July 4, 1981 / Volume 12, Number 23 / $1.25 per copy

ARTWEEK
PHOTOGRAPHY

Los Angeles / Chuck Nicholson

Eleven contemporary Chicago photographers are the subject of the first half of a two-part exhibition curated by Joyce Neimanas and Charles Desmarais for the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies. Don’t expect a show dominated by the Institute of Design or reflecting the Chicago school of painting. The point of the exhibition does not seem to be to isolate a Chicago esthetic, but to present a fine selection of works by young artists not previously seen here. The work also demonstrates the wide range of contemporary approaches to photography.

If there is a unifying theme or “look” to this selection, it is people as a main subject. The most complex and formally engaging presentation is the Memory Warp portrait series by Esther Parada. Each portrait consists of a grid of twenty-five 6″x 6″ prints containing fragments of objects collected by the artist’s father and material evoking her grandparents’ time. An image of her father superimposed on all of the squares ties the whole together. Parada’s many-layered portrait captures the fragmentary, shifting character of memory.

Regan’s photographs, from her Non-Portrait series, are done on large sheets of slightly curling paper pushpinned to the wall. Process and casualness are their keynotes from the presentation and print quality to the gestures of the artist-subject, who seems to be playing with a large sheet of plastic.

Jerry Gorden and Jane Wenger use people as primary subject matter in an impersonal, formal manner. Gorden’s large, lushly colored photographs taken at a public swimming pool provide the one humorous note in the show. Water-caused distortions and odd juxtapositions create memorable images, such as a man diving into a boy’s hair. Wenger’s very closely cropped views of grimacing bodybuilders are both remarkable presentations of abstract form and texture and very impersonal, unsettling studies of the human face.

The remaining four photographers have little in common with the rest of the artists or with each other. Although Ruth Thorne-Thomsen’s small photographs contain people, her main subjects are enigmatic objects and the strange spaces they inhabit. Suzanne Seed is the only artist of the group who mixes media. She collages photographic images on paper or fabric with hand stitching and hanging threads.

Her subjects are mainly fierce wolves and eagles, suggesting a personal mythology of wild nature battling encroaching civilization. Joe Jachna’s dark, romantic landscapes are the most traditional photographs on view. However, his simple, sometimes elegant compositions have such untraditional features as flash-illuminated foregrounds and subjects that bisect the picture plane. The only abstract works in the show are those by Robert Stiegler. Perhaps his subject was a photograph of a chain-link fence, which has been carefully torn up and rearranged. The works concern a complex geometric surface pattern and the beautiful tonal quality of Sabattier prints.

I am looking forward to the second group of Chicago photographers, to be seen here in August. In the meantime, for its variety and quality, this show is well worth the hassle of finding a parking space near its busy downtown location.