CGN Fall 2021 Magazine

FALL 2021

CGN

CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS • MIDWEST GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS • PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS

VERTICAL GALLERY Chicago’s premier urban-contemporary art gallery

SEPT 11 — OCT 2

NOV 6 — 24

NOV 30 — DEC 5

DAVID HEO

SERGIO FARFAN

MARTIN WHATSON

“PRESENCE” SOLO SHOW

“5 YEARS” SOLO SHOW

@SCOPE MIAMI BEACH

OCT 9 — 30: THINKSPACE PRESENTS ‘LAX / ORD III: GROWING THE FOCUS’ DEC 11 — JAN 8: “ATOMIC NUMBER 13” GROUP SHOW CURATED BY ARTBUILDS AND AT OUR NEW SECOND GALLERY, VERTICAL PROJECT SPACE: AUG 14 – SEPT 19: WINGCHOW “INNER SPACE” SEPT 25 – OCT 24: JAMIAH CALVIN “NOTHING WAS EVER THE SAME AGAIN” OCT 30 – NOV 21: BLAKE JONES AND FRIENDS “DOUBLESPEAK”

Vertical Gallery, 1016 N. Western Ave., Chicago | 773-697-3846

www.verticalgallery.com

New second gallery: Vertical Project Space, 2006 W. Chicago Ave. #1R, Chicago

No t h i n g G o l d C a n St a y n ew wo r k s by

P O O JA P I T T I E

Mc C o r m i c k G a l l e r y September 16 – November 6 www.thomasmccormick.com

Nothing Gold Can Stay, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

Private Eye: The Imagist Impulse in Chicago Art DISCOVER THE AUDACIOUS WORK OF A GROUP OF DARING YOUNG ARTISTS FROM CHICAGO KNOWN AS THE IMAGISTS. See the vibrant collection of over 120 works drawn entirely from the collection of Drs. Michael J. Robertson and Christopher A. Slapak.

Curated by John Corbett and Jim Dempsey of Corbett vs. Dempsey art gallery, Chicago, IL.

Open now through December 5, 2021 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

OPENING SEPTEMBER 24 The great American architects Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright had rare gifts for engaging the human senses and emotions through the power of space, color, light, and motion. This is why even their demolished work still resonates. The exhibition Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan and

Reconstructing the Garrick: Adler & Sullivan’s Lost Masterpiece Curated by John Vinci with Tim Samuelson, Eric Nordstrom and Chris Ware

Wright evokes the essence of two of these architects’ long-gone masterpieces: Sullivan’s Garrick Theatre, in Chicago, which stood for only sixty-nine years, and Wright’s unprecedented Larkin Building, in Buffalo, which stood for only forty-four.

It will bring these two iconic buildings to life, revealing how, despite their short lives, their legacies continue to endure.

Reimagining The Larkin: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Modern Icon Curated by Jonathan D. Katz

WRIGHTWOOD659.ORG IMAGE CREDITS FROM TOP Interior Garrick Theater, 1960. Courtesy of HABS/HAER Collection, National Park Services. Photo by Richard Nickel. Interior Garrick Theater during demolition, 1961. Courtesy of Richard Nickel Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago.

Exterior of Larkin Administration Building, 1934. L37, # 1-2a. Larkin Administration Building demolition, May 1950. #L37, #2-75. Both images Collection of The Buffalo History Museum. Larkin Company photograph collection.

Support for this exhibition is provided

by Alphawood Foundation Chicago.

Voted BEST sculpture park in USAToday’s Reader’s Choice Competition

100 acres of open prairie Grass paths guide visitors around a lake and through a collection of 30 monumental outdoor sculptures On and around the campus of Governors State University Free admission and parking Free Otocast app for GPS guide to the collection Open from dawn to dusk 365 days a year

Paul, 2006 Tony Tasset

www.govst.edu/sculpture Governors State University 1 University Parkway University Park, IL 60484

4-7 NOVEMBER 2021 NAVY PIER

Intersect Chicago 2021 is an art and design fair, formerly known as SOFA – Sculpture Objects Functional Art. In 2021, the fair presents an exploration of materiality and meaning in design, objects, furniture, and art with a focus on local, regional, and global creation. Intersect Chicago’s 2021 edition takes place at Navy Pier from November 4-7.

Colt Seager Contemplative Object No. 6 Found concrete and rebar on steel base 36 in tall Studio 6F

TowardCommonCause.org

Inspiring Chicago Communities Through Public Sculpture

20th

celebrating

ADMISSION IS FREE

20

2021 CSE is a 501(c)(3) Illinois Corporation

Anniversary Celebrates the

RICHARD HUNT

years

Award

ChicagoSculptureExhibit ChicagoSculpture CSESculpture

312.772.2872 w: ChicagoSculptureExhibit.org e: ChicagoSculptureExhibit@gmail.com

AMERICAN

EPIDEMIC GUNS IN THE UNITED STATES Museum of Contemporary Photography Columbia College Chicago mocp.org

On View Dec. 4 Force Majeure Hannah Black, micha cárdenas, Shirin Neshat, Pipilotti Rist, Janaina Tschäpe, and Carrie Mae Weems

Yoko Ono: Mend Piece Organized by

Re:hab / Re:sound Brad Decker and Will Porter

For a set of dynamic programs and online experiences, visit TarbleArtsCenter.org TheTarble

An Abstract Universe S TA N L E Y D E A N E D WA R D S

OPENING RECEPTION SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 5PM - 9PM RUNS THROUGH OCTOBER 2, 2021

3 8 1 6 W. A R M I TA G E CHICAGO, IL

Hand Heart

by Jason Pickleman 2021 Fiberglass 54 x 70 x 17 inches

Sculpture Milwaukee there is this We Curated by Michelle Grabner and Theaster Gates Installed in Catalano Square Milwaukee, WI July 2021—October 2022 For information about this and additional work: jason@jnldesign.com pickleman.art

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“The magical thing about Leving’s work is that it pulls you into it.

It displays an understanding of how the world really works.”

– L. Reichel

Jeffrey Leving LEVINGGALLERY.COM

KRANNERT ART MUSEUM

A Question of Emphasis Louise Fishman Drawing Aug 26–Feb 26

ALSO ON VIEW

Hal Fischer Photographs: Seriality, Sexuality, Semiotics Aug 26–Dec 22

Crip*

Sept 23–Dec 11

Krannert Art Museum University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign kam.illinois.edu Louise Fishman, Untitled 1985. Oil and charcoal on paper. 34 x 22 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Louise Fishman; Lead exhibition support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation American Art Program. Additional funding is provided by the Rosann Gelvin Noel Fund; the College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Vielmetter Los Angeles; Sueyun Locks, the Locks Foundation; Karma, New York; and the Sandra L. Batzli Memorial Fund. Curated by Amy L. Powell. Crip* is co-organized by KAM and Gallery 400 at University of Illinois Chicago. Hal Fischer Photographs is supported by Terra Foundation for American Art.

cgn_FallGuide_f2021.indd 1

8/5/2021 3:02:49 PM

CGN FALL 2021

FINALLY WE CAN EXPLORE CHICAGO, AND ART IN THE MIDWEST, IN PERSON AGAIN. HERE IS A SOL LEWITT INSTALLATION AT NEWFIELDS (THE INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART) IN INDIANA.

CONTENTS

28

18

16

ART SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

Notable exhibitions in galleries + museums

17

GALLERY OPENINGS

18

ON VIEW: SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER

Galleries, museums, exhibitions, art maps

FEATURES An Interview with Artist Tony Fitzpatrick 28 32 Stewards for Generations: 36 38 41 42 45 46 50 52

The Neal Family’s Support for Black Artists Art In Action: Supporting At-Risk Youth Pooja Pittie’s Colorful Energy Returning to Chicago Art Fairs and Biennials Book Report: Ray Johnson C/o at the Art Institute The Shape of Sculpture Milwaukee Audrey Nieffenegger’s Plans for Artists Book House Margo Wolowiec Translates Signals of Our Times The Museum of Wisconsin Art Turns 60

53

ART SERVICES + RESOURCES

32 CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TONY FITZPATRICK AT T.F. PROJECTS; PAGE 28 ISOBEL NEAL’S PLACE IN CHICAGO ART HISTORY, PAGE 32 EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW, PAGES 18 – 24. JACOB HASHIMOTO AT RHONA HOFFMAN

14 | CGN | Fall 2021

PUBLISHER’S LETTER

REGARDING BEAUTY AND OPPORTUNITY IN THE BROKEN Black artists. What Neal saw as an imperfect art market led her to open a business to serve as a solution for more meaningful and representative exposure.

PUBLISHER AND INTERN SUPERVISOR GINNY VAN ALYEA ENJOYING ART IN PERSON AGAIN. PICTURED: ANJALI SRINIVASAN AT KEN SAUNDERS GALLERY

I listened to a church sermon recently about brokenness and disrepair. The priest then asked the parish to consider, ‘What’s wrong with being broken?’

We typically regard fragmentation as bad. A mess is there to be cleaned up.

His question made me think, if we’re always seeking perfection, we are certain to never achieve it. We will be left unfulfilled.

What if we look at broken as a new state of being – like a work in progress? Being less than whole may not equal imperfect.

We are each living amidst ongoing uncertainty, and in response many of us have been reaching our individual and collective limits, sometimes hitting new breaking points. As we continue to live life in a pandemic, we also have the chance to look at ourselves with fresh eyes and take on new projects and causes.

I keep looking at this fall compared to 2020, or even 2019. I see that day to day life is still weird, but it’s beginning to take shape. At CGN I’m especially grateful we have had the chance to interview artists and collectors in person in order to learn from them and to be in the presence of figures who have been a part of and influenced Chicago’s artistic legacy. In this issue we hear from: • Artist Tony Fitzpatrick about how he became an optimist after a serious heart attack in 2015. Now 63 he’s still a work in progress, and he’s not done yet.

• Isobel Neal started a revolutionary gallery in the 1980s dedicated to exhibiting

• Artist Pooja Pittie was cut off from her new studio space during lockdown, but her day to day challenges living with a disability were eased by proximity to a home studio and by the chance to work on a new scale.

• Audrey Niffenegger is putting together the Artists Book House piece by piece, and it’s been a multi-year project already. It won’t be ‘finished’ for years to come. * We are steadily seeing CGN’s exhibition calendar fill up again. In-person art events still change frequently and are less predictable but planning and making the effort is brave. There is still a lot to go out and see.

Two exhibitions I visited with my children this past summer aligned with my new outlook on the splintering of things and how to enjoy beauty in the unexpected: • Ken Saunders Gallery had two large mirror paintings on display by Anjali Srinivasan (pictured above left). The glass had been smashed into pieces that were still held together. Whatever your superstitions might be about broken mirrors and bad luck, the result is beautiful and captivating – the old mirror showed one image. The new, broken one revealed many more.

• Theaster Gates’s How to Sell Hardware at Gray Warehouse told the story of a South Side True Value that went out of business and sat, intact, for years before Gates purchased it and scattered the contents into breathtaking gallery installations. The store was never going to be made whole – the stock suddenly for sale again on the shelf, but it did transition into something beautiful and revelatory.

Maybe we can each be rescuers of overlooked treasure, seeing something anew, appreciating the value and opportunity of a fresh start this season. – Ginny Van Alyea

Founded in 1982/1983 Chicago Gallery News is the central source for information about the area’s art galleries, museums, events and resources. CGN aims to be a clear, accessible guide to the region’s visual arts, as well as an advocate on behalf of the local cultural community.

Annual magazine subscriptions are available for $20 / year.

Complimentary issues are available in galleries, museums and art centers, the Chicago Cultural Center and select hotels.

Chicago Gallery News Chicago, IL 312-649-0064 chicagogallerynews.com Published 3 times annually: CGN Arts Guide / Summer / Fall © 2021 Chicago Gallery News, Inc. Publisher + Executive Editor Virginia B. Van Alyea Managing Editor + Business Manager Emily Ackerman Contributors Anna Dobrowolski Jacqueline Lewis Alison Reilly Jason Pickleman Interns Isobel Van Alyea Thomas Van Alyea Fall 2021 Vol. 36, No. 2 © 2021 ISSN #1046-6185

FALL 2021

CGN

ON THE COVER: Tony Fitzpatrick, The Emerald Bird (Absinthe Bird for Lenora Carrington) drawing collage, 2018

CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS • MIDWEST GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS • PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS

Fall 2021 | CGN | 15

THE SEASON’S HIGHLIGHTS BARBARA KRUGER: THINKING OF YOU. I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU. This Art Institute of Chicago exhibition encompasses the full breadth of Kruger’s career, including works on vinyl, site-specific installations, animations, and multichannel video.

• Sept 19 – Jan 24, 2022

BARBARA KRUGER, UNTITLED (TRUTH), 2013. DIGITAL IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

artic.edu

KARA WALKER AT THE DUSABLE MUSEUM Kara Walker’s art turns the harm of racism upon itself by refusing to veil the history of slavery in shame or euphemism. Offered up for reconsideration in our time, these vignettes of antebellum characters in the style of black paper portraiture confront us with powerful questions of how to deal with our nation’s painful past. • Thru Oct 16 dusablemuseum.org

KARA WALKER AT THE DUSABLE MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ART

NEON AND LIGHT MUSEUM POP-UP

LOUISE FISHMAN AT KRANNERT ART MUSEUM

The Neon and Light Museum pop-up invites guests to stand in, under and around some 70 professional neon and light-based sculptures in a bright, dramatic immersive exhibition opening in River North at 325 West Huron for a limited eight-week run starting Sept. 9.

Tickets at neonandlightmuseum.com

A Question of Emphasis: Louise Fishman Drawing is the first career spanning exhibition and publication of Fishman’s works on paper from 1964 – 2021.

• Aug 26 – Feb 26, 2022 kam.illinois.edu LOUISE FISHMAN AT KRANNERT ART MUSEUM

INTERSECT CHICAGO

DRAWN TO COMBAT: BILL MAULDIN & THE ART OF WAR

The fair, formerly SOFA, went virtual in 2020 and is back in person at Navy Pier this fall, focusing on 3D artworks that cross the boundaries of fine art, decorative art, fiber arts, and design • Nov 4 – 7

A retrospective of the work by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist about our nation’s wars, civil rights, and social justice. • Thru spring 2022

intersectchicago.com 16 | CGN | Fall 2021

pritzkermilitary.org

GALLERY OPENINGS SEPT F SEPT 3 South Asia Institute SA SEPT 4 Perspective F SEPT 10 ARC Addington Victor Armendariz Carl Hammer Vale Craft Zolla / Lieberman Oliva SA SEPT 11 Ken Saunders Vertical Gallery Zolla / Lieberman TH SEPT 16 McCormick

F SEPT 17 Catherine Edelman Western Exhibitions Bridgeport Art gallery 1871

F OCT 8 Oliva

F NOV 11 Rangefinder

SA OCT 9 Vertical Gallery

F NOV 12 Oliva

SA SEPT 18 Epiphany Chicago Printmakers

F OCT 29 ARC Firecat

F NOV 19 Bridgeport Art

RIVER NORTH

F SEPT 24 Firecat Krannert Art Museum

SA OCT 30 Vertical Project Space

SA NOV 30 Vertical Gallery

MICHIGAN AVE

DEC

NORTH SIDE

F SEPT 25 Vertical Project Space

NOV

OCT

F NOV 5 Addington Jean Albano Victor Armendariz Vale Craft Zolla / Lieberman

F OCT 1 Art Center Highland Park

SA NOV 6 Vertical Gallery Zolla / Lieberman

TH SEPT 30 Victor Armendariz

SA DEC 4 Chicago Printmakers

DISTRICT KEY: WEST SIDE SOUTH SIDE / LOOP SUBURBS/ MIDWEST

SA DEC 11 Vertical Gallery F DEC 17 Firecat Oliva

chicagogallerynews.com has daily updates and additions to the openings calendar

RNDD

Join us for the most anticipated Art + Design event of the year as Chicago designers celebrate internationally renowned artists with special vignettes.

September 10th, 2021 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM | On display until October 11th OPEN HOUSE | SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH | 12:00 PM TO 4:00 PM VISIT RIVERNORTHDESIGNDISTRICT.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE

Fall 2021 | CGN | 17

ART LISTINGS – FALL ‘21 WEST TOWN UKRAINIAN VILLAGE KINZIE CORRIDOR GARFIELD PARK ARC Gallery

1463 W. Chicago (60642) www.arcgallery.org Thru 25: Nancy Fritz + ARC Members’ Show Sept 30 – Oct 23: Michele Stutts, Lee Stanton, Kina Bagovska Oct 29 – Nov 20: Jessica Gondek + Go Make a Thing!

Nov 26 – Dec 18: Manal Deeb + Go Make a Thing!

Circle Contemporary (Arts of Life) Chicago: 2010 W. Carroll (60612) North Shore: 1963 Johns Dr., Glenview (60025) www.artsoflife.org Thru Oct 8: Duck Feet

Chicago Artists Coalition 2130 W. Fulton (60612) www.chicagoartistscoalition.org

CAC is a non-profit organization that supports contemporary Chicago artists and curators by offering residency programs, exhibitions, professional development and resources.

Thru Sept 23: Survey 3: I Sense Something Has Changed

Chicago Truborn 1741 W. Chicago (60622) www.chicagotruborn.com

Focused primarily on Street Art, the gallery has a reputation for breaking down the boundaries of what one may find in traditional galleries and has subsequently coined the term “Become A Collector”.

Thru Sept 25: Chicago Truborn’s 8 year anniversary show Oct 2 – Nov 6: Mr. Switch, solo show Nov 13 – Dec 18: Lauren Asta, solo show

DOCUMENT

1709 W. Chicago (60622) www.documentspace.com DOCUMENT specializes in contemporary photography, film, and media based art. The gallery has organized more than 50 solo exhibitions and actively promotes the work of emerging national and international artists.

Sept 7 – Oct 30: Claude Viallat Nov 5 – Dec 18: Sara Greenberger Rafferty

18 | CGN | Fall 2021

A note about exhibitions and events: the info here is current as of press time.

Chicagogallerynews.com is updated daily with new exhibitions and events, both in person and virtual.

Catherine Edelman Gallery

Monique Meloche Gallery

Since 1987, Catherine Edelman Gallery has established itself as one of the leading galleries in the country devoted to the exhibition of prominent living photographers, alongside new & young talent.

Working with an international group of emerging and established artists in all media, the gallery presents conceptually challenging installations in Chicago and at art fairs internationally, with an emphasis on curatorial and institutional outreach.

1637 W. Chicago (60622) www.edelmangallery.com

Sept 17 – Dec 4: Lea Lund & Erik K: Nomads Dec 10 – Feb 5: Jeffrey Wolin: Faces of Homelessness

Dragonfly Gallery

2436 W. Madison (60612) www.dragonflygallery.space An artist-run gallery, located in East Garfield Park and established in 2020, our mission is to provide a space that inspires, provides resources, and offers opportunity. The newly renovated a bi-level space offers monthly exhibitions, a small retail space and educational programming.

Thru Oct 3: The Portrait

Goldfinch

319 N. Albany (60612) goldfinch-gallery.com Sept 13: Group Ceramics Show Nov: Mari Eastman

Gray Warehouse

451 N. Paulina (60622) www.moniquemeloche.com

Sept 18 – Oct 30: David Shrobe Nov 6 – Dec 18: David Antonio Cruz

Paris London Hong Kong 1709 W. Chicago (60622) www.parislondonhongkong.com

Curating world-class exhibitions, featuring works from luminaries of the 20th century as well as emerging and thought provoking contemporary artists, PLHK is an exclusive experience set to challenge and enhance the discourse of contemporary and 20th century art.

PATRON

1612 W. Chicago (60622) www.patrongallery.com Sep 18 – Nov 27: • Carmen Winant • Melanie Schiff Dec 11 – Feb 12: Greg Breda

2044 W. Carroll (60612) www.richardgraygallery.com Sept 10 – Oct 9: Susan Rothenberg: On Both Sides of My Line, 1974-1979 Oct 22 – Dec 17: Alex Katz: The White Coat

Rhona Hoffman Gallery 1711 W. Chicago (60622) www.rhoffmangallery.com

Rhona Hoffman specializes in international contemporary art in all medias, and art that is conceptually, formally or socio-politically based. From its inception, the gallery has launched emerging artists’ careers.

Sept 17 – Oct 22: Jacob Hashimoto: Misunderstandings Oct 29 – Dec 3: Nancy Rubins

Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art 756 N. Milwaukee (60642) www.art.org

Intuit is a premier museum of outsider and self-taught art. Its mission is grounded in the ethos that powerful art can be found in unexpected places and made by unexpected creators.

Thru Oct 13: Trauma and Loss, Reflection and Hope: Selections from the Collection

DAVID HEO, PRESENCE, OPENS SEPT 11 AT VERTICAL GALLERY

Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA) 2320 W. Chicago (60622) www.uima-chicago.org

Oct 16 – Nov 7: East Gallery: Kandinsky: The Rediscovered Bauhaus Sketchbook Sept 4 – Nov.21: West and Eat Galleries: Selections from the Permanent Collection, 50th anniversary celebrations Dec 4 – Jan 30: Rituals: Brenton Good, Mandy Cano Villalobos, Marissa Voytenko

Ken Saunders Gallery

2041 W. Carroll, Ste. C-320 (60612) www.kensaundersgallery.com Sept 9: Neon and Light Museum at 325 W. Huron St (60654). Tickets on sale for limited run.

Sept 11: Gary Justis, Electric Dreams Oct 2: Anjali Srinivasan

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• GOLDFINCH • THE FRANKLIN

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• FILTER PHOTO • SPUDNIK PRESS

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• RIVER WEST • WEST LOOP • GARFIELD PARK

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• UKRAINIAN VILLAGE • WEST TOWN • KINZIE CORRIDOR

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THE WEST SIDE

• KAVI GUPTA • MCCORMICK

ADAMS

EPIPHANY

Vertical Gallery

Western Exhibitions

Hindman

Sept 11 – Oct 2: David Heo, Presence. Solo Exhibit Oct 9 – 30: LAX / ORD III: Growing the Focus Nov 6 – 24: Sergio Farfan, 5 Years. Solo Exhibit Dec 11 – Jan 8, 2022: Atomic Number 13.

Group Show curated by ArtBuilds

Sept 17: • Dutes Miller, in Gallery 1 • Lauren Wy, in Gallery 2 Nov 5: • Jessica Campbell, in Gallery 1 • Dan Attoe, in Gallery 2

Hindman operates more U.S. salesrooms than any other firm and conducts over 100 auctions annually in categories such as fine jewelry, fine art, modern design, books and manuscripts, furniture, decorative arts, couture, Asian art, arts of the American West, and numismatics.

1016 N. Western (60622) 2006 W. Chicago, 1R (60622) – Vertical Project Space www.verticalgallery.com

Volume Gallery

1709 W. Chicago, 2B (60622) www.wvvolumes.com Volume Gallery focuses on design and art, with a strong emphasis placed on emerging contemporary designers and artists.

Weinberg/Newton Gallery 688 N. Milwaukee (60642) www.weinbergnewtongallery.com

Sept 24 – Dec 18: Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40: Wendy Ewald and Amalia Mesa-Bains

1709 W. Chicago, 2nd Floor (60622) www.westernexhibitions.com

WEST LOOP Kavi Gupta Gallery 835 W. Washington and 219 N. Elizabeth (60607) www.kavigupta.com

Thru Sept 11: Wadsworth Jarrell and Gerald Williams: Works on Paper (Elizabeth St.) Sept 25 – Dec 18: Surface Is Only a Material Vehicle for Spirit, curated by Kennedy Yanko, (Elizabeth St.) Thru Oct 30: Realms of Refuge (Elizabeth St.) Oct 8: Jessica Stockholder (Washington Blvd.)

Group exhibition (Washington Blvd.)

Nov 13: Jeffrey Gibson (Elizabeth St.)

1338 W. Lake (60607) www.hindmanauctions.com

Epiphany Center for the Arts 201 S. Ashland (60607) • epiphanychi.com

Thru Sept 12: Thresholds – Identity: Perspectives on Y(OUR)selves Sept 18 – 25: Chicago Textile Week Nov 6 – April 9, 2022: Agave!

Dec 10 – Feb 19, 2022: Like Queer Animals We Hold Your Gaze

McCormick Gallery 835 W. Washington (60607) www.thomasmccormick.com

Sept 16 – Nov 6: Pooja Pittie Nov 11 – Jan 8, 2022: Dusti Bongé

Carrie Secrist Gallery 900 W. Washington (60607) www.secristgallery.com

Sept 18 – Nov 13: Was/Is/Ought

Fall 2021 | CGN | 19

IN GALLERIES THIS FALL Julia Katz David Antonio Cruz

ADDINGTON

Sept 10

MONIQUE MELOCHE

Nov 6–Dec 18

JULIA KATZ

DAVID ANTONIO CRUZ

Claude Viallat DOCUMENT

Lauralynn White: Journey

Sept 7–Oct 30

OLIVA Nov 12–Dec 11

CLAUDE VIALLAT

LAURALYNN WHITE

Mr. Switch

Andrea Bowers

CHICAGO TRUBORN

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Oct 2–Nov 6

Nov 20–Mar 27, 2022

MR SWITCH

Indira Freitas Johnson: The Resonance of Emptiness

ANDREA BOWERS, CHURCH BANNERS (ADALBERTO UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, CHICAGO, MEMBER OF NEW SANCTUARY MOVEMENT), 2007/2008

Jeffrey Wolin: Faces of Homelessness CATHERINE EDELMAN

EVANSTON ART CENTER

Oct 9–Nov 14 Dec 10–Feb 5 INDIRA FREITAS JOHNSON

20 | CGN | Fall 2021

JEFFREY WOLIN

CARL HAMMER

ZOLLA / LIEBERMAN RICHARD NORTON

Addington Gallery 704 N. Wells (60654) www.addingtongallery.com

Sept 10: Julia Katz: Solo Exhibition Fall Art Walk 5-8pm in River North Nov 5: Alicia LaChance: Solo Exhibition

Jean Albano Gallery 215 W. Superior (60654) www.jeanalbanogallery.com Nov 5: Imagining: Images

Gallery Victor Armendariz 300 W. Superior (60654) www.galleryvictor.com

Sept 10, 5-8pm: Ethos and Truth: Bruno Surdo Sept 30, 5-8pm: 3 Day Pop-Up Exhibition and book signing Kirill Polevoy, Chasing Light

HURON

HERITAGE AUCTIONS

ERIE

MOONEY FOUNDATION

Hilton | Asmus Contemporary

Richard Norton Gallery

Thru Nov 20: ORIGINS: Paul Nicklen | Cristina Mittermeier Oct 11: David Yarrow

Rangefinder Gallery at Tamarkin Camera

River North: 716 N. Wells (60654) Bridgeport: 3622 S. Morgan (60609) hilton-asmus.com

Alan Koppel Gallery

806 N. Dearborn (60610) 342 Park Ave., Glencoe (60022) www.alankoppel.com

DEARBORN

ADDINGTON

LASALLE

HILTON | ASMUS

WELLS

SUPERIOR JEAN ALBANO

CLARK

VALE CRAFT

FRANKLIN

• VICTOR ARMENDARIZ • RANGEFINDER

ORLEANS

RIVER NORTH

ALAN KOPPEL

CHICAGO

612 Merchandise Mart (60654) www.richardnortongallery.com

300 W. Superior (60654) www.tamarkin.com/leicagallery

Nov 11: Big Bowl of Wonderful, Jeff Garlin In person reception with Jeff Garlin, 7-11pm

For over two decades, Alan Koppel Gallery has played a leading role in introducing contemporary international artists to American audiences. In addition to organizing extensive solo and group exhibitions the gallery maintains an inventory of select primary and secondary works by leading artists from the major movements in 20th C. American and European Art.

Carl Hammer Gallery

740 N. Wells (60654) info@carlhammergallery.com • 312–266–8512 www.carlhammergallery.com

JEFF GARLIN, BIG BOWL OF WONDERFUL AT RANGEFINDER GALLERY, OPENING NOV 11

Carl Hammer Gallery specializes in modern and contemporary art of the 20th and 21st centuries including American self-taught (“outsider”) artists.

Vale Craft Gallery 230 W. Superior (60654) www.valecraftgallery.com

Sept 10: GO FIGURE! A Survey of Figurative Art

Heritage Auctions 215 W. Ohio (60654) www.ha.com

Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the United States, and the world’s largest collectibles auctioneer, with locations in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam and Hong Kong.

BLACKFRIARS, COURTESY JOHN DAVID MOONEY, 1986

John David Mooney Foundation 114 W. Kinzie (60654) www.mooneyfoundation.org

All exhibitions and events hosted by the Foundation are free and open to the public.

Marking the 100th anniversary of Joseph Beuys’ birth, the John David Mooney Foundation will feature Beuys’ influence with gallery installations, film screenings, virtual presentations and webinars throughout 2021.

Contemporary American fine craft objects and sculpture. Works in clay, fiber, metal, glass and wood.

Sept 10 – Oct 30: Autumn Colors Nov 5 – Dec 31: At the Table

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery 325 W. Huron (60654) www.zollaliebermangallery.com

Thru Oct 16: Deborah Butterfield, New Sculptures.

Receptions Sept 10 and 11 Oct 21 – 24: Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation Nov 5: Herman Aguirre

Fall 2021 | CGN | 21

DEARBORN

OAK

OAK WALTON

GRAY

DELAWARE CHESTNUT

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART (MCA)

PEARSON

The Arts Club of Chicago

CHICAGO

201 E. Ontario (60611) www.artsclubchicago.org

R.S. JOHNSON FINE ART

MICHIGAN AVE MICHIGAN AVE

ERIE

111 S. Michigan Ave. (60603) www.artic.edu

Thru Oct 18: Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw Sep 19 – Jan 24, 2022: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. Nov 26, 2021 – Mar 21, 2022: Ray Johnson c/o

The Chicago Cultural Center 78 E. Washington (60602) www.chicago.gov

HUBBARD KINZIE

Thru Jan 9, 2022: CHICAGO: Where Comics Came to Life (1880-1960) Sept 18 – Jan 2, 2022: Jin Lee: Views & Scenes Oct 2 – Jan 8, 2022: An Instrument in the Shape of a Woman

NAVY PIER

ILLINOIS

WACKER

Downtown: 875 N. Michigan (60611) • 312-642-8877 Warehouse: 2044 W. Carroll (60612) www.richardgraygallery.com

BERT GREEN

MONROE ADAMS JACKSON VAN BUREN CONGRESS HARRISON

Bert Green Fine Art

THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

GRANT PARK

COLUMBUS

Gray

MADISON

MICHIGAN AVE

WABASH

STATE

MILLENIUM PARK

Sept 3 – 25: Dredske: A Ridiculous Clusterf#*k Oct 1 – 15: Forever Golden Memorial Exhibition – Jason Brooks

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY (MOCP) – (600 S)

BALBO

8 S. Michigan, Ste. 620 (60603) • www.bgfa.us Hours: F and Sa 12-4 pm and by appt. other days

ELEPHANT ROOM

Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP)

The Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts

Sept 10: American Epidemic: Guns in the United States

Visit our website for class and open studio schedules.

Columbia College Chicago 600 S. Michigan (60605) • www.mocp.org

1012 N. Dearborn (60610) www.paletteandchisel.org

South Asia Institute 1925 S. Michigan Ave. (60616) See map on page 24 www.saichicago.org

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) 220 E. Chicago (60611) www.mcachicago.org

South Asia Institute (SAI) cultivates the art and culture of South Asia and its diaspora through curated exhibitions, innovative programs and educational initiatives

Thru Oct 3: Chicago Comics: 1960s to Now Thru Apr 3: Chicago Works: Caroline Kent Victoria/ Veronica: Making Room Sept 4 – Jun 5, 2022: Bani Abidi: The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared Nov 20 – Mar 27, 2022: Andrea Bowers

Sept 3 – Oct 10: Contemporary Chronicles

RENÉE STOUT, BABY’S FIRST GUN, 1998 AT MOCP

22 | CGN | Fall 2021

GRAND

WASHINGTON SAIC SULLIVAN GALLERIES

645 N. Michigan (60611) www.rsjohnsonfineart.com

OHIO

CHICAGO

Focusing on new and emerging Chicago-based artists and fostering connections between collectors and artists.

New exhibitions 4-6 weeks. Original art and limited ed. prints by artists also regularly available online.

R.S. Johnson Fine Art

THE ARTS CLUB

RANDOLPH CULTURAL CENTER

704 S. Wabash (60605) www.elephantroomgallery.com

Sept 18 – Oct 22: Mara Baker: New Monotypes Nov 6 – Dec 17: Richard Haley

ONTARIO

LAKE

Elephant Room Gallery

Contemporary Art and Limited Edition Prints.

FAIRBANKS FAIRBANKS

HURON

RUSH

The Art Institute of Chicago

SUPERIOR

STATE

Thru Winter 2022: Chicago Mobile Makers: Shape Makers Sept 30 – Jan 29, 2022: Hannah Levy: Surplus Tension

DR

MICHIGAN AVE GOLD COAST THE LOOP / SOUTH LOOP

PALETTE & CHISEL

RE HO ES LAK N.

DOWNTOWN

NORTH SIDE

FOSTER

LINCOLN SQUARE / RAVENSWOOD

N CO

Chicago Printmakers Collaborative

LAWRENCE

LN

4912 N. Western (60625) • 773 293 2070 www.chicagoprintmakers.com

RAVENSWOOD HOFHEIMER GALLERY

LI

LINCOLN SQUARE

CHICAGO PRINTMAKERS COLLABORATIVE

Sept 18 – Nov 6: Tongue in Cheek: Irreverence in Print Dec 4 & 5: The 32nd Annual International Small Print Exhibition & Holiday Sale. Opening Party Sa / Su 11-6, over 60 artists!

UPTOWN

DAMEN

MONTROSE

RAVENSWOOD

EAT PAINT

Eat Paint Studio 5036 N. Lincoln (60625) www.eatpaintstudio.com

IRVING PARK

Eat Paint Studio is a storefront gallery that showcases emerging and mid-career artists. We exhibit painting, drawing, and photography.

4823 N. Damen (60625) www.hofheimergallery.com

CLAR

94 0/

I-9

K

ADDISON

Hofheimer Gallery opened in 2018 showcasing both contemporary and modern art with a focus on mid-career and established artists, featuring primarily Chicago artists.

LAKEVIEW

LAKEVIEW / LINCOLN PARK / OLD TOWN

Sept 24: Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright

HALSTED

ASHLAND

WESTERN

DAMEN

N

659 W. Wrightwood (60614) www.wrightwood659.org

UR

Wrightwood 659

O

Sept 20 – Nov 23: William S. Schwartz: Color and Coloratura Oct 26: Virtual Madron Press book talk and artist’s lecture, hosted by Glencoe Public Library

DEPAUL ART MUSEUM

YB CL

Our extensive inventory showcases the breadth and depth of art in the U.S. between 1890–1940, as well as a growing inventory of modern and contemporary artists.

WICKER PARK

NORTH

WRIGHTWOOD 659

LINCOLN PARK

E

1000 W. North Ave, 3rd Fl (60642) 312-640-1302 www.madrongallery.com

FIRECAT PROJECTS

KE

Madron Gallery

ARMITAGE

BUCKTOWN AU ILW

Sept 17 – Nov 20: Winds of Change: New Works by Helen Gotlib, Ahavani Mullen, Allison Svoboda and Ana Zanic Nov 26 – Jan 29: Winter Salon

OLIVA

DIVERSEY

FULLERTON M

LOGAN SQUARE

Gallery 1871

1871 N. Clybourn (60614) www.chicagoartsource.com (Formerly Chicago Art Source Gallery)

CALIFORNIA

Sept 9 – Feb 13, 2022: • Stockyard Institute: 25 Years of Art and Radical Pedagogy • Learned Objects: Studio Works by William Estrada, Regin Igloria, Nicole Marroquin, and Rochele Royster

KEDZIE

935 W. Fullerton (60614) www.artmuseum.depaul.edu

CENTRAL PARK

DePaul Art Museum (DPAM)

BELMONT

RACINE

Hofheimer Gallery

AN ORANGE MOON T.F. PROJECTS

BUCKTOWN / LOGAN SQUARE / WICKER PARK Firecat Projects

SPRINGBOARD

GALLERY 1871

OLD TOWN MADRON

An Orange Moon 2418 W. North Ave (60647) www.anorangemoon.com

Thru Sept 5: Wesley Willis: I Heart Chicago!

2019 N. Damen (60647) www.firecatprojects.org

Springboard Arts

Oliva Gallery

Springboard Arts Chicago is a Wicker Park art gallery that has a mission of supporting unrepresented artists.

Our works include sculpture, paintings, works on paper, photography and mixed media.

3816 W. Armitage (60647) • www.olivagallery.com Sept 10: An Abstract Universe, Stanley Dean Edwards Oct 8: Common Gesture, Sarah Dupré and Lisa Marie Barber Nov 12: Journey, Lauralynn White Dec 17: 3rd Arc, Pauline Kochanski

1910 W. North Ave (60622) • www.springboardarts.com

Sept 16 - Dec 31: A La Francais: The French Way

T.F Projects / The Dime 1513 N. Western (60622) thedimechicago@gmail.com

Fall 2021 | CGN | 23

SOUTH SIDE

PILSEN / BRIDGEPORT / CHINATOWN

BRIDGEPORT / PILSEN / CHINATOWN

18TH ST 18TH ST

PILSEN EAST

19TH PL

CULLERTON

RT

O LP

RACINE

MORGAN

A

N CA

ASHLAND

MANA CONTEMPORARY

HALSTED

CULLERTON WOMAN MADE GALLERY

PRAIRIE SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE DISTRICT STATE

PILSEN

CANAL

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ART

Bridgeport Art Center

19TH

19TH ST

MICHIGAN AVE

PROSPECTUS

CERMAK

CHINATOWN

23RD ST

FLXST

26TH ST

ER

H

C AR

FLXST Contemporary

2251 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 220 (60616) www.flxst.co Sept 11: Jose Villalobos: The Measure of a Cock Sept 25: Jessica Frances Gregoire Lancaster: Fifteen Seconds Nov 6: Bassim Al Shaker: Solo Exhibition Nov 13: Kirk Henriques & Alexandra Antoine: Gastropoetics

Bridgeport: 3622 S. Morgan (60609) River North: 716 N. Wells (60654) hilton-asmus.com

Woman Made Gallery

BRIDGEPORT ART CENTER

2150 S. Canalport, Ste. 4A3 (60608) www.womanmade.org

35TH ST

HILTON | ASMUS #2

Chicago’s feminist art gallery.

BRONZEVILLE

SOUTH SIDE COMMUNITY ART CENTER

PERSHING

Sept 26: Moment Like This, juried by Jessica Bingham Oct 9: 5th Midwest Open, juried by Alison Wong Nov 27: Small Works Members Exhibition

HYDE PARK / DORCHESTER

HYDE PARK

Hyde Park Art Center 5020 S. Cornell (60615) www.hydeparkart.org

HYDE PARK ART CENTER

51ST ST

KE

LA

HYDE PARK BLVD

RE O SH

SMART MUSEUM OF ART

DR

WASHINGTON PARK

56TH ST

DUSABLE MUSEUM

Univ. of Chicago, 5811 S. Ellis, 4th Fl. (60637) www.renaissancesociety.org

PLAISANCE

STONY ISLAND ARTS BANK

STONY ISLAND

WOODLAWN

ELLIS

MIDWAY

DORCHESTER

Univ. of Chicago, 5550 S. Greenwood (60637) www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

COTTAGE GROVE

67TH ST

The Renaissance Society

Smart Museum of Art

58TH ST

60TH ST

Thru Nov 7: Future Fossils: SUM by Lan Tuazon Oct 4 – Dec 18: A.J. McClenon: Notes from VEGA Oct 11 – Nov 27: Moments In Between: Tran Tran

Sept 10 – Nov 7: Smashing into my heart

RENAISSANCE SOCIETY

MLK DRIVE

Thru Oct 22: CAVA 2021 Sept 17 – Nov 5: Fournier Exhibition Nov 1 – Jan 8, 2022: Art Talk Nov 19 – Jan 7, 2022: Vibrant Mechanisms, Kinetic & Sound

Hilton | Asmus Contemporary

BRIDGEPORT 31ST ST

24 | CGN | Fall 2021

1200 W. 35th St. (60609) www.bridgeportart.com

Please check website for hours and reservation info.

Thru Dec 19: Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40 Sept 23 – Dec 19: Smart to the Core: Medium / Image

Stony Island Arts Bank 6760 S. Stony Island (60649) www.rebuild-foundation.org

Thru Dec 19: Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40

SUBURBS + MIDWEST EVANSTON Evanston Art Center

1717 Central St., Evanston (60201) www.evanstonartcenter.org • 847-475-5300 Oct 9 – Nov 14: Indira Freitas Johnson: The Resonance of Emptiness Oct 16 – Nov 10: Dan Oliver: Afire Nov 20 – Dec 19: Matt Irie

THE NORTH SHORE AND NORTHWEST SUBURBS The Art Center – Highland Park 1957 Sheridan Rd., Highland Park (60035) www.theartcenterhp.org

A non-profit arts organization dedicated to education in the contemporary visual arts through classes, outreach programs, gallery exhibitions and events.

Thru Sept 25: Words Matter

Art Post Gallery

984 Willow Rd., Ste. G, Northbrook (60062) www.artpostgallery.com • 847–272–7659 This lovely, upscale gallery features one of the largest inventories of original art in the Chicagoland area, including: Contemporary and Transitional styles; Representing 25+ artists; Many large-scale paintings; Fine framing offered.

Perspective Group + Photography Gallery

1310-1/2 Chicago Ave., Evanston (60201) www.perspectivegallery.org

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center 9603 Woods Dr., Skokie (60077) www.ilholocaustmuseum.org

Alan Koppel Gallery – North 342 Park Ave., Glencoe (60022) www.alankoppel.com

Anne Loucks Gallery 309 Park Ave., Glencoe (60022) www.loucksgallery.com

Anne Loucks Gallery specializes in contemporary American painting, photography, and works on paper.

Celebrating our 20th year, the gallery curates six exhibitions annually and offers a complete range of art advisory, framing and installation services.

WESTERN SUBURBS Cleve Carney Museum of Art

Perspective Group and Photography Gallery is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit cooperative that promotes fine art photography to the public. It conducts exhibitions, lectures, classes and outreach by and through its dynamic and diverse membership of photographers.

College of DuPage 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn (60137) theCCMA.org

Oct 16 – Jan 31, 2022: Tony Fitzpatrick: Jesus of Western Avenue

Sept 2 – 26: See My Story Sept 30 – Oct 31: Steve Geer

Elmhurst Art Museum

150 S. Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst (60126) www.elmhurstartmuseum.org Oct 13 – Jan 2, 2022: Par Excellence: The Back 9 Oct 27 – Jan 2, 2022: McCormick House: From the Collection

ART POST GALLERY

THE ART CENTER HIGHLAND PARK ANN LOUCKS ALAN KOPPEL NORTH ART POST

NORTH SHORE + EVANSTON GEORGES COULOMB, BASTIDE AUX ARBRES JAUNES, OIL ON CANVAS. EXPRESSION GALLERIES

ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

Expression Gallery of Fine Art • EVANSTON ART CENTER • PERSPECTIVE

10 E. First St., Hinsdale (60521) wwww.expressiongalleries.com

Since 2005, our gallery has specialized in 19th, 20th century works on paper by Masters, contemporary French painters, and works by Russian Master Nikolay Blokhin. Known for works by Renoir, Klimt, Picasso, and Miró.

Oct 16: Georges Coulomb, Play on Color

Fermilab Art Gallery

Kirk Rd & Pine St., Batavia (60510) events.fnal.gov/art-gallery Fermilab Art Gallery specializes in the intersection of art and science. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, is America’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory, bringing the world together to solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time.

Thru Nov 15: Virtual Exhibit: Sujata Majumdar Nov 16: Virtual Exhibit: Adam Makarenko Fall 2021 | CGN | 25

WESTERN + SOUTH SUBURBS

GREATER ILLINOIS Art De Triumph

2905 Ridgewood Rd., Rockford (61107) www.NancieKingMertz.com O’HARE AIRPORT

ROSEMONT ST CHARLES

KAVANAGH GALLERY AT FINE LINE CREATIVE ARTS

N O R T H AV E .

ELMHURST ART MUSEUM

FERMILAB

R O O S E V E LT R D .

CLEVE CARNEY

BROOKFIELD

GLEN E L LY N

E A S T W E S T T O L LW AY

LISLE

KOMECHAK ART GALLERY

37W570 Bolcum Rd., St. Charles (60175) www.fineline.org

Sept 2 – Oct 9: Small Expressions: The art may be small, but it is intriguing to view.

Oct 14 – Nov 18: Long Time Passing. Exploring the struggles, joys, and challenges of Midwest farm life.

Komechak Art Gallery (Benedictine University)

5700 College Rd., Lisle (60532) www.ben.edu/komechak-art-gallery/index.cfm

Thru Feb 26, 2022: A Question of Emphasis: Louise Fishman Drawing Thru Dec 22: Hal Fischer Photographs: Seriality, Sexuality, Semiotics Sept 23 – Dec 11: Crip*

Northern Illinois University (NIU) Art Museum

HINSDALE

EXPRESSION GALLERIES

Altgeld Hall, 1st Fl., West End, DeKalb (60115) www.niu.edu/artmuseum

5 5 T H S T.

• CHRISTOPHER GALLERY • SALON ARTISTS NATHAN U N I V E R S I T Y MANILOW PA R K

Kavanagh Gallery at Fine Line Creative Arts Center

Krannert Art Museum (KAM)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 500 E. Peabody Dr., Champaign (61820) www.kam.illinois.edu • Open Tu–Sat 10–4, Th 10-8 ELMHURST

B ATAV I A

We’re EXPANDING! Visit our Gallery/Artists’ Retreat/ Learning Center in our historic home in Rockford, just 85 miles from downtown Chicago. Come for the Day, or Come for a Stay.

CHICAGO HEIGHTS + PA R K F O R E S T

Salon Artists Gallery

294 Main St., Park Forest (60466) www.salonartistsgallery.com

Toomey & Co. Auctioneers 818 North Blvd., Oak Park (60301) www.toomeyco.com

Toomey & Co. Auctioneers, a specialty auction house since 1987, is considered one of the premiere auction houses in the country to sell 20th Century Art & Design.

We hold 4-6 carefully curated auctions a year that include Paintings, Prints, Drawings and Sculpture from the 20th and 21st Century, works from the Arts & Crafts movement, Art Nouveau and Art Deco Periods and MidCentury Modern Design.

SOUTH SUBURBS

Thru Nov 12: Refuge and Refugee – The Art of Surviving: The Journey of the Karen Refugees in Illinois

Rockford Art Museum 711 N. Main St., Rockford (61103) www.rockfordartmuseum.org

The RAM Permanent Collection focuses on modern and contemporary art, photography, studio glass, outsider art, and regional art; exhibits change throughout the year.

Thru Sept 26: Technicolor Constellations: Tales from the Permanent Collection Oct 8–Jan 23, 2022: My Way: Black Art from the American South

Tarble Arts Center

Eastern IL Univ., 2010 9th St., Charleston (61920) www.eiu.edu/tarble Sept 24 – Dec 4: • Force Majeure • Yoko Ono: Mend Piece

Christopher Art Gallery at Prairie State College

202 S. Halsted St., Chicago Heights (60411) prairiestate.edu/christopher-art-gallery/index.aspx Sept 20 – Oct 14: Biomorphic, Beth Adler, Frank Connet and Jeanine Coupe Ryding Oct 25 – Nov 18: Quirky, Diane Levesque, Michael Noland, Marilyn Propp and Kevin Veara Nov 29 – Dec 16: Subtle Tensions, Megan Greene, David Joseph and Tom McHale

Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park Governors State University, 1 University Pkwy., University Park (60484) • www.govst.edu/sculpture

Voted Best Sculpture Park 2021, USA Today, 10 Best Readers’ Choice!

Open dawn to dusk 365 days a year, free admission and parking.

26 | CGN | Fall 2021

NANCIE KING MERTZ AND ART DE TRIUMPH HAVE A NEW LOCATION ROCKFORD

CARRIE MAE WEEMS, I LOOK AT WOMEN (STILL), 2017, VIDEO | © CARRIE MAE WEEMS. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY, NEW YORK. PART OF FORCE MAJEURE AT TARBLE ARTS CENTER

JMKAC

WISCONSIN MADISON MINERAL POINT

MILWAUKEE

MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM LILY PAD WEST

WANTOOT GALLERY

MICHIGAN LAKE MICHIGAN

KRASL ART CENTER ST JOSEPH

ROCKFORD

ROCKFORD ART MUSEUM

SNITE MUSEUM NOTRE DAME MICH. CITY

CHICAGO

LUBEZNIK CENTER DEKALB

VALPARAISO

BRAUER MUSEUM

NORTHERN IL UNIV ART MUSEUM

MUNSTER

THE NONPROFIT AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MARINE ARTISTS AIMS TO RECOGNIZE, ENCOURAGE AND PROMOTE MARINE ART AND MARITIME HISTORY. THEIR NATIONAL EXHIBITION TRAVELS TO KRASL ART CENTER’S GALLERIES THIS FALL TO HIGHLIGHT THE BEAUTY IN AND AROUND WATER.

SOUTH SHORE ARTS

MICHIGAN ILLINOIS

NEWFIELDS INDIANAPOLIS

KRANNERT ART MUSEUM CHAMPAIGN

TARBLE ARTS CENTER

Krasl Art Center

707 Lake Blvd., St. Joseph, MI (49085) www.krasl.org Krasl Art Center offers high-quality contemporary art in the galleries, unique artist-made items in The Shop, ongoing studio classes, special events, and dynamic programs. KAC is free & open to the public.

INDIANA

CHARLESTON

WISCONSIN John Michael Kohler Arts Center 608 New York Ave., Sheboygan (53081) www.jmkac.org Thru Oct 3: Bernard Langlais: Live and Let Live Thru Mar 13, 2022: High Touch Thru January 9, 2022: Annabeth Marks: Extender Thru Feb 6, 2022: Allison Wade: The Good Parts

Lily Pad | West

215 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI (53202) www.lilypadgallery.com Lily Pad | West is a contemporary art gallery that presents artwork from over 70 artists. We showcase a wide range of artwork from photorealism to abstract art in our virtual and in-person exhibitions. Visit our website to view more information and our full exhibition schedule.

INDIANA Lubeznik Center for the Arts 101 W. 2nd St. Michigan City, IN (46360) www.lubeznikcenter.org

Milwaukee Art Museum

Thru October 15: Phyllis Bramson, Robert Indiana, Mayumi Lake Oct 25 – Feb 25, 2022: Nature Now

JIM DINE (AMERICAN, BORN 1935), RANCHO WOODCUT HEART, 1982, WOODCUT, 47 3/4 X 40 ½ INCHES. GIFT OF THE ARTIST, 2019.016.109

Newfields

4000 Michigan Rd., Indianapolis, IN (46208) discovernewfields.org Thru September 25: Watercolor Society of Indiana – 2021 Annual Exhibition Thru December 5: Private Eye: The Imagist Impulse In Chicago Art

Snite Museum of Art

University of Notre Dame, 100 Moose Krause Circle Notre Dame, IN (46556) www.sniteartmuseum.nd.edu/

700 N. Art Museum Dr., Milwaukee, WI (53202) www.mam.org Thru Oct 3: Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 1820–1920 Thru Dec 5: The Quilts of Pauline Parker Thru Dec 12: First Impressions: Early Printed Books in Europe Ongoing: American Memory: Commemoration, Nostalgia, and Revision

Wantoot Gallery

236 High St., Mineral Point, WI (53565) www.wantoot.com

Thru Dec 11: Jim Dine: American Icon Thru Dec 23: Kevin Beasley – Chair of the Ministers of Defense

South Shore Arts

1040 Ridge Rd., Munster, IN (46321) www.southshoreartsonline.org Fall 2021 | CGN | 27

A MAN WALKS INTO A MUSEUM FOR TONY FITZPATRICK 2021 IS A RETURN TO MORE THAN BEFORE

By GINNY VAN ALYEA Fresh from a positive report from his cardiologist, artist Tony Fitzpatrick invites me to sit down and indulge in some fried chicken and cake. Following a 2015 heart attack Fitzpatrick, at 63, is full of life and fire. A widely-known creative force in Chicago and well beyond, the artist says he was given a second act (or third, or fourth, if you listen to his stories of previous close calls) in order to keep making art.

Fitzpatrick’s stories are legend, and he loves a listener.

More than that, he loves an audience. He’s sure to get one this October, when he opens Jesus of Western Avenue, an expansive exhibition taking place at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art in suburban Glen Ellyn. The artist will also be publishing Apostles of Humboldt Park, a book featuring a collection of work Fitzpatrick created in isolation: signature drawing collages of birds he’s observed and admired throughout Chicago’s famed west side park.

As much as Fitzpatrick loves connecting with people and sharing his stories, from Facebook to a theater stage, he seems most at home in his west side studio, working on his latest collages as well as directing deliveries and shipments of art, hosting visitors or introducing artists and collectors through exhibitions at The Dime and T.F. Projects. If Western Avenue is the solar system, Fitzpatrick might be its sun.

There is a gravitational pull that keeps everything in orbit around this particular star.

Fitzpatrick wears his heart (tatooed) on his sleeve. There is no speak softly and carry a big stick. There is if you don’t like what he says, you can see yourself out. What pours from Fitzpatrick’s stream of unselfconsciousness are positions on a multitude of topics. When Fitzpatrick took to Facebook during 2020’s lockdown to encourage fellow citizens to be masked and socially distant, he chose the hashtag #staythefuckhome over the more pedestrian, #StayHomeStaySafe.

Art, not surprisingly, occupies many of Fitzpatrick’s areas of opinion. For the dozen or so years I’ve known him, Fitzpatrick has frequently shared that he dislikes art fairs.

28 | CGN | Fall 2021

The multi-day, scene-obsessed frenzy they can generate has represented, for him, the apex of all that can be obscenely money-driven, ego-centric and just plain ridiculous about the art world. However, during a recent shared ride to attend the funeral of a friend, Fitzpatrick had the chance to tell Tony Karman, founder of EXPO Chicago, one of the country’s most prominent contemporary art fairs, that he sees fairs in a different light now.

Where he once ranted at the affront of an art marketplace that seemed to rule at the expense of true creativity and art appreciation, he says he now realizes that when many people gather for fairs there are celebrations of art as well as unparalleled opportunities for idea sharing and artist recognition; not everyone is a self-interested speculator.

The professional convergence and standards set at the best art fairs have facilitated timely and productive discussions and projects that benefit a broader public. Fitzpatrick sees Karman, amidst a landscape more challenging than ever, as a man trying to harness the best forces of the market in order to bring people together – to Chicago – in a way that positively moves art and artists forward together.

“I think Tony’s been a good steward of culture in this city.

He’s the most brutal optimist you’ve ever met in your life.

It’s infectious,” Fitzpatrick exhalts.

This about face is just one sign that Fitzpatrick continues to be full of surprises. He considers, “I got a new lease on life from heart surgery, and I lead a really different life now.

I swim every single morning. I don’t eat fried chicken a lot (just today).” His opinions, as well as his habits, are like the man himself: sometimes stubborn, but never immoveable.

“In the last five years I realized the glass is half full. I wasn’t looking for the good, but I found it. I learned that even just walking around Humboldt park could do me a world of good. I’ve gotten into birding in a big way and also become kind of an activist on behalf of birds and the environment.”

With more time to himself in 2020, except for socially distanced jigsaw puzzle deliveries via pizza peel to friends and clients, Fitzpatrick says he had the chance to care more about the local and global environment and how change relates to weather as well as his much loved local birds. “That’s one issue I think we really have to face as a culture and as artists – being better stewards of our planet.

Everything’s changed. I think COVID kind of made us somebody else.”

Fitzpatrick has also been a sort of activist on behalf of emerging artists who need mentoring support and exhibition exposure and has launched several gallery spaces in Chicago, from partnering on AdventureLand, to founding

TONY FITZPATRICK PHOTO: PETER ROSENBAUM

The Dime, and the newer T.F. Projects. In each case he has sought to adjust the traditional gallery model from an even split between dealer and artist to one that favors the artist.

Fitzpatrick recently appointed a new full-time director, Rachael Raab-Wasaff, to manage the galleries and lead from a female vantage point, while also managing Fitzpatrick’s career, freeing him up to work on his art.

Of course, Fitzpatrick is really never just making art. He’s also designing puzzles, publishing books, collaborating on public art–he unveiled a large-scale mural for Steppenwolf Theater Company this summer–and preparing for what he says will be his final museum show this fall, at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art. “I feel really good about the exhibition,” says Fitzpatrick.

“Right now we have at least 75 pieces in it, so far. We may have to cut, but we’re working with a lot at this point.”

The Cleve Carney Museum of Art, formerly the Cleve Carney Art Gallery, part of the College of DuPage and the McAninch Art Center, underwent a renovation and expansion of its galleries as well as a name change in 2019, in anticipation of Frida Kahlo: Timeless, which, along with Fitzpatrick’s show, was delayed for a year due to the pandemic.

When I ask about Fitzpatrick’s connection to the museum, he reveals, “I started caddying for Cleve Carney’s father, Marv Carney, in the 70s when I was about 12.” Looking across the table at Fitzpatrick, wearing his favorite White Sox hat and with gray in his beard, his fair skin mostly obscured by colorful tattoos, I am trying to picture him as a country club caddy, let alone a pre-teen. Fitzpatrick confirms he was never a golfer. “Why would I wear funny pants and chase a little ball around?” he asks me. He explains, however, that he was particularly good at reading greens, a skill he possessed because his drawing acumen helped him understand planes and trajectories.

Fitzpatrick emphasizes that he learned a lot from that time.

“You wouldn’t think it would be the job that most formed me, but it did. I learned how to win graciously, and how to lose gracefully.” Fitzpatrick also got to practice the art of listening (to more than a few dirty jokes), as well as getting, and holding, someone’s attention – skills that would all be put to use when he would later perform and tell stories in theaters and on film.

He says, “I had a remarkably bad attitude, but Marv liked me because I read his putts, and they played for money.”

Following some remarks on the course one day–Carney let Fitzpatrick know he needed a haircut as well as an attitude Fall 2021 | CGN | 29

BLACKHAWK, ILLINOIS INDIGO BUNTING (DREAMING OF STARS), 2021

adjustment–when asked what he was going to do with himself in life, Fitzpatrick responded, “I wanna be an artist.”

To which Carney exclaimed, “Fuck. You’re not going to make any money. My kid’s into that. He just got out of law school. Every damn dime he makes, he spends on art.”

Carney offered to introduce Fitzpatrick and his son the next time he was out golfing.

* I’ve heard Fitzpatrick talk about lasts before, so knowing he’s looking to keep going, following his heart attack, rather than call it quits, I press him if he really means it. Does he wonder what new, impossible to pass up offer could still come along?

However stern Marv was, Fitzpatrick says, Cleve was a lot of fun. “If I were to liken him to something in nature, it would be a pond full of otters.” When he did get to know Cleve, eventually Fitzpatrick showed him some drawings, and Cleve, in his late 20s at that point, responded by telling the young artist about many others, such as the German expressionists, and the artists of the Weimar Republic.

When Fitzpatrick shared that he wanted to learn how to make etchings, Cleve pointed him to study Hogarth, and Picasso. “He really came to me with the right things at the exact right time [in the 70s.] When I started making a name for myself in the 80s, Cleve was the first guy to come to my studio, and every time he came, he would buy something.

He was just unbelievably kind and supportive of me.”

“The museum thing, for sure it’s the last,” he responds.

“It’s time to get out of the way for people who don’t look like me. If I deal myself out of that equation, then some institutional wall space becomes available for somebody else. I think it’s important for us to create some equity, and it starts with every single artist.”

Cleve Carney built a major art collection over the years and championed a wide range of nonprofits and causes throughout Chicago. His 2012 donation of $1 million in cash and art to the college helped establish the Cleve Carney Arts Gallery which became the Cleve Carney Museum of Art in 2019. Fitzpatrick knew he had to do this exhibition, the one he says will be his last museum show, because he credits the support of this one man with making him an artist.

*

30 | CGN | Fall 2021

He emphasizes the significance in artists recognizing that they are each other’s advocates as well as worthy of accepting each other’s support. “The one thing the community has to realize is the most valuable assets we have are each other. Most things one artist cannot do by themselves. You put four or five of them together, and you can move mountains.”

Fitzpatrick’s new Steppenwolf Theater mural, titled Night and Day in the Garden of All Other Ecstasies and completed this spring, may also be his last mural in Chicago. Created in honor of the theater’s former artistic director, and Fitzpatrick’s friend, Martha Lavey, it represents the evolution of the storied company. At 12 feet high by 76 feet long,

THE WATCHMAN OF HUMBOLDT PARK (I, APOSTLE), 2021

WESTERN AVENUE (STREET OF CROCODILES), 2021

the mural hits some firsts for Fitzpatrick–his first outdoor mural and his largest work to date. Artist Danny Torres is credited with the laborious process of digitizing Fitzpatrick’s images for the mural inch by inch, which took him six weeks before they could be transferred to tile by a company in Italy. The quality and durability of the images on tile means that the mural won’t be as vulnerable to degradation by sun or weather. Says Fitzpatrick, “I think it’s a future of public art. I love the romance of painting onto something, like Michelangelo, but how often is most of that covered up?”

Fitzpatrick liked Torres and wanted to support him, so they talked about taking 18 months to get enough work ready to hang at AdventureLand, the gallery which used to be where T.F. Projects is now. Torres sold out his first show on the opening night. Not long after that was when Steppenwolf approached Fitzpatrick about the mural for their new building. He knew he could make the maquettes but he would need a top crew of artists to work with to execute it on a grand scale. Torres was his first choice. And once COVID altered the project’s entire timeline and prospects, just the two of them were mainly left to see it through.

Coming off of the Steppenwolf mural, Fitzpatrick and Torres started their own company–Fitzpatrick, Torres, Humboldt, Caballo–and are now looking for opportunities around the country and the world. Though this is supposed to be the last one they do in Chicago, time will tell. Either way, their work will not end. * Whereas some people become more stubborn with age, swearing off new things, and people, Fitzpatrick thrives on fresh energy. His friendship and business partnership with Torres, who is about half Fitzpatrick’s age, was also borne from what followed Fitzpatrick’s heart attack. Torres’s aunt, a cardio rehabilitation nurse at St Mary’s Hospital where Fitzpatrick received care, called Fitzpatrick. He recalls, “She just says, ‘This is Rosa, who restored you to life. I want you to meet my nephew, who is a marvelous artist.’ The minute we started talking, it was like we knew each other. We were already kind of the same.”

“No one could say they knew what [COVID-19] was yet,” Fitzpatrick recalls, “We were kind of lost for a while, until Mike Tobin, the head of Steppenwolf’s board, introduced us to the guys at Imola Ceramica.” Around for centuries, the company became known for fabricating decorative porcelain and ceramic tea sets before delving into cutting edge imaging about 30–35 years ago. That connection made the Steppenwolf mural’s production possible, and it also revealed new collaborations for Fitzpatrick and Torres, as well as any future players who come into their orbit.

The mural commission was obviously a significant artistic and business win for Fitzpatrick and his team, but what he says he finds most valuable is the work as public art in Chicago that will last long after he is gone.

“To do this in a public way, where people don’t have to pay a dime to see it? I love that.”

Fall 2021 | CGN | 31

ISOBEL NEAL (CENTER) WITH DAUGHTER-IN-LAW JEANETTE SUBLETT AND SON LANGDON NEAL, PICTURED AT THE FAMILY’S LAW OFFICE OF NEAL AND LEROY IN FRONT OF A PAINTING BY ROBERT DILWORTH

STEWARDS FOR GENERATIONS THE NEAL FAMILY’S INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT FOR BLACK ARTISTS

By GINNY VAN ALYEA Isobel Neal was looking for something to do. By the 1980s she had been a retired teacher for more 10 years, and when Neal told her friend Ann Nathan that she wanted to open a gallery, Nathan said, “You must be crazy.” Neal responded, “Well, I guess so.” Nathan would know, as she had opened her own gallery in River North a few years prior.

Neal wasn’t afraid of crazy, having managed a classroom of 60 fourth graders during her years as an inner-city public school teacher at Beethoven School on 47th street. In fact, it was art that helped her manage the daily chaos, wielding it as an incentive to work.

She recalls, “At Beethoven if you had any difficulties behaving, you lost your chair. Nobody wanted to stand all day, so art worked as the treat and a motivator. They wanted to get their work done so they could have some fun.”

32 | CGN | Fall 2021

At home she employed art in the same way with her young son Langdon, who still remembers working on potato prints and string paintings he was proud to put up on the wall.

Neal’s impulse to open a gallery was no vanity project.

She had years of experience as an educator, and she had gradually found herself with a new lesson to teach, having realized that no one in Chicago was representing the scores of Black artists whose work she was seeing. She knew she wanted to do something about it. * Prior to living in Chicago, Neal lived in New York City, where she attended NYU. When she took an interest test upon graduation, she was still surprised that her top result was art. “I laughed,” she recalls. “I said, “Art? What am I going to do with that? At the time [women] were either going to be teachers, social workers or nurses. Those were the options.

So, I never thought about art for years, except that I liked it.”

Neal taught in Chicago for two decades. When she retired, she wanted to pursue other interests fully. At her husband’s

encouragement she took a sabbatical and went back to school, spending time in California getting a master`s degree in anthropology/archeology. Upon returning to Chicago she taught adult education classes on African pre-history and archeology at the Northwestern Center for American Archeology as well as at the Field Museum.

Around the same time she was asked to chair the Black Creativity Art Show at the Museum of Science and Industry.

It was when poring over slides for the juried exhibition that Neal says she began to see so many artists from all over the country send in work they wanted to submit.

Neal began to think, “Who’s representing all these Black artists?

What I found was that this town, at that time, only knew about Richard Hunt.

Other Black artists who were living here, or not, would drop off a piece in a gallery, leave it on the floor, and if somebody saw it and wanted to buy it, that’s the way it went. Nobody was getting an exhibit or any real backing.”

she didn’t go in. “I sort of walked in the hall and thought, ‘I’m not going up there. Nobody’s around to tell me which apartment it is.’”

The neighborhood changed quickly, once pioneering galleries, run by figures like Rhona Hoffman, Donald Young, and Carl Hammer, moved in, and the district expanded and became established. Eventually Neal moved into a renovated space in the same building that she didn’t want to go into all those years before.

In search of artists to exhibit, Neal ventured to New York, using some connections to meet new artists. She went on a shopping spree of sorts, buying a range of art from artists like Ed Clark, Romare Bearden, and Jacob Lawrence, and she visited African American art dealers.

“He had quite a following, but he had been selling out of his house. A big, heavy man, right before the opening, I realized he would need a place to sit, so I ran across the street to another gallery to borrow a big, antique chair.

“Carter sat in the corner, and he just loved it, because it was like a throne.

There was a big crowd. All my family thought I was crazy, but my friends said, ‘We’ll come.’” The success of that evening was the beginning. “[Openings] became a meeting place,” remembers Neal. “The day after I was scrubbing [scuffs] off the white walls.

I was really busy, and it was exciting. I was never bored. I was thrown in with artists who were as fun to talk to and be with as you could ever imagine.”

Neal was inspired to look around for a space to rent so that she could begin to think about building a gallery program around Black artists.

“I wanted the kind of space that everybody else had then,” she says.

It was the 1980s, and things were buzzing in the area that had become known as River North. It was also at that time that she got Ann Nathan’s frank opinion on opening a gallery.

Neal thought she was on to something, crazy or not, and she settled on a space, located at the corner of Superior and Wells streets, that she could divide up into three distinct areas to show different artists simultaneously.

Neal knew the building from years earlier, during her time as a teacher for Homebound, a public school program that was the Zoom of its time. She had been assigned to teach a child who was unable to come to school, and she was sent to a family that lived at 200 W. Superior. She remembered just standing outside the building. It was in such disrepair, she says, that

ISOBEL NEAL IN HER GALLERY OFFICE IN RIVER NORTH

For the gallery’s first opening, at the start of the fall art season in September 1986, Neal decided on a show of work by local artists as well as others from around the country whose work she admired.

In 10 years, Neal says she showed 100 artists, doing exhibitions every six to eight weeks, usually with three different artists’ work at a time. She was never at a loss for artists.

Chicago artist William Carter was part of the inaugural show. Neal recalls,

“I didn’t have to find anybody. They found me from everywhere. I had an artist who was Haitian, she was living Fall 2021 | CGN | 33

A PAINTING BY CALVIN B. JONES HANGS IN THE LAW OFFICES OF NEAL AND LEROY

in Paris. I had people from Canada and from Mexico. There were so many Black artists who needed exposure.”

Jeanette Sublett, Neal’s daughter-in-law, who is married to her son Langdon, remembers, “The gallery was sort of the place, at the time in this area, for these artists to be exhibited, not to mention represented. Isobel always threw a great opening. Sometimes she had live music. There was always great food and drink. A lot of people attended; it was a place to be and to be seen.”

Giving Black artists the opportunity and visibility to be full participants in the art economy drove Neal. She also needed to make that a reality for the gallery in order to continue her work. Though electrified by the enthusiasm for her gallery, business success was not immediate. Neal realized that selling enough art to pay the bills was going to be tougher than she expected and that the teaching nest egg she had used to get started was rapidly running out. “I thought I had a lot of money until maybe two or three months went by,” Neal says, “and then I thought, ‘Oh.’ So, the family stepped in and became backers, and it became a family business.”

Her exclusive support for Black artists gained the attention of other prominent Black Americans. She once hosted a reception at the gallery for Mae Jemison, the first Black female astronaut, when she returned from a space mission.

Neal recalls that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley offered to have a reception for her at Soldier Field, or Navy Pier, but Jemison said, “I want it to be at Isobel Neal Gallery.” Neal had taught with the astronaut’s mother at Beethoven School and had discussed the gallery with her a little. “It was a huge crowd,” Neal remembers. “I have a wonderful photograph of the aurora borealis that she took from space. She wrote 34 | CGN | Fall 2021

on the top, ‘To Isobel Neal Gallery.’ We just got flowers for her, but she was the star.” * Neal’s roster of artists ranged from well-known figures like abstract painter Ed Clark, and Mexico-based Elizabeth Catlett, who studied with Grant Wood in the 1930s and showed prints with the gallery, to many artists who were not (yet) widely recognized but who did find recognition in line with their talent. Herbert House, a sculptor, sold so much work through the gallery he fulfilled his life-long dream and retired to Hawaii. Preston Jackson and John Rozelle both were offered jobs at the School of Art Institute because of their exhibition history. Neal’s crazy idea to start a gallery gave many artists the critical exposure and CVs they needed to reach new levels. * Neal’s husband, who was a prominent attorney at his own firm, considered that no artist should have a show without a sale. That commitment greatly scaled up the amount of art the Neals collected, because, if there was no sale, they bought something. The focus was on the artist’s success.

Neal had been collecting art for quite a while before she began selling it, and she always enjoyed returning to New York and visiting galleries. She fondly remembers one trip when she picked out a Charles Alston painting as a birthday present. But, she confesses, what she and her husband largely did to fill their walls and amass their collection was attend events like The South Side Community Art Center yearly benefit auction as well as Hyde Park’s 57th Street Art Fair to find a range of appealing prints, sculptures and paintings, even commissioned portraits. In at least one such

* As the child of serious collectors, Neal’s son Langdon grew up exposed to art from the beginning, but what sticks out the most from his youth was making art. His mother incentivized and entertained him as she did her students. “We passed time during those early years doing art projects in school and at home. It was just kind of what we did to fill in the day.”

Over the years he graduated from art making to being a part of the collecting. Now they each consider their family’s leadership and art mission a collaborative effort. “It is definitely a family art collection,” explains Langdon. “Part of it is in my mother’s home now, part is in Jeanette’s and my home, more of it’s here in our [law] office, and we have things in storage.

Between all of us we don’t have enough walls to display our artwork.”

The collective effort is a shared pride.

“It was a combination of,” admits Langdon, “the enjoyment of giving African American artists a place to show their works, something they never had, and carrying that into displaying their art in places where people could enjoy them. Even now having art throughout our [law] office means clients as well as our staff can enjoy this work. The collection was bigger than just the art itself. It was about opportunity and exposure for Black artists.That is still our focus today. Even outside the art world we try to act as mentors and supporters.”

Though the collection is dispersed amongst the Neals’ homes and their office, I was surprised to learn that it has not been exhibited in its entirety.

Works by artists like Catlett and Clark have been loaned to the Museum of Contemporary Art and other museums, but so far, not the majority of the collection. Assembled over a period of decades, drawn from several sources and by multiple people, the

sheer volume of art and historic material that has come together should capture the attention of a very ambitious curator. * Neal closed the gallery in the late 90s. Today she is focused on her work with the Art Institute of Chicago, where she sits on the Board of Trustees and on several of the museum’s committees, continuing to work on behalf of Black artists.

Neal serves with Denise Gardner, who will officially become the first Black person and first woman chairperson of the board this November. The two women are friends, and Gardner is a former client of Neal’s gallery. “Denise and her husband Gary credit me for getting their collection started.”

When I ask Neal about how she sees her role today from the position of a trustee of an internationally renowned museum, compared to her time as an art dealer starting out, she says she’s seeing a real attempt at change, so far, with some of the Art Institute’s collections and the representations within them–a natural continuation of what inspired her to start the gallery.

“These are big changes,” she explains.

“This has been a huge upheaval that we’ve lived through, not only through COVID, but George Floyd. [The Trustees] have looked at pages and pages of changes and had Zoom meetings galore about where to go next.”

While much of the conversation around representation is very familiar to Neal, she says the perception of value in the market and within institutions is different this time. It’s what she sought for Black artists decades ago. When I ask her why the change might be for real now, she refers back to those busy openings at the gallery in the 80s.

PAINTING BY ALVIN “AL” LOVING

case a picture of young Langdon Neal was painted by an artist on the spot in the street.

“I can’t say that nobody ever did it before, but there wasn’t a dedicated initiative to show Black artists. I feel that my greatest contribution, really, in 10 years at the gallery, was to make the art world know that African Americans had disposable income. I think that is the basis of why nobody widely showed work by Black artists before.

They didn’t believe that anybody would buy their art. At my gallery, they saw people literally lining up. These artists were worth the money.”

Because of Neal, no longer could collectors, and others, think Black art was only created and shown on the South Side, when every few weeks a diverse clientele was packed into a popular gallery on the North Side of Chicago, showing exclusively Black art.

Neal never stopped being a teacher, and she continued to use art as a motivator. “I purposely wanted to have the gallery where everybody else was,” she says. “That was my whole drift: to educate, I suppose, everyone.

My philosophy really was that art was universal. Everybody can enjoy it, and everybody can recognize talent. That’s the story.”

Fall 2021 | CGN | 35

ART IN ACTION: SUPPORTING CHICAGO’S AT–RISK YOUTH photography to social responsibility. The organization has recently launched The Artist Roster, which exhibits art from local emerging and teaching artists and alumni.

Marwen sees art as a vehicle for social change, leadership development, and a path to employment and seeks to inspire young people to build their future through art.

THE 2020 YOUTH ART WINNER DISPLAYS HER WORK AT THE CHICAGO URBAN ART RETREAT CENTER’S YOUTH FEST

A former student testified, “Marwen made me more comfortable with myself and helped me become more involved in my community.”

CHICAGO URBAN ART RETREAT CENTER

By JACQUELINE LEWIS

North Lawndale’s Chicago Urban Art Retreat Center (CUARC) offers workshops, women’s retreats, and volunteer It’s difficult, maybe impossible now, to go one day without seeing opportunities, in addition to free youth programs that work heartbreaking news about violence and fear rippling through with students where they are, at any age, and whether or Chicago’s underserved neighborhoods. However, the plague of not they are in school. crime and grief in the city can obscure notable successes borne from a great deal of resilient creativity and love of culture.

Director and Board President Dianna C. Long shared a story Many collectors and arts patrons in Chicago, as well as around the world, are familiar with the groundbreaking art and community efforts of artist Theaster Gates, who has founded multiple arts organizations in areas facing challenges foreign to most neighborhoods in the city – Gates’s Dorchester Art & Housing Collaborative, Chicago Arts & Industry Commons, Rebuild Foundation, and the Stony Island Arts Bank have become dynamic spaces for artists as well as their communities.

with CGN about the program’s impact on just one student, emphasizing that tangible successes are what these organizations hope to accomplish.

“Demarcus and his older brother Chris came into our art program when they were 6 and 7 years-old. Demarcus clearly enjoyed making art. I remember we were working on writing and illustrating a little book about family for each child, and Demarcus was very frustrated. When I offered to help, he told me that he could not spell or write. I had him CGN wanted to share the missions and efforts of several additional tell his story to me so I could put the words into his book area arts organizations, many of which have been operating for and he made the pictures. He revealed that this dad was in decades to support Chicago’s youth one student at a time. Each prison, and his mom was in a drug treatment center. He and one is devoted to cultivating and facilitating impactful programs his siblings were living with his grandmother. while utilizing arts education as a vehicle through which to bolster underserved communities. By harnessing their energies towards After a year, I noticed that Chris no longer came to art, and furthering their education through creativity, who knows, one of the Demarcus told me Chris had joined a gang and had also students in these programs could become the next Theaster Gates. said he was too old for art. Demarcus learned to read and MARWEN Located at the top edge of River North, Marwen offers free visual arts classes and college career programming to Chicago’s middle and high schoolers, with courses ranging from color theory to 36 | CGN | Fall 2021

write, and he continued to enjoy making art. Quite a long time later, a very tall Demarcus came to the door with his family for our Christmas giveaway. I didn’t recognize him, but he remembered me. It was a tearful reunion. I was so happy to see him. He never joined a gang or been in trouble with the law.”

LITTLE BLACK PEARL ART & DESIGN ACADEMY Little Black Pearl Art & Design Academy is a 40,000 square foot center serving the youth of Kenwood, Woodlawn, and Bronzeville. Since 2011 Little Black Pearl has combined art and more formal education, focusing on STEAM studies and prioritizing creativity, culture, and entrepreneurship skills.

Big Bowl of Wonderful Photographs by Jeff Garlin

Presented by Tamarkin Camera and Leica Gallery Los Angeles

The organization believes that “no gift is as precious as a child.” Because students entrust their hopes, needs, questions, and talents to their leaders, in turn, LBP attests they must guide, support, and challenge them to reach their full potential. Through programs like Arts = Smarts, and by exhibiting student art for sale, LBP offers its students opportunities to pursue a career in the arts.

Aware of the challenges urban youth face LBP aims to provide a safe environment led by positive role models who offer can offer students a physical and emotional alternative in which to creatively explore instead of turning to more destructive outlets.

SKYART SkyArt, based on Chicago’s South Side, offers visual art programs for students 5–24 years old and brings consistent and free art education to areas of Chicago with few other cultural opportunities.

What started as a passion project with one employee and 18 students has flourished into a bustling organization whose mission is to “transform the lives of young people who call these underserved parts of the city home.” Classes include cultural field trips and a year-long program for serious art students called Project 3rd Space.

Studio programs utilize an approach called SkyWay, which blurs the lines of formal art education and the less subjective experience of art-making. SkyArt also runs school and community programs that venture out to classrooms and other community venues, bringing the art directly to the students. A beautiful artist garden on site covers four city lots.

“As an actor, filmmaker and comedian, I often find myself interacting with people in truly unique ways. The very nature of my job means I am able to see people how no one else sees them. Whether it be my co-stars in down-time on the set, talk show hosts while I sit in their interview chairs and comedians who I gig with. At some point, I started trying to capture this unique perspective with my camera. Now, the only thing I do seriously besides comedy is take pictures. I hope you dig.”

Join us - and Mr. Garlin - for a celebration of photography here in Chicago, at The Rangefinder Gallery at Tamarkin Camera.

Thursday, November 11th from 7pm - 11pm 300 West Superior Street, Chicago

FIREHOUSE COMMUNITY ARTS CENTER In 2003 Pastor Phil Jackson hosted hip-hop services for young adults in North Lawndale. After noticing that people with a passion for the arts were coming from all over the city, Pastor Phil began the early stages of Firehouse. With a mission to “interrupt the cycle of violence among youths in North Lawndale through the power of the arts” Firehouse offers year-round arts programming as well as mentorship and career development opportunities.

Using what they call the Theory of Change, Firehouse guides participants to discover their worth and mission in a safe, loving space while sparking an interest in the arts and working to prevent violence by channeling art and creativity. For Firehouse, the goal is for students discover their life’s purpose and forage their own path while halting violence cycles.

Douglas Kirkland

Fall 2021 | CGN | 37

POOJA PITTIE, FIELDS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, 2021, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 50 X 40 INCHES. IMAGE COURTESY OF MCCORMICK GALLERY

POOJA PITTIE’S COLORFUL ENERGY

BY ALISON REILLY In February 2020, artist Pooja Pittie rented a large studio at Mana Contemporary. Supported by a 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the University of Chicago at Illinois, she was looking forward to the opportunity to create large-scale paintings, “moving as much of my body as possible, laying down paper on the floor, getting really close to the surface,” she explained to me during a recent conversation. However, almost as soon as she had moved into the new space, Governor Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order for all Illinois residents. Like many across the country, she was in a state of shock. Although Pittie has lived in the U.S. for 22 years and considers Chicago her home, her family lives in India, so her feelings of isolation and anxiety were compounded by the distance between them.

38 | CGN | Fall 2021

Fortunately, Pittie still had her home studio set up, so she could continue to work, “but it didn’t feel like I could just continue to paint as before,” she said. Instead, she gravitated towards drawing and started making small-scale compositions with stitching on top, using yarn she had at home. “I really delved deep into stitching, sewing, knitting, not in any skilled manner,” she admitted, “just remembering what I was taught at my all-girls school in India.”

Pittie was diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of progressive muscular dystrophy in 2000, but her symptoms did not begin appearing until about a decade later. “I was able-bodied for many years living with the diagnosis,” she told me.

While she was looking forward to experimenting in the large studio at Mana, she acknowledges that her home studio is most conducive to her workflow. “With my needs, it’s

pretty clear that I need workspace at home. Now with my complementary practice of working with drawings and yarn, that happens in my living room in the afternoons when I’m too tired to be in the studio,” she explained.

“My day is divided by energy. I’m the most energetic in the morning so I go into my studio, and then when I’m tired, I’m creating from the couch. But I’m creating a lot. I spend a lot of hours with the drawings. Not to sound like a cliché, but the studio can be anywhere. I just need to keep creating and doing something with my hands.”

Pittie’s drive to make art has been present throughout her life, even before she identified as an artist. Growing up in India, as a child, she taught herself to draw by copying cartoons, images from fashion magazines, and still-life pictures.

Although her peers noticed her art skills, she was focused on becoming financially independent, inspired by her father who was an industrialist. She excelled at school, eventually earning accounting certifications and pursuing a career in finance. In 1999, she moved to the U.S. to be with her then-husband, and, although she considered going to art school, she instead earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Her interest in art persisted, and, after her divorce in 2005, she started taking evening painting classes through SAIC’s Continuing Education program. While she enjoyed the classes she was taking, making art was not a priority in her life as she was balancing the responsibilities of being a young, single mother and running her own children’s book business.

“My studio, my space has changed so much in a very short span,” Pittie explained. In 2015 when she started regularly drawing, “it was on my couch. Then I moved to the dining table with watercolors, then into my little home office. I set up my easel there and it eventually became a full-blown studio, and then I moved to a bigger apartment so that I could have a larger studio space.”

The continuous expansion of her space to accommodate a growing art practice felt natural to her. While she had exceled as a businesswoman, she said, “It’s not my innate skill, which is why I always felt so inadequate. My dad is a natural-born entrepreneur. I thought that’s who I was, and he thought that’s who I was, and everyone else around me probably thought that too, but I didn’t feel like that. Establishing a regular art practice really made me feel like much more of an expert than all my years of training.”

Pittie made her first acrylic painting in 2016, and since then, she has completed residencies at Chicago Artists’ Coalition and Hyde Park Art Center and gained the support of McCormick Gallery. This fall, a series of new paintings and drawings will be on display at the gallery in the West Loop.

“My current work is very motivated by needing to express energy, which is diminishing and is an extremely precious resource for me,” she said. “I’m finding that color is the way that I’m expressing this energy. Both in the paintings, the drawings, and the fiber work that I’m doing, the starting point seems to always be color.”

Hannah Levy: Surplus Tension September 30, 2021–January 29, 2022

www.artsclubchicago.com

Fall 2021 | CGN | 39

Her recent abstract paintings feature looser, more gestural brushstrokes. In her previous work, she overlaid small dots on these marks, as if to mask some of their irregularities. As she spent more time with her drawings and weavings, she began to move away from the repetitive, precise stokes. Her new canvases teem with an energy similar to that found in the abstract expressionist paintings of Joan Mitchell.

“I work on multiple pieces at the same time, so I’ll start several canvases when I’m feeling energetic and I really want to capture that energy, and they’ll rotate on and off the easel,” Pittie explained.

While she now fully embraces her life as an artist, in retrospect, Pittie has identified two major fears that delayed her in pursuing her passion. “How could I be an artist if I haven’t been to art school?” she said, “And I saw how physically challenging it was. I used to wonder how am I going to carry canvases back and forth? How am I going to carry a portfolio? I didn’t use mobility devices back then but still it was difficult for me.”

Pittie was raised by her parents to believe that to be successful, you must attain the highest possible education in that field. “If you’re not ready to do that or if, for some

POOJA PITTIE, TIME SPIRIT, ACRYLIC ON LINEN, 30 X 40 INCHES. IMAGE COURTESY OF ROBERT CHASE HEISHMAN AT RIGHT: POOJA PITTIE IN HER STUDIO. IMAGE COURTESY OF PETRA FORD

40 | CGN | Summer 2021

reason, you haven’t done that, then what makes you think that you can have a committed career?” she asked herself.

Her second major fear is familiar to many artists, “What if I get bored of making art every day? Or if I enjoyed it all these years, but what if I don’t want to make it every day?”

She nevertheless admits, “Both of those notions are so laughable right now. They haven’t mattered one bit. I am definitely not bored! These are the fears, the blocks, you put in front of yourself, and they can be quite difficult to ignore.”

Along with her exhibition at McCormick Gallery this fall, Pittie is working on a commission by the University of Chicago to create a work for the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this fall. This is the first private commission that she has accepted since January 2021, and while she is very excited to work with the University of Chicago, she wants to be careful not to overwhelm herself.

“I feel like I’ve been running so much since 2016. I’m extremely grateful for how quickly things progressed and how organically they’ve grown, but during the pandemic, I have been reevaluating what is truly important. I am trying to hold onto all that slowness.”

Oct 8, 2021–jan 23, 2022

my way: black art from the american south CASE ART FUND BOOTH AT EXPO CHICAGO 2019

REMEMBER...

THE CROWDS? Consider for a moment the fall of 2019. The first weekend after Labor Day meant dozens of galleries were jammed with art lovers standing shoulder to shoulder. The end of September meant a weekend filled with EXPO Chicago VIP events, and the Ship of Tolerance docked at Navy Pier.

The Chicago Architecture Biennial began a three month run, and November brought SOFA Chicago.

If you wondered throughout 2020 how we could ever return to crowded openings, festivals and art fairs, this season several events are leading the way safely back in person. A few highlights are listed below.

Visit chicagogallerynews.com for updates and additional events throughout the fall.

• THE OTHER ART FAIR

The Art Fair for a new generation of art buyers.

September 30 – October 3. At Revel Fulton Market.

• CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL

The Available City runs September 17 – December 18 and will present possibilities for vacant urban spaces.

• FILTER PHOTO FESTIVAL

Mix of in person and online, including receptions and portfolio reviews, September 22 – 26.

• OPEN HOUSE CHICAGO

The Chicago Architecture Center’s free, two-day public festival offers special access to sites across the city. October 16 – 17, with events throughout October.

Thornton Dial, “Jail House” collection of Rockford Art Museum

Stemming from the roots that gave rise to Blues, Jazz and Gospel music, My Way: Black Art from the American South surveys a collection of 156 works of art representing the styles and practices of this incredibly unique and inspired group of 46 artists including 8 original quilts constructed by the Gee’s Bend quilters in rural Boykin, Alabama.

Artists Include:Thornton Dial, Purvis Young, Lonnie Holley, Mary T. Smith, Joe Light, Lorraine Pettway, Mose Tolliver and more.

• INTERSECT CHICAGO (formerly SOFA)

The fair focuses on three-dimensional artworks that cross the boundaries of fine, decorative and fiber arts, and design. November 4 – 7.

711 N Main St. | Rockford, IL rockfordartmuseum.org Fall 2021 | CGN | 41

BOOK REPORT: RAY JOHNSON C/O

H ORA NGE IN ER WIT T COV , FRON N C/O

It’s a wonderful thing that museums continue to create well-produced exhibition catalogs.

Blockbusters come and go, but what remains after these shows are gone are the collected photographs, images, and essays reproduced, printed and bound in the volumes that carry the exhibition title. To that end, I present for your consideration Ray Johnson c/o, a marvelous monograph available in advance of the exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago of the same name.

K

By JASON PICKLEMAN

RAY JO

HNSO

Edited and curated by Caitlin Haskell and Jordan Carter, Ray Johnson c/o measures 9-inches wide, 12-inches tall, and has a spine width of just more than 1-inch. With a soft cover, artfully folded, the 376-page body feels casual in the hands thanks to the recurrent use of a kraft-color text weight sheet (possibly 70#) that is gently textured on one side, but smoother on the other. It is interesting to note that the images printed on this paper have different levels of clarity and snap depending on which textured side the work is reproduced: just look at the differing density of the black ink on pages 6 & 8, for example. Not that this matters, as Johnson’s work only rarely relies on reproductive verisimilitude. Suffice it to say, the kraft-colored pages give the catalog the air of a vintage store find, a retro suggestion of aged paper and graphic pluck.

What is not printed on this kraft paper is printed on an uncoated natural white text weight sheet (possibly 80# with modest show-through). These two papers alternate every 8, 16, 24 or 32 pages creating the visual equivalent of skip and hum. I mention this because the experience of looking at this book is constantly framed by this design decision. The kraft colored pages are mostly dedicated to vintage-looking reproductions of Johnsonian ephemera: letters, collages, drawings, envelopes—the remains of an epistolary exchange. The natural white text pages contain twenty-one short essays, easily digestible, and amounting to a veritable “Ray Johnson Reader”, which, in total, present a strikingly spot-on overview of one of the most wily artists of the 20th Century.

The book and exhibition chronicle the 55 year artist-collector relationship between Johnson and his patron/archivist William S. Wilson (commonly referred to, and written as: Bill). The collection spans many thousands of works which were painstakingly saved, filed and inventoried by Wilson. Organized into a series of more than 175 three-ring binders containing transparent plastic sleeves, the collection has entered the Art Institute of Chicago’s permanent collection and will be on view this November. The exhibition in the Modern Wing promises to be an eye opening affair luxuriating in the flotsam and jetsam of aged paper, hand-addressed envelopes, canceled stamps, and cheeky turns of phrase.

Johnson’s artwork is all play. Suggestion, innuendo, and mischief seem to be Johnson’s creative repartee. Conventional images are often captioned or titled in such a way as to develop new readings, often sly, humorous, or tawdry. Along with an ever-growing cadre of personal glyphs (bunnies, ducks, snakes, buttons, phalluses), Johnson détourned the most conventional source material into the equivalent of visual koans with attendant instructional dictates.

Though he showed with the New York gallery Feigen for many years starting in 1967, the bulk of Johnson’s artistic practice 42 | CGN | Fall 2021

RAY JOHNSON C/O, INTERIOR SPREAD WITH 3-RING BINDER, PAGES 198-199

skirted the gallery market place; he seemingly preferred mailing his art to friends and colleagues in lieu of pursuing substantive exhibition opportunities. Fabled stories circulate of Johnson’s reluctance to give his gallerist-admirers the pleasure of exhibiting his work. Often, given the opportunity to exhibit or perform, Johnson would produce what he called “a nothing”, and often mistaken as such.

The book, Ray Johnson c/o, was designed by Irma Boom, a rock star in the world of exhibition catalog design. When you go see the Rolling Stones you don’t tell Mick Jagger how or what to sing: he can sing whatever the hell he wants, because he’s Mick fucking Jagger. Likewise, if you hire Irma Boom to design your exhibition catalog, you let her do whatever the hell she wants. She’s Irma fucking Boom. For the most part, the team behind the Ray Johnson c/o catalog has given Boom full creative license to interpret and present Johnson afresh. With that freedom, she has delivered a catalog that is gallopingly eccentric, and novel in a thoughtfully sensitive manner with an artistically commiserate wit to keep up with the creative dexterity of the book’s namesake. The catalog is beyond excellent. You should buy one immediately. I paid $60 for mine.

Stylistically, the book is adventurous, with graphic conventions nudged throughout: eliminating the use of italics in favor of underlining being one such example. This is the sort of graphic intervention that only a supremely trusting client can foster through the arduous nit-picky process of book production. Everybody always says they want something different; that is, until you show them something different—at which point, most clients turn tail and assume the dictatorial role of conservative editorship. Not so with Ray Johnson c/o. The book layout is awash with odd column arrangements and irregularly placed image reproductions with captions at custom angles relating to the frequently unusual shapes of Johnson’s hand-cut and torn visuals.

On a personal note, I’d like to commend the curators and editors for the inclusion of many examples of Johnson’s earliest commercial design practice. Letterhead announcing “Ray Johnson–Graphic Design” and examples of book cover designs for New Directions Paperbooks portray Johnson as someone determined to bring a stamp of personal artistic touch to client-directed projects. How many of you as angsty teenagers had a copy of Arthur Rimbaud’s book Illuminations, with the poet’s serious, side-ways gazing, black and white, high contrast portrait egging you on into artistic admittance. Well, you can thank Ray Johnson for the cover, a 1957 commercial design job. Dare I say, the dot screen, color and demeanor of the Rimbaud portrait could almost be mistaken for one of Andy Warhol’s 1964 Most Wanted Men. Warhol and Johnson were good friends, so one can only wonder if Warhol cribbed the style of Johnson’s Rimbaud portrait for his own pop use.

Fall 2021 | CGN | 43

RAY JOHNSON C/O, INTERIOR SPREAD WITH RIMBAUD, PAGES 304-305

Many of the reproductions in Ray Johnson c/o are photographs of the 3-ring binders organized by Wilson and splayed open to various 2-page arrangements (what Boom calls “Bill’s collages”). Wonderfully photographed by Amy Kaczmarek with a dead-pan clarity that includes stray post-it notes and additional hand-written adhesive labels, these documentation photos are clinical but personal—the work of a cold-blooded archivist. The binders are the key to understanding the exhibition.

The order and the sequence of images contained within the binders was not dictated by the artist, but by the collector and archivist: Bill Wilson. Without Wilson, there is no Ray Johnson c/o. In this light, Wilson can be thought of as a collaborator and enabler of the artist—a patron of the highest order. Whether money between the two men ever changed hands I don’t know, but nobody continues a 55-year artistic project with another person without the involvement of a far more radical currency: love.

The cover of the book is a marvelously tactile collage of Johnson’s greatest hits. Technically a glued-to-the-spine, uniquely folded dust jacket, the cover sports a spot orange ink (most likely Pantone 021U) that I have on good word was not originally specified by Boom. Rumor has it that Boom wanted the name of the show (set in sentence case Cooper Black) to print in black ink; but the book’s distributor, Yale University Press, got worried that the book-buying public wouldn’t recognize and differentiate the typeset title of the book from all the other graphic language of Johnson’s artwork that is also reproduced on the cover. Boom lost this one creative battle. The book title is printed in orange ink, not black. [Hey, Mick: play Sympathy for the Devil for me.]

The book’s underlying architecture is that of a 4-column grid that is adaptable into both 2-column and 3-column variations.

Set in a typewriter-like font, the text is large and easy to read, with ample word spacing creating text fields that are visually steady even when line lengths get short owing to weirdly-placed inset reproductions of Johnson’s art. Folios are indented from the outer margins. Double hyphens are used in place of em dashes. Two spaces separate sentences. Attention to these conventions matter, as the sum total of them are what gives any book its character, charm or heft. Ray Johnson c/o, the book, comes off as warm, approachable, and lovingly researched and reported—the furthest thing from “fussy” the Art Institute of Chicago has ever produced.

Jason Pickleman is an artist and graphic designer in Chicago. He has produced graphic identities for EXPO Chicago, Millennium Park, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His professional design work is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

44 | CGN | Fall 2021

SCULPTURE MKE SCULPTURE MILWAUKEE NO. 5: THERE IS THIS WE

PAULA CROWN, JOKESTER, 2018

By ANNA DOBROWOLSKI A crushed 10-foot-tall red solo cup, a stack of coolers, and acoustic drums may seem like the remnants of a giant’s tailgate—in Milwaukee, WI these larger-than-life sculptures are part of there is there is this We, Sculpture Milwaukee’s fifth run, guest curated by Michelle Grabner and Theaster Gates.

“We worked with not just the artists, but a range of commercial fabricators, stone masons, and foundries (along with our dedicated team of installers at Methods & Materials) closely and collaboratively to realize these works,” she said.

Grabner is a Milwaukee-based artist, writer, and curator who was recently named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. Gates, a Chicago-based artist and curator and professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts and the College, is known for his work with urban spaces.

Students and community members also participated in some installations. In July, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Architecture and Urban Planning students assisted with artist Matthias Neumann’s wood sculptures in his series “Basics 51.”

“Sculpture Milwaukee understands the power that artists have, and the power that art has to potentially help give new form to the city,” says Gates. “To reshape the conversations that are happening socially by not just having one or two artist commissions in a downtown but really having a brief that brings in artists from all over, and who have a relevant voice, to be present in Milwaukee – I think that this is a transformation. It’s really the way a radical city should work.”

THEASTER GATES

MICHELLE GRABNER

This year, Gates and Grabner’s initiative galvanized working artists and the community. In just under six months, the exhibition gained more than half a dozen new works, including Plein Air Super Catcher, a premier sandcast work by Brad Kahlhamer; the first large-scale sculpture by Jason Pickleman, Hand Heart; and work made of locally sourced cream city brick by Kara Hamilton, the Curtain Wall.

Facilitating these (often-experimental) processes required a great deal of flexibility, problem solving, and quick thinking by both curatorial and exhibitions teams, according to Bianca Bova, one of Sculpture Milwaukee’s coordinators.

Grabner mentions the ‘poetics of perseverance’ as the driving factor in selecting the works. As poet Gwendolyn Brooks poignantly conveys in her poem An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire, “In a package of minutes there is this We. / How beautiful.” The exhibition’s title reminds us about the elusive thing we call community. “[It] reflects the collective power of the works included and honors a belief in social change through the provocations of the artistic imagination,” says Grabner. Sculpture Milwaukee’s fifth edition looks at sculptures and public art as social commentary on what’s left behind, and how we can continue building a radical city. ‘there is this We’: Sculpture Milwaukee 2021 investigates global issues and shared urban spaces using public art. It is free and open to the public until fall 2022 • sculpturemilwaukee.com Fall 2021 | CGN | 45

IN PURSUIT OF BOOKISH THINGS AUDREY NIFFENEGGER ON BUILDING ARTISTS BOOK HOUSE A HOME IN EVANSTON

ARTIST AND WRITER AUDREY NIFFENEGGER IS THE FOUNDER OF THE ARTISTS BOOK HOUSE. PHOTO BY ANNA DOBROWOLSKI

By ANNA DOBROWOLSKI Ravens, cobwebs, dust, and mold. Against the backdrop of a decommissioned lighthouse, six years of neglect turned Evanston’s historic Harley Clarke mansion into a setting befitting a horror movie. Now, a new foundation dedicated to the book arts is set to reverse the shudder. Artists Book House is the brainchild of Audrey Niffenegger, a visual artist and author best known for her novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife. In July, she invited me inside to talk about how she will make the house a home to the book arts.

Since the City of Evanston’s council decision on February 28th to lease the coveted Harley Clarke Mansion to Artists Book House, paperwork quickly escalated to groundwork.

The task: to restore and update the Harley Clarke grounds.

Undaunted, Niffenegger faces the challenge with John Eifler, Nick Patera, and the team at WB Olson, Inc. on her side, in addition to a team of trusted board members and volunteers.

We shouldn’t expect a housewarming party anytime soon, though. As she shows me, there’s plenty to be done between now and its opening in 2026. *** “Here we are, surrounded by phantom books,” she laughs as we walk into a wood-paneled library. For any self-respecting 46 | CGN | Fall 2021

writer, empty bookshelves usually warrant concern. Not to a history-lover like Audrey, for whom an old setting for future bookish pursuits is a lesson in time travel. (As if renovating a mansion wasn’t ambitious enough, she is also working on the sequel to her best selling novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife.)

On our tour of the impressive 22,000-square-foot space, she leads me to the conservatory where ABH will hold papermaking workshops. Curious onlookers appreciating the gardens curated by Jens Jensen Gardens could peer into the windows to witness the transformation of pulp to fiction, or any other genre.

Steps away, she pictures a bookstore, art gallery, and a cafe with a view of Lake Michigan even the most bibliophobic visitors could appreciate. She recalls her first time visiting the Harley Clarke mansion – then the Evanston Arts Center – when she was a fourteen-year-old printmaking student. It was the beginning of a time-tested relationship between herself and the building. After graduating from the Art Institute, she returned to Harley Clarke to teach for 15 years.

Outside, ornate lead gutters catch our eyes; the original pipework was forged by the grandfather of her friend, a blacksmith. Now, the third generation of metalworkers keep the tinkering tradition alive, proving that the mansion’s future depends as much on conservation as it does on innovation.

As expected from a mansion left to its own devices for six years, Audrey’s current ‘studio’ flaunts the unglamorous hallmarks of a home whose maintenance has been deferred. Rooms once housing offices, darkrooms, and various studios remained bare, save a few visitors. She points to flour left by the city of Evanston on the ground, “That’s to see where the raccoons are coming from!” (A pawprint is just my size...) To make the three-story building more accessible to humans rather than critters, she plans to convert an empty passage next to the butler’s pantry, a vestige from the building’s residential past, into an elevator.

We make our way to the basement and take turns deciding whether the ghoulish green paint was original. Here, Niffenegger envisions a printmaking studio because of its capaciousness, even if it is more secluded.

Her work is cut out for her, sure, but there’s something elemental about rolling up the proverbial sleeves to build something new.

*** What do the book arts mean to you, personally?

Back in the empty library, Audrey describes the real star behind the entire operation, the book arts. That is to say, “any idea or skill, philosophical or conceptual approach, that you could bring to bear on the idea of the book,” she tells me. Traditionally, papermaking, printmaking, calligraphy, and bookbinding fall under this category.

“Sometimes an idea exists in the ether but never takes on physical form. You might approach bookmaking because you want to make the actual object or you have a story to tell, like in a memoir or epic poem,” says Audrey. “We are interested in a multitude of approaches and are here to help people realize their ideas of the book and not be limited with what a book can do.”

What goes inside the book is just as important. ABH will function as a literary center, library, bookshop, as well as an arts center. “What really excites us is to have all this exist in one building where the disciplines can crossfertilize,” she says. Someone writing an epic poem might go downstairs and discover people who are printing or experimenting with movable type.

“There’s more than just making paper for books. I’m thinking about paper sculptures Erin Cramer makes. Her work is inspired by vegan taxidermy.” Anyone in the community, from paper virgins to seasoned bookmakers, could flirt with other paper-centric projects such as tunnel books, fiber-based sculptures, comics, puppeteering, or zines. For the completely unconvinced, the ABH’s website hosts various tutorials and interviews. “There’s so much that can happen when you get people from different disciplines together.”

VACANT NO MORE. EVANSTON’S COVETED HARLEY CLARKE MANSION, BUILT BY ARCHITECT RICHARD POWERS FOR THE CLARKE FAMILY IN 1927 WILL BE THE FUTURE HOME TO ARTISTS BOOK HOUSE, A FOUNDATION DEDICATED TO THE BOOK ARTS. PHOTO BY ANNA DOBROWOLSKI

Fall 2021 | CGN | 47

“Dare we ask another pandemic-related question? What did the process look like? How does a new organization take shape and establish community these days?”

“It’s been such a strange time. Before the pandemic there had been a tremendous amount of discussion surrounding the building.” The Harley Clarke had almost been demolished in 2018 and faced many competitive proposals since. Niffenegger and her board turned in the Artists Book House proposal for the Harley Clarke Mansion in February 2020, about a week before the world shut down.

It wasn’t until May of the following year that they received the keys. “I was watching the city council vote on the proposals on a laptop while I was cooking dinner. We were not expecting it to happen when it did!”

“The pandemic changed everybody’s focus like that,” she adds, “I don’t think anybody can really know how the pandemic will change the art scene or Evanston or funding or any of it.

Artists Book House could have been just as easily Artists Book Warehouse or Storefront! It just happens that we now have a house.”

FROM 1965 TO 2013 THE HARLEY CLARKE MANSION HOUSED THE EVANSTON ART CENTER. THIS USED TO BE THE OLD DARKROOM FOR ENLARGING AND DEVELOPING FILM. PHOTO BY ANNA DOBROWOLSKI

Getting the keys to the house in the middle of the pandemic had some advantages. “Because we are so small and new, we didn’t have any established patterns to uphold or break.

We didn’t have any staff. We didn’t have a building.” Despite not having any physical classrooms, they managed to build an online presence and archive of videos, interviews, and tutorials on their website. Not to say the pandemic was in any way good.

“In a way it leveled the playing field amongst art institutions.

It was actually okay for us that not much happened. It meant fewer people to disappoint. Whatever craziness we’re about to do we will do from zero.”

Having multiple disciplines under one roof appeals to Audrey, who has been carving a niche into an international and locally established bookmaking tradition since 1994. “This would be the third-generation book arts center in Chicago and the ‘spiritual heir’ of the Book and Paper Center in Columbia College Chicago.” In 2019 the center closed to make space Though the opening is far away, are there any dream for classrooms, leaving its artistic members virtually homeless. collaborations or visitors?

Once the Artists Book House is completed, it will be a second homecoming.

“It goes two ways. There’s a lot of amazing local talent that we would like to uplift if we are in the position to do so; and After the fall of the center, there was some concern whether there are people we would like to be here so that people can small book-making traditions could ever grow obsolete. experience different artists. At some point, we would love to Following prolonged digital engagement, we admit longing host conferences for the North American Hand Papermakers, for imperfect paper and DIY projects in true ‘arts and crafts’ the Guild of Book Workers, College Book Arts and the Ragdale fashion. In the 19th century, William Morris, a champion of Foundation, to name a few. You just never know who will be the book arts, led the UK-based Arts and Crafts Movement. interested or inspired to do something.”

In his later years, he went on to develop the Kelmscott Press to produce luminous leather-bound books replete with Now that things are starting to take shape, how are you calligraphy and illuminations-- a gothic revival that renewed planning on reining in the community? What do you need interest in the book arts, if only as a productive outcry against from artists, community members? mass-produced books which he notoriously called ‘ugly’.

Is Niffenegger a modern-day William Morris? I wonder. The same unadulterated passion towards handicrafts is there.

Her approach is to open these arts to the community as an educational center to keep the traditions alive. *** 48 | CGN | Fall 2021

“We’ve been receiving a lot of support. People really want another central gathering place, and this happens to be a nice stage because it’s a hinge between Chicago and the North Shore. We are trying to partner with bookshops and a coffee shop. A lot of people are donating books. People are interested in volunteering.

HARLEY CLARKE’S FORMER CONSERVATORY DOORWAY. PHOTO BY AUDREY NIFFENEGGER

There’s a lot to do between now and the day we open to the public, which we hope to do in 2026. We are hoping that we can use the time for fundraising, constructing and doing all the physical work. At the same time, we are trying to let people know that we are slowly coming into existence. One thing that we are planning to do is to organize tours and find ways to bring people in so that they don’t have to wait five years.”

*** For the time being, Niffenegger and her board are looking forward to mingling with people at events such as Evanston’s Out of Space concerts. Other events that will take place on Harley Clarke grounds will be announced on their website. A tip: keep your eyes open around Halloween time. A house with phantom books is sure to set a scene.

DOWNSTAIRS, THE FORMER BILLIARD ROOM WILL BE TRANSFORMED INTO A PRINTMAKING STUDIO. PHOTO BY ANNA DOBROWOLSKI

Fall 2021 | CGN | 49

AN ARTIST TRANSLATES SIGNALS OF OUR TIMES

MARGO WOLOWIEC, LOOK TO THE OCEANS, 2020, HANDWOVEN POLYMER, LINEN, STERLING SILVER LEAFED THREAD, REFLECTIVE MYLAR EMERGENCY BLANKET FROM DISASTER PREPAREDNESS KIT, DEADSTOCK ORGANIC COTTON, DYE SUBLIMATION INK, ACRYLIC INK, MOUNTED ON LINEN SUPPORT. 46 1/2 X 72 INCHES

MARGO WOLOWIEC

BY ALISON REILLY

CGN: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist?

Margo Wolowiec, who lives in Detroit and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), uses a complex process involving digital image manipulation, transfer paper, and a floor loom to create arresting textiles that, from a distance, read as paintings. Inspired by current political and social conditions, Wolowiec considers how existential threats like climate change are expressed through our increasingly digital lives. This fall, her work will be featured in an exhibition showcasing artists from the Midwest at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.

MW: I’ve wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember.

I was encouraged at a young age by my art and music teachers to pursue the arts. For a while I thought I’d study piano, but as I got older I became much more interested in painting and drawing. I begged my parents to help me go to art school. It was a tough sell, but I eventually convinced them that it was the only thing worthwhile, and they helped send me to SAIC. I’ve been focused on building a career as an artist ever since and worked service industry jobs for quite some time until I could make the switch to a full-time studio practice. I can’t see any other way of living—I know I’ll be making art in some form for the rest of my life.

CGN: How have the past 18 months since the pandemic started been for you (as an artist)? How has your art practice changed during this period?

Margo Wolowiec: The pandemic has been a challenge for me, the early months especially drained my energy levels. It’s been pretty inspiring that a lot of artists and musicians have put out some really beautiful and thoughtful work throughout the pandemic, but for me it was a low time creatively. I do think it has influenced my practice quite a bit though. I have been making new work that I feel really connected to, I’ve been taking much more interest in my own mental health and wellbeing, so I’ve also slowed my pace; I say no to things more than I used to, and I take care to protect my energy. I feel like the work I’m currently making is a reflection of that right now.

50 | CGN | Fall 2021

CGN: What was your experience like at SAIC? Do you still have connections to the city of Chicago?

MW: My time at SAIC was really expansive, and the interdisciplinary model really worked for me, especially since my understanding of art was pretty limited going in. I really had only a background in drawing and painting, so being able to take classes in any discipline and learn printmaking, lithography, darkroom photography, fiber and weaving, as well as the critical and theoretical foundations of each discipline, was eye opening for me. I fell in love with weaving while at SAIC and have been weaving ever since. I still have a lot of connections to people I went to school with, so many shows I do or lectures I’m invited to give are through SAIC connections. I also met

some of my favorite artists and mentors at SAIC - Christy Matson and Josh Faught have been especially supportive. I have learned so much from them and am a huge fan of their practices.

CGN: How did growing up in Detroit influence your decision to become an artist? How has the city changed since you moved back?

MW: Detroit is a really incredible city. It’s a small town in a lot of ways, compared to New York/LA, but its creative force is so vast. So many hugely influential artists have come out of the city, especially in the music industry – it’s the birthplace of Motown, I’ve seen Smokey Robinson walking around town, we are home to Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Madonna, Alice Cooper. I grew up seeing Detroit as a sort of creative nexus, and since you can feel that energy here, being an artist always seemed like a totally achievable career path to me. I never really questioned that. The city has changed a lot since I’ve moved back. It’s being gentrified – there are some serious concerns around that – and I hope the city does more meaningful work to protect Detroit’s oldest and most vulnerable residents, but it’s still the same, in that it is home to amazing art and music, and there are even more galleries and working artists here now than I think there ever have been.

CGN: What is your studio like?

MW: My studio changes often because I have been moving around a lot. Currently it takes up two rooms of my house.

Working from home has been a great setup throughout the pandemic, but I usually work outside of my house. My looms and equipment take up a lot of space, so I prefer commercial loft type buildings that I can expand into, especially if I’m working on large scale projects. I’m also big into work/life balance and try to keep a healthy equilibrium between my home life and studio life.

CGN: How would you describe your studio practice?

MW: My workflow fluctuates—when things are busy I schedule my weeks and months in advance and hold regular studio hours for myself so I stay on top of everything. When things are slower, I’ll wander in and out of my studio at a more leisurely and unstructured pace. My process is very labor intensive and physically demanding, so I take care to avoid burnout and protect my time to stay refreshed and energized in my studio.

That’s when I feel most productive.

CGN: What is your process to create your textiles?

MW: I usually start with an image collection process based around a specific idea or theme. I’ll use Google searches, with keywords or hashtag and geotag searches, and mine various online image sharing platforms for source material. I collect more than I use and let myself have a free-flow association between images, texts, screenshots of news articles, or whatever pops up based on my searches. After I choose the sources I want to work with I piece them together in Photoshop. This is when I start to envision how the source materials will translate

into a woven form. After I get the images where I like them digitally, I print them out onto transfer paper using dye sublimation ink, then transfer the images onto sets of individual threads. This transfer process I’ve developed is based on a traditional fiber dying process called Ikat that is used to create repeating patterns or pictorial motifs. Once the images are transferred to the threads, I weave them together on a floor loom. I play with the images a lot while I’m weaving them, manipulating the threads as I work to either keep the image in focus or let it blur and distort. I also incorporate other non-traditional materials in my weavings and sometimes hand paint or over-dye the textiles to highlight or obscure certain areas.

CGN: How did you develop an algorithm to source images for your work?

MW: I used to use an algorithm to automatically mine images based on geotag or hashtag inputs. For instance, anytime anyone uploaded a photo with a geotag in a set defined area, that photo would automatically download to a folder on my desktop. There are stricter data protections in place now, and this auto mining process is blocked on all image sharing platforms. This is likely because companies were mining personal data for advertising purposes and who knows what else, so it’s probably a good thing that this isn’t available for anyone to use anymore. Now I hand sift to gather my sources and collect images and data that are licensed under Creative Commons or other open source licenses. I cull from an array of social media and image sharing platforms, as well as news media platforms, or any other relevant databases based on what I’m interested in.

CGN: Some of your new work (Seed Surge, Exit Plan,) includes reflective mylar from emergency preparedness kits, which stood out to me in the list of materials. How did you source this material and why did you decide to incorporate it into your work?

MW: This stems from my interest in the darker corners of the internet – the Reddit rabbit holes and conspiracy theories that are born in online forums. The 2016 election really amplified a wave of misinformation and general fear that we will be dealing with for a long time, and these anxieties played out on the internet through a hyper-focus on emergency and doomsday preparations. I made some sculptural panels at that time that incorporated a woven copper mesh that is used to protect sensitive equipment from electrostatic interferences and electromagnetic waves. This sort of technology trickles down to wearables, such as hats that are woven with copper or silver shielding to protect the wearer from wireless radiation, or pouches that shield cell phone signals to ensure the device and all its private data goes undetectable.

I started collecting a variety of materials like this to incorporate into my work and am currently playing with emergency blankets that are found in preparedness kits. They shield and protect the wearer with lightweight and high-visibility heat-reflective mylar. In my work this material signals protection and safety while sounding an alarm.

Fall 2021 | CGN | 51

VISITORS TO CLAIMING SPACE: A NEW CENTURY OF VISIONARY WOMEN, ON VIEW AT MOWA THROUGH OCTOBER 3.

MOWA IS LOCATED LESS THAN 40 MILES FROM MILWAUKEE, AND 125 MILES FROM CHICAGO

SIX DECADES PROUD THE MUSEUM OF WISCONSIN ART MARKS A MILESTONE OF CELEBRATING LOCAL ARTISTS

By JACQUELINE LEWIS

WORKS ON VIEW AT THE OPENING OF CAREY WATTERS: TINY CUTS, ON VIEW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 12

The Museum of Wisconsin Art (MoWA) is celebrating their 60th Anniversary in 2021.

Located in West Bend, Wisconsin, MoWA started as a small, hometown gallery and has flourished into one of the leading regional art museums in the country, dedicated to showcasing the art of Wisconsin artists as well as offering a dynamic cultural community just outside of Milwaukee. Back in 1961, founder Melitta Hedwig SuderPic opened the institution with her two daughters in honor of her uncle, artist Carl von Marr. At the time not even the founders could have imagined the museum’s future growth.

The Museum of Wisconsin Art is commemorating this achievement throughout this year with exhibitions and activities focused on female success. Exhibitions and events celebrate their founder and countless other women visionaries of Wisconsin.

This July they celebrated with a community Birthday Bash, in conjunction with the opening of their new exhibitions Claiming Space: A New Century of Visionary Women and Carey Watters: Tiny Cuts. The opening celebration relaunched studio classes at the museum, along with an artist meet and greet – a fitting event that captured the sentiment of the moment, the survival of the museum during a challenging year, and offered a look towards the future: 60 years, and going strong.

ONE OF TWO COLLECTIONS ON PERMANENT DISPLAY IS THE EARLY WISCONSIN COLLECTION, UNVEILED IN 1998 UPON WISCONSIN’S SESQUICENTENNIAL. PHOTO: JAMIE STUKENBERG PHOTOGRAPHY

Claiming Space is on view through October 3, 2021. Just as Melitta Hedwig SuderPic funded visionary women of her time, this exhibition honors Wisconsin’s current cohort of innovative women, showcasing art from female artists across the state who work in an array of media. The artists can finally “claim space” in museums that were historically dominated by men.

Tiny Cuts is on view until September 12, 2021 and displays Carey Watters’ detailed paper reliefs that capture her feelings of distress and marginalization. The tiny pieces of paper were painstakingly cut from their original source and brought to new life as fragments hanging onto a new source. Watters created the works to demonstrate the difficulty in finding emotional and physical support in society, especially as a woman.

52 | CGN | Fall 2021

BETH LIPMAN’S INEARTH, GLASS, WOOD, METAL, PAINT, ADHESIVE, 2017, IS PART OF MOWA’S PERMANENT COLLECTION, AS WELL AS 5,000 OTHER WORKS OF ART. PHOTO: JAMIE STUKENBERG PHOTOGRAPHY

GB FINE ART HAS EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE IN APPRAISALS, CATALOGING COLLECTIONS, RESEARCHING PROVENANCE, AND AUTHENTICATING ARTWORK.

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