Michael Weinstein

Continuing her welcome project of bringing the latest Chinese photography to Chicago, gallerist Julie Walsh gives Mo Yi's intimate look at his native city Tianjin its American debut. In hundreds of small color photos divided into thematic sets—the famous public chalk boards, rusty air conditioners, bed sheets and blankets in various states of distress hanging out to dry, barred windows revealing humble objects, scruffy courtyards graced with bicycles and dirty communal hallways criss-crossed by pipes and electrical wires—Tianjin, through Mo Yi's lens, bodies forth as a decidedly blue-collar place that recalls images of the Great Depression. Given the pervasive hype about China as an emerging economic colossus, the cumulative impact of Mo Yi's visual ethnography provides an important corrective to the media's mythology.

Mo Yi shows at Walsh Gallery, 118 North Peoria, (312)829-3312. Through July 14.

(2007-06-22)

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