Contemporary Photography from the Permanent Collection
Gallery 188

Learn more about the Modern Wing from our director, James Cuno, at the Director’s Forum.

Located just off Griffin Court on the first floor of the east pavilion, the Modern Wing’s photography gallery is inaugurated in two phases. A changing ensemble of photographs from the permanent collection revolves around works by invited artists Gaylen Gerber and Liz Deschenes. The first phase of the installation, running through early July, emphasizes studio and conceptual photography, while the second concentrates on outdoor views of daily life. The nearly monochromatic creations of Gerber and Deschenes that anchor this changing installation disrupt both hangings. At the same time, they suggest a continuity between the photography gallery and the new building as a whole: a set of abstract, emphatically pristine hollows filled with the spectacle of art, people, and—through floor-to-ceiling picture windows—the city at large.

Gerber, who teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, uses neutral forms—studio backdrop paper, monochrome canvases, photographs of a grey expanse—to concentrate our attention on the process of looking and the experience of the museum installation. To that end, Gerber often chooses other works to be hung on top of his own, including in this case pieces by Deschenes and, in the first phase, works by conceptual artist Marcel Broodthaers, appropriationist Richard Prince, and fashion photographer Irving Penn. Deschenes, a photographer, is interested in utilitarian abstractions, such as the moiré or gridded interference pattern produced in halftone printing or the chroma key screen used as an invisible background in film and television matting. For this exhibition, Deschenes will present highly reflective “mirrors” she has made by a slow, delicately controlled exposure of photosensitive silvered paper to light.

Other photographers in this two-part installation include Candyass (Cary Leibowitz), Patty Carroll, Zoe Leonard, Andres Serrano, Alec Soth, Larry Sultan, Jeff Wall, and Christopher Williams.

View more works from this collection.

_{Andres Serrano. Red River #3, 1989. Gift of the Boardroom, Inc. Courtesy Andres Serrano, Yvon Lambert.}