There are still a few hours left in 2009, so here are my top five for the year. Since I started the blog well into the year, and have by no means the exposure to form any conclusive pool to reflect upon, I’ll only go with what I know. I can’t say that the following list even suggests the quantitatively best shows of the year in Chicago, but they are the shows that stand out in my memory as excellent, influencial art viewing experiences.

1) Pop Sizzle Hum, Single Channels @ Tony Wight

As a painter, Pop Sizzle Hum was a pleasure to see. The pieces were outstanding, extremely well balanced, and showed what overlapping talent there is in the city. Single Channels was an almost perfect counterpart, with Timothy Hutchings’ and Allison Schulnik’s works some of the best video I’d ever seen.

2) Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture

Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture brought together an incredible amount of stellar work. It was a great big gorgeous show, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

3) Dutes Miller @ Western Exhibitions

Miller was able to make a really enjoyable show out of images and ideas that are too often given a mediocre and boring treatment. Night Falling is one of the best pieces I saw this year.

4) David Horvitz @ Believe Inn

Intimacy and sincerity are two things I rarely see, but Horvitz’s work was thick with both and still ice cool. Every piece in his show at Believe Inn was interesting, which is a great accomplishment.

5) Brennan McGaffey‘s Fire & Judgment

There were a few really cool performances and one night events, but Fire & Judgment was so strange and hypnotic that I still find myself thinking about it. No list of my favorite shows of the year would be complete without it.

That’s five! I wish I could include Big Youth from Corbett vs. Dempsey, as I consider it the best painting show of the year, but I didn’t really go to it enough to comment on it thoroughly. See you next year!

Say Hi to Kristin Reger, a post-chicago artist who will be now and then covering Chicagoish art events in New York. Curious about the funky ad for RADAR EYES I’d seen on the back of the most recent Lumpen magazine, I asked Kristin to talk about the show, which she co-curated in New York and which featured plenty of Chicago artists.

RADAR EYES is an exhibition of “Hallucinogenic Printmaking” on view through December 30 at Fardom Gallery in New York. The traveling exhibition, brainchild of Montreal’s prolific screenprinting duo Seripop, debuted in 2008 as a curatorial collaboration with Chicago gallerist Reuben Kinkaid at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport. The 2009 incarnation of the RADAR EYES features a selection from over 50 artists and includes highlights from Le Dernier Cri (France); Zeloot (Holland); Sakura Maku (New York); Danimal (Minneapolis); Xander Marro and Lief Goldberg (Providence); and Chicago’s Cody Hudson, Dan Grzeca, Sonnenzimmer, Delicious Design League, and Plural.

Though almost exclusively comprised of screen prints, the exhibition brings together a range of technique and subject matter. Compare Gunsho‘s monster prints – beautifully rendered, incredibly disgusting drawings printed with exacting registration, careful color selection and more than 10 inks with different finishes – with Rasmus Svensson‘s scratchy sketches of people and animals, gratuitously layered in three or four neon inks, and purpously so far of kilter they might be better viewed with 3-D glasses. (Kristin Reger)

Check out the images below, or the Flickr gallery here.

Radar Eyes @ Fardom Gallery

Radar Eyes @ Fardom Gallery

Radar Eyes @ Fardom Gallery

For the jet set, check the show until December 2nd out at Fardom Gallery, 25-17 41st Avenue, Long Island City.

I only saw two shows this weekend but I just know there were more out there. What did you see? What did you like? Use the Comment feature below and tell me all about it.

I think of Tony Tasset every time I pee.

One of the shows I enjoyed but never wrote about was Claire Rojas’ Believe Me @ Kavi Gupta. A folk fantasy on massive and micro scales, Believe Me is a blender trip through imagination and culture with narratives as endearing and bizzare as any real folk lore. As a kicker, their second space features the show Variations on a Theme, worth seeing for more than just the Angel Otero pieces.

Recognize the Lights?

Claire Rojas @ Kavi Gupta

Claire Rojas @ Kavi Gupta

Claire Rojas @ Kavi Gupta

If you haven’t made it up to Kavi Gupta yet, this weekend is your last chance for a bit – the shows go down on the 25th, and the next exhibition (Melanie Schiff) isn’t scheduled until September 11th. Some other shows to catch before they close: SAIC’s Making Modern closes this Saturday, Tony Wight will be taking down his two shows next Friday until the Robyn O’Neil show on 9/11, and Western Exhibitions will close out its two shows show next Saturday, with their 9/11 openening featuring Paul Nudd and Dan Attoe. Lots of stuff to see.