Michael Weinstein

Inviting comparison with astral formations, forests, gardens, deserts and seabeds, this exhibition of fifty intricately beautiful microscopic photographs of slices of the nervous system provides compelling evidence for the aesthetic unity of perceived nature. Amid the visual delights, ironies abound. Torsten Wittmann's study of "Inhibitory Neurons in a Rat's Cerebral Cortex" takes the honors for the most stunning and exquisite image, presenting us with a scene recalling a forest clearing rife with bright red flowers and spindly, spiny and sinuous fresh-green vines. In contrast, Inigo Azcoitin's shot of the "Human Cerebral Cortex" reveals a patch of baked desert bearing fading impressions of footprints. These images are, indeed, the "landscapes" that the show’s title promises us, and they make us wish that we could inhabit them in real life rather than hold them inaccessibly inside our bodies.

"Neuron Landscapes" shows at Instituto Cervantes, 875 North Michigan, (312)335-1996, through February 1. (2007-12-31)

Also by Michael Weinstein

Tip of the Week
Among young photo-artists today, two conflicting tendencies assert themselves, one of them struggling for an as-yet-inchoate new vision, and the other depicting the exhaustion of the recent past. The three contributors to this show are the executioners of the past that they have inherited
(2007-12-18)

Endangered Species
"I suppose I am a heretic," David Plowden says with more than a touch of jovial irony. He is also a man who has achieved wisdom through his lifelong romance with the world through his camera
(2007-11-13)

Tip of the Week
In a madcap dance with the absurd, Jeff Mueller appropriates old black-and-white photographs, projects them on large light-sensitive canvases, surrounds his subjects with sketchy line drawings and then scrawls texts across his images that often dissolve into illegibility and set up an implosion of meaning
(2007-10-30)

Tip of the Week
In a photographic tour de force, Colleen Plumb has shot images of every conceivable way that animals enter the human environment, from two bounding deer invading an exurban back yard to a row of heads of those fauna mounted on a wall
(2007-08-28)

Tip of the Week
(2007-08-21)

Tip of the Week
(2007-08-14)

Tip of the Week
(2007-08-07)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-31)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-24)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-17)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-10)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-02)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment