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Weekend Preview – virgin fest

The festival season kicks off with Versionfest 2010 tonight and this weekend, an eleven day continuum of art and music which will have many more events and sub-events than I can feature here. I’d check out the itinerary at their website (the calendar at the top of the page) for the details, and show up at the opening party on Friday too. To plug myself: If you’re down on Sunday for the NFO XPO @ Benton House, I’ll be taking part in a round-table discussion about art criticism and art writing with a number of other artists/art-writers/bloggers, etc.

Anyway, here are my picks for this week. Check out more here and here.

Claire Pentecost @ threewalls

Photography professor and ambitious project artist Claire Pentecost hooks up with threewalls to present VictoryLand (you, I shall answer your letter), an exhibition of many-media work about good and evil and life and death. Opens this Friday, April 23rd from 6-9PM @ threewalls, 119 N Peoria St, 2D.

Claire Pentecost

Stacie Johnson & Alexis Mackenzie @ ebersmoore

This month Chicago brings Stacie Johnson left from New York and Alexis Mackenzie right from LA, the pair meeting in between for a double solo show at ebersmoore. Mackenzie’s collages and Johnson’s painted still lifes should look pretty great together, but find out for yourself at the opening on Friday, April 23rd from 6-10PM @ ebersmoore, 213 N Morgan St.

Stacie Johnson, Spiky Spin

Earthworks @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Earthy artworks make for good museum shows and coffee table books. Earthworks at the Museum of Contemporary Art promises both, with installations and recreations from Robert Smithson, Mary Brogger, and Sam Durant opening on the third floor and the books in the gift shop. The exhibition kicks off this Saturday, April 24th @ the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E Chicago Ave.

Robert Smithson

Transitions and Translations @ Concertina Gallery

Curator Joe Iverson brings together the visual accompaniments from seven Visual Critical Studies grad students’ written theses in Transitions and Translations at Concertina Gallery. This might take the heady cake for this weekend, but I’m certainly interested in seeing what this show looks like. Artists include Amanda Brinkman, Maureen A. Burns, Joel Kuennen, Susan Morelock, Benjamin Pearson, Brian Wallace, and Jorge Mujica, and the opening is this Saturday, April 24th from 7-10PM @ Concertina Gallery, 2351 N Milwaukee Ave, 2nd floor.

Amanda Brinkman

Bitches Ain’t Shit @ Johalla Projects

Bitches Ain’t Shit is an exhibition of nine undergrad female students’ work curated by Jes Ashley Santrock. Billed as not a feminist show, Santrock is more interested in the female subtleties and creative processes of young women photographers. Artists involved include: Kate Brock, Kimberly Kim, Megan Noe, Sarah Q., Laurie Reese, Jess Sikon, Krystal Thompson and Maria Ulric. Opens Saturday, April 24th from 7-11PM @ Johalla Projects, 1561 N Milwaukee.

Maria Ulrich, Y Control

youtubeworms

¶ Posted 22 April 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – a big black cloud

This week’s picks from Ryan and one from me.

Zilvinas Kempinas, Tube

Joe Zucker, Untitled (Help! I'm Stuck)

Jim Dine, With Aldo Behind Me

Robert Lazzarini, Skull (i)

Daniel Albrigo, Untitled

Marc Brandenburg

Pffr

a big big black black cloud

¶ Posted 21 April 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (0) °

Studio Visit – Matt Nichols

Next Friday the School of the Art Institute of Chicago will open its 2010 MFA Graduate Exhibition. Well timed to coincide with the Artropolis crowds and featuring over one hundred and twenty students completing the school’s MFA program, the event promises to deliver upwards of nine million dollars in tuition worth of art. Of that great big lot is a printer, painter and sculptor by the name of Matt Nichols, and while student workers patched and painted walls in the Sullivan Gallery a few floors above, Matt took me to catch a look at his studio.

Matt Nichols

If you’re in the Loop/loop, you may remember Nichol’s street level installation on Wabash last year, a floor-lit install of bright green felt columns and flush white pyramids built out of the walls. You might have also seen his solo show The Brink at Thrones Gallery, the gallery space ran by Easton Miller, who also sent me Matt’s way after our studio visit last month. Unlike Miller’s basement workshop, Nichol’s studio – one of the many new canvas-curtained cubes on that floor of the building- was about as institutionally placed as they come.

Matt Nichols

Once inside, however, the space got a little more complex. Nichols’ sculptures are naturally disruptive, and even when the content is focused elsewhere chances are a piece will have odd angles, height and scale shifts, and other geometric elements that complicate their environment. Surfaces switch between reflective chrome and gold and silver to dampened felt and matte latex paint, tape, and silkscreen ink. There’s little middle ground – things are black and white or neon, meticulously fabricated or gloopy or chiseled in with claw hammers.

Matt Nichols

For all the formal fun, the content Nichols described was psychological, analogizing, and representative, which I found surprising more for its rarity in academic art than for any incongruity with the work. In the corner was placed a large trapezium, its surface white felt onto which THE WORRIERS had been fire stenciled with tape and a candle. In parts, the flame had etched through the felt, revealing a chrome surface underneath. Nichols spoke directly about the experience of worry, here subverting popular iconography (in this case, the re-typeset tag from The Warriors) for the subtle switch from fantasy to reality, employing the felt as a material connected to childhood experience and the chrome for adulthood, and the felt’s burning as analogy to the effects of worry slowly eroding the one and revealing the other.

Matt Nichols

The jumps never felt stretched, but it did feel strange to read into work in this way. Instead of using any traditional psychological mythology, Nichols makes his statements through the structure of the art itself, in a way co-opting the language of superficial art analysis/salesmanship and forcing those often inappropriate literalisms onto his viewer. Something like stepping backwards into complexity. Rather than letting a viewer look at a reflective object only as a reflective object and considering its formal utility in a piece, Nichols pushes the mirror’s illusion/escape content by hiding soft work behind it.

Matt Nichols

Rather than letting an elevated and bubbly spray-gold cube just read comfortably as a mock exaltation of minimalism, he references it as a figurative work. Because it looks like a dude, I guess. With a gold cube for a head. Matt tells me its the same height as the tallest man alive.

Matt Nichols

Check out these and more from Matt Nichols at the 2010 MFA Graduate Exhibition, which opens Friday, April 30th from 8-10PM @ The Sullivan Galleries, 33 S. State Street, 7th floor.

¶ Posted 20 April 2010 § Studio Visits ‡ Comments (1) °

Weekend Preview – but… is it net art?

This week’s picks from me. Check out more comprehensive listings here and here.

Scott Cowan and Katy Keefe @ The Hills Esthetic Center

Collaborators Scott Cowan and Katy Keefe have put together a stuff installation I’d recommend getting in front of before its gone. Side note: we were trying last week to name as many artist-siblings working, showing, or living in Chicago. I don’t think anyone mentioned the Cowans! Check out Braided Bread this Friday, April 16th from 8-11PM @ The Hills Esthetic Center, 128 N Campbell Ave, G.

Katy Keefe

In a Paperweight and Allison Schulnik @ Tony Wight Gallery

Two shows at the new Tony Wight Space on Washington: a group show about photography (but not necessarily of photography) with work by Walead Beshty, Sebastiaan Bremer, Daniel Gordon, Tamar Halpern, Barbara Kasten, Sara VanDerBeek and James Welling, and a small collection of paintings named Home for Hobo Too from Allison Schulnik, hobo name unknown. Shows open this Friday, April 16th from 5-8PM @ Tony Wight Gallery, 845 W Washington Blvd.

James Welling, H4

Gwendolyn Zabicki @ Spoke

I like Spoke for accepting strange proposals and taking risks with its space (their puppy show deserves mention in this context), and in keeping with this tradition they’ll be hosting Gwendolyn Zabicki‘s rendition of the Hagia Sophia Basilica, slimmed down some to fit just a one person at a time. Squeeze in this Saturday, April 17th from 6-9PM @ Spoke, 119 N Peoria St, 3D.

Gwendolyn Zabicki, Hagia Sophia

hArts for Haiti @ LVL3

There have been and continue to be a lot of silent auctions (there’s another one this weekend at Heaven), but LVL3’s hArts for Haiti has the double benefit of sending cash to UNICEF and putting up some killer work. The list: Blood is the New Black, Milano Chow, Ryan Travis Christian, Alika Cooper, Alex Da Corte, Joel Dean, Cali Dewitt, Austin Eddy,Bea Fremderman, Myranda Gilles, Michael Hunter , Elizabeth Jaeger, Robin Juan, Landon Metz, Rachel Niffenegger, Annie Purpura, Courtney Reagor, Daniel Shea, Brian Sorg, Mitchell Spider, Hannah Stouffer, Fraser Taylor, Porous Walker and Virgil Wong. Save some lives this Saturday, April 17th from 6-10 PM @ LVL3, 1452 N Milwaukee Ave, 3.

Bea Fremderman, i'll be missing you

unbalance, imbalance, whatever

¶ Posted 15 April 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – many baseball fans are intolerable people

This week’s picks from Ryan:

Dalek

Frank Pollard, Shark Man

Jaime Lynn Henderson, William Portrait 2

Jacob Whibley

Spencer Sweeny, TBC

Margie Livingston, Folded painting, big

Terry Winters, Contours

I said hello!

¶ Posted 14 April 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (1) °

Weekend Preview – 500 words on what a cool guy you are

This week’s picks. As always, check out some more here and here.

Sarah Pickering @ Museum of Contemporary Photography

I’m jumping on this one out of first contact interest, but London photographer Sarah Pickering‘s Incident Control does look really, really cool. 36 photographs with section titles of Explosions, Fire Scene, Incident, and Public Order, and you can find the best pictures here. Check out the opening tonight, Thursday, April 8th from 5-7PM @ the Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 S Michigan Ave.

Sarah Pickering, Cigarette

Charles Mahaffee @ PEREGRINE PROGRAM

Words and words make up god god god, a show from multimedia creepalist Charles Mahaffee. One night show this Friday, April 9th from 6-8:30 PM @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM, 500 W Cermak Rd, 727. Use the red door and try to find the elevator.

Charles Mahaffee, Untitled

Sol Lewitt @ Rhona Hoffman

Sol Lewitt is an artist worthy of a wikipedia page and you can see his work this Friday, April 9th @ Rhona Hoffman Gallery, 118 N Peoria St. I’m guessing the opening is at 6-9 or something.

Sol Lewitt

Exhibition 6.04102010 @ MVSEVM

In the event that you haven’t seen enough work this month from School of the Art Institute students and graduates, check out MVSEVM’s sixth exhibition with work by Andrew Holmquist, Sue Howard, Joel Kuennen, Chris Lin, Liz Nielsen and Carolina Wheat, Ryan Richey, Nathanael Stephens and Michael Vallera. Opens Saturday, April 11th from 7-10PM @ MVSEVM, 1626 N California Ave, #2.

Andrew Holmquist

Alberto Aguilar and Alexander Cohen @ SecondBedroom

I first listened to the collaboration between Alberto Aguilar and his student Alexander Cohen in the former’s basement as part of his massive 2009 dinner party undertaking. Back then, he was giving his daughter’s Garageband mixes to Cohen for freestyle beats. Things have progressed. Check out their collaborations this Saturday, April 10 from 7-11PM @ secondBEDROOM, 3216 S Morgan.

Nathaniel Robinson and Erik Neff @ devening projects + editions

Sculptures from sculptor Nathaniel Robinson and paintings from painter Erik Neff make up two split shows at Devening. Check it out Sunday, April 11th from 4-7 PM @ devening projects + editions, 3039 W Carroll.

Erik Neff, Splice

GROLSCH IS ON ITS WAY BACK

¶ Posted 08 April 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – cyberbole

This week’s picks from Ryan and a placeholder:

Christopher Davison, Girl waiting in the bushes

Abel Auer, (The Door)

Amy Bessone, Afrikaanienpieta

Eva Marisaldi, Pixeland

Yuri Masnyj, collection of manuals for an age of too many passwords

Anne Hardy, Cell

Carl Andre, Magnesium Squares

dependent upon persons content with small profits

¶ Posted 07 April 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (0) °

Weekend Preview – www.sharkforum.org

This weekend’s picks for openings. There are a lot more than what I’m putting here, but here’s what not to try to miss:

Mike Schuh @ GOLDEN

The press info from GOLDEN for Mike Schuh’s Set reads like it might be a harder show to get a mind around than most, descriping videos and sculptures that tilt common objects into unstable philosophical states. For some reason I’m thinking of Lauren Hartke. Those up for the challenge should check out the opening this Friday, April 2nd from 6-9 PM @ GOLDEN, 816 W Newport Ave.

Mike Schuh, Set

Daniel Everett @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Spaces and places and products and objects make up Daniel Everett‘s 12 x 12 this month at the MCA. Check out the opening Friday, April 2nd from 6-10 PM at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E Chicago.

Daniel Everett, Decoy III

Version Fest Auction and Raffle @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

Summer art series Version Fest‘s only fundraiser can provide you yes you with objects and art from such artists as: Lora Fosberg, Anna Shteynshleyger, Tom Torluemke, Tyson Reeder, Cody Hudson, Aron Gent, Stephen Eichhorn, Juan Chavez, Mathew Hoffman, Dayton Castleman, Jeff Zimmerman, Jordan Martins, Peter Skvara, Seripop, Le Dernier Cri, Gunsho, Chris Roberson, Emily Clayton, Rod Hunting, Chad Kouri, Se Young, Nathan Baker, Scott Cowan, Caitlin Arnold, Ian Whitmore, Scott Fortino, Nick Wylie, Tom Burtonwood, Nate Lee, Zachary Abubeker, Aaron Delehanty, Jame Jankowiak, Erik Debat and others. Performances by MR 666 and Deep Earth. Bring your $10 entry fee and nice selectors down to the auction this Saturday, April 3rd from 7 PM – 1 AM @ The Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan St.

Scott Fortino, Mess

Living Room @ Swimming Pool Project Space

Bringing kind of worlds sorta into collision, four collectors have been invited to curate a show from their private collections into some mixed faux-domestic space, there will be an exhibition show as well to show the best jewelry from the best stores like Fifth Collection Louis Vuitton. Its not as pure as all that, but it should be a good and rare opportunity to see these works from the homes of Curt Conklin, Susan Gesheidle, Jefferson Goddard and Paul Klein without having to take your shoes off. The event opens Saturday, April 3rd from 7-10 PM @ Swimming Pool Project Space, 2858 W Montrose.

Kate Gilmore, Between a Hard Place

And since I’m glad net art has finally(?) started trolling Facebook, let me plug AN OPEN CALL FOR WORK TO BE INCLUDED IN THE EXHIBIT: READY OR NOT IT’S 2010, a move by Chicago’s TheJogging that is currently spamming the hell out of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s wall. Please include county/country typo on resume I guess.

¶ Posted 01 April 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – thrill dive

This week’s picks from Ryan:

Andy Diaz Hope, Day

Not Vital, 8 Halves

Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising

David Leggett, I can never tell anyone about this. Ever.

Laurel Roth, Allegory of the Monocerus (detail)

Jack Kirby

Mari Eastman, Untitled Mural (Birds)

there are about a hundred of us. we’ve contacted eachother on the internet.

¶ Posted 31 March 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (1) °

Weekend Preview – crazy new work

This weekend is going to be stacked. Here are my picks, and you can find more here and here.

David Leggett @ 65GRAND

Crazy new work from David Leggett. Opens Friday, March 26th from 7-10 PM @ 65GRAND, 1378 W Grand Ave, #3.

David Leggett, The Tragic Misspelling of Thriller

Ali Bailey @ Andrew Rafacz

Prepare yourself for some great exploration of the surface and structure in the crazy new work from Ali Bailey. Opens Friday, March 26th from 5-8 PM @Andrew Rafacz Gallery, 835 W. Washington.

Ali Bailey, Life

Richard Hull @ Western Exhibitions

Art advocate and proponent for art in Chicago Paul Klein had some good things to say about Western’s latest Exhibition of crazy new work from Richard Hull. Opens Friday, March 26th from 5-8 PM @ Western Exhibitions, 119 N Peoria St, 2A.

Richard Hull, Vivid and Heavy

Joe Grimm & Erica Moore @ What It Is

Crazy new work from Joe Grimm & Erica Moore. Opens Saturday, March 27th from 3-8 PM @ What It Is, 1155 S Lyman Ave, Oak Park.

Erica Moore

Paul Cowan @ Golden

After a great long wait, Golden Age returns with crazy new work from Paul Cowan. Opens Saturday, March 27th from 7-10PM @ Golden Age, 119 N Peoria St, 2D, Chicago.

Paul Cowan

Mican Morgan & Porous Walker @ Slow

Relationships are explored and manipulated in Slow’s latest show FREE LOVE, an exhibition of crazy new work from Mican Morgan and Porous Walker. Opens Sunday, March 28th from 6-7 PM @ Slow, 2153 W 21st St.

Mican Morgan

we’ll be at the sullivan galleries drinking until we can do no right

¶ Posted 26 March 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – I like hierarchies, I really do.

This week’s picks from Ryan.

Jeremy Mora, Welcome Home

Nicholas Frank, REALLY

Porous Walker

Kamau Amu Patton

Lee Lozano, Untitled

Boredoms

Lindsey White

talking points

¶ Posted 24 March 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (0) °

Weekend Preview – nice speech shitler

Writing these helps me remember names. Check out more listings here or here.

WTF 1.0 @ Kunz,Vis,Gonzalez

“New and young” cult culture (see 4chan memes, probably) including work by Art Johnson, Sunita Prasad, Jon Read, Alee Peoples, María de la Concha, Tayef Ben Messalem and María del Carmen Montoya. Opens this Friday, March 19th from 6-10 PM @ Kunz,Vis,Gonzalez, 2324 W Montana St.

Alee Peoples, Goodbye Chicago

Get it Together Again @ Chicago Tourism Center

Works on paper by by Adrianne Goodrich, Alex Valentine, Anthony Zinonos, Ben Speckmann, Chris Roberson, Chris Schreck, Doug Shaeffer, Emily Clayton,Greg Lamarche, Hisham Akira Bharoocha, James Harry Ewert Jr, Joe Tallarico, Jordan Martins, Mario Wagner, Matt Nichols, Matthew Rich, Michael Pajon, Netherland, Peter Skvara, Richard Smith, Rod Hunting, Ron Ewert, Ryan Duggan, Sarah Jeziorski, Scott Massey, Stephen Eichhorn and Tom Torluemke. Opens this Friday, March 19th from 5-7 PM @ The Chicago Tourism Center, 72 E Randolph St, Chicago, IL 60601.

Ryan Duggan, After Joey

Around @ ebersmoore

Painting and sculpture show guest curated by William Staples, with work by Dianna Frid, Deva Graf, Anne Simon, Brian Taylor and Scott Wolniak. Opening Friday, March 19th from 6-9 PM @ ebersmoore, 213 N Morgan St, 3C.

Deva Graf, Untitled Pair (with wrestler)

Irena Knezevic: Gesture Guild @ threewalls

Anthony Elms in a sailor outfit. Opening Friday, March 19th from 6-9 PM @ threewalls, 119 N Peoria St, 2D.

Irena Knezevic: Culture Guild

Group Exhibition @ Old Gold

I was wondering when Old Gold was going to come back from its comeback. This time around there’s work by Sayre Gomez, Roxane Hopper, George Liebert, Amanda Ross-Ho, Justin Schaefer and Vanesa Zendejas, and it goes down this Friday, March 19th from 7-10 PM @ Old Gold, 3102 W Palmer Blvd.

Vanesa Zendejas, Mound Faker

False Anatomies @ LVL3

Objecthood and illusion. Paul Kenneth, Easton Miller and Nozomi Rose. Saturday, March 20th from 6-10 @ LVL3, 1452 N Milwaukee Ave, 3.

Paul Kenneth, Stranger Danger

Jason Salavon @ Tony Wight Gallery

Ten works from Jason Salavon. Opening this Saturday, March 20th from 5-8 PM @ the fresh new Tony Wight Gallery, 845 W Washington.

Jason Salavon, Old Codes

Music from Big Pink @ Pentagon

Two part exhibition from duo Sara Condo and Kate Ruggeri. Opens Saturday, March 20th from 7-11 PM @ Pentagon, 961 W 19th St, 1F.

Sara Condo and Kate Ruggeri

BLUENESS @ BEN RUSSELL

Kick off spring with blue work from Ken Fandell, , Gerard Holthuis, Jerome Acks, Kendrick Shackleford, and Kimberly Baker. Opens Saturday, March 20th from 6-9 PM @ BEN RUSSELL, 1716 S Morgan St, 2F.

BLUENESS

Also check out the openings at Kavi Gupta and Andrew Rafacz on Saturday. See you around!

¶ Posted 19 March 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – twins! two little ma’fuckers!

This week’s picks from Ryan and one from me.

Ennio Morricone

Conrad Shawcross, Binary Star

Katherine Bernhardt, Metallic Star

J.B. Blunk

David Hockney, Bigger Splash

Eddie Martinez, Clam Appeal

Seth Curcio, Virtual Landscape III

Don’t blame me, I voted for the lava demons.

¶ Posted 17 March 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (0) °

Elms Choice: Stephanie Brooks’ Love is a Certain Kind of Flower

A studio visit means an excuse to prepare by brushing up on the artist prior to the visit. This means research, you know what that is, how a brainiac pronounces procrastination. In anticipation of a visit this Monday with Stephanie Brooks, I can here and now recommend, just in time for Valentine’s Day (What is that you just said?), Ms. Brooks’ recent Love Is a Certain Kind of Flower, published by the fine folk(s) at Green Lantern Press.

Stephanie Brooks, Love is a Certain Kind of Flower

Ms. Brooks has been known for sculptures that mingle a certain institutional display or delivery of decidedly not institutional thoughts and language. Sometimes the works literalize metaphor, at other times reinterpret abstract forms, and maybe even bring about ridiculous attempts to quantify and advertise those things we get nervous about being quantified and directed. You know, the kind of answer you just do not want to hear or read right now.

Stephanie Brooks, Triple X, XO

With this book we get possibly the most in-depth of Brooks’ many odes to the wooly byways of the heart. Over the course of 36 poems, what the gauche might mistake for lists, love is extolled in its many splendid and resourceful forms: a bed of roses, peaches, leopards, honey, (unspecified) stone, shocking fuzz, a lumbering cart, et cetera. Tempting as it is to see the mark of irony and cynicism in Brooks’ taxonomic treatment of the predictable and not-so-predictable manifestations of love, this is not a tossing into the trash bin of love and its metaphors. For one thing, it is impossible not to get a smile and feel a warm swelling on the inside even in the book’s more pointed moments (sharp arrows, barbed hooks, iron wedges and the like).

I need to take a touch of umbrage with the editors of this fine collection. They’d like us to believe: “To say a thing is as red as a rose is as misleading as a phrase like ‘I changed my mind’ or ‘I couldn’t believe my ears.’ And yet these things, embedded as they are in a cultural landscape tradition do in fact convey a necessary and essential meaning.” Now maybe I just fell off the turnip truck, but to me that is one mighty big “and yet.” I’d argue these phrases and metaphors are not misleading at all, are in fact quite exacting and telling. Furthermore, the fact that Ms. Brooks’ book is ridiculously broad in the items, moods, places and times that love is, likes, plays, smells, has, constitutes, and the such, and still this collection is nowhere close to exhaustive, reminds us that on a quick level it is easy to think love is one thing. This is our mistake and the fault of three dozen too many romantic comedies and sensitive indie rockers. (For the sake of argument let’s let Al Green and Sade off the hook for the moment.) Love is precisely all things listed in this book for each and every one of us. And secretly we know it. Only our well-oiled coping mechanisms make us try and forget the times that love was like a bat.

Stephanie Brooks, Untitled (metaphors for love)

Maybe the editors forgot what Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote for us: “There is a great deal of difference between still believing something and again believing it. Still to believe that the moon influences the plants betrays stupidity and superstition, but again to believe it displays philosophy and reflection.” To which, Ms. Brooks has provided an easy to reference collection of categories—in that time-honored format the poem—needed to again express my heart whenever, say, I change my mind and decide that my love is, say, a resplendent raisin.

Get this book for those you love, and those you’ll love in the future. And fast! Only 250 copies. Otherwise you’ll just be left to love the one (book) you’re with.

(by Anthony Elms)

¶ Posted 14 March 2010 § Artists Books ‡ Comments (0) °

Studio Visit – Easton Miller

Last Wednesday I buzzed in and up to Easton Miller‘s Ukrainian Village apartment to check out some of his newest work. I’d first seen his paintings in the Fever Dream show up at Roots & Culture, and was pointed his way for a studio visit by Jacob Goudreault, fellow Fever Dream participant and the last artist who’s studio I’d visited. Up the stairs I was greeted by a pair of french bulldogs and a righteous art collection, with (among others) Joel Dean‘s A Red Summer of Love over the couch and Dom Garritano’s One Half-Hour After Sunset in the kitchen, both pieces having once hung at Thrones Gallery, the West Loop space Miller ran from September 2008 to May 2009.

Like Goudreault, Miller is a recent SAIC graduate and part of the emerging group of Chicago artists working on hybridizing painting and sculpture. To Miller, materials matter just as much for their unique structural phenomena as for their interactivity with paint, and the products in his studio looked like an appropriate mix of Home Depot and Utrecht with pond sealer beside raw pigment. Miller talked about all his tools and their uses with equal familiarity, describing in strings of rubbery polys and prenes the arduous kitchen floor processes for rendering the plastic paint for Blue Ribbon (state fair)’s weaved cake crust, or the painter’s nightmare of covering every interior detail in the foaming shit curls of Decisions.

Downstairs, in a clamp-lit section of his building’s basement appropriated by Miller and friends as extra studio space, Miller showed me some of the pieces he’s preparing for False Anatomies, coming up later this month at LVL3. The two I saw were pretty freaky – big pahoehoe surfaces of some kind of insulation foam, fuzzy with layered shades of black or brown flock, one with three embedded half-closed blood eyes, the other with a caldera socket built to fit a taxidermy eyeball. Though somewhere less than finished, they’re cool to see, hard not to touch, and part of a rapidly evolving body of paintings. As long as the toxicity of his materials or airborne flock doesn’t pick him off, it’ll be interesting to see where Miller’s work goes to next.

Easton Miller

You can Easton Miller‘s work later this month in False Anatomies, opening Saturday, March 20th @ LVL3, or until March 27th in Fever Dream @ Roots & Culture.

¶ Posted 13 March 2010 § Studio Visits ‡ Comments (0) °

Weekend Preview – thanks

Here are my picks for weekend art-going. More listings here and here.

This Is Not For Sale @ Parking Space

Friday, March 12th from 6-10 PM @ Parking Space, 2246 W 19th St, 3R.

Synthetic/Sublime @ POST

Friday, March 12th from 7-11 PM @ POST, 1816 S Racine Ave.

Landscape / Portrait / Still Life @ HungryMan Gallery

Saturday, March 13th, from 6-11 PM @ HungryMan Gallery, 2135 N Rockwell.

Surrender Dorothy @ Concertina

Saturday, March 13th, from 7-10 PM @ Concertina Gallery, 2351 N Milwaukee Ave, 2nd floor.

¶ Posted 12 March 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – Quick Decline

This week’s picks from Ryan:

Jim Lambie

Ben Stone, Nuptron 4000

Sean Cassidy, Untitled

Thomas Nast, The Tammany Tiger Loose

Adam5100, Mint House

Kim Dorland, Hoarfrost #4

Thomas Zipp, Dwarf Nose

And hey, lets be careful out there.

¶ Posted 10 March 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (0) °

Weekend Preview – lots of heart ache for a Thursday

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

Artists Jacob Goudreault and Carmen Price show work full of magic and mystery, along with special guests Billy Kang, C.J. Matherne and Tyson Reeder. Vibrator opens Saturday, March 6th, from 6-9 PM @ Knock Knock Gallery, 3658 S Wolcott Ave, 2F.

Carmen Price, Her Temple

Colonize it!

¶ Posted 04 March 2010 § Weekend Preview ‡ Comments (0) °

Seven Artists of the Week – It’s poison! You’re stupid if you eat that.

This week’s picks from Ryan.

Abu-Bakarr Mansaray, A Nuclear Mosquito From Hell

Ala Ebtekar, 1388: Pariya

Charles Irvin, Turd Science

Drew Beckmeyer, Arizona Souvenirs

James Castle, House (Back)

Ross Bleckner, Inheritance

William T. Wiley, Canetti in Marrakesh

Don’t open it!

¶ Posted 03 March 2010 § Artists of the Week ‡ Comments (0) °

Studio Visit: Jacob Goudreault

I know for a fact that there are brilliant studios with white walls and painted ceilings, glowing with LED panels and humming with tastefully sourceless, low-volume public radio; but for young artists plodding through unfunded gap between undergrad and graduate school, sometimes the studio is wherever you can find it. This week Chicago painter and photographer Jacob Goudreault (acceptably mis-pronounced good-row) invited me to his studio in the western suburb of Winfield, tucked in a tiny and mostly unfinished corner in the basement of his parent’s nice big house. As we went downstairs he gestured to the rest of the basement, sparse and freshly occupied by a pool table and a few boxes. “I used to have this whole space before we put the carpet in.”

Jacob Goudreault

As the most hyper-provisional of the city’s sculptural painters fascinated with shitty materials and gross surfaces, Goudreault’s dim studio makes sense. He points out some of the paints he’s been using, Craftsmart acrylics in aisle ten pinks and greens. A few of his small paintings show the neon paint almost shattered on the surface, a result of the temperature shift between his car and his studio. Bottle caps serve as hanging devices, staple gunned to the back of the scrap-wood blocks he stretches paper and fabric and second hand cashmere over. The work was clever and reveled in its rough edges, a play off of materials and grunge that make me wonder whether the lights were low on purpose.

Jacob Goudreault

While Goudreault keeps another studio in the West Loop and works on occasion up at the Poor Farm estate, much of his smaller and recent paintings he’s known for are made here in the Winfield space. If you’re looking to see that new work, you’re in luck: most of the paintings are downtown or close to it, currently installed in the Fever Dream group show at Roots and Culture or getting ready for the upcoming Vibrator at Knock Knock Gallery.

¶ Posted 27 February 2010 § Studio Visits ‡ Comments (0) °

Claire Pentecost @ threewalls

Stacie Johnson & Alexis Mackenzie @ ebersmoore

Earthworks @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Transitions and Translations @ Concertina Gallery

Bitches Ain’t Shit @ Johalla Projects

Scott Cowan and Katy Keefe @ The Hills Esthetic Center

In a Paperweight and Allison Schulnik @ Tony Wight Gallery

Gwendolyn Zabicki @ Spoke

hArts for Haiti @ LVL3

Sarah Pickering @ Museum of Contemporary Photography

Charles Mahaffee @ PEREGRINE PROGRAM

Sol Lewitt @ Rhona Hoffman

Exhibition 6.04102010 @ MVSEVM

Alberto Aguilar and Alexander Cohen @ SecondBedroom

Nathaniel Robinson and Erik Neff @ devening projects + editions

Mike Schuh @ GOLDEN

Daniel Everett @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Version Fest Auction and Raffle @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

Living Room @ Swimming Pool Project Space

David Leggett @ 65GRAND

Ali Bailey @ Andrew Rafacz

Richard Hull @ Western Exhibitions

Joe Grimm & Erica Moore @ What It Is

Paul Cowan @ Golden

Mican Morgan & Porous Walker @ Slow

WTF 1.0 @ Kunz,Vis,Gonzalez

Get it Together Again @ Chicago Tourism Center

Around @ ebersmoore

Irena Knezevic: Gesture Guild @ threewalls

Group Exhibition @ Old Gold

False Anatomies @ LVL3

Jason Salavon @ Tony Wight Gallery

Music from Big Pink @ Pentagon

BLUENESS @ BEN RUSSELL

This Is Not For Sale @ Parking Space

Synthetic/Sublime @ POST

Landscape / Portrait / Still Life @ HungryMan Gallery

Surrender Dorothy @ Concertina

Let There Be Geo @ A D Gallery

Steven Husby @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM

Steven Husby

Matthew Metzger @ DOVA Temporary

Vibrator @ Knock Knock Gallery

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