Sweet Home Chicago
Galerie Rouge in Paris presents an exhibition on Chicago and its evolution, as seen by photographers who inhabited the city from the 1940s to the present day.
Known as the cradle of contemporary American architecture, Chicago is also home to the legendary Institute of Design founded by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in 1944 in the wake of Bauhaus. Shifting its aesthetic research from the studio to the streets, the school nurtured photographers who turned the public space into an open stage, where advertising posters, leather jackets, hairstyles, crossroads and train tracks became elements of a fast-paced story that only fragments could narrate.
© Todd Diederich. Birdman, circa 2013
© Kenneth Josephson. Chicago, 1961
© Todd Diederich. Waiting at stop sign, circa 2013
© Joseph Sterling. The Age of Adolescence, 1959-1964
© Paul D'Amato. West Side Water, Chicago, 2011
A contemporary look at the city brings in a new kind of sociological study through the eyes of Paul D’Amato, Clarissa Bonet and Todd Diederich. Each finding their own distance and creative approach, the three photographers provide a deeply human, stereotype-free and sometimes surrealist look at the city in its complexity, from the most central neighborhoods to the peripheries.
© Clarissa Bonet. In Progress, from the series City Space, 2016
© Kenneth Josephson. Chicago, 1961
© Todd Diederich. Pilsen dark horse, circa 2013
© Barbara Crane. Neon Series, Chicago, 1969
© Paul D'Amato. Boy by pool, 2005
The exhibition “Made in Chicago” is on view at Galerie Rouge, Paris, until January 21.
