Pieces of History
Singling out the gargantuan replacement for the old Comiskey, Gordon says, “I abhor the change of scale going on in this culture. It disturbs me to no end.” He recalls a time when most buildings had a public function. Loop office towers, for instance, were all once like the Monadnock, welcoming the public at large; newer buildings have security guards in their lobbies–they only serve their tenants. Even our public buildings seem designed to frustrate: in the Harold Washington Library Center, patrons must board a series of escalators to get to the books. “You can’t walk through the first floor of the renovated Dearborn Station,” Gordon complains. “It’s telling you not to go in there.” He regrets the rate at which Chicago erases its past and mourns the vanishing of eras embodied not only in buildings but in their inhabitants. “Ron Gordon, Selected Photographs, 25 Years,” an exhibit of 89 of his black-and-white pictures, is on view at the Prospectus Art Gallery, 1210 W. 18th Street, through June 20.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“I’m a big fan of irony and meaninglessness,” chuckles Gordon. In the exhibit catalog, curator and critic Kenneth Burkhart likens the variation in Gordon’s sequences to “the stanzas of a beat poet…with all the atonal blunt diatribe.” Gordon’s elegies mute his outrage. Building With Pigeons, for instance, is a single photograph showing a half-gutted four-story building. The exposed floors and walls resemble the grid format. Above this anonymous structure, he captures a blur of pigeons in flight.
