Last Saturday saw the final show at Mini Dutch, Lucia Fabio‘s seasoned apartment gallery in Logan Square. Having ran the gallery for more than two years (a truly respectable amount of time for any alternative space), Lucia and her fiance Robert Mueller chose to close it out by exhibiting the art they’d personally collected along the way.

As sorry as it is to see a space like Mini Dutch go, all apartment gallery owners take note: if you’ve got to go out, this is the way to do it.

Lucia Fabio and Robert Mueller

By some luck I arrived at the gallery early and despite my tics and ticks was graciously invited in to snap some pictures and chat and distract while the titular duo finished up the final points of the show. Though I missed the meat of the event – the memories and good-byes and champagne toasts – I was allowed a sunny private view of the work, which was a great thing indeed considering the art in the space.

I don’t think it would be entirely appropriate to critique a personal collection, so I’ll limit myself to congradulating Lucia on bringing the work out for us to see in a way that could have easily passed for a dream-team group show of Chicago artists. Many small and medium-sized works were presented here from artists like Chris Millar (who I’d call one of the the best artists living in the city at the moment), the soon-to-be-in-New-York Stacie Johnson (her new project named Wandering Caterpillar is well worth a look), E. C. Brown, Mark Porter, and many, many more.

Here are some pictures!

Chris Millar, Life Inside a Very Small Painting

Andrew Holmquest, New Heart (The Bob Newhart Show)

Blazo Calovic, Untitled

Stacie Johnson, Frontside: Starburst with Mirrors

 

Carol Jackson, I burst from my confinement then hid unseen amid the rocks until the flies gave way to gnats.

I wish Lucia the best in her new place on the left coast and hope that if or when she ends up starting a new alternative (or more standard) space, she would choose to open it with this exact same show. It would be as perfect a Hello show in California as it was a Good-Bye show in Chicago. Good luck!

I give it a:

Selections from the Fabio-Mueller Collection was held Saturday, July 11th at Mini Dutch, 3111 W. Diversy (1st floor apartment).