Marginal Waters 7, 1985; 2009 -- by Doug Ischar
I greatly regret that during its run I have not had time to write a full piece on Doug Ischar's extraordinary show of photographs made in the summer of 1985 at the now all-but-erased Belmont Rocks on the North Side lakefront in Chicago. Under the title Marginal Waters, these large, color-drenched new prints of what are, in some ways, found objects from another time and place, are shown beautifully at GOLDEN, 816 West Newport (3430 North, just west of Halsted Street), in the heart of Chicago's Lakeview/Boystown neighborhood. You have but one more chance to see them together -- today, Sunday October 25 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at a catalogue release and closing party at the gallery.
Along with a new video, sound, and installation work, Forget Him, made from a set of truly found home movies from the 1960s -- work more in the vein of what Ischar, a professor of photography at the School of Art and Design of the University of Illinois at Chicago, has made his name with over the past two decades -- the photographs tell a story of looking, being, remembering, and reconstructing, of a gay world, of gay worlds, that are gone now, and yet that occasionally return, unexpectedly and, as in this show, in moving and extremely humane ways.
More to come -- and see you there!
Comments