September is finally here which means the 2023 Filter Photo Festival is just weeks away! We’re thrilled to be contributing to the vibrant arts community in Chicago and are eager to share four days of engaging photography programming with you. Visit our website to view the detailed Festival Calendar, which includes tons of free programming like our daily artist talk series, Roaming Reviews, an evening lecture by Poulomi Basu, and much more!
We just released single reviews and have a few workshop seats left if you’re looking to round out your Festival schedule! Our reviewer roster includes curators, editors, and publishers from across the country, and our workshop series includes intensive sessions on everything from photo book publishing to wet plate collodion. Don’t miss these opportunities to enrich and support your developing work!
In the meantime, just a heads up that Filter Space will be closed on Monday, September 4th for Labor Day. Otherwise, stop by any time during our regular hours to see our current exhibition, Unstable Entity by Rebecca Drolen. Later this month, we’re looking forward to opening we like small things v.6, our annual small works exhibition juried by Anna Goldwater Alexander. We will celebrate both of these exhibitions with a special gallery reception on Friday, September 29th, in conjunction with the Festival and the West Town Art Walk.
Finally, stay tuned later this month for a special Festival Edition of Filter Photo at Night! Projected in the windows of the former Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, this series of projections will highlight some of the artists joining us for this year’s Festival. More info coming soon!
Best,
The Filter Photo Team
For more information – please visit the website for FilterPHOTO – https://www.filterphoto.org/
Filter Photo is pleased to announce the 15th Annual Filter Photo Festival. This four-day event celebrates the vibrant art community in Chicago through photography-inspired programming. Photography curators, collectors, and critics from across the country will conduct portfolio reviews with aspiring artists and photographers. There will also be a variety of photography workshops exploring everything from photo book publishing to the wet plate collodion process. Additionally, the Festival will feature a series of daily artist talks, including Poulomi Basu as the featured evening speaker. Festival-goers will also have the opportunity to casually share work during Roaming Reviews and connect with peers and our sponsors in the Festival Lounge. Finally, there will be a special reception at Filter Space for two exhibitions: Unstable Entity, a solo exhibition of work by Rebecca Drolen and we like small things v.6, our annual small works exhibition featuring the work of 43 artists.
Portfolio reviews and workshops are paid events that require advanced registration. All other programming is free and open to the public.
2023 Filter Photo Festival
September 27th – September 30th
Filter Photo is pleased to present Unstable Entity, a solo exhibition of work by Rebecca Drolen. Unstable Entity uses photographs and architectural constructs to explore balancing and tipping points within culturally unstable expectations of female strength, resilience, and bodily performance. The work compares physical bodily forms to ad-hoc assemblages that are tenuously balanced using common building materials. Within this juxtaposition is a meditation on the body as an architectural construct and the unsettled standards of what it means to be a “strong woman.”
Unstable Entity
Rebecca Drolen
August 11th – September 30th
Gallery Reception: September 29th | 6 – 9 PM *in conjunction with the 2023 Filter Photo Festival
Filter Space
1821 W Hubbard St
Suite 207
Filter Photo is pleased to present we like small things v.6, our annual small works exhibition, juried by Anna Goldwater Alexander of WIRED, and featuring the work of 43 artists from across the US. “There were so many incredibly beautiful and meaningful entries—I sat with them and just stared for hours. I found it most fascinating that many entries were derived from old-school and analog methods, which seemed true fitting to this edition of we like small things. As a creator who has worked with analog methods, I know how much goes into one piece, let alone a series. This is what makes this theme so special, this is what makes each entry unique. Thank you for trusting me with your art and for opening my heart to such intimate works. I wish I could have given every submission a winning star, because they were all important to me.” —Anna Goldwater Alexander
we like small things v.6
juried by Anna Goldwater Alexander
September 22nd – October 28th
Gallery Reception: September 29th | 6 – 9 PM *in conjunction with the 2023 Filter Photo Festival
Filter Space
1821 W Hubbard St
Suite 207
Perspective Gallery is pleased to present Ghosts of Displacement by Alexa Frangos. In this series, Frangos delves into her family history, where the echoes of displacement and survival resonate deeply. Through her exploration of photographs, papers, and cherished objects carried by her family across an ocean, Frangos enters a profound connection with the ghosts of the displaced. In each composition, she seeks communion with these spectral figures, honoring their legacy while sharing a post-war migrant experience that resonates with countless others. The series serves as a reminder of the profound impact our family histories have on shaping who we are today.
Ghosts of Displacement
Alexa Frangos
August 31st – October 1st
Opening Reception: September 9th | 5 – 7 PM
Online Artist Talk: September 14th | 7 – 8 PM
Perspective Gallery
1310-1/2B Chicago Ave
Evanston, IL
The DePaul Art Museum is pleased to present Life Cycles. This group exhibition includes artworks from DePaul Art Museum’s permanent collection in conversation with contemporary Chicago artists not yet represented in the museum’s collection. This exhibition focuses on the processes and materials that structure and subtend life while also examining the life of art objects. In so doing, the time of life no longer has a linear structure, but comes into view as a marvelous tangle, where there is no beginning or end, where death is not the opposite of life, nor the truth or fulfillment of it.
Life Cycles
Group Exhibition
September 7th – February 11th, 2024
Opening Reception: September 7th | 6 – 8 PM
DePaul Art Museum
935 W Fullerton Ave
DOCUMENT is pleased to present Suburban, the first solo exhibition in Chicago dedicated to the work of pioneering photographer Jimmy DeSana (1949-1990). Organized in collaboration with P·P·O·W, the show features twelve photographs completed between 1979 and 1985. DeSana’s series Suburban not only challenges the divide between artistic and commercial photography that was prevalent in the 1970s, but also a range of other commonly held binaries such as male and female, gay and straight, domination and submission, suburban culture and private self-exploration, standardized domesticity and the subjectivity of sexual pleasure, among others. Yet, by staging puzzling domestic scenarios with nude figures under colorful tungsten lights, DeSana did not intend to step into the territory of erotic photography. Instead, he used the body to resignify daily objects and spaces, ultimately shedding light on the strangeness of suburban lives dominated by consumerism.
Suburban
Jimmy DeSana
September 8th – October 28th
DOCUMENT
1706 W Chicago Ave
Stephen Daiter Gallery is pleased to present Wanderings: Forty Years of Photographs in the U.S. by Alex Webb. “The photographs in this exhibition span some forty years, from my early wanderings in the United States—in Florida and along the US-Mexico Border—to my more recent explorations of U.S. cities.” —Alex Webb
Wanderings: Forty Years of Photographs in the U.S. by Alex Webb
September 8th – October 27th
Gallery Reception: October 20th | 5 – 8 PM
Stephen Daiter Gallery
230 W Superior St, 4th Floor
Join the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Photography Department at Columbia College Chicago for Lecture in Photography: Jess T. Dugan. Columbia College Chicago alum Jess T. Dugan is an artist whose work explores issues of identity through photography, video and writing. Their work has been widely exhibited and is in the permanent collections of over 50 museums, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the International Center of Photography and more. Dugan’s monographs include “Look at me like you love me” (MACK, 2022), “To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults” (Kehrer Verlag, 2018) and “Every Breath We Drew (Daylight Books, 2015).” They were selected by the Obama White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change.
Lecture in Photography: Jess T. Dugan
September 13th | 6 – 7:30 PM
Museum of Contemporary Photography
600 S Michigan Ave
The Block Museum of Art is pleased to present Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera. Rosalie Favell (b. 1958) is a photo-based Métis artist from Canada whose work is inspired by her Indigenous heritage. Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera presents over 115 black and white portraits that speak loudly of the broad diversity of Indigenous people engaged in the arts and cultural community. The exhibition draws from the artist’s monumental archive Facing the Camera, consisting of more than 500 photographs taken between 2008 and 2018 in North America and Australia, as well as a selection of new portraits showcasing the vibrant and thriving community of Indigenous artists based in and near Chicago. Favell’s work is a living visual history and a critical intervention in expanding the visibility of contemporary Indigenous artists and arts professionals.
Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera
September 20th – December 3rd
Opening Conversation: September 27th | 6 – 7:30 PM
Gallery Talk: September 30th | 12:30 – 1:30 PM
The Block Museum of Art
40 Arts Circle Dr
Evanston, IL
The Paul V. Galvin Library at the Illinois Institute of Technology is pleased to present In the Company of Trees by Jane Olin. Trees have played a meaningful role in Jane Olin’s life since childhood. Climate change and human mismanagement now threaten trees across the globe, but new research reveals previously unknown information about their complex social structures and ecological relationships. With renewed curiosity and a sense of urgency, Olin embarked on a wide-ranging exploration of trees. In the Company of Trees features photographs from that undertaking—the most recent additions to her series, Intimate Conversation. Olin’s expressive approach and her innovative process prints reveal a haunting and singular perspective on trees. Her work conveys both the seeds of hope and the seeds of impending destruction, which only human beings can resolve. Exhibition guest curated by Helaine Glick and Christina Nafziger
In the Company of Trees
Jane Olin
September 21st – March 31st, 2024
Paul V. Galvin Library, Illinois Institute of Technology
10 W 35th St
Join 21c Chicago for Behind the Lens: Photography Masterclass with Nigel Barker. Join internationally renowned fashion photographer Nigel Barker as he takes you behind the lens and onto the set of a high fashion shoot. Using images and stories from his career as a photographer and judge on America’s Next Top Model, Nigel will begin the evening with a discussion about how he approaches his subjects, achieves unexpected lighting, and pushes boundaries.
On set, Nigel will photograph three different models highlighting a high fashion shoot, portraiture session, and movement. He will demonstrate how to sculpt the light, direct and pose a model, and use props and fans, while collaborating with the stylist and hair and makeup. A Stylist and Hair/Makeup team will share insight into their relationship with the photographer and tips for getting the most out of your team. The evening will wrap with a cocktail reception with Nigel and his first assistant providing additional time to ask questions and an opportunity to be photographed by Nigel.
Behind the Lens: Photography Masterclass with Nigel Barker
September 22nd | 6 – 9 PM
21c Chicago
55 E Ontario St
Join 21c Chicago for an exclusive viewing of Holding Rhythm by Colleen Plumb. This experimental video is the first commission made for Elevate: Rm 921—an on-going series of site-specific video works viewable after dusk from the windows of interior-facing rooms at 21c. Join the artist, Colleen Plumb, and 21c Museum Manager, Juli Lowe, for a private viewing of the projection and learn more about the video and artist behind the work!
Meet in the lobby at 7:30 PM. This event is free and open to the public, but RSVP is required as space is limited. RSVP by emailing Juli Lowe at jlowe@21cChicago.com
Viewing: Holding Rhythm by Colleen Plumb
September 27th | 7:30 PM
21c Chicago
55 E Ontario St
Join the University of Chicago for a conversation with Rotem Rozental about her new book, Pre-State Photographic Archives and the Zionist Movement (Routledge, 2023), which received the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies. Dr. Rozental is the executive director of the Los Angeles Center of Photography. From 2016–2022, she served as chief curator at the American Jewish University, where she was also assistant dean of the Whizin Center for Continuing Education and senior director of Arts and Creative Programming. Dr. Rozental is currently also a lecturer at USC Roski School of Art and Design Critical Studies Department and teaches seminars about photo-theory at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Her interlocutor for this event will be Leora Auslander, Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, and the Department of History.
A Conversation with Rotem Rozental
September 28th | 6:00 PM
Franke Institute for the Humanities
Regenstein Library, Room S-102
1100 E 57th St
Filter Photo is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Chicago. Our mission is two-fold: first, to serve and support the photographic communities of Chicago and the Midwest; and second, to highlight Chicago as a vital center of the national photographic community. Please consider joining us in our mission to support more photographic artists and to share the benefits of our programming with a wider audience.
Wobneb Magazine 