1976 Correspondent, Chicago
From museums to galleries, everybody’s doing it
Like mushrooms after a spring rain, photographic exhibits keep popping up all over Chicago, with a kind of indomitable persistence that has made the medium a sure part of the art scene here.
Chicago has long been a center of commercial activity, from huge studios like Vogue-Wright turning out catalogues to the Hugh Hefner publishing empire on Michigan Avenue. But the city’s position as a center for art photography (supply your own definition, but I’ll posit one that would revolve around prints as collectible objects) has not always been secure. That picture is changing, however, and the most obvious expressions of that change are the heavy commitments to photography by two commercial galleries, Allan Frumkin and Douglas Kenyon, and by the attention being paid to a “Chicago style” in photography. For example, Andy Grundberg’s recent article, “Chicago, Moholy and After” (Art in America, Sept.-Oct. 1976), is an attempt to place Chicago as an “axis” of photographic activity from the ’30s up through the ’60s. In January, we will have perhaps another view of our regional style at the Museum of Contemporary Art, where historian Gail Buckland’s show of Chicago-influenced photography will be up.
Museum activity in Chicago centers around the Art Institute because of its outstanding print collection and long-time policy of exhibits. Curator David Travis seems to be continuing predecessor Hugh Edward’s penchant for the documentary (recent shows have included August Sander, Josef Koudelka, Jan Saudek, and the Books of Reportage show featuring Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, and Dennis Stock). A tradition of featuring male photographers continues as well. In 10 years, only five women have been given shows at the Art Institute. None are scheduled for this season.
Occasionally, a local photographer has shown at the Art Institute (Charles Traub is the only one in the last year), but generally, the Institute keeps a low profile locally, having very little to do with any kind of support system for regional photographers. For example, there is no local group show (juried or invitational), although a few photographs are accepted in the all-media “Chicago and Vicinity” show at the Institute. And it’s a standing bitter joke among photographers here that it’s supposed to feel like a privilege to give one’s pictures to the Art Institute.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (237 E. Ontario) has no permanent collection, but their policy of intermittent large-scale photography shows has given us Diane Arbus, Man Ray, Clarence John Laughlin, and the recent Fashion Photography show this past summer. The Chicago show coming up will be their first deep plunge into locally produced photography. Artemisia (a firmly established women’s co-op) has moved to a new location at 9 W. Hubbard and, with their move, opened a photo co-op within the larger co-op. After an initial group show, Patty Carroll and Jane Wenger have shown so far.
Douglas Kenyon has two galleries at his new location, 154 E. Erie, one devoted solely to photography. Kenyon’s stable includes equal numbers of old masters and currently producing photographers, with a sprinkling of local talents: Harold Allen, Janet Gartska, Larry McPherson, and Ron Testa. An Ansel Adams show (opened Nov. 5) inaugurated the new gallery. The Allan Frumkin Gallery is not moving its location, but director Alice Adam and assistant director Carol Ehlers keep moving steadily into the twentieth century with excellent photography shows. In November, the gallery showed a small, very rare group of Hans Bellmer’s hand-colored photographs from La Poupee. In October, a Berenice Abbott show at the Frumkin (selections from Changing New York) brought Abbott to Chicago for the opening on a day when Barbara Morgan was here (for a lecture) as well as Brett Weston (who was here for his opening at the Barclays Bank).
Jeff Gilbert, a young dealer who organized the Weston show, plans to open a gallery on Ontario Street soon. The Columbia College Gallery at 469 E. Ohio (now to be known as the Chicago Photographic Gallery of Columbia College) serves as something of an outpost for both East and West Coasts. They are now the agents in Chicago for Light Gallery and Castelli Graphics, and their new season opened with a show of Benno Friedman and Michael Bishop. The academic arena here is busy as ever. Though all schools are heavily staffed by Institute of Design graduates, the I.D. is no longer the wave-making school. That position is being shared by the School of the Art Institute and Columbia College. The SAIC is ensconced in its stunning new quarters in the Walter Netsch-designed school, and this fall is offering to its students and the public a lecture series including Tom Barrow, Keith Smith, Robert Cumming, A.O. Coleman, and Robert Heinecken. Columbia College has had to postpone its planned move a year and is doubling up its huge enrollment at its old quarters at 469 E. Ohio.
As in years past, Columbia is again offering its Contemporary Trends lecture series. Barbara Morgan led off, with Hilton Kramer, Ezra Stoller, Lucas Samaras, Anne Tucker, and Bill Owens to follow. Hilton Kramer on Oct. 29 gave one of the best talks I’ve heard at Columbia, a lucid analysis of the “museumization of photography” in a lecture called “Photography on Parnassus.” Kramer, art critic for the New York Times, specifically traced the history of the Museum of Modern Art photography department through its directors: Lincoln Kirstein, Beaumont Newhall, Edward Steichen, and John Szarkowski. His criticism of the policies of these kingmakers, in particular Steichen for his simplistic “Family of Man” and Szarkowski for his encouragement of an “anti-style style” (“the quest for the unimportant [which has become] in some cases almost a stampede”) provoked a thoughtful and lively question-and-answer period. Myriad other schools are teaching and showing photography.
In particular, the University of Chicago has entered the field, last fall with their large Aaron Siskind shows (at the Smart Gallery and the Renaissance Society) and this fall with Kenda North at the Bergman Gallery, 58th and Ellis, and “The Documentary Photograph as a Work of Art” at the Smart Gallery, 5550 S. Greenwood. On the South Side, Steven Klindt and Gretchen Garner showed in November at St. Xavier College (103rd and Central Park). At the University of Illinois Circle Campus (901 W. Harrison), Benjamin M. Sarao showed self-portraits in a show he called “Gods & Men.” On the north side, the Evanston Art Center (2603 Sheridan Road), the largest non-degree art school in the metropolitan area, has had two photo shows this fall a juried “Illinois Images” exhibit and a one-man show by Don Bulucos. A show by Becky Miller and Pat Walsh is being shown this month. Gretchen Garner Gretchen Garner is a photographer and teacher, as well as photography editor for The New Art Examiner (Chicago).