Chicago-Scope: the Films of Tom Palazzolo, 1967-1976 December 18, 2010

'Chicago-Scope' celebrates one of Chicago's original experimental filmmakers. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Tom Palazzolo attended graduate school for painting and photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His classmates at the time included several Chicago Imagists (Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, and Karl Wirsum), with whom he has exhibited his work. Palazzolo began making films in 1965, a key moment for experimental film in the United States. Since then, his colorful, subtly critical documentaries have captured Chicago's complex sociopolitical fabric. Taking as his muse the rich Americana and quotidian rituals of his environment, Palazzolo chronicled bodybuilding, senior picnics, carnivals, parades, protests, weddings, and the like in over 50 films that have been screened at museums, film festivals, and cinemas around the world. Between 2005 and 2007, Chicago Filmmakers preserved eight of Palazzolo's early films, three of which are included in the Art Institute's presentation. 'Chicago-Scope' focuses on a key period of Palazzolo's development as a filmmaker. This exhibition of four important films from 1967 to 1976 explores the decade bridging the artist's early Surrealist experimentations and quirky cinema verite portraits. A sense of the absurd connects these works.