The latest show at Scott Projects represents Baltimore’s second featured incursion into Chicago, but while NAH POP NO STYLE brought the painters, Brad Troemel‘s brought the photographers. And punk archivists. Okay, maybe just one photographer and one punk archiver, but they’re definitely from Baltimore and their work is definitely in Chicago and their names are Justin Kelly and Andrew Laumann respectively and their show is called No More Perfect Moments.

Scott Projects

Justin Kelly’s work is locked on the point of intersection between disaster and entertainment. His three digital/found photo grids pictured below aren’t all images of disasters, but they feel like it. Most are harmless scenes of controlled danger – roller coasters, fireworks, shark tanks, etc – but throw in the occassional flaming Ferrari and the potential for disaster present in every photo is suddenly engaged, as if the next and last photo on digicam would surely be the spiderweb cracks in the shark tank.

Justin Kelly

Justin Kelly

With this mixture of potential and realized violence, Kelly turns every image into a bomb. His video installation, a large wide shot of a shark tank with tourists marveling at the bottom, makes for a frightening example of the proximity between danger and delight. The work has suspense and beauty, all bathed in the false coral sand blues of an artificial beach.

Justin Kelly

Andrew Laumann’s work came off less about us as himself, an inward facing archive of a former punk life. There are a lot of items to examine, everything from tarred kicks to an unwound Nirvana cassette to a couple rusting nails. Mixed with these are plenty of photographs, some found and some larger digital prints but most disposible camera snapshots of anonymous friends, each neatly framed.

Andrew Laumann

The work came at me in two ways and I never was able to decide which was more important. On one hand, Laumann’s work could easily read as a bunch of shit from his apartment that had been hung cleanly on gallery walls, each item serving as a relic of a punk rock history traded for something more modern and aware. Equally possible, the work could represent a false history or an engineered display, with objects and items included to stand for the multitude of similar stuff from the era that could be honored in the same way our parents might cling to the relics of their 1960’s and 70’s past, but which we (and I use that word broadly) don’t consider as significant.

Andrew Laumann

While neither interpretation make ups for the general blandness of the actual work, I’d prefer to think of its conceptual thrust as the latter, a critique on a generation’s apathy toward its moment of cultural definition. Then again, the spirit of the era may have been apathy itself, so its possible that in rejecting our history we may be sticking to its character. Laumann may have been anticipating the critical question of whether to throw away your Gang of Four albums or play them for your kids.

Andrew Laumann

As a name for the show, No More Perfect Moments does a good job of knitting the fireball potential of Justin Kelly’s work with the anti-nostalgia of Andrew Laumann’s, but thought the two have apparently been collaborating for some time, they don’t seem to overlap much beyond geography. Still, Kelly’s video pieces create a very effective and anxious impression and Laumann’s installed works present a good conversational topic, so it’d be a good show to catch before every gallery in the world has their opening next Friday.

I give it a:

6.5

No More Perfect Moments runs August 29th through September 11th at Scott Projects, 1542 N. Milwaukee, Apt. #3.

The very busy culture masters at the The Co-Prosperity Sphere put together a new show for us this weekend which features nine artists’ contemporary takes on the tradition of portraiture. Specifically, it was about the overlap between self portrait and portrait, that grey ground that exists in the relationship between artist and subject, the choice of setting and treatment as a reflection of the artist. In short, its that added context that makes portraiture the fun it is.

While not strictly a “Portraiture in 2009” show, a challenge to any show like this is that it inevitably operates like a body of evidence: here are thirty pieces of art picked from nine artists, all of whom are young and human and generally doing the same thing which has been done for a long time. But while the show includes some very strong works, detectives beware: if you’re heading in expecting to gain by commonalities some insight about how emerging artists are viewing themselves and their peers at the end of this decade, you might not find much of an answer.

Speaking of really strong work, the fact that the two prints from Swoon came from Ed (Edmar) Marszewski’s personal storage makes me wonder what else he’s got up there. Back from “before Swoon was Swoon,” these two pieces which apparently never made it to the wheat paste were instead well framed and hung wonderfully against the east wall like sentries for the black lit hollow of fellow street artist Goons‘ installation. While the latter presented fun and illustrative and modestly fucked up paste ups, Swoon’s pieces had the hammer elegance and expansive community narrative that one expects to find in a Courbet rather than in an alley way.

Then again, Goons is alive and well and in Chicago and had a display of random shit for free.

Nick Wylie, Men I Would Marry

I probably got the full title wrong, but Nick Wylie’s Men I Would Marry (Drawn for as Long as They Lasted) is one of the most immediately visible and the more challenging works at the show. Sixteen crotches and cocks, hastily sketched in charcoal and gridded large on the wall present a visual document of friends or lovers or both and their stamina in one way or another. I liked the work’s dependence on experience to deliver its form and though its probably the most fitting example of the curator’s theme, I did have problems with the form itself.

While the work’s appearance and construction are intrinsic to the idea that generated them (provided the title can be believed), I found Wylie’s charcoal on rag paper distractingly plain despite, okay, its art school attachments to the nude and yeah, its utility as a fast medium. I’ve probably been spoiled by artists who can figure out how to fit strong and interesting craft into any concept that doesn’t specifically prohibit it.

Matt Austin

To some degree, I felt the same about Matt Austin‘s photography and audio piece. This was probably the most conceptually gripping piece in the show, with a narrative that followed me out the door, into the car, and back home, but the presentation didn’t always strike well with the content. The work consisted of a tent, with an audio reading of an e-mail exchange surrounding his father’s eviction and a slideshow of photos detailing that eviction projected against one wall. I thought it all worked together well, establishing a sympathetic space for its narrative, but was a little put off by the delivery of the reading, which, while pretty hard to listen to after a few minutes, did render the eviction tale less dramatic, more common, and maybe scarier for all that.

Zach Abubeker, Breaking Cycles Like This is Really Difficult For Me (from Sleep)

While painting was surprisingly light (only one painter was included, Kristen Flemington, and her work was pretty straightforward portraiture and pattern), photography was well represented. Maureen Peabody‘s sparkling misty glamor portraits were easy on the eye and light on the head, and Anna Shteynshleyger‘s wigs were an interesting departure and, with their culture and fiber, a bit heavier on the head. Zach Abubeker‘s Sleep photos looked familiar, but still made for damn fine portraiture.

Adam Golfer, from *kin

Adam Golfer‘s three photos from his German *kin travel series are the strongest of the bunch, especially the one featured above and titled in the show but nowhere else (someone find this out for me). The history and tradition of the traveling artist, while now mostly limited to photographers, still just might be the best overlap between self and sight and other. This picture isn’t really anything clever or tricky, only that somewhere in the excellent composition and movement and the mysterious model/travel-partner’s clenched fists the work excels.  Such easy snapping of an apparently unposed shot suggests an experienced eye, which an online tour of Golfer’s work definitely confirms.

While there were one or two artists who didn’t do much for the concept of the show, I’d say that Aron and Caitlin did a good job putting it all together. While the strength of the work included in Transparent Reflect (especially the two Swoon pieces) would make the show worth a visit on its own, there is plenty of conceptual meat on the bone too. I give it a:

7.5

Transparent Reflect runs August 21st through September 24th (?) at The Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219-21 South Morgan.

Mystery replaces history this month at the Hyde Park Art Center, where the heavy and the high of contemporary art have been shaken south for one of the hottest shows of the summer. Following the curatorial undertaking that was Artists Run Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center’s Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture is a doomsday blend of local and international artists curated by Front 40 Press, who publish the critical survey book of the same name and from which is born this exhibition.

Eduardo De Soignie, Saint Child of Atocha

Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture immediately brought up place and time as contributory issues. However foreboding the subject matter of this show, the HPAC’s main gallery space is so beautiful that the imagery of ruin and whirlwind destruction echo like hellfire in a megachurch. Whats even stranger is that the content of the show seemed five years old and politically unsynced, as if some time around the re-election of George W. Bush would have been the more appropriate moment for this show, the peak of doom, back when we were fucked for sure whether it was the terrorists or the neocons or the fags or the devil who would push the button.

Jon Elliott, Continental Drift

Back then I could stare at a Julie Mehretu and imagine myself exploding.

Back then if someone asked me how I expected to die, I would have said “violently.”

Today, I’d say “broke.” Its a different kind of horror.

Ricky Allman, Apocolyzer

Emilio Perez (detail)

But while the horrible specter of poverty might be overlooked in the content of the artwork shown in Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture, the quality of artwork does invoke it. Putting an Emilio Perez next to a Julie Mehretu is enough to make any collector ache, and that pairing represents only two of the many top shelf artists who are represented. Though there are plenty of scenes of chaos and collapse, they’re matched with more somber images (David Opdyke‘s Undisclosed Location and Richard Misrach’s Swamp and Pipeline, Geismar, Louisiana) along with a few pictorial, appropriately scaled rapturous paintings (Nicola Verlato‘s Mothers 2, John Prianca‘s Autumn).

Caleb Weintraub (detail)

The only piece to actually disturb me was from Caleb Weintraub. I think. His painting is hung on the ominous black object in the middle of the gallery and, like the other pieces on that object, whether for misfortune or mystery or mistake, isn’t tagged so far as I could see. Hopefully they are by now.

In addition to the artwork in the main gallery, two wall pieces are included, both stellar and massive. The first is a boggling, visually ecstatic wall painting by Hisham Akira Bharoocha (who also has work in control c, control v), and directly across from it Andrew Schoultz‘ mural rampages down the hallway in a flaming ticker-tape parade. Both are excellent installations, and Schoultz’ piece is an especially appropriate up-sized companion to his painting in the main space.

I wish I had greater access to Front 40 Press’ Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture book, whether at the show or online, as without the critical writing that informed the show I feel like I’m only getting one half the experience. I’m curious. However, when considering the quality and work on display, even my partial slice of the curatorial team’s complete vision may be enough. Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture is simply an excellent show, a highly appreciated opportunity to see top flight work, and yet another excuse to get down to Hyde Park.

I give it a:

9.3

Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture runs from July 19th to September 20th, 2009 @ the Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave.