El going over the river, fog obstructing the tops of buildings in the background. B&W
Acquisition
Notes
Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Gift of Stephen Daiter
Made/Created
Artist
Ishimoto, Yasuhiro
Date made
1959 - 1961
Ethnography
Notes
North America
United States
Chicago
Japanese American
Inscription/Signature/Marks
Type
Signature
Location
Below image; BR
Transcription
[Artist signature]
Material/Technique
graphite
Type
Inscription
Location
V: BL
Transcription
003.065.3.9(2?)
Material/Technique
graphite
Lexicon
Legacy Lexicon
Class
PHOTOGRAPHS
Dimensions
Dimension Description
Image
Width
10 in
Length
7-1/4 in
Dimension Description
Sheet
Width
11 in
Length
14 in
Interpretative Labels
Label Type
Cultural/Historical Context
Label
Besides documenting social changes, Yasuhiro Ishimoto's "Chicago, Chicago" series underscored the signs and symbols that were visible throughout the urban environment. Frequently, the photographs offer implicit commentary on the scene that they supposedly merely record, as in the billboards that proclaim, “Pay or Die!” in front of which a black and a white man seem to hurry by in opposite directions, or the juxtaposition of the marquee words “Ace” and “Money,” while a man handling a rifle ominously looms above them. But Ishimoto’s views of the gleaming skyscrapers and the impressive skyline also suggest that the new construction was displacing and replacing the older buildings and people found in his earlier photographs.
