An exhibition I viewed on Friday at the Avram Eisen Gallery titled "The End of the 80s" includes a couple of shadowboxes by Sean Culver. My guess turned out correct that the photographic images within the boxes were daguerreotypes, similar to ones I have come across in antique stores.
In a quick glance I saw formal portraits of a shirtless man holding an open book in one box, and a woman with eyes closed wearing a black dress in the other. On closer examination a disturbing object revealed itself in the center of each.
Inside each black-lined box a pair of daguerreotypes are mounted at 90ยบ to each other. Being highly reflective by their nature, they share their imagery, which involves the person on one plate and a more sinister image on the opposite plate -- a skeletal hand and a scorpion, respectively.
To me these combined images signify mortality or some malady of the soul. I came away feeling like an anthropologist who has discovered what it was that killed someone's great-grandparents.
The exhibition continues through August 31, 2009 at 5204 N. Damen Avenue in Chicago.
Posts
