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Ron Gordon: Printer's Row Photographs
June 17 - July 17, 1999

Gourmand Coffeehouse
728 South Dearborn
Chicago, Illinois 60603
Telephone: 312/ 427-2610
Art Sales: Sheila Howe 312/ 922-5743

Only a few short years ago the areas around the Chicago River still carried the whiff of Nelson Algren's Chicago -- bookies in garish plaid jackets, your average working joes, a few very suspect ladies and, only slightly less suspect, newspaper reporters. Coffee was wet, not flavored, and grease was considered a condiment.

It's all gone. As are many earlier Chicagos.

(There are photographs.)

Ask for Ron.

"Ron Gordon: Printer's Row Photographs" at the Gourmand Coffeehouse in Printer's Row, Chicago, features a selection of twenty-four photographs which offer documentation of that area's character prior to this past decade's 'gentrification.' By the time these photos were made Printer's Row had ceased to be a printer's row -- its heyday had passed. Gordon's photographs capture the buildings, the interiors and some of those who, like Julius Gilliand, "knew the area when it was a bustling commercial district with publishers and typesetters and book binders and restaurants and bars," or, in the words of Ron Gordon, "printers' center by day but by night ... bars, lounges, strip joints and gritty city politics,"

After a Fulbright grant to pursue a doctorate in French literature, and a stay in Paris in the 1960s, Gordon returned to Chicago and worked in commercial photo labs. He eventually set up his own darkroom in a rehabbed loft in the Rowe Building of the South Loop. His European travel heightened a sense of history and he noted to writer Bill Stametz: "I learned a building wasn't old until it was ten centuries old."

The photographic technique in Gordon's work is well done and the pieces are well-printed. Gordon creates an excellent record of the physical environments that were soon to pass, either into destruction or radical rennovation. And the work does present a number of personalities one would have liked to have met. Herman Kramer is a good example, and the photographer states: When I met Herman in 1979, he was 80 years old and still coming into work every day. He loved what he did and was proud of it. He graciously showed me around his shop and posed for this portrait."

As a personal preference, one wishes that the people in the photographs could have been captured more casually, in the course of their normal activities. The strength of their individual stories seems at variance with the static inventories of decor and objects about them. The people and the setting almost seem to each require a separate treatment. But, given the intent to document a final moment, perhaps it is right that the sitters pause, and pose, stilled both by time and Gordon's camera lens. Whether the self-conscious pose arises from the documentary nature or a particular aesthetic intent, it lends a finality, a patina to the images.

Gordon includes several multiple image, narrative sequences in this showing. "National Cafeteria" is a representative example: Gordon starts with the abandoned, but intact building on site and captures the progressive stages of its demolition. The final image is emptiness. His formats vary, being generally four shots horizontal and three vertical, or sometimes three by three, and in some cases the series sports an out-of-sequence flashback. The ensembles of this type seem much more effective than any film or animation work. There is a motion within stasis -- the viewer is accorded a freedom denied by motion film and this lends itself all-the-more to feeling of irrevicable loss. Gordon noted to Bill Stametz: "I abhor the change of scale going on in this culture. It disturbs me to no end."

The artist makes a good point. He does it with visual impact. Its worth stopping by to view Ron Gordon's Printer's Rpw photographs.

The photographer's latest book, Ron Gordon's Selected Photographs (Prospectus Gallery: 1998), is available from Sandmeyer's Bookstore, 714 South Dearborn, Chicago 60605 (Telephone: 312/ 922-2104). It costs 20 dollars, plus tax. And those wishing to purchase original prints may contact Sheila Malloy Howe at 312/ 922-5743 or at MSHEILA66.HOTMAIL.COM

--G. Jurek Polanski

Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net.