Michael Weinstein

Chicago celebrity portrait photographer Marc Hauser has staked his success on a signature style of sepia-toned black-and-white images--sometimes enhanced digitally--that present his subjects as though they are ghosts from the past who have learned to sport expressions that only belong to the present and are exaggerated, often to the point of self-caricature. Woody Allen has never appeared as morbidly morose and despondent as he does in Hauser's study of him leaning forward against the back of a chair with his hair unkempt, his chin cradled in the palm of his hand, his wide eyes staring lugubriously at the lens and his lips dolefully turned down and slackly shut--a portrait of the artist as a middle-age depressive. Lacking the extravagant imagination of Annie Leibowitz, Hauser makes up for it with attitude, pushing his subjects' packaged images beyond the limits of decent hype.

Marc Hauser shows at David Leonardis Gallery, 217 West Huron, (312)863-9045, through February 6.

(2007-01-16)

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