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Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/198792
HOTTEST TICKET Caption will go here tk. The James R. Thompson Center, as seen in Sarah Morris's film Chicago. Beyond Big Shoulders D oes a Parisian feel the thrill we feel as we cross the Pont des Arts? Better yet, does the Parisian experience anything close to what a Chicagoan does, arriving, say, at the corner of Wacker and Michigan Avenue? Does our sense of place resemble her sense of the place we call home? With "City Self," the Museum of Contemporary Art explores how Chicago has registered on the imaginations of both local artists and those from elsewhere. Opening this month, the exhibition is organized by MCA's senior curator Dieter Roelstraete. Belgian by birth and a relative newcomer to town, Roelstraete's own grasp of the city has been shaped by living in Woodlawn and working in the shadow of the John Hancock Center. "The show is a little bit of a self-portrait," he suggests, "and I hope that it demonstrates my BY THOMAS CONNORS appreciation of the city as a complex place." Largely photo-driven, the roster of images on view ranges from the fairly documentary work of Jonas Dovydenas and the perplexing, nearly unnerving shots of Tom Van Eynde (both done in the mid-'70s), to the large-scale pictures created by Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth in the 1990s, and the views of Lake Michigan and architectural landmarks Catherine Opie produced early in this century. "It's a balance of a more intimate, sympathetic look, courtesy of the resident artists, and a slightly more clinical gaze that seems to be the predominant mode of the outsiders," observes Roelstraete. The centerpiece of the show is Chicago, a film by the London-born, New York–based artist Sarah Morris. "It's kaleidoscopic," says Roelstraete, continued on page 78 PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF SARAH MORRIS IN THE MCA'S "CITY SELF," ARTISTS SHARE THEIR TAKE ON THE CITY BY THE LAKE. 76 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 076-078_MA_SC_HT_Nov13.indd 76 10/21/13 10:49 AM