New blood.

Change can be good. As easily as that word is thrown around in the United States it's use can at times ring hollow. Michael Weinstein "Portrait of the Curator: Matthew Witkovsky" in New City wrote an informative albeit short introduction about Matthew Witkovsky, the new Chair of the Photography Department at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the changes he has in store for the department.

As a photographer who's practice relies on the relationship between text and image I'm biased when it comes to the oft complicated presentation of text and image. Specifically I'm interested in Matthew Witkovsky intention of educating the audience to the works of photography through the placement of text and image on the wall. This idea has been gaining traction in Chicago's photography community for some time as curators seek to deconstruct the white cube and by default change the relationship to photography and text. For the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography Department however it presents a bold new direction. Witkovsky's curatorial practice along with an all ready shifting focus found in assistant curator Katherine A. Bussard recent curatorial practices for "so the story goes" and "On the Scene: Kota Ezawa, Sarah Hobbs, Angela Strassheim" presents the foundation and direction for a decidedly smarter approach. One that will be interesting to see develop given the recent addition of 20,ooo square feet portion of the new Modern wing for the photography department.

Death by Design: International Museum of Surgical Science

The art performance media power house of Michelle Maynard and Teena McClelland Death by Design strike again. This time bigger, badder, and bolder than before they present their latest endeavor "You Outta be in Fangs" at the International Museum of Surgical Science and Three Walls gallery

From Three Walls
"Death by Design, Co., is a special effects and video-based company established by artists Michelle Maynard and Teena McClelland in May 2005. The Death by Design team constructs film sets and immersive environments at select locations where clients are invited to enter the set and engage in an in-depth conversation with life through their own "Hollywood" death. Visitors can either watch the action unfold or be part of the story-line, infiltrating the artwork as live (and dead) bodies.

You Oughta Be in Fangs is their first ‘party’ environment/installation, where party-goers, immersed in the set, become characters in a speak-easy riddled with the undead."

Cyprien Gaillard: 'Beton Belvedere' and Dunepark at Stroom den Haag

Catching up on much needed reading I came across several essays and reviews worth note. The first is Cyprien Gaillard's exhibition at Stroom den Haag curated by Zoe Gray. The show covers Gaillard's project Beton Belvedere and Dunepark.


In Dunepark Gaillard's process is that of an archeologist, exhuming the distant horrofic past of Nazi occupation. "For Dunepark, Gaillard excavated a former Nazi communications bunker buried in the sand outside The Hague. The bunker had been built in early 1943, during the German occupation of the Netherlands, as part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall, a system of defence against an Allied invasion. After the war, the bunker was simply buried under the sand – covering it was a less expensive option than destroying it." *1 Gaillard's excavation of the structure some fifty years later becomes a performative act calling to mind notions of history and the archive. Who controls the story of history, who decides what is included and left out from the archive. Borrowing from the tropes of traditional landscape painting and by default photography, Gaillard presents this subject matter not just as document but as a site of dialog through the juxtaposition and metaphoric relationships. This solid sand covered concrete block squatting within a "natural" setting of a beach. Visitors crawl over, along, and on top of its sandy surface, resembling a play park rather than its original darker history and icon of Nazi war time technological might and wonder.

Looking over Gaillard's other photographs the use of dichotomy as the means for conversation and dialog. In the Benton Belevedere photographs the otherwise uncanny white smoke hovering in the natural landscape, or in a palatial yard contrast with its setting. The ephemeral white cloud will disappear, will only remain for so long, fleeting in comparison with the care and upkeep of the Palace grounds.


Or in the photograph Chateau de Oiron which presents a path leading to the Chateau resurfaced in recycled concrete and glass from the recent demolished urban building blocks of urban spaces. Why are some structures preserved and cared for while others are slated to be torn down and buried.
Progress and history, what tells the story, who tells the story, archive and structure of history. Similar to the defining of North Americans political, cultural and historical identity through the constructed myth of Manifest Destiny Gaillard's photographs presents the dichotomy of structure and land as the site of fabrication and creation of history.


1.Rosales, Esperanza. "Cyprien Gaillard: 'Beton Belvedere' and Dunepark at Stroom den Haag" Afterall Spring 2009 Issue 20. http://www.afterall.org/current.html

Cyprien Gaillard: 'Beton Belvedere' and Dunepark at Stroom den Haag

MFA Photo Thesis

Friday May 15th my visual thesis will be presented at Glass Curtain Gallery. This will mark the completion of my MFA Graduate studies in Photography at Columbia College Chicago and the official kick off to the life of an emerging artist. If you are unable to make the opening you can view the work and the work of my fellow graduates, at mfa photo thesis.


*click for larger image

Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S. Wabash Ave, First Flr
Chicago, IL 60605

Gallery hours
Mon-Wed, Fri 9:00am - 5:00pm
Thur: 9:00am - 7:00pm

Opening Reception
Friday, May 15th, 5:00pm - 7:00pm