"One photo in the Eastern corner of the gallery depicts what Sekula and Walker both call a peculiar campus ritual--University students and staff gather around to watch the high-noon shadow of Dialogo, the bronze sculpture by Virginio Ferrari in front of Pick Hall on May 1, which is rumored to form the shape of a hammer and sickle.

"That event with the shadow is just ready-made irony," Sekula said. "People come to see that rumored apparition of the hammer and sickle at noon on May Day. Some look to be more conservative, some to be more hip, young, politically liberal or left. I like to look at it as a physiognomy of the University community," he said; in that sense, the piece puts the University's conservative and liberal personas in tension, and suggests its role in global economic affairs.

The statue may not cast the exact shadow of a hammer and sickle, Walker adds, "But it's near enough to activate wishful thinking, which can't be discredited. Who would show up for this rumored event?" On the opposite wall is a photo of the 2009 May Day Parade in downtown Chicago. "You've got this working-class protest going on at exactly the same time--and you can see that the issues of immigration and labor rights are hopelessly intertwined.""

The exhibit is up through the end of Autumn Quarter (Dec. 13). The Renaissance Society is located at the fourth floor of Cobb Hall.