Art in Review

'Chicago Photography, 1935-65' James Danziger Gallery 130 Prince Street, SoHo Through May 31

If there is an identifiable "Chicago style" in photography, it derives from the experiments with photographic abstraction and collage pursued at the New Bauhaus founded in 1937 by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and later reorganized as the Institute of Design.

But the New Bauhaus style had to compete with more conventional but no less interesting styles of photodocumentary and photojournalism. Accordingly, Moholy-Nagy's abstract photograms are hung on the wall here next to a contemporary street scene by Gordon Coster (a relative unknown) showing a row of shabby brick facades with downtown skyscrapers looming in the distance.

The same tension often existed within the work of photographers associated with the Institute of Design. Nathan Lerner, for instance, is represented both by abstract compositions, done in 1938, and by a realistic shot of "Cakes in a Window," from 1937. But within this realistic scene, he contrasts the abstract patterns of marbled pound cakes and straight-edged shelves.

Overall, the most interesting discoveries here are of photographers working within the documentary rather than the abstract tradition. Yasuhiro Ishimoto contributes two splendid shots of broad-bottomed beachgoers lining up at a refreshment stand around 1952.

Mickey Pallas's 1959 portrait of a suburban family posed symmetrically in a broad-finned Buick convertible looks not backward to the Bauhaus, but forward to the Pop Art of the 60's. PEPE KARMEL