Crime Unseen is running at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Photography thru January 15th.  Admission is free.

Crime Unseen is a show examining two worlds of photography.  It is an exhibition exploring how photography – drawing on “photojournalism, forensic photography and documentary landscape” – reflects and records crime, inquiring as to the impact a violent act can have on a participant, a witness, a location, or a society.  Curator and Associate Director Karen Irvine for the Museum explains on the web page dedicated to the exhibition: “In fighting crime, the notion of truth is imperative, so we put photographs to work as a way of determining the actions and identities of perpetrators, though sometimes such judgments prove to be inaccurate.”

Though photography is the most accurate visual representation that has yet been devised, it is still just that: a representation.  It can be altered, and even when it is unadulterated, its capacity for truth is severely limited.  Because of this assumed inherent objectivity, though, some things are lost.  First is a sense of context, where undeserved value is placed on the photograph as evidence of pure fact and representation of reality.  The second sacrificed element is often the human connection between the viewer of the photographer and the forensic eye which is examining it.  A photographed knife is viewed merely as evidence, where its size is measured, its location is documented, and the blood splatter is analyzed.  It becomes removed from the actual act it was used in, detached from the flesh it tore.  The lens and film create a barrier, separating the traditionally analytic and forensic eyes for which crime photography was originally intended.  The show’s best works permeate or completely remove that barrier. …Continue reading this entry