Chicago, IL - The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Columbia College Chicago opens three exhibitions that investigate American identity and behavior, documenting the earnest theatricality of vernacular storytelling, tourism, and consumerism through which many recreate their past and present.  On exhibit August 18, 2006 — October 14, 2006.

Tim Davis’ series My Life in Politics depicts the detritus of our civic involvement as pop culture: buttons, bumper stickers, cardboard cutouts and handmade signs compete with myriad other trappings of capitalism.  Davis offers little judgment and no partisanship, presenting the political landscape as divisive, muddled and unresolved.  Tim Davis studied photography at Bard College, graduating in 1991.  He pursued a career as a poet and editor in New York before returning to photography, receiving an MFA from Yale University in 2001.  He has since had solo shows in Brussels, Geneva, Whitecube in London, Milan, and New York, including a recent exhibition at the Bohen Foundation.

Greta Pratt’s photographs explore how we perceive history — specifically, American history — through individual experience, notions of patriotism, nostalgia and community.  Pratt depicts physical historic sites, re-enactments and museums with an eye to how locals and tourists alike interact with them today — simultaneously capturing past, present and future with warmth and wit.  Greta Pratt is the author of two books of photographs, Using History, Steidl, 2005 and In Search of the Corn Queen, National Museum of American Art, 1994.  Pratt’s work is included in major public and private collections, and her photographs have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, American Art, and Photo District News.  She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1987.