Peregrine Program is a small, brand new gallery in the Riverfront Work Lofts building in Pilsen, ran by SAIC’s Edmund Chia. After spending a few minutes trying to find out how to get into the place (turns out it was the red door), then a few more finding the elevator, I arrived at the smallish one-room loft that contained Chicagoland the mostly self-lit show of miniatures by Daniel Lavitt.

Daniel Lavitt, Untitled

In Chicagoland, Lavitt tells his story of living in Chicago through miniatures. Having grown up with the Thorne Miniature Rooms collection, I’m immediately happy to see anything crafted at a small scale; and while there wasn’t a hobbyist’s exactness and minute quality in Lavitt’s work, ideas of relative scale and privacy were acknowledged and played with really well. In The Mozart Street House, the gallery wall intersects the face of a house at an off angle, and in the upstairs window, a lamp light lights a room or a studio with a painting on the wall. In a clever turn on the King Kong voyeurism of miniature rooms, a motion sensor tucked under the eve of the roof controls this light, darkening the room whenever a viewer passes in front of it as if clicked off as if by a paranoid and drapeless artist worried about early exposure.

Daniel Lavitt, Project #33250

Many of the pieces are pretty straightforward, cool little combinations of light fixtures or miniature lights, content to stick to the novelty of scale and causal relationships within a work. A few go for something more descriptive, like Lavitt’s, Project #33250, which injects human individuality into the modular domesticity of urban housing projects, and plays out that story in colored lights and tiny paintings in standard issue cardboard boxes.

Daniel Lavitt, Project #33250 (detail)

Chicagoland has the kind of intimate, fun atmosphere that this kind of sculptural work is great at, and there were some notable moments of concept and craft connection. It’s pretty light fare for a show about urban living, but personality and play was the point and it has plenty of both.

I give it a:

8.1

Daniel Lavitt‘s Chicagoland opened January 22nd and runs through February 26th, 2010 @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM, 500 W. Cermak Rd, 727.

Here’s what I’m thinking of seeing this weekend. More shows and more infos available here.

Art Auction Fundraiser @ Johalla Projects

Dozens of artists have donated work for an auction this Friday to prop up Wicker Park apartment gallery Johalla Projects. A quick selection of participants: Nathan Baker,Bridgette Buckley, Elijah Burgher, Philip Dembinski, Anni Holm, Aron Gent, Jon Gitelson, Chad Kouri, Daniel Shea, Montgomery Perry Smith. The names look great and the auction model they’re using does too, so stop by and bring some spending money. The fundraiser will be held this Friday, January 29th from 7-11 PM @ Johalla Projects, 1561 N Milwaukee Ave.

Aron Gent, Jennifer

Dialogue @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

Hold up spell-checker, this is an international show. Dialogue is a product of IRUS, a group of one-year Iran-United States collaborative art projects which will be coming to Bridgeport’s Co-Prosperity Sphere this weekend. Dialogue opens this Friday, January 29th from 7-10 PM @ Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St.

IRUS

Angel Otero @ Chicago Cultural Center

Chicago painter Angel Otero is having his biggest solo show yet this month at the Chicago Cultural Center. See what post-MFA international success and collectability looks like this Friday, January 29th from 6-8 PM @ Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington St, Chicago.

Angel Otero, 10 Karat Still Life

The Power of Selection & Suitable Video @ Western Exhibitions

Curated by the very same Ryan Travis Christian responsible for this site’s Artist of the Week picks, The Power of Selection is a group show featuring work by CA artists Alika Cooper, Allison Schulnik, Marissa Textor, Eric Yahnker, and Chicago’s own Mike Rea. In the back room, Scott Wolniak‘s Suitable Video is a retrospective look at work shown in the front half of last decade at Humboldt Park’s now-defunct Suitable Gallery. Both shows have a closing reception this Saturday, January 30th from 6-9 PM @ Western Exhibitions, 119 N. Peoria St, 2A.

Mike Rea, Tsavo Manhunters, Part 1

The drying of [oil paint] is the result of an oxidative reaction, chemically equivalent to slow, flameless combustion.

This week’s picks from Ryan:

Noah Davis, Richard's Reply

Landon Metz, Untitled

Julia Galdo

Grant Barnhart, Dreamcatcher

Ruth Laskey, Twill Series ( Bright Yellow / Tangerine )

Servando Garcia, Cow

Kottie Paloma, Come on Buddy

eyes like cherries in a vat of buttermilk

There have been a lot of shows lately with occult, mysterious, or power image content, but Elijah Burgher does more with the material than most. In his work on display at Shane Campbell‘s Oak Park space, Burgher knits together queer culture and witchcraft/sorcery/the occult with soft, muted drawings of nude men preparing spaces for and performing intimate (though not overly sexual) rituals.

Elijah Burgher, Preparing a Ritual Space 2

There are many of points of connection in the queer/occult relationship, from the in the social deviant role given to both by mainstream culture, to insider signs and signals, to the fearful potentials of private physical rituals in the minds of the uninitiated or ignorant. While that alone would be enough to carry the work, Burgher’s goes farther and escapes the limits of this pure analogy through a somewhat fantastic discussion of intimacy as functional ritual, designed both to mark and bond participants while honoring an idea or changing reality into a more desirable form.

Elijah Burgher, Promise Delivery

Elijah Burgher, JCDC

For all their modest size and materials, Burgher’s small drawings on spiral bound paper are able to mark out a wide space for discussion, even beyond the almost certainly terminal topic of gay sorcerers.

I give it a:

7.8

Elijah Burgher exhibition opened January 24th and runs through April 18th, 2010 @ Shane Campbell Gallery, 125 N. Harvey Ave. Many more images can be found at Elijah Burgher’s blog.