop, 1976-78, (also at MoCP) also depicts architecture � at least in fragments.
Often narrow in scope, her images explore the juxtapositions of texture and material of the city environment. Unfortunately many of the images
are relatively small, but a handful of larger prints reveal the subtleties of glass, brick, and steel, and light and shadow, in savory detail.
Similar in concept is Crane's recent work, also on display, in a series entitled Urban Anomalies, 2000-01. Here, she brings her camera to
Chicago rooftops, focusing on contrasts of color and material, and producing digital prints. Crane's choice of this subject matter hits the
nail on the head for our city. The unusual landscape of the rooftop is a familiar notion for Chicagoans, the bulk of which gaze at them at
least twice a day from the el.
Accompanying these two shows is The Great Fire of 1871, a group of 40 albumen prints taken after the Chicago fire. These images depict the eerie skeletal remains of buildings you would never imagine could burn down. The location of each building is given, and with this knowledge
comes the disturbing concept that these devastated buildings once stood in spots you walk by each day.
And do I even need to mention the Art Institute's Taken by Design: Photographs From the Institute of Design, 1937-1971 ? Important, staggering, beautiful. Go see it. Go now.
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