Ellen Curlee Gallery: Friday 16 February 2007

Ellen Curlee Gallery is pleased to announce
FREE REIN/FULL PLAY: New Chicago Photography
curated by Dana Turkovic and Anne Wischmeyer.

Featuring Adam Ekberg, Jenny Kendler, Mayumi Lake, Lilly McElroy, Lindsay Page, David Parker, Sabrina Raaf and Esteban Schimpf.

February 16 – March 31, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, February 16, 6pm – 9pm

In his essay, “On Inventing Our Own Art”, Ibram Lassaw describes the attitude being formed by artist’s of his generation: “They feel that the important thing for art is to be alive, to be full of suggestion and possibilities, to enlarge our sensibility and to intensify experience….” It is precisely this synergy that becomes apparent in the work of these new Chicago photographers. Free Rein / Full Play is an exhibition that attempts to explore this phenomena, to capture this energy, with a combination of fantasy and performance, whether it utilize the body, object, or material. Although each work maintains its conceptual individuality, this association of freedom and playfulness produces a common uninhibited conceptual approach, which is enhanced by the photographic medium. Lassaw also suggests: “The artist no longer feels that he is ‘representing reality’, he is actually making reality… Reality is something stranger and greater than merely photographic rendering can show.” This is apparent in the collection of works by these artist’s, each of them produces images that in some ways, reveals a subconscious effort at Lassaw’s idea of a “new reality”. Free Rein / Full Play is a small, but concentrated attempt of capturing a spirit of art-making, in this case Chicago, and one that continues in its claim of “endless opportunity”.

The Ellen Curlee Gallery is located at 1308A Washington Avenue in the Washington Avenue loft district. Hours are 11am to 4pm Tuesday-Saturday and 11:00am to 9pm on First Fridays, the first Friday of each month. Tel: (314) 241-1299