ORD 1986
Alvin Boyarsky has described O’Hare Airport as Chicago’s Versailles. Between 1984 and 1987 I focused on this project as an investigation of an unexplored urban landscape, in this case a mid western prairie adapted to accommodate air travel. My objective was to explore this large tract of land that was usually experienced either from the air, or from a runway travelling at high speeds. I was interested in the abrupt transition between the densely populated terminals and the edges of the airfield that included picturesque wooded areas inhabited only by wildlife. Two years into the project I began to work with Larry Viskochil, Curator of Photography at the Chicago Historical Society on an exhibition. In 1989, O’Hare Airport: Airfield on the Prairie, opened at the CHS with an accompanying catalogue. The exhibition of 103 chromogenic prints, along with additional images not included in the show, were acquired by the CHS for the Prints and Photographs Collection. The work was also exhibited in Toronto at Gallery TPW and acquired by a number of museum collections including the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.
