Something very interesting happens when a person encounters a Vivian Maier photograph. They stop, look closely, and find themselves asking where Maier was standing when she took this photograph. You start looking for Maier in her photos. Whether it is outside of the picture or inside of it. Often there is a shadow, a reflection, a hand or a finger in the frame if you spend enough time with the image. She is the punctum; and that isn’t by accident. Try to take a photo of her photos, and not only do you have an image of multiple fractured reflections, but you end up in the picture as well.
“Vivian Maier: In Color”
Through May 8, 2023, Tue-Sat 9:30 AM-4:30 PM, Sun noon-5 PM, Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark, 312-642-4600, chicagohistory.org, $19, $17 for students and seniors, children 18 and under free.
On a wall of portraits in the show, you can imagine her, with her camera, a Rolleiflex, operated at chest level. These were definitely the ones she asked permission to take. This is where the curator’s presence is most felt in the show. You wonder about these people and their names. There is no race in the photographs’ titles but you can see the parallels you are being asked to draw. There are eight photos, people of all races and age groups. Put side by side, you see the differences in their context, the expression, in the kind of clothes they are wearing, the way their eyes and faces feel safe or not safe enough in the presence of a camera. Reminiscent of Tonika Lewis Johnson’s Folded Map Project, these people are Chicagoans, but what does that mean for each of them, especially put against one another like the show allows?
