The French knew a thing or two about the power of the working classes and the impact of their rebelliousness. Their discontent arose from the daily grind of Parisian streets, the deafening noise of steam-powered factories, and the relentless chatter that filled the bars and music halls. They understood that the mundane is never meaningless; rather, it is the restlessly ebullient matter from which our ideas are formed. Only the snobbish aristocracy denigrated the mundane to aggrandize itself and quell the indomitable and unsettling vibrancy of the everyday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The seemingly banal, the commonplace, and the trivial are the invention of a bored upper class obsessed with elitism, power, and money. The rare, the expensive, and the exuberant became the palliative to the stultifying constrictions of that class\u2019s privilege. Unfortunately, our modernist aspirations led us to inherit this malaise. In reaction to this dazzlement by the sublime, this enthrallment by the unique, \u201creclaiming the banal\u201d is a political form of cultural rebellion. In the everyday always lies the germ of a cultural revolution\u2014an opportunity to reconsider the value of all things around us from a personal perspective, to write our own mythologies, and once again to enrich our impoverished world beyond the capitalist drives that far too often define what is worth and what isn\u2019t in our lives. Jin Lee\u2019s photographs at the Chicago Cultural Center are a portentous example of this vital cultural reclamation process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_Great_installation-view.jpg\")
Views and Scenes<\/em>, exhibition view, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, 2022.
Photo : James Prinz, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
On show in the exhibition Views and Scenes<\/em> are four bodies of work that closely examine landscapes and built environments around Chicago. Lee deliberately avoids the tourist attractions and local landmarks\u2014the Chicago that she portrays is unrecognizable. The resulting fragmented urban portraits are deeply personal and yet simultaneously grounded in the city\u2019s tumultuous past and complicated present. On a surface level, her photographs are factually obvious\u2014they engage with the vernacular of the documentary, they radiate impeccable clarity. But just beneath that surface lies their metaphorical, iconic aura. Mostly, people remain absent, but the social commentary runs deep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Great Water<\/em> shows views of Lake Michigan taken from a single location on the South Side of Chicago. At first glance, the series looks like an objective study of water and atmospheric effects, and yet each photograph implicitly refers to the land it omits. The lake is cast as a witness to the vicissitudes of a restless city fighting for social justice and constantly finding itself smothered by financial speculation and political corruption. It is hard not to read these images, at times still and at others simmering, as hermetic portraits of the city\u2019s unconscious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Salt Mountains<\/em> brings together photographs of piles and mounds of salt and dirt found in construction and storage sites around Chicago. Simultaneously epic and trivial, these human-made miniature geologies\u2014temporary sedimentations of relentless unnatural, industrial processes\u2014question our conception of the urban landscape within the cityscape. The anthropogenic views are lunar or glacial, arid and desolate, at once remote and near. They poetically question the nature-culture dichotomy, its outdated separatism, and the usefulness of its persistence to how we think about the urban environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Weeds<\/em> is a photographic herbarium of wild plants that grow in alleys and empty lots. Symbols of resilience and strength, Lee\u2019s weeds are pictured against white-painted walls that ironically evoke the purity and scientific objectivity of eighteenth-century botanical illustrations. On one level, these are individual portraits of unsung city survivors\u2014these plants are the antithesis of the lush cultivars that grace The Magnificent Mile in the summer months. On another level, it is hard not to read this series as a commentary on the social disparity that pervades the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lastly, Train View<\/em> comprises images taken during Lee\u2019s weekly two-hour Amtrak commute between Chicago and Bloomington\/Normal. As she notes, the series captures \u201cin-between spaces, not accessible from the streets or highways.\u201d An old prison tower; the limestone quarry where the prisoners once worked; junkyards, graffiti, and self-storage units\u2014this photographic series metaphorically works as an envelope for the others on show. Lee\u2019s photographs question our engagement with changing American social and natural landscapes\u2014and, in the process, they redefine the very notion of what landscape might be and what roles we might play within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_Great-water_152020.jpg\")
Great Water 15<\/em>, 2020.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_Great-water_192020.jpg\")
Great Water 19<\/em>, 2020.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_salt-mountain_52013.jpg\")
Salt Mountain 5<\/em>, 2013.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_salt-mountain_32013.jpg\")
Salt Mountain 3<\/em>, 2013.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_weed_32012.jpg\")
Weed 3<\/em>, 2012.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_weed_62012.jpg\")
Weed 6<\/em>, 2012.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/webzine_juin_Aloi_Jin-Lee_train-view-winter-cemetary2019.jpg\")
Winter Cemetery<\/em>, from the Train View <\/em>series, 2012.
Photo : courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n