Laura LetinskyHardly More Than Ever, Photographs 1997-2004

Domestic Arrangements. This phrase sums up the work of Chicago-based photographer Laura Letinsky whether it is one of her highly intimate portraits of heterosexual couples or a delicately composed still life. Letinsky constructs allegories of love, and labors lost, out of personal settings, from a tender exchange between lovers in their bedroom, to reflections upon the fleeting nature of life prompted by a vanitas composed from an abandoned place setting at the dining room table. Hers is an elegant voyeurism, whose visual references range from the school of candid photography dating back to Walker Evans to a handling of light and atmosphere associated with pre-Raphaelite paintings. The photographs are formally stunning, deriving their intelligence from a sensitivity for moments when questions of beauty, representation, and modern love avail themselves to being seen.