UPTOWN — Chicago photographer Jin Lee's exhibit "Faces," which explores constructing collective identities in media, will be on display until Saturday at the unassuming art gallery Lawrence and Clark.
"Faces," which is a series of photographed faces "printed on metal litho printing plates resting on narrow white shelves," is the first one-person exhibit at the collection-based art gallery located at 4755 N. Clark St.
Some of the photos in the series were originally featured in a group exhibition called "Sex, Death, and Jello" at Randolph Street Gallery, but this is the first time the series will be displayed in its entirety, according to a news release for the exhibit.
"From the dark, heavily made-up eyes and wet glossy open mouths of the Playboy playmates to the tight cropping and flat lightings of mug shots in criminals, the series explores the visual vocabularies of photography in constructing collective identities in mass media," the release said.
Lee's work is featured in the permanent collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Madison Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. She is also a professor at Illinois State University School of Art.
The exhibit examines "issues of profiling, portraiture and artistic practice at the dawning of the appropriation movement." The photographs in the series are from multiple print media sources from the mid-'80s and are categorized into five sets: newscasters, missing children, playmates, criminals and Realtors. The photos were gathered from newspapers, magazines, advertisements and milk cartons, the release said.
Two sets of the photographs from the original collection were bought by Jason Pickleman, the avid art collector who owns Lawrence and Clark. Since buying them, he's collected more than 1,000 works of art in all media, the release said.
Pickelman, a graphic designer, bought the gallery after driving past it and seeing its potential in July. He was looking for a place to display his personal collection and inspire others to engage with it, but unlike other galleries the art isn't for sale.
"I like the idea of people walking into a storefront where nothing is for sale, but allowing us to engage and have a conversation, using the work as a catalyst for things I'm interested in: abstraction, typography, creative production," he said at the time.
Lawrence and Clark is open from 1-5 p.m. Saturdays or by appointment.
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