Michael Weinstein

Shooting in black and white, Hana Jakrlova wanders through the cities of Europe reviving the old-school street photography of the inter-war period and showing us what the world today looks like through its lens. A devotee of the Czech tradition of poetic realism founded by Josef Sudek, Jakrlova puts bristling surrealistic hooks into her straight studies, as when—on a rainy day in Brussels—she captures a seductive woman in profile holding an umbrella over her head as a man hunched under his umbrella walks up the street completely disconnected from her and forever unaware of her charms. Keeping strictly within the constraints of her genre, Jakrlova deploys all of its possibilities—especially the wealth of angles from which to take a shot—to endow everyday life with heightened charges of stimulation in a world that looks much the same, but for superficial streamlining, as it did decades ago.

Hana Jakrlova shows at Flatfile Galleries, 217 North Carpenter, (312)491-1190. Through August 17. (2007-07-31)

Also by Michael Weinstein

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In a postmodern tour de force, South Korean photo-sculptor Myungkeun Koh takes photo-transparencies of Greek and Roman statues and places them on the inner sides of acrylic boxes in a successful attempt to transform stone into the illusion of living flesh
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Of the twelve photographers here addressing family and friendship, eleven take deeply personal approaches and one is entirely stagy
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