This week’s picks. More listings here.

Let There Be Geo @ A D Gallery

Geometric work is fun as hell to look at, and Let There Be Geo (curiously curated by the organically inclined Elizabeth Burke-Dain) promises sixteen variations on the form from artists Jesse Brown, Nick Butcher, Jeff Canham, Jacob Hashimoto, Maya Hayuk, Cody Hudson, Steven Husby, Barbara Kasten, Chad Kouri, Nadine Nakanishi, John Parot, Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, Geoffrey Todd Smith, Jason Urban and Vanesa Zendejas. Show opens tonight, Thursday March 4th, from 5-9 PM @ A D Gallery, 619 S Wabash Ave.

Jesse Brown, Painting C

Steven Husby @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM

Speaking of geometric art, you can catch more of Steven Husby’s work the next night at PEREGRINEPROGRAM’s We Speak the Way We Breathe. The show opens Friday, March 5, from 6-9 PM @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM, 500 W Cermak Rd, 727.

Steven Husby

Matthew Metzger @ DOVA Temporary

Matthew Metzger somehow manages to get away with blending highly realistic painting with old fashioned modernist subject matter. His new show, The Interrogative Remainder, opens this Saturday, March 6th, from 6-9 PM @ DOVA Temporary, 5228 S Harper Ave.

Matthew Metzger

Vibrator @ Knock Knock Gallery

Carmen Price, Her Temple

Colonize it!

Check out these picks for my picks or more listings for more listings.

Fever Dream @ Roots & Culture

Expect a lot of physical, almost sculptural use of paint at Fever Dream at Roots & Culture, and some of the weird and shitty materials painters love so much these days. Paintings and the rest from Jacob Goudreault, Angel Otero, Max Reinhardt, Simon Slater, with special guest Easton Miller. The show opens this Friday, January 26th from 6-9 PM @Roots & Culture, 1034 N Milwaukee Ave.

Simon Slater, Hey Lew! I Can Never Be You.

TYPEFORCE @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

This weekend Bridgeport’s Co-Prosperity Sphere opens TYPEFORCE, a pretty broad-reaching survey of Chicago typography artists and designers, with work from (deep breath, since designers actually have websites): Jeremiah Chiu, Renata Graw, David Weik, Billy Baumann, Matthew Hoffman, Chris Eichenseer, Chad Kouri, Ryan Thurwell, Luke Williams, Tnop, Andy Luce, John Pobojewski, Darren McPherson, Lora Fosberg, Margo Harrington, Greg Calvert, Aaron Pedersen, Duncan MacKenzie, Will Miller and Nick Adam. Show opens Friday, February 27th from 6-9 PM @ Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan St, Chicago.

Darren McPherson

Ken Fandell @ Donald Young

Mysterious new work from Ken Fandell at Donald Young this month, some kind of off-site exhibition while Tony Wight puts the finishing touches on the new Washington Blvd space. Opens this Friday, February 26th from 5-7 PM @ Donald Young Gallery, 224 S Michigan Ave.

Ken Fandell

Isabella Ng and Millie Kapp @ Monument 2

Isabella Ng and Millie Kapp

Matt Saunders @ The Renaissance Society

Matt Saunders, Hertha Thiele (Frau Lehmann's Töchter) #3

I went to high-school with two of the artists mentioned in this preview!

For some reason this weekend is pretty stacked with lots of student shows, so good luck to those involved. As usual, the links below are just my picks, but you can click here are more listings and here for pretty much all of them.

An Evening With Your (Con)Temporaries @ The (Con)Temporary Art Space

Check out the inaugural reception for the new (Con)Temporary Art Space, Chicago’s latest hub of discourse and action and research with a roster of some very serious art workers: Douglas Burns, Tom Burtonwood, Emily Clayton, Theodore Darst, Josh Finck, Marian Frost, Elizabeth Furani, Laurra Hieber, Serena Himmelfarb, Holly Holmes, Henry James Glover, Nate Lee, Sarah Loude, Ed Marszewski, Rachael Marszewski, Tim Mellon, Andrew Rigsby, Chris Roberson, Kevin Stanton and Kenneth Zawacki. Reception for An Evening With Your (Con)Temporaries is tonight, Thursday, February 18th from 4:30 to 8:30 PM @ The (Con)Temporary Art Space, 208 S Wabash Ave.

Tom Burtonwood, Untitled

A selection of LA artist and SAIC alum Sterling Ruby’s video work is going to be shown at the Gene Siskel Film Center tonight as part of the Conversations at the Edge series. Catch the show and maybe meet the artist tonight, Thursday, February 18th @ 6 PM @ the Gene Siskel Film Center, 162 N State St. (Note: tickets are $10 general, $7 for students, less for members/SAIC relations.)

Sterling Ruby, Transient Trilogy (still)

Markus Hahn and Sean Ward @ Noble and Superior Projects

Two installation artists, Vienna’s Markus Hahn and Chicago’s Sean Ward put together a dual show for us this month at Noble and Superior Projects. Lots of surrendering to materials and found objects going on in both, so I guess we’ll see what the stuff has to say. Check out the opening this Friday, February 19th from 6-10 PM @ Noble and Superior Projects, 1418 W Superior St, Apartment 2R.

Scott Wolniak @ 65GRAND

New videos and paintings(!) from Scott Wolniak go up this month at 65GRAND. Be warned: the show, You Can Lose Your Balance, will be full of appropriately disorienting work set to which may send you tumbling down the space’s long spooky staircase. Show opens this Friday, February 19th from 7-10 PM @ 65GRAND, 1378 W Grand Ave, #3.

Room-a-Loom @ Swimming Pool Project Space

After successful instances around the country, Julia Sherman brought her Room-a-Loom idea to Chicago and turned the entire Swimming Pool Project Space into a big functioning loom. This Saturday the space will be showing off the resulting machine with a very fun, very participatory reception, where you’re invited to bring your own blue (and only blue) materials to the space and learn to weave on the loom. The show’s been up since January, but the reception event is this Saturday, February 20th from 6-10 PM @ Swimming Pool Project Space, 2858 W Montrose.

it was here all along. it never left.

This weekend is pretty stacked, but I’ll try to keep my picks spare and simple. For more full listings, click over to here or here or pretty much anywhere these days. Be nice to the CAA crowd!

Troy Richards @ Thomas Robertello

I thought Troy Richards’ video game was pretty cool when I learned about it two years ago, and the prints that came out of the work were just straight great. Richards’ new show The Perfect View is made up of big laser cut vinyls of an airplane crashed into a posh modernism home and opens this Friday, February 12th from 5-8 PM @  Thomas Robertello Gallery, 939 West Randolph St.

Troy Richards, Window

Ryan Travis Christian and Jonathan Runcio @ ebersmoore

This month at ebersmoore: two well paired solo shows from drippy black and white local Ryan Travis Christian and geometric/chromatic San Fracisco artist Jonathan Runcio. I caught an early view this week and filmed the dog. Check out the opening this Friday, February 12th from 6-9 PM @ ebersmoore, 213 N Morgan St, 3C. 

Ryan Travis Christian, Grandmas and the Grandmas

Emma Bee Bernstein @ DOVA Temporary

University of Chicago’s DOVA Temporary presents a slide-projection retrospective of the young and late Emma Bee Bernstein’s photography. Also featuring a catalog of critical essays from former faculty and many other Hyde Park art notables. Opening this Friday, February 12 from 5-8 @ DOVA Temporary, 5228 S Harper Ave.

Emma Bee Bernstein

ON PTG

Four galleries will host all of the artists participating in the Chicago Artist Association’s Studio Art Session Painting Panel (or CAASASPP for short), and I’ll just post them as one list. All Shows are this Saturday, February 13th:

Julius Cæsar will present work by Michelle Grabner, Thomas Lawson, Carrie Moyer and Scott Reeder, 4-7PM.

Shane Campbell Gallery will present work by Ann Craven, Peter Halley and Jon Pestoni, 6-8PM.

Rowley Kennerk Gallery will present the work of four painters on the CAA panel, Rebecca Morris, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Mary Heilmann and Varda Caivano, 7-10PM.

Western Exhibitions will present the work of four painters on the CAA panel, Susanna Coffey, Anoka Faruqee, Judy Ledgerwood, Sabina Ott plus Western Exhibitions gallery artist Richard Hull, 7-9PM. (Also at Western: Painters Painting, with work from Dan Attoe, Jimmy Baker, Carl Baratta, Nicholas Frank, Paul Nudd, Melissa Oresky and Geoffrey Todd Smith.)

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Tunnel Room

Re: @ POST Gallery

After ten months of running Chicago Art Review, I finally get to hype my own shit. Re: is a group show I put together about how artists respond to various image phenomena on the internet, and features work from Dee Clements, Brad Troemel,Dominic Paul Moore, Ryan Travis Christian, Lauren Christiansen, David Horvitz, and myself. Opening this Saturday, February 13th from 6-9 @ POST Gallery, 1816 S Racine Ave.

Brad Troemel, Mixed Desktop Beaches

we didn’t vote for a horse