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Adams St., Chicago 2015
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S. Des Plaines St., Chicago 2015
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55 E. Monroe, Chicago 2016
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Huron and Michigan, Chicago 2015
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Michigan and Superior, Chicago 2015
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Block Party, Edison Park, Chicago 2009
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Chicago Gulag, Lehigh Ave, Chicago 2010
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Food Truck, Monroe St, Chicago 2016
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Michigan Ave, Chicago 2016
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Storefront, Michigan Ave, Chicago 2017
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Fullerton and Halsted, Chicago 2017
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Dance for Bernie, Bernie Sanders Rally, Chicago 2016
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Donald Trump Rally, Chicago 2016
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End of Donald Trump Rally and Protest, Chicago 2016
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March for Diversity Rally, Morton Grove 2017
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Women's March, Chicago 2017
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Democracy for All, Adams and Riverside Plaza, Chicago 2016
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Monroe St., Chicago 2015
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Night train, Chicago 2016
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North Ave Beach, Chicago 2015
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Street Carnival, Chicago 2015
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Lake Michigan, Chicago 2016
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Michigan and Randolph, Chicago 2012
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Washington St., Chicago 2013
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Oak St. Beach, Chicago 2015
Public Story
Chicagoland, Illusions of the Literal
Credits:
steve gubin
Date of Work:
05/08/09 - Ongoing
Updated: 06/21/17
A considered photographic dialogue with the people, places, and culture of a contemporary Chicago did not end with Harry Callahan, Ray Metzker, Vivian Maier, or Yasuhiro Ishimoto. The urban parade of anonymous characters, odd juxtapositions, and cultural touchstones that rolled by in the past are still rolling by today, and will continue to do so long after we are gone. Chicagoland, Illusions of the Literal, is both a continuation of that dialogue, and an exploration of the amorphous boundary that exists between truth and illusion in supposedly objective images.
The photographs in this exhibit, taken in the greater Chicago area from 2009 to 2017, appear to be literal records of singular moments. But the reduction to only two dimensions, and the stripping away of the periphery by the act of framing, transmutes these images into something else. They are a fiction, yet also a reality unto themselves, possessed of their own rules and potential consequences, imparting their own essence and truth. Cultural and political symbols or ironies that appear to be evident in a particular image may or may not be true reflections of the captured moment. I never seek to describe a photograph in great detail, for that would force an interpretation upon the viewer. Furthermore, it is often the case that any interpretation which presents itself is better perceived by the gut than by the mind: a visceral apprehension of what is, in many ways, a black and white world of two dimensional dreams. This is the intersection of truth and illusion, where the photograph becomes its own reality, and a viewer’s interpretation is no less valid than my own.