Art Sinsabaugh: American Horizons
With this boast came unparalleled modesty. Sinsabaugh’s classic Illinois landscapes and cityscapes are cropped top and bottom until some of the prints are little more than an inch tall. Look into the next gallery at the Art Institute, where contemporary photographs are displayed, and you’ll see that Sinsabaugh’s mammoth camera turned out miniature prints compared to today’s standard-issue murals–we have much grander expectations of size. Today most photographers would scan Sinsabaugh’s long, skinny images into a computer and make digital prints as big as walls. But the road is what defines his work, not the wall; the photographic series, not the individual print, is his vehicle.
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It’s hard to say how much use the city made of Sinsabaugh’s photographs beyond illustrating some promotional reports. The nature of this undercover work was perhaps clearest to the photographer, who painted his station wagon the same orange as Chicago’s official street-repair vehicles.
Where: Art Institute of Chicago, Michigan & Adams
