New Trends in Chicago Photography
Despite all the talk of globalizing of the art market, photography (and other arts) is still heavily influenced by local issues and people. (As opposed to "global people." New Trends in Chicago Photography is part of the Version '06 festival that started last weekend and runs through May 7 (next Sunday) and has been curated by Chicago-area photographers Greg Stimac and Brian Ulrich. With over 40 photographers represented, it's hard to believe there will be enough space to get a real sense of anyone's work, but I'm not in Chicago, so I can't really say. If you do go, leave a short review in the comments.
Through May 7 at Version Kuntshalle Iron Studios
3636 S Iron St (1st and 4th floors)
Admisson is Ten Bucks (5 if you're in school)
It's a nice group show featuring rarely more than two works from any one photographer, but there's plenty of space for a number of large prints. (The festival kunsthalle takes up two floors of a Bridgeport warehouse, and probably a full third of the top floor is devoted to this exhibit alone.)
The sketchbook with my list of highlights is at home, but I hope to post about this myself fairly soon. As the podcasters at Bad at Sports note, it sometimes has the feel of something like an MFA photo show, (which stands to reason, given the art school profile of Chicago). For Bad at Sports' take, see: http://badatsports.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=85386
There was a lot that's pretty familiar to me, but there were a number artists I was previously unaware of as well. There were also a few surprising ommissions (most notably that of the show's curators themselves, though their absence certainly stands to reason as well).