CGN
ALEX KATZ AT 90 GALLERY OPENINGS + CULTURAL EVENTS RICHARD REZAC AT THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY A COUPLE BUILDS A HOME FOR ART FABIOLA JEAN-LOUIS’S CREATIVE ART HISTORY CHICAGO’S WEST SIDE GALLERY MIGRATION HIGHLIGHTS OF ART DESIGN CHICAGO
SUMMER 2018 CHICAGO • SUBURBS • MIDWEST
THE INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION OF CONTEMPORARY AND MODERN ART
27–30 SEPTEMBER 2018
OPENING PREVIEW THURSDAY 27 SEPT
CHICAGO | NAVY PIER expochicago.com Presenting Sponsor
Lake Series (Lake Michigan) by Lincoln Schatz
Aligned with
Emil Olsson
Collin van der Sluijs
Joseph Renda Jr.
Cranio
Chicago’s premier urban-contemporary art gallery May 12 - 26: “20x20x20”, A Group Show curated by Norway’s Galleri Ramfjord June 2 - 23: Collin van der Sluijs “No Concessions” Solo Show July 7 - 28: Joseph Renda Jr. | CROP | Pizza in the Rain - Three of Chicago’s top emerging artists August 4 - 25: Cranio - The debut USA Solo Show from the Brazilian icon Opening receptions are the first night of each exhibition 6:00 - 10:00pm.
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Vertical Gallery 1016 N. Western Ave. Chicago, IL 60622 773-697-3846 www.verticalgallery.com
Brandi Twiley, Teanna, 2015, oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches
September 1 – October 13, 2018
Curated by Gwendolyn Zabicki
Brandi Twiley, Teanna, 2015, oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches
Matthew Bollinger Alexander Bradley Cohen Jennifer Dierdorf Ethan Gill Justin John Greene Mika Horibuchi Hai-Hsin Huang Ben Murray Veronica Pausova Celeste Rapone Brandi Twilley
Brandi Twiley, Teanna, 2015, oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches
Artists
Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park …where the city meets the prairie
Art Ark, 1981, 2006 Terrence Karpowicz
Working on the Failed Utopia, 2006 Christine Tarkowski
Honoring Terrence Karpowicz and Christine Tarkowski
Sculpture, Wine, and Dine September 15, 2018 Exhibition of Recent Works August 20—September 30, 2018 in GSU’s Visual Arts Gallery
govst.edu/sculpture
Four floors of art. Three special exhibition spaces.
Just 90 minutes away.
February 10–August 12, 2018
STYLE. CRAFTSMANSHIP. INNOVATION. POSTURE.
Thirty-seven exceptional chairs show all.
The Art of Seating is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, in collaboration with the Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen Ph.D. Foundation and is toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C. Design and Manufacture Attributed to Pottier & Stymus and Company (Est. 1859), New York, NY, Egyptian Revival Side Chair, c. 1875 Photo by Michael Koryta and Andrew VanStyn, Director of Acquisitions, Conservation and Photography
NOW ACCEPTING CONSIGNMENTS FOR UPCOMING AUCTIONS
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info@lesliehindman.com 312.280.1212
C H I C A G O
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A T L A N T A
Jesus Rafael Soto (Venezuelan, 1923-2005) Metal Negro y Metal, 1969. Sold for $185,000
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D E N V E R
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M I L W A U K E E
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N A P L E S
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P A L M
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S T .
L O U I S
Celebrating our 2018 United States Artists Fellowship award
Martinez Studio
(920) 823 – 2154 | www.martinezstudio.com Open Daily 11 – 4 | Closed Wednesday 5877 State Highway 57 | Jacksonport, WI 54235 | 1 mile south of Jacksonport
www.unitedstatesartists.org
T O N Y F I T Z PA T R I C K
Tony Fitzpatrick, The Red Croc, drawing collage, mixed media, 2018
Pa r i s D raw i n g s 2018
T h e D i m e • 1 5 1 3 N . We s t e r n Av e . , C h i c a g o W- S a 1 2 - 4 p m • 7 7 3 . 8 5 0 . 9 7 0 2 t o ny f i t z p a t r i c k . c o m • t o ny f i t z p a t r i c k . wo rd p re s s . c o m
Admission is always free. All are welcome.
Expanding Narratives: The Figure and the Ground through December 30 Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2011, Twigs, wire, upholstery, basket, and metal armature.
Tang Chang: The Painting that is Painted with Poetry is Profoundly Beautiful through August 5
Expanding Narratives
Theme and Variations— The Multiple Sorceries of Félix Buhot through July 22
Tang Chang, Untitled (detail), c. 1963, Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Thip Sae-tang.
Félix Buhot, A Winter Morning Beside the Hotel-Dieu (detail), 1876. Hearn Family Trust Collection.
5550 S. Greenwood Avenue | Chicago, IL 60637
smartmuseum.uchicago.edu
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SUMMER 2018
CGN
JAUME PLENSA’S CROWN FOUNTAIN IN MILLENNIUM PARK; PHOTO PATRICK PYSZKA.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 14
SOCIAL CALENDAR Galas, parties, art fairs and seasonal events
16
SEASON PREVIEWS Highlights from our art listings
18
SUMMER OPENINGS Opening receptions in galleries, museums, studios and art spaces
20
LISTINGS: ART ON VIEW Exhibitions and events taking place in area galleries, museums and art centers this summer
FEATURES 26 A Benefit Auction to Mark 40 Years for Art Encounter 28 Alex Katz: An Artist’s View at 90 30 Address: Richard Rezac at the Renaissance Society of Chicago 34 Public Art to See This Summer 36 Rewriting History: Fabiola Jean-Louis at the DuSable Museum 40 Collectors Brian Westphal and Michael McVickar Make a Home for Art 44 A New Gallery District is Born in West Town 47 Summer Highlights of Art Design Chicago 43
ART WALKS Guide to ongoing art walks and open studios
48
ART SERVICES + ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
12 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
Published 3 times annually: Annual Arts Guide / Summer / Fall © 2018 Chicago Gallery News, Inc. Publisher + Executive Editor Virginia B. Van Alyea Managing Editor + Business Manager Emily Ackerman Interns Jaret Carrasquedo April Mary Lane Isobel Van Alyea Thomas Van Alyea Chicago Gallery News 213 W. Institute Pl., Ste. 309 Chicago, IL 60610 Tel 312-649-0064 info@chicagogallerynews.com www.chicagogallerynews.com Summer 2018 Vol. 33, No. 1 © 2018 ISSN #1046-6185 Pictured on the cover: Alex Katz, Grass 5, 2017 Oil on linen, 108” × 216” On view at Richard Gray Gallery, 2044 W. Carroll, through June 2, 2018
PUBLISHER’S LETTER CRE ATI V I T Y K N OW S NO LIMITS Living in an apartment with young children who love to be outside, summer in our home means having time to finally do just that. After a long Publisher Ginny Van Alyea, winter (and spring) attempting to be creative by imitating Alex Katz’s Black Hat 2 we make the extra (2010). effort when school’s out to find ways to get creative and make each outing an adventure, whether it be a picnic, a walk for ice cream or a jump in a puddle. A few years ago I attended a talk by famed sculptor Richard Hunt. He spoke, at the time, about how everyone has an inherent tendency to be creative. As adults we encourage children to be creative, but the ability to create is still present in ourselves when we are grown up, and the many obligations of daily life mean that we really can benefit from creative outlets and expression more than ever. The act of creating helps us to redefine situations, resolve problems, and personalize our environments. But still we may doubt ourselves or we don’t make creativiy a priority. The reason, according to Hunt, that we are unabashedly creative when we are young is that in order to be truly creative, you can’t know what you are doing. That knowledge makes us afraid to fail. This issue of CGN offers opportunities to embrace the creativity of others. Through observing and exploring art, and understanding that you cannot fail by trying, I hope you’re inspired to be creative youself. 90-year-old painting legend Alex Katz, like Hunt, is still making new art. After decades
of exhibiting his famed style around the world, the artist recently found new inspiration right outside his studio door; the results are fresh as well as complex. Even when it comes to his own art, there is no right answer. Artist Richard Rezac, whose show, Address, at the Renaissance Society spans 20 years, has always done his work deliberately and in his unique way. He is well known in the art community, but many of you will be glad to learn about him for the first time. Brooklyn-based Fabiola Jean-Louis is just beginning her artistic career. Through her work she shares a view of history, one that requires creativity to tell and to understand. Collectors Brian Westphal and Michael McVickar lead typical professional lives during the day, but they took a chance on renovating a unique home, making an inviting space for art appreciation. Franck Mercurio talked to a number of galleries, who, prompted by rising rents but unafraid of change, are moving to Chicago’s West Side in search of a new vibrant community and a fresh start. Creativity keeps the ball rolling, in the art world of course, as well as in life. We are all grown up with things to do, but this summer soak up some inspiration and create space for art in your life. Be spontaneous and unafraid. The next time you’re in Millennium Park, look for my children and me. No one said there was an age limit for splashing in the Crown Fountain.
Founded in 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. Complimentary copies are available in all listed galleries, museums and art centers, as well as at the Chicago Cultural Center and at hotel concierge desks throughout Chicago and the suburbs. Magazines also available by subscription. Pick up our 2018 CGN Arts Guide in listed area art spaces, featuring a portable format with 160 pages of gallery and museum listings as well as district maps.
– Ginny Van Alyea
CGN ALL THE TIME CGN publishes new content every week on chicagogallerynews.com, featuring a variety of interviews, news, events and more. Keep up with us online, by email and on your tablet or phone. Subscribe to our free weekly CGN Art Headlines newsletter and our Apple News Channel. Follow us on Social Media @ChiGalleryNews Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 13
SOCIAL CALENDAR WOMAN MADE GALLERY’S HER MARK GALA May 11 Woman Made Gallery is celebrating 26 years of promoting the diverse contributions of women in the arts with a gala honoring artist and WMG board member Sandra Perlow. Appetizers, open wine and champagne bar, desserts, silent auction, raffle and live music. Tickets: $75; or $85 at door. 2150 S. Canalport womanmade.org
WOMAN MADE GALLERY’S BENEFIT HONORS ARTIST SANDRA PERLOW
CHICAGO ANTIQUES + ART + DESIGN SHOW May 17-20 The second edition of this dynamic show features 100 exhibitors and a splashy, refreshed opening night party benefitting the Woman’s Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Show tickets: $20+ 222 W. Merchandise Mart Plaza, chicagoantiquesartdesign.com RANDOLPH STREET MARKET MEMORIAL DAY GARDEN PARTY May 26 and 27 Marking 15 years in 2018! Kick off the season’s outdoor and indoor markets with a live band, fancy foods, market bars, on site-appraisals and more. Early buying hours. 1340 W. Washington, randolphstreetmarket.com Tickets: $5-10
THE CHICAGO ANTIQUES + ART + DESIGN SHOW FEATURES ANTIQUE FURNITURE, DECORATIVE AND FINE ARTS, AND ANTIQUE AND ESTATE JEWELRY
WORK IN PROGRESS June 7 Chicago Artists Coalition’s annual fundraiser takes place in their new West Side location. Featuring interactive art installations, food by local restaurants, quirky entertainment and a silent auction with work by Chicago artists. 2130 W. Fulton Tickets: $60+ chicagoartistscoalition.org WORK IN PROGRESS CHICAGO ARTISTS COALITION
14 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
TUESDAYS ON THE TERRACE © MCA CHICAGO
THE OUTDOOR SEASON RETURNS TO RANDOLPH STREET MARKET ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
MAY–AUGUST 2018 CHICAGO RIVERWALK Seasonal walkway opens in May Enjoy one of the most beautiful new perspectives of the city by strolling along the east branch of the Chicago River this summer. Admire the public art installed along the banks and enjoy food and entertainment while you’re there. From Lake Shore Dr./Lake Michigan west to Franklin St. chicagoriverwalk.us
THE CHICAGO RIVERWALK OFFERS A SCENIC WAY TO VIEW PUBLIC ART AND THE CITY PHOTO: COURTESY FLOATING MUSEUM
THE 57TH STREET ART FAIR IN HYDE PARK FEATURES WORKS BY DOZENS OF ARTISTS. PICTURED: GYAN SAMARA
THE RIVER NORTH ART DISTRICT HOSTS GALLERY OPENINGS AND CELEBRATES A FREE MIDSUMMER GALA FRIDAY, JULY 13
SCULPTURE MILWAUKEE June–October 21 A free outdoor urban sculpture experience in downtown Milwaukee returns for a 2nd year with works by 20+ internationally and locally renowned artists, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Liz Glynn, Mel Kendrick, Hank Willis Thomas, Erwin Wurm and others. Works on view and for sale. sculpturemilwaukee.com 57th STREET ART FAIR June 2 and 3 71st annual two-day outdoor celebration of the arts in Hyde Park. 57th St. at Kimbark, 57thstreetartfair.org MID-SUMMER ART WALK July 13 20 River North galleries host openings as part of the 2nd annual Mid-Summer Art Walk. There will be special promotions at neighborhood hot spots and an after party. Orleans to
LaSalle; Chicago to Erie. Details on chicagogallerynews.com
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S 12 HOUR BLOCK PARTY BRINGS TOGETHER CREATIVES OF ALL AGES
ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO BLOCK PARTY July 21, 10:30am–10:30pm Join artists, historians, storytellers, performers, and a crowd-sourced roster of community contributors of all ages and backgrounds for conversations, experiences, and creative responses to the museum’s renowned collection. 111 S. Michigan Part of Art Design Chicago. artdesignchicago.org Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 15
SEASON PREVIEWS THIS SUMMER FEATURES AN ENTICING LINEUP OF EXHIBITIONS, FROM A COLLABORATIVE EXHIBITION ACROSS THREE SPACES, TO AN ART INSTITUTE RETROSPECTIVE, TO AN ENTIRELY RED INSTALLATION IN THE SUBURBS. THERE IS A LOT TO ENJOY THROUGHOUT THE REGION.
OUT OF EASY REACH DEPAUL ART MUSEUM, GALLERY 400, STONY ISLAND ARTS BANK Out of Easy Reach, a cross-institutional exhibition hosted by DPAM, Gallery 400 at UIC, and the Rebuild Foundation counters conventional accounts of art history that have overlooked the artistic contributions of women of color. Featuring the work of 24 artists, including Candida Alvarez, Sheree Hovsepian and Edra Soto. Thru August 5, outofeasyreach.com IMAGE: HOWARDENA PINDELL, FREE, WHITE AND 21, 1980, COLOR VIDEO WITH SOUND, 12:15 MIN. (STILL). COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GARTH GREENAN GALLERY, NEW YORK.
HANK WILLIS THOMAS: UNBRANDED BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART Hank Willis Thomas has consistently explored the representation of stereotypes within American popular culture, particularly as it relates to African-American subjects. Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded consists of a tightly focused selection of approximately 40 photographs from two related bodies of work. Thru August 5, Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Dr., Evanston blockmuseum.northwestern.edu IMAGE: HANK WILLIS THOMAS, THEY SATISFY, 1942/2015, 2015, DIGITAL CHROMOGENIC PRINT, 48 1/4 X 40 INCHES. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND JACK SHAINMANGALLERY, NEW YORK.
FRANCESCO PERGOLESI: TABLEAUX CATHERINE EDELMAN GALLERY This is the second solo exhibition by Italian photographer, Francesco Pergolesi (b. 1975, Venice). Faced with the encroachment of big-box stores in his hometown and beyond, Pergolesi seeks out and photographs shop owners and artisans, reminiscent of those he came to know while growing up. Tableaux expands upon this idea, capturing the material strewn on workers’ tabletops and walls. May 4–July 7, 300 W. Superior, Chicago edelmangallery.com IMAGE: FRANCESCO PERGOLESI, THEODORE, 2017, FROM THE HEROES SERIES, 4 X 6” OR 10 X 15”, 23½ X 35½” PIGMENT PRINT. EDITION OF 7 + 2 APS, 3 + 2 APS
16 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
CHARLES WHITE: A RETROSPECTIVE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO Charles White (1918–1979), born in Chicago and educated at the School of the Art Institute, was one of the preeminent artists to emerge during the city’s Black Renaissance of the 1930s and 1940s. Presented on the 100th anniversary of White’s birth, Charles White: A Retrospective marks the most comprehensive survey of the artist’s work since 1982. June 8–Sept 3, 111 S. Michigan, artic.edu IMAGE: CHARLES WHITE, HARVEST TALK, 1953. THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, RESTRICTED GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. ROBERT S. HARTMAN, 1991.126.
IÑIGO MANGLANO-OVALLE: SEEING RED ELMHURST ART MUSEUM In tandem with the revelation of the building’s full exterior for the first time in over 20 years, internationally acclaimed artist Iñigo ManglanoOvalle will create a stunning architectural intervention within the McCormick House that builds on an idea of the original developers Robert Hall McCormick and Herbert S. Greenwald June 10–August 26, Elmhurst, elmhurstartmuseum.org
IMAGE: RENDERING OF SEEING RED, AN ARCHITECTURAL INTERVENTION BY IÑIGO MANGLANO-OVALLE
LORA FOSBERG LINDA WARREN PROJECTS University of Illinois and SAIC grad Fosberg utilizes metaphor, memory, iconography, and narrative to express the complexities as well as the banalities of our existence. The artist’s intent is to create a universal language using symbols, iconography, and text derived from everyday life to reach a wider audience. June 15–August 18 327 N. Aberdeen, Ste.151. Chicago lindawarrenprojects.com IMAGE: LORA FOSBERG, (THIS) IS THE LONGEST SHORTEST TIME, WOOD AND GOUACHE, 16 X 10 X 8 IN
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 17
SUMMER OPENINGS OPENING RECEPTIONS TAKE PLACE ON THE FIRST NIGHT OF A NEW EXHIBITION, USUALLY BETWEEN 5-9PM. ARTISTS ARE OFTEN PRESENT, AND THE PUBLIC IS WELCOME. PICK UP A COPY OF OUR 2018 CGN ARTS GUIDE FOR COMPLETE GALLERY LISTINGS AND VISIT CHICAGOGALLERYNEWS.COM FOR UP-TO-DATE EXHIBITION AND EVENT DETAILS.
MAY FRI MAY 4 Addington Catherine Edelman Carl Hammer Gallery Victor Armendariz Schneider Vale Craft Galerie Waterton Filter Photo Hofheimer SAT MAY 5 Ice House Northern Illinois Univ. (NIU) Art Museum Sugar Row TUE MAY 8 Smart Museum FRI MAY 11 Carl Hammer Weinberg/Newton Chicago Arts District SAT MAY 12 Vertical Bert Green Fine Art MON MAY 14 State Street Gallery at Robert Morris Univ. FRI MAY 18 Carrie Secrist Bridgeport Art Center Cornelia Arts Building Brauer Museum of Art SAT MAY 19 Kavi Gupta Intuit MON MAY 21 Fermilab
FRI MAY 25 Woman Made Firecat Projects THU MAY 31 Perspective
JUNE FRI JUNE 1 Richard Norton DOCUMENT Filter Photo Rhona Hoffman Volume Western Exhibitions Hofheimer Cleve Carney SAT JUNE 2 Vertical Ice House FRI JUNE 8 Weinberg/Newton Zolla/Lieberman Chicago Arts District Rockford Art Museum SAT JUNE 9 Aron Packer McCormick Robert F. DeCaprio SUN JUNE 10 Elmhurst Art Museum MON JUNE 11 Christopher Art Gallery at Prairie State FRI JUNE 15 Linda Warren Bridgeport Art Center Krasl Art Center
JULY FRI JULY 6 Rangefinder Woman Made SAT JULY 7 Vertical Evanston Art Center Ice House FRI JULY 13 River North Midsummer Art Walk: Addington Jean Albano Gallery Victor Armendariz Andrew Bae Catherine Edelman Carl Hammer Aron Packer Printworks Rangefinder Schneider Vale Craft Galerie Waterton Weinberg/Newton Chicago Arts District SAT JULY 14 DOCUMENT Kavi Gupta Bridgeport Art Center Evanston Art Center THU JULY 19 IL Holocaust Museum FRI JULY 20 Bridgeport Art Center FRI JULY 27 Firecat Evanston Art Center
AUGUST FRI AUGUST 3 Filter Photo SAT AUGUST 4 Vertical Ice House FRI AUGUST 10 Chicago Arts District FRI AUGUST 17 Bridgeport Art Center MON AUGUST 20 Christopher Art Gallery at Prairie State Komechak FRI AUGUST 24 Firecat THU AUGUST 28 Northern Illinois Univ. (NIU) Art Museum FRI AUGUST 31 Cleve Carney
GALLERY KEY RIVER NORTH WEST SIDE SOUTH SIDE MICHIGAN AVE/LOOP NORTH SIDE SUBURBS/MIDWEST
GALLERY NIGHTS & OPEN STUDIOS
SAT JUNE 16 Kavi Gupta
First Friday
TUE MAY 22 State Street Gallery at Robert Morris Univ.
THU JUNE 21 Galerie Waterton
May 11, Jun 8, Jul 13, Aug 10
WED MAY 23 Weinberg/Newton Spertus Institute
FRI JUNE 29 Intuit Firecat
18 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
May 4, Jun 1, Jul 6, Aug 3
Second Friday Third Friday May 18, Jun 15, Jul 20, Aug 17
Further details on page 43
Tang Chang: The Painting That is Painted with Poetry is Profoundly Beautiful May 8–August 5 Smart Museum of Art University of Chicago
Francis Chapin (1899– 1965): 30 Years of Painting the American Scene & Travels Abroad (A Retrospective) Opens June 1 Richard Norton Gallery Part of Art Design Chicago
Jan Matulka Abstraction June 9–July 28 McCormick Gallery
Celebrating all the innovative Chicago art and design that’d make a perfect backdrop to your next selfie. You can’t take a picture in Chicago without getting photobombed by a piece of its rich art and design history. That’s why Art Design Chicago has partnered with 60+ cultural institutions to create 30+ exhibitions and 100+ programs, all to share why Chicago art is second to none.
“Chicago’s Steakhouse”
Winner of the “Award of Excellence” from Distinguished Restaurants of North America Tony + Marion Durpetti – Proprietors 500 North Franklin St. (312) 527-3718 Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 19
ART ON VIEW SUMMER 2018: MAY-AUGUST
Thru May 19: Jason Lahr, Head Glitch – Paintings on shaped panels. June 9–July 7: Ben Blount, Typecast – New Letterpress Prints. Reception: Saturday, June 9th from 4-8 PM
Printworks Gallery
The Rangefinder Gallery at Tamarkin Camera
Chicago’s gallery and hub for both emerging and established photographers to discover new work, display and share their own work, and to spark conversations and connections around photography and the arts.
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Schneider Gallery
6
SUPERIOR
Addington Gallery
5
Andrew Bae Gallery
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704 N. Wells (60654) www.addingtongallery.com
Vale Craft Gallery
May 4-July 7: Flower Show, featuring ceramics Opening reception with artists: Friday, May 4, 5-8 pm July 13- Sept 1: Summer Group Show Opening reception with artists: Friday, July 13, 5-8 pm
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215 W. Superior (60654) www.jeanalbanogallery.com
Paintings • New Media • Sculpture • Mixed Media
Gallery Victor Armendariz
GALERIE WATERTON
July 13–August 25: Dabin Ahn: 2 + 3
Catherine Edelman Gallery
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300 W. Superior (60654) www.galleryvictor.com
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May 4–June 29: Don Pollack: True Life Novelettes; Art Shay: Writers & Freedom Fighters July 13–August 17: Oliver Benson: New Work
Opened in 1987, CEG quickly established itself as one of the leading galleries in the Midwest devoted to the exhibition of prominent living photographers, alongside new and young talent.
The Golden Triangle
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6
740 N. Wells (60654) Tel 312-266-8512 • info@carlhammergallery.com www.carlhammergallery.com May 11-Jun 29: Vintage Howard Finster – Man of Visions July 13-Aug 18: Freshly Picked: Summer Selections Aug 19-Sept 1: Closed
20 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
May 4-June 16: East Winds, Caroline Mars Opening Fri, May 4, 5-8pm June 21-July 21: Celebration, Marie-Pier Guillaud (Mapie) and Esperanza Gama. Opening Thur, June 21, 5-8pm
Weinberg/Newton Gallery
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300 W. Superior, Ste. 203 (60654) www.weinbergnewtongallery.com
June 8–23: A Room Without Walls, An exhibition co-presented with Snow City Arts. Opening June 8, 5-8pm July 13–Sept 15: An exhibition in collaboration with Facing History and Ourselves. Opening July 13, 5-8pm
330 N. Clark (60654) www.goldentriangle.biz
Carl Hammer Gallery
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311 W. Superior, Ste. 115 (60654) www.galeriewaterton.com
300 W. Superior, Lower Level (60654) www.edelmangallery.com
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11
230 W. Superior (60654) www.valecraftgallery.com
300 W. Superior (60654) www.andrewbaegallery.com
May 4: Sandra Dawson, Didier Nolet, Brooks Anderson July 13: Lisa Pressman, Jeff Hirst, Joanne Mattera, Marissa Voytenko
Jean Albano Gallery
WELLS
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May 4–June 30: Schneider Spring Showcase, featuring Marina Font, Luis Gonzalez Palma, and Tatiana Parcero July 13-Sept 1: Deceptive Beauty: Chinese Contemporary Photography Exhibition with three Chinese contemporary artists: Yao Lu, Yu Xiao, and Zhang Wei.
LASALLE
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10
770 N. LaSalle, Ste. 401 (60654) www.schneidergallerychicago.com
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FRANKLIN
ORLEANS
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3
300 W. Superior, 2nd Fl. (60654) www.rangefindergallery.com
CHICAGO
HURON
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311 W. Superior (60654) www.printworkschicago.com
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9
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213 W. Institute Pl., Ste. 309 (60610) www.aronpackerprojects.com
RIVER NORTH
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Notable American + European Impressionist + Modern paintings, drawings + sculpture from 19th + early 20th C.
Aron Packer Projects
EXHIBITIONS, OPENINGS AND EVENTS SHOWN HERE TAKE PLACE BETWEEN MAY–AUGUST 2018.
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612 Merchandise Mart (60654) www.richardnortongallery.com
June 1–29: Francis Chapin: 30 Years of Painting the American Scene & Travels Abroad (A Retrospective)
THESE GEOGRAPHICALLY–ORGANIZED LISTINGS INCLUDE GALLERIES, MUSEUMS AND SPACES LISTED IN OUR ANNUAL CGN ARTS GUIDE AND ON CHICAGOGALLERYNEWS.COM, WHERE OUR CALENDAR IS UPDATED DAILY.
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Richard Norton Gallery
Zolla/Lieberman Gallery
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325 W. Huron (60654) www.zollaliebermangallery.com
June 8–August 10: Zoom In: Recent Paintings by Xiaoze Xie Mortal: El cielo entre los dos – Paintings by Herman Aguirre
WEST TOWN, UKRAINIAN VILLAGE, KINZIE CORRIDOR DIVISION
CHICAGO
4
NOBLE
ASHLAND
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Thru May 26: Paul Mpagi Sepuya June 1: Sterling Lawrence July 14: Friend of a Friend: Elizabeth Atterbury, Gordon Hall, Huong Ngo, Em Rooney
DAMEN
WESTERN
AUGUSTA
2044 W. Carroll (60612) www.richardgraygallery.com
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Thru June 2: Alex Katz: Grass and Trees
Rhona Hoffman Gallery
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WEST LOOP + RIVER WEST CHICAGO 14
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MI
LW A
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UK
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WASHINGTON 18
MADISON
HALSTED
GREEN
PEORIA
MORGAN
SANGAMON
RANDOLPH
I-90/94 KENNEDY EXPRESSWAY
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MARKET
CARPENTER
4
1709 W. Chicago (60642) www.parislondonhongkong.com
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RACINE
ELIZABETH
ADA
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2251 W. Grand (60612) www.mongersongallery.com
Paris London Hong Kong
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LAKE
2
Mongerson Gallery
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Thru May 19: Judy Ledgerwood: Far From The Tree May 25-July 6: Group show curated by Anastasia Tinari: Derrick Adams, Mequitta Ahuja, Mike Cloud, Natalie Frank, Arnold Kemp, Deana Lawson, Ebony Patterson, Athi-Patra Ruga, Nicola Tyson. Opening: Fri, Jun 1, 5 - 7:30pm
1023 N. Western (60622) www.linedoteditions.com
KINZIE
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4
1711 W. Chicago (60622) www.rhoffmangallery.com
Line Dot Editions
N
GRAND
FULTON
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7 Gray Warehouse Richard Gray Gallery
CARROLL 6
Filter Photo
1821 W. Hubbard, Ste. 207 (60622) www.filterphoto.org May 4–26: Anahid Ghorbani: The Edge of Shadows June 1–July 21: Catherine David: The Third Coast Aug 3–Sept 15: Lodoe Laura: 158
HUBBARD
ASHLAND
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1709 W. Chicago (60622) www.documentspace.com
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RANDOLPH STREET MARKET
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2130-40 W. Fulton (60612) www.chicagoartistscoalition.org
DOCUMENT
GRAND
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Chicago Artists Coalition
June 7: WORK IN PROGRESS – Chicago Artists Coalition’s Annual Benefit
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1
WEST TOWN UKRAINIAN VILLAGE
Linc Thelen Gallery
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1620 W. Carroll (60612) www.lincthelenart.com
Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA)
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2320 W. Chicago (60622) www.uima-chicago.org
Vertical Gallery
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1016 N. Western (60622) • www.verticalgallery.com May 12–26: Group Show curated by Galleri Ramfjord featuring 20 Scandinavian artists. June 2–23: Collin van der Sluijs, No Concessions. July 7–28: Joseph Renda Jr. | CROP | Pizza in the Rain. August 4–25: Brazilian artist Cranio Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 21
ART ON VIEW Carrie Secrist Gallery
1709 W. Chicago, 2B (60622) www.wvvolumes.com 4
18
Thru May 26: Richard Hull; Jessica Campbell Jun 1–July 7: Rachel Niffenegger; Michael Pellew
WEST LOOP, RIVER WEST 19
Linda Warren Projects 327 N. Aberdeen, Ste. 151 (60607) www.lindawarrenprojects.com
Thru June 9: Carson Fox and Megan Euker June 15–Aug 18: Emmett Kerrigan, Lora Fosberg, and Juan Angel Chavez
2
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art 13
PILSEN
CANAL
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1338 W. Lake (60607) www.lesliehindman.com
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756 N. Milwaukee (60642) www.art.org
Mars Gallery
Logan Center Exhibitions presents international contemporary art programming at the Logan Center Gallery and throughout the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, focusing on open, collaborative, and processbased approaches to cultural production.
I-290 EISENHOWER EXPRESSWAY HALSTED
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers
I-55 STEVENSON EXPRESSWAY
12
1139 W. Fulton Market (60607) www.marsgallery.com
Thru June 2: Janis Pozzi-Johnson – Born of Water June 9-July 28: Jan Matulka – Abstraction
Morgan’s on Fulton
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952 W. Fulton (60607)
Morgan’s on Fulton was born of a passion for the arts and creative collaboration. The venue is made up of four unique floors, including an Art Gallery, and Industrial Loft, Penthouse/Rooftop Terrace, and Studio Lounge.
51ST ST
PERSHING 43RD ST 47TH ST
5 HYDE PARK BLVD WASHINGTON PARK
GARFIELD BLVD
6 56TH ST
7
PATRON
59TH ST
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673 N. Milwaukee (60642) www.patrongallery.com
Pagoda Red
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400 N. Morgan (60642) www.pagodared.com 22 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
60TH ST
HYDE PARK
8
MIDWAY PLAISANCE
STONY ISLAND
BRIDGEPORT
DORCHESTER
Modern and Contemporary art, focusing primarily on painting, works on paper and sculpture.
35TH ST
COTTAGE GR.
835 W. Washington (60607) www.thomasmccormick.com
4
MLK DRIVE
18
I-90 DAN RYAN EXPRESSWAY
31ST ST MORGAN
McCormick Gallery
9
University of Chicago, 915 E. 60th St (60637) www.arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery
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1
5
Logan Center Exhibitions
SOUTH SIDE RACINE
May 19-July 7: Egret – Clare Rojas (Elizabeth Street) June 16-Aug 18: Parallel Lives – Featuring Firelei Baez, Alfred Conteh, Inka Essenhigh, Jeffrey Gibson, Titus Kaphar, Basil Kincaid, and Devan Shimoyama. (W. Washington) July 14-Aug 25: Young Il Ahn (Elizabeth Street)
10
5020 S. Cornell (60615) • www.hydeparkart.org
A visually breathtaking creative home for artists, designers, and professionals. May 18, June 15, July 20, August 17: 3rd Friday Open Studios, 7-10pm June 15: BAC Fashion Show, 8pm
835 W. Washington (60607) 18 219 N. Elizabeth (60607) 11 www.kavigupta.com
William Hill Gallery
Hyde Park Art Center
1200 W. 35th St. (60609) • www.bridgeportart.com
Kavi Gupta Gallery
7
6442 S. Dorchester • www.williamhillgallery.com
16
Bridgeport Art Center
17 N. Loomis (60607) www.enfocogallery.com
DuSable Museum
740 East 56th Pl. (60637) • www.dusablemuseum.org
May 18–July 7: Whitney Bedford
1709 W. Chicago (60622) www.westernexhibitions.com
En Foco Gallery
May 11, June 8, July 13, August 10 2nd Friday Gallery Nights, 6-10pm
835 W. Washington (60607) www.secristgallery.com
Western Exhibitions
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1945 S. Halsted (60608) chicagoartsdistrict.org
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Volume Gallery
4
Chicago Arts District
9 64TH ST 10
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National Museum of Mexican Art
Chicago Printmakers Collaborative
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1852 W. 19th St. (60608) www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org
Renaissance Society
8
Cornelia Arts Building
Thomas Masters Gallery 4
Established in 1986, the Cornelia Arts Building is one of the largest all-artist-studio buildings on Chicago’s North Side. Upcoming Friday Night Open Studios: May 18, October 5 and November 30, 6-10pm
6
University of Chicago, 5550 S. Greenwood (60637) www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu Thru December 30: Expanding Narratives: The Figure and the Ground Thru July 22: Expanding Narratives: Theme and Variations—The Multiple Sorceries of Félix Buhot May 8–August 5: Tang Chang: The Painting that is Painted with Poetry is Profoundly Beautiful
DePaul University Art Museum
Stony Island Arts Bank
2124 N. Damen (60647) www.firecatprojects.org
Firecat Projects
6760 S. Stony Island (60649) www.rebuild-foundation.org
Woman Made Gallery
11
Lawrence & Clark
6
The Leigh Gallery
5
LAWRENCE 3
UPTOWN
11
ARMITAGE
CL YB
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5
SHERIDAN
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HALSTED
RACINE
SOUTHPORT
CL
BELMONT
Hildt Galleries
WICKER PARK
LI 10
NC
11
2
140 E. Walton (60611) www.hildtgalleries.com
6
R.S. Johnson Fine Art
7
645 N. Michigan (60611) www.rsjohnsonfineart.com 7
RN
3
Bert Green Fine Art represents and exhibits emerging and mid-career artists.
FULLERTON
OU
BUCKTOWN NORTH
1
8 S. Michigan (60603) www.bgfa.us
DIVERSEY
94
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Thru Aug 11: The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design
Bert Green Fine Art
AY
LAKEVIEW
0/
12
ASHLAND
RAVENSWOOD
DAMEN
WESTERN
MONTROSE
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John Hancock Building, 875 N. Michigan (60611) 2nd Location: 2044 W. Carroll (60612) www.richardgraygallery.com
BR OA D W SHEFFIELD
RAVENSWOOD
4
9
40 E. Erie (60611) www.driehausmuseum.com
Richard Gray Gallery
2
ADDISON
June 7–August 22: A Home for Surrealism
980 N. Michigan, Ste. 1330 (60611) www.lesenluminures.com
FOSTER
IRVING PARK
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201 E. Ontario (60611) www.artsclubchicago.org
Les Enluminures
NORTH SIDE 1
The Arts Club of Chicago
Richard Driehaus Museum
Realism, Representational, Abstract, Pottery, Sculpture, Glass, Photography, Digital, Etching, Watercolor, Raku
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1871 N. Clybourn (60614) www.chicagoartsource.com
10
201 E. Ontario (60611) www.artsclubchicago.org
3306 N. Halsted (60657) www.theleighgallery.com
Chicago Art Source Gallery
12
2418 W Bloomingdale, #102 (60647) www.vgagallery.com
Chicago Cultural Center
3
4755 N. Clark (60640) 773-459-0586
2938 N. Clark (60657) www.NancieKingMertz.com
Video Game Art (VGA) Gallery
111 S. Michigan (60603) • www.artic.edu
May 4–29: Perceptions: Charles Gniech, Julia Katz, Deanna Krueger, Rebecca Moy June 1–29: In the Other Room: Figurative Group Exhibition
May 25–June 16: The Space We Grow Into. Curated by Adia Skyes. Featuring Catalina Bellizzi, Shenequa Brooks and Ariana Vaeth July 6–28: Wordplay. Juried by Vernita Nemec. Group exhibition highlighting female identified artists who use text and image or text as image as a means of expression.
13
3520 W Fullerton (60647) positivespacestudios.com
The Art Institute of Chicago
2
4823 N. Damen (60625) www.hofheimergallery.com
3
Positive Space Studios
Thru June 24: Gun Ballet: the Aestheticization of Violence in Video Games Jun 29-Sept 2: Hunt and Peck: Alternative Expressions of the Keyboard
Hofheimer Gallery
2150 S. Canalport, Suite 4A3 (60608) www.womanmade.org
Art De Triumph & Artful Framer Studios
7
935 W. Fullerton (60614) www.museums.depaul.edu/
11
8
245 W. North (60610) www.thomasmastersgallery.com
1800 W. Cornelia (60657) www.corneliaartsbuilding.com
Thru June 17: Richard Rezac: Address. 20 new and recent sculptures by the Chicago-based artist.
9
1000 W. North Ave (60642) www.madrongallery.com
4912 N. Western (60625) www.chicagoprintmakers.com
University of Chicago, 5811 S. Ellis (60637) www.renaissancesociety.org
Smart Museum of Art
Madron Gallery
1
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA)
LINCOLN PARK
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OLD TOWN
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220 E. Chicago (60611) www.mcachicago.org
8
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 23
Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP)
CHICAGO SUBURBS
12
Columbia College Chicago, 600 S. Michigan (60605) www.mocp.org
Artbeat Gallery
The Art Center - Highland Park
Joel Oppenheimer, Inc.
6
Art Post Gallery
10 E. Ohio, Tree Studio Annex (60611) www.audubonart.com 15
5220 Fashion Outlets Way, Rosemont, IL (60018) www.fashionoutletsofchicago.com/TheCollection
Upscale gallery with one of the largest inventories of original art in Chicagoland. Represents 125+ artists. Contemporary/Transitional/Traditional styles. Many large-scale paintings. Fine framing offered.
1
980 N. Michigan, Ste. 1815 (60611) www.sothebys.com
Block Museum of Art
Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership
19
610 S. Michigan (60605) www.spertus.edu
Through June 24: Experiments in Form: Sam Gilliam, Alan Shields, Frank Stella Through August 5: Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded
May 23-August 12: Inquiry 01: Chicago Jewish Artists Fellowship Exhibition Opening reception: Wed, May 23. June 10 and July 15: Gallery Talks at 3 pm July 26, 6 pm: Murmur of Democracy, group performance
Cleve Carney Art Gallery
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College of DuPage 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn (60137) www.clevecarneygallery.org/
State Street Gallery at 14 Robert Morris University
Jun 1-Jul 28: ONE: Juried Emerging Artist Exhibit 2018 stone for those early in their artistic careers. August 31-October 15: On Anxiety Curated by Gwendolyn Zabicki
401 S. State St. (60605) www.robertmorris.edu/studentlife/state-street-gallery/ May 1–10: Steinmetz College Prep Art Exhibition May 14–19: Chicago Architecture Foundation’s New House Design Competition May 22–Aug 30: Intl. Student Photography Exhibition
E. LAKE SHORE DR WALTON DELAWARE
MICHIGAN AVE
RUSH
WABASH
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ILLINOIS
Thru May 18: Moraine Valley Juried Student Art Exhibition Jun 6–Aug 1: Gallery 2018 Juried Community Art Exhibition 9
10
MILLENNIUM PARK
COLUMBUS
CONGRESS 12 13
June 10–August 26: • Mies’s McCormick House Revealed: New Views • Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: Seeing Red 19
Thru May 26: Catching Light: The Art of Architecture featuring Heather Hancock and Jack Nixon July 7–22: Shape of Now: Final Exhibition July 14–Aug 5: Solo Exhibitions: Blase Masini; Emily Stokes July 27–Aug 23: Chicago Sculpture International Biennial
Fermilab Art Gallery
10
May 21-July 21: Structural Elements; Artists: Criner, Reyes, Smith August-September: Seeing the Prairie; Artists: Crosby, Kim, Macnamara, Serrano, Willis
GRANT PARK
14
24 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
Fine and Performing Arts Center 9000 W. College Pkwy., Palos Hills, IL (60465) www.morainevalley.edu/fpac/artgallery
Kirk Rd & Pine St., Batavia, IL (60510) events.fnal.gov/
Ice House Gallery S. LAKE SHORE DRIVE
RANDOLPH 9 11 JACKSON
15
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1717 Central St., Evanston, IL (60201) www.evanstonartcenter.org
KE
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Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery Moraine Valley Community College
Evanston Art Center
LA
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Thru September 2: Verdant Passion, Sharon Bladholm
150 Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst, IL (60126) www.elmhurstartmuseum.org
CHICAGO 5
19
704 Main St., Evanston, IL (60202) www.cultivateurbanrainforest.com
Elmhurst Art Museum
MICHIGAN AVE / THE LOOP OAK ST
Multifaceted public art program featuring contemporary art by both emerging and established artists. Includes permanent commissions by Daniel Arsham, Carlos Rolón/ Dzine, Jen Stark and more as well as rotating exhibitions of work by Chicago artists.
Cultivate Urban Rainforest & Gallery
Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Dr. Evanston, IL (60208) www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu
13
Thru May 17: Annual Spring Student Exhibition June 11-July 19: Studio Conversations: an exhibition reflecting collaborative work by Mary Bookwalter, Janice Meister and Carol Weber Aug 20-Sept 20: Photographer of the Year and Fall Student Exhibition
THE COLLECTION 7 at Fashion Outlets of Chicago
5
984 Willow Rd., Ste. G, Northbrook, IL (60062) www.artpostgallery.com
739 S. Clark, 2nd Floor (60605) www.sroggallery.com
Sotheby’s Chicago
22
1957 Sheridan Rd., Highland Park, IL (60035) www.theartcenterhp.org
Thru July 8: In Their Own Form
15
202 S. Halsted St., Chicago Heights, IL (60411) prairiestate.edu/christopher-art-gallery/index.aspx
3
1409 W. Dundee Rd., Buffalo Grove, IL (60089) www.artbeatgallery.rocks
The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago is the world’s premier college art museum dedicated to photography.
S. Rog Gallery
Christopher Art Gallery at Prairie State College
19
609 S. Boulevard, Evanston, IL (60202) www.icehousegalleryevanston.com May–July 29: Women’s Art June 2: Featured Artist: Jeanne LaCasse solo exhibition July 7: Featured Artist: Jordin Hartwig, solo exhibition August 4-December 25: Nudes and Landscape Also monthly performances
Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
Rockford Art Museum
6
9603 Woods Dr., Skokie, IL (60077) www.ilholocaustmuseum.org
Thru June 24: Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World Thru: Sept 16: Where the Children Sleep: Photos by Magnus Wennman Thru Sept 23: The 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Jul 19–Jan 13: Stories of Survival: Object. Image. Memory.
21
309 Park Ave., Glencoe, IL (60022) www.loucksgallery.com
Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park
14
Governors State University 1 University Parkway, University Park, IL 60484 www.govst.edu/sculpture
Aug 20–Sept 30: Where the City Meets the Prairie – Terrence Karpowicz and Christine Tarkowski Sept 15: Sculpture, Wine and Dine event 4:30-9pm
Pagoda Red
Contemporary Tapestry/Symbolist Painting. 2018 United States Artists Fellows. Permanent Collections: Smithsonian, Washington D.C.; National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, WI
WISCONSIN, MICHIGAN, INDIANA
Milwaukee Art Museum
20
Museum of American art and international religious art, located on the campus of Valparaiso University.
Thru May 20: Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England June 22–August 19: William Kentridge: More Sweetly Play the Dance
May 18–August 5: New Acquisitions, Selections from the Permanent Collection
South Shore Arts
Krasl Art Center
2
700 N. Art Museum Dr., Milwaukee, WI 53202 www.mam.org
17
Valparaiso University, 1709 Chapel Dr. Valparaiso, IN (46383) www.valpo.edu/brauer-museum-of-art
5700 College Rd., Lisle, IL (60532) www.ben.edu/komechak-art-gallery/index.cfm
1
5877 State Hwy 57, Jacksonport Door County, WI (54235) www.martinezstudio.com
Thru May 28: The Laura + John Fraser Collection Jun 8-Sept 30: The Rockford Midwestern Biennial
Brauer Museum of Art
Komechak Art Gallery 11 (Benedictine University) Anne Loucks Gallery
Martinez Studio
4
711 N. Main St., Rockford, IL (61103) www.rockfordartmuseum.org
16
1040 Ridge Rd., Munster, IN (46321) www.southshoreartsonline.org
18
Sugar Row Gallery
707 Lake Blvd., St. Joseph, MI (49085) www.krasl.org
23
234 High St., Mineral Point, WI (53565) www.sugarrowstudioandgallery.com
Thru June 17: Wandering Spirit: African Wax Prints; In the artlab: Undercurrents by Emily Stokes June 15: Biennial Sculpture Invitational Opening Celebration, 6–11 PM Jun 22–Aug 26: Summertime Galleries: Come & Play
May 5–27: Group show, featuring Michael Donovan, Peter Flanary, Gerry Glaeve, Bill Grover, Rick Harris, Tom Kelly, Richard Moninski, Ben Russell, Carole Spelic, Sharon Stauffer, Chris Taw, Cindy Reynolds Taylor
SUBURBS, ILLINOIS, MIDWEST
911 Green Bay Rd., Winnetka, IL (60093) www.pagodared.com
Perspective Group 19 + Photography Gallery, Ltd.
1
1310-1/2B Chicago Ave., Evanston, IL (60201) www.perspectivegallery.org
Salon Artists Gallery
15
294 Main St., Park Forest, IL (60466) www.salonartistsgallery.com
2
23
GREATER ILLINOIS Krannert Art Museum (KAM)
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 500 E. Peabody Dr., Champaign, IL (61820) www.kam.illinois.edu
22 21 18
20
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KAM is the second-largest general fine arts museum in the state of Illinois, hosting 15 temporary exhibitions every year and maintaining six permanent galleries to exhibit the university’s art collection.
Northern Illinois University (NIU) Art Museum
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16 12
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Altgeld Hall, 1st Fl., West End, DeKalb, IL (60115) www.niu.edu/artmuseum Thru May 18: All We are Breaking are Stones; Reclaimed Baggage Aug 28–Oct 19: SWEET, Golden, Delicious… “Faculty-select and certified”, NIU School of Art and Design Alumni 16
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 25
ART ENCOUNTER The Rangefinder Gallery works from the legendary
FOUR DECADES BEHIND THE SCENES
camera
300 West Superior, Second Floor Monday-Friday 9-5:30 - Saturday 10-2 312 642-2255 rangefindergallery.com
Join us for First Friday receptions!
May-June Complete Cuba: Travelers’ Stories & Photographs from the Caribbean’s Most Enigmatic Island
July-August LOESS by Suraj Bhamra images from an immigrant community
STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN ONE OF ART ENCOUNTER’S SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Art Encounter, a non-profit art education organization, is celebrating 40 years this year. Devoted to the mission of educating, empowering, and connecting people of diverse ages and backgrounds through interactive experiences with visual art, the nonprofit also offers art programs to bring greater understanding and connection to underserved youth and seniors at risk of social isolation. The group is well known for their in-depth and behind-thescenes art tours, including local day trips to galleries and private collections as well as international trips to see the world’s best art. Recent destinations have included Cuba, Venice, New Orleans, Toronto, Detroit, and Brazil.
September-October The Journey by Arthur Meyerson
images from a lifetime of travel color photography
Artist Talk & Book Signing Thursday, September 6th !
On May 6th a special 40th anniversary gala, “Art Impacts,” honors Art Encounter’s co-founder and Artistic Director Joanna Pinsky, and William Lieberman, whose gallery, Zolla/Lieberman, pioneered River North as an art center when his mother Roberta Lieberman co-founded the gallery in 1976. Proceeds from the event will help increase the depth and breadth of Art Encounter’s future community outreach programming. One of the highlights of this year’s Gala will be the art auction of master works by 35 prestigious artists, many of them represented by Zolla/ Lieberman, including Phyllis Bramson, William Conger, John Fraser, Josh Garber, Vera Klement, David Kroll, Michael Nakoneczny, Rene Romero Schuler, Buzz Spector, Jay Strommen, Maria Tomasula, Glenn Wexler, and others. Art Encounter was founded by three artists who believed that “there are many ways to see”, and that meaningful and collaborative encounters with art have many benefits. Program offerings, which annually serve over 3,500 people and reach people of all ages and backgrounds, engage with public school children and nursing home residents, residents of Englewood as well as Evanston, young parents and active retirees. Visit artencounter.org for details.
26 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
Chicago Calling: Art Against the Flow June 29, 2018–January 6, 2019 curated by Kenneth Burkhart and Lisa Stone
Explore Chicago’s history of robust recognition and acceptance of self-taught art and artists.
www.art.org
Chicago Calling: Art Against the Flow is part of Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art exploring Chicago’s art and design legacy, with presenting partner The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Joseph Yoakum (American, 1886-1972). The Mounds of Pleasure/on JA Brimms Farm Near Walnut Grove... (detail), 1970. Ink and pastel on paper, 15 3/8 x 11 3/4 in. Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Collection
IN THEIR OWN FORM Contemporary Photography + Afrofuturism April 12 – July 8, 2018
Columbia College Chicago 600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago IL 60605-1996 Monday–Saturday 10–5 Thursday 10–8 Sunday 12–5
mocp.org
Mohau Modisakeng, Endabeni, 2016
CGN_print_ad.indd 1
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 27 3/2/18 11:17 AM
SEEING THE TREES FOR THE ART ALEX KATZ FINDS NEW INSPIRATION AT 90
GRASS AND TREES INSTALLED AT GRAY WAREHOUSE ON CHICAGO’S WEST SIDE
By GINNY VAN ALYEA The artist Alex Katz is well known around the world for his colorful, stylized portraits and bold natural landscapes. Prolific for decades, he marked his 90th birthday in 2017 and is still making art. His latest exhibition, Trees and Grass, opened April 12 at Gray Warehouse, featuring work that goes in a new direction, proving that we as humans never have to stop observing or creating. Critic John Yau, in an essay on Katz’s new work says, “The list of artists who break through to a new way of making art after turning eighty is not very long. Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, and Willem de Kooning are among the few in this category.” He points out that in this new series of work is, “The feeling of not quite knowing where you are or where you are going, which is rather unsettling when you consider the artist’s age.” When I visited the gallery on a cold spring morning, I entered the quiet, empty warehouse space and came face to face with a large scale vertical painting of a set of sun– dappled steps buffetted by thick green foliage. It’s not clear whether the steps are going down, or up, since the destination is unseen. The lines are curved and the steps 28 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
themselves are a bit fuzzy, perhaps from the perspective of someone who has spent 90 years on earth. Everything looks a bit broader and softer; the light is fresh and clear. Yau emphasizes that the Grass paintings are “Unlike anything Katz has ever done before,” though he notes their art historical ties through “a dialog with Franz Kline’s blackand-white abstractions, but solely on Katz’s terms. Katz’s paint is thinner and the strokes are looser, more at ease with themselves. This is plein-air painting taken to a new level.” In 2015, when he turned 88, Katz told artnet, “Most painters, when they get older, they get worse. And the real good ones get better. This is, like, my stab at saying ‘I got better.’” Indeed he’s like the rare musician who, instead of going on a greatest hits tour or taking a standing gig in Las Vegas, continues to write new and relevant music that audiences of all ages enjoy. In addition to the first painting that greets visitors in the gallery, Road 1, another similar work is hung at the other end of the space, as well as several large scale Grass pieces. On a frigid April day – snowing, in Chicago, on opening day of baseball season – the expanses of intense
ALEX KATZ, THREE TREES 2, 2016, OIL ON LINEN, 48 X 84 INCHES
sunny yellow and verdant green are like a caffeine boost after a late night. I feel as if I am standing under a light lamp, absorbing much needed nutrients after too much time in the dark. Standing close to Grass 5, which at a remarkable 108 x 216 inches is the largest work in the show, I view sections of the linen surface one at a time, noticing the many layers of oil paint in various shades and combinations: green on yellow, green on green, yellow on green, and dark green on lighter green. Marks from Katz’s paintbrush bristles are individually visible, creating an effect of blades of grass. I imagin I am shrunk down to the size of a chickadee or suddenly on the lawn of a giant. If that were the case I might feel lost, but standing in the gallery I feel immersed in Katz’s powerfully saturated and contrasting colors, moved by brushstrokes that give a feeling of blowing in the breeze.
Commenting on the surface coverage of the works, Yau notes, “Katz does not paint even a sliver of sky; there is a feeling of being hemmed in, but it is never oppressive.” His focus on the ground makes you look carefully at your surroundings rather than what might be above and beyond. In the case of the Road pieces, I look at what is in front of me, as if truly walking an unfamiliar path. For Yau, art history once again informs these compositions: “Katz’s Road 1 and Road 2 (both 2017) are in dialog with Paul Cézanne’s La route tournante en sousbois (Bend in the forest road) (1902– 06). Whereas the road in Cézanne’s painting bends before disappearing, overtaken by the forest, Katz’s road goes straight back, narrowing as it rises up the picture plane, until it comes to a halt.”
Gray, and he participated in a talk at the Art Institute with Anne Goldstein, as well as a Q&A at the gallery with Yau and Northwestern University’s Ivy Wilson. At 90 Katz continues to push the limits of his own art, as well as participate in an important dialogue about the evolving role of art in our society. Every year when spring finally comes in the Midwest, everyone knows to enjoy it while it lasts. Katz’s career has been long and illustrious. We are fortunate that he has continued to make art that sheds new light on the people and spaces around all of us. Alex Katz: Grass and Trees on view thru June 2 Richard Gray Gallery, Gray Warehouse 2044 W. Carroll, Chicago (60612) richardgraygallery.com
The week that Grass and Trees opened, Katz attended the opening at Richard Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 29
AN OUTWARD LOOK: RICHARD REZAC AT THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY
RICHARD REZAC, CHIGI, 2016-17, PAINTED WOOD AND CAST HYDROCAL, 49 X 69 X 43 IN. PHOTO: TOM VAN EYNDE
BY ALISON REILLY At first glance, Richard Rezac’s sculptures might be described as cool, crisp, or sleek. But his careful craftsmanship and delicate choice of color imbue the objects with a warm familiarity, and their contrasting surfaces often activate tactile memories. In late April, Rezac’s exhibition, titled Address, opened at the Renaissance Society. Though the work in the show spans the last 20 years, for executive director and chief curator Solveig Øvstebø, the exhibition is not a retrospective. “We wanted it to be a new commission,” she said, “a comprehensive new installation related specifically to the space of the Renaissance Society.” Øvstebø’s colleague, Janine Mileaf, director of the Arts Club of Chicago, had a similar idea. She commissioned Rezac to create a new sculpture for the Arts Club’s outdoor space. Inspired by the urban location of the Arts Club, the organization’s connection to sculptor Constantin Brancusi, and his own interest in Shaker fence building, Rezac built Glen Elder. 30 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
“We decided that it would be a nice collaboration to do these exhibitions at the same time,” Øvstebø said, “to emphasize both institutions’ respect for his work and his role in the Chicago art landscape.” Her deep admiration for Rezac and his rigorous studio practice is evident. “He is one of the strongest sculptors working in the U.S. today,” she said. “Over the span of 40 years he has been true to his project and worked quietly in his very own vein. There are very few artists who show this kind of uninterrupted concentration.” Øvstebø, like many others, is drawn to Rezac’s work not only because of its formal beauty and distinct quality, but also because of the way he builds his sculptures. “He makes them all by hand through a very determined process in which meticulous geometry and math are combined with a deep feeling for color and shape,” she noted. Rezac was kind enough to answer a number of questions about his childhood, his education, and his current art practice. Following is an edited transcript of our recent conversation.
Chicago Gallery News: Where did you grow up? Richard Rezac: I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska in a family of six siblings with extended family nearby. My parents enjoyed travel when they had the time and finances, so an outward look around the Midwest was an important aspect of my early years. CGN: Is there a memory from your childhood that influenced your decision to become an artist? RR: I had two excellent art teachers in middle school and high school. They were bright, respectful, and encouraging. As examples in their conduct and personal commitment, they were mainly responsible for me, during high school, to decide later to seriously pursue the study of art. CGN: Why did you decide to become an artist? RR: Largely due to these teachers, but I have also had a persistent interest in drawing since I was about six years old. That attention and outlook led to an appreciation of what it would mean to go further with other forms of art. CGN: I grew up in Portland, Oregon and am interested in the time you spent there. What brought you to the city? RR: I went to Portland to attend the BFA program at the Museum Art School (as it was known then, 1970-74), now the Pacific Northwest College of Art. One of the major benefits was its immediate connection to the Portland Art Museum with its galleries serving as an extension of the studio classrooms. The faculty were accomplished as artists and invested in education, and because the School was small, it was necessarily interdisciplinary, so I took courses in every studio area. I graduated as an artist, not as one specialized in one discipline. CGN: What was Portland like at the time? RR: The 1970s in Portland was ideal: open, liberal and responsible, inexpensive. CGN: From 1980-82, you studied at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore and received your MFA. How did that time compare to your experience in Portland? RR: It was also a rewarding education, and a positive time to be in Baltimore, though almost completely different from Portland—as an older, entrenched, industrial, workingclass eastern city. Nature, as I had known it in Oregon and Nebraska, was a long distance from Baltimore. The most rewarding part of that place and time was the ready access to museum collections in Washington D.C., New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, which I visited frequently.
TOP: RICHARD REZAC, ZEILSCHIP (KNOT), 2014, NICKEL-PLATED CAST BRONZE AND CAST BRONZE, 7 X 6.5 X 3 IN. MIDDLE: ZEILSCHIP (GAUGE), 2016, CAST BRONZE AND NICKEL-PLATED BRONZE, 7 X 6.5 X 3 IN. BOTTOM: ZEILSCHIP (LUNAR DISTANCE), 2015, CAST BRONZE AND PAINTED CHERRY WOOD, 7 X 6.5 X 3 IN. PHOTOS: TOM VAN EYNDE
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 31
RICHARD REZAC, UNTITLED (REN SCREEN), 2016-17, PAINTED WOOD AND ALUMINUM, 74 X 120 X 36.5 IN. PHOTO: TOM VAN EYNDE
CGN: I studied the work of Katarzyna Kobro, a Polish artist associated with Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin. I see similarities between your work and hers, because you often work on a human scale, you incorporate materials like wood and metal, and, in addition to freestanding sculpture, you sometimes hang your sculpture on the wall or from the ceiling. How do you see your work relating to early abstract art?
to west in that space is paramount, so the underside of this screen is transparent and its primary, two-sided plane is on perpendicular axis with the only other built wall in the space. There are some details and surface treatments that match the scale and sensation of my sculpture generally, so it will hopefully be understood as an extension of the sculptures, while also being a slight architectural element, speaking to the gallery structure.
RR: I do admire her work (and saw a survey exhibition in Madrid last summer) and think that it certainly needs to be better known in this country, as it is prescient to some artists working in our time. If early twentiethcentury abstraction can be seen today as an examination of some fundamental forms and their realization—in relationship—to an appropriate material, resulting in a simple, yet suggestive statement, then I agree that my sculpture, and approach, is indebted to those artists’ work. Their human-scaled size was inevitable because of the hand-forming construction and the private, rather than public, motivation.
CGN: What is the significance of your sculptures’ names? I’m particularly interested in Chigi and Quimby.
CGN: Can you tell me more about Untitled (Ren Screen)? What inspired this work? RR: This work is a combination of space divider, but free-floating and rather small; a wall to hang sculpture but with an area only for one. Otherwise, my reason to make it came almost first, two years ago, when invited by Solveig Øvstebø for this exhibition. I felt the need to keep the Ren gallery space as open as possible, yet with a need to mark and divide it discreetly. Light from east 32 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
RR: The sculpture titled Chigi references the Italian papal family (originally from Siena). Alexander VII was one of three Popes in the Baroque period that commissioned Francesco Borromini in the architecture he designed for the Vatican. This sculpture incorporates an element that succinctly quotes the family emblem or crest, which is based on a series of overlapping mounds, as in the hillside landscape around Siena. All of Borromini’s buildings initiated or completed during his reign contain these emblems, as a mark of sponsorship. My intention for Chigi was to join two seemingly unlike forms: the merged crib-like structure, and the volumetric “foot” in recognition of Borromini, not so much the Chigi family. The other sculpture, Quimby, is only the second work that I have made incorporating stained glass. The first house that I lived in with stained glass as a feature was on NW Quimby Street in Portland, and the designs in the several rooms were comprised of a simple grid surround, resembling the fragmented version in this sculpture.
CGN: I’d also like to know more about the series of sculptures with Zeilschip in the title. Can you tell me more about the material you selected for each one? RR: Zeilschip is a Dutch word meaning sailing ship or sailor. The four works are based on a ceramic tile, oval in shape, that I saw at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It depicted sailing vessels in port, with the water line level, but the oval set askew. I was intrigued by that subtle disjunction, and so I ultimately made four related works. All are cast bronze volumetric forms, but each has a different surface treatment (one is nickel-plated), and all have a separate “instrument” or notation on its left side. These small additions complete the sculpture, re-balance it visually, and add a geometric, faceted form. These configurations were all determined by the two sets of axis of the oval: true verticals and horizontals—one set within the oval, and one set on the wall itself. The coordinates from all points at the periphery of the oval (which resembles an iron cross) in some way converge to spell out the element attached to its left side. CGN: You have said, “Like an architect has a drawing to begin building, I have a drawing to initiate the sculpture with some reliability.” Can you talk about your relationship to drawing and sculpting?
RICHARD REZAC, QUIMBY, PAINTED STEEL, PLATE GLASS, ENAMELED PLATE GLASS AND CHERRY WOOD, 24.25 X 7.5 X 29.5 IN.PHOTO: TOM VAN EYNDE
RR: For me it makes perfect sense to draw first, to explore possible ideas—whether that starts with a conscious source or improvisational. I can then adjust the particulars in the drawing over time, and eventually decide if I want to see it as a sculpture. I have never made a sculpture without going through this drawing phase first. For years these drawings have resembled traditional architectural drawings in their showing plan, elevation, and sometimes section in alignment, so it is easy to interpret these images as three-dimensional. CGN: How involved are you in the installation of your work for exhibitions? RR: Extensively. Since 1977 I have installed all of the solo exhibitions that I have had, and I have usually been involved in the actual installation of a work in any group show, if it occurred in a city in which I was living. CGN: How would you describe your studio? RR: It is on the first floor of the building I live in, a former dairy store, so my studio space is not so large, but the layout is efficient, somewhat compartmentalized, and perfectly suited to my needs. It has good natural light from three directions and is segmented into three areas: for building sculpture, for drawing, and for something in-between, such as painting. CGN: Does Chicago architecture influence your work? RR: When I moved here in 1985, the architecture of Chicago came as a revelation the first time that I looked closely at the invention and importance represented by this history. There is an affinity, naturally, to sculpture.
THE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO HOSTS REZAC’S SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION GLEN ELDER THIS SUMMER. THE PIECE IS THE MOST RECENT WORK IN THE CLUB’S GARDEN PROJECT SERIES. ON VIEW THROUGH JULY 2018
Primarily, I gravitate to the street level detail or isolated fragment, but I have not actively used or incorporated, any aspect of local architectural forms or buildings proper. CGN: If you didn’t live in Chicago, where would you be? RR: Hard to imagine at this time in my life. This is a great city, in my experience, and offers everything I need. Richard Rezac’s Address is on view at the Renaissance Society until June 17, 2018 • richardrezac.com Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 33
ART AT ALL HOURS THOUGH CHICAGO MAY NOT BE KNOWN AS THE “CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS,” IT BOASTS ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE PUBLIC ART COLLECTIONS IN THE WORLD – ONE THAT IS ARGUABLY BEST ENJOYED IN THE SUMMER MONTHS, AT ALL HOURS, FROM EARLY MORNING UNTIL LATE AT NIGHT. BELOW ARE SOME OF CHICAGO’S SCULPTURE HIGHLIGHTS THAT CERTAINLY NEVER SLEEP.
ELLSWORTH KELLY – I WILL At the intersection of Fullerton and Cannon off of Lake Shore Drive, this thin, 40 foot tall stainless steel column honors the City’s rebirth after the Chicago Fire in 1871. Lake Shore Drive at Fullerton, Lincoln Park
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL – KNOWLEDGE AND WONDER Before Marshall painted the back of the Chicago Cultural Center in 2017, he created this mural to celebrate the library as a source of wonder and higher learning. 115 S. Pulaski Rd., Legler Branch Library
LOUISE NEVELSON – DAWN SHADOWS
ELLSWORTH KELLY, I WILL. PHOTO: RON COGSWELL
Next to the nonstop trains that circle the Loop, Nevelson intended that this work be viewed from all sides and especially from above on the El tracks. 200 W. Madison, The Loop
RICHARD SERRA – READING CONES A break in the minimalist exterior allows for a narrow space through which to view the surrounding city. Oh, there’s a story about how this piece became the City’s in 1990. Grant Park
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL KNOWLEDGE AND WONDER
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ALEX KATZ – HARLEM STATION This freestanding painting celebrates hardworking Chicagoans from all walks of life. One of the largest and most complex pieces by Katz, this work is on the go, all the time. Harlem Station, CTA Blue Line
Upcoming Exhibitions… Images from Abroad
May 22 through September 13, 2018 A collection of stunning photos by students exploring new surroundings and familiar topics while studying abroad.
A Home for Surrealism 7 June - 22 August 2018
Artists’ Atlas Mapping Their Journey September 24 through December 20, 2018 Chicago artists’ concepts of maps, globes, charts, blueprints, paths, and journeys through a variety of media.
State Street Gallery
401 South State Street, Chicago, IL | Mon-Thur 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Harold Noecker. Angular Landscape, c. 1944. Oil on canvas 30 x 36 in. (77.2 x 91.4 cm). Collection of Bernard Friedman, Chicago.
201 East Ontario Street Chicago, Illinois 60611 312.787.3997
www.artsclubchicago.org information@artsclubchicago.org @artsclubchicago
Calling All Artists! 17TH ANNUAL
Open Submission for Artists of All Media!
Friday September 7, 2018 NAVY PIER, CHICAGO
• Have your work seen by and sold to more than 600 of Chicago’s philanthropic, civic, and community leaders gathered in the Aon Grand Ballroom at Navy Pier. • Enjoy an elegant evening of art, great food, and entertainment. • Retain 50 percent of the proceeds, 50 percent donated back to Catholic Charities Emergency Assistance Department. • Submit artwork for jury selection by June 5, 2018.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT Rose Marie Lesniak Mendez (312) 655-7290 RMLesniakMendez@catholiccharities.net Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 35
FABIOLA JEAN-LOUIS
REWRITING HISTORY THROUGH BEAUTY detect the questions beneath the surface. This, for Jean-Louis, is how she seeks to rewrite history – not to change the past but to use history to challenge the present and therefore change society in the future. The DuSable is an institution devoted to the historic and artistic examination of the African American experience, an evolving mission that is carried out in endless ways. This latest exhibition represents a new direction for the museum. Following is an edited transcript of my conversation with both Jean-Louis and Hedspeth. –GV CGN: Clinée, when we first met you told me you discovered Fabiola’s art online at 2 o’clock in the morning. Her work was so personal to you, even through a screen, that you were compelled to contact here. Tell me how you came to collaborate on an exhibition at the DuSable Museum. Clinée Hedspeth: I wasn’t in curatorial here at the time. I was in education, but as a collector I was just in love with her work. So I sent her an email, and she responded. That was before we had a chief curator at the museum, so we kept talking, I looked at more of her work, and then all of the sudden I said, “You need to come here. Let me see what I can do.”
FABIOLA JEAN-LOUIS, CONQUISTADOR, ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT, 40.5” X 52”, ED. OF 5
By GINNY VAN ALYEA This past fall a creative synthesis of art and design arrived on the South Side of Chicago when Brooklyn-based artist Fabiola Jean-Louis brought her life-size paper gowns and carefully staged photographs to the DuSable Museum in Hyde Park. I met the artist herself in the spring, and we took a tour of the exhibition with Clinée Hedspeth, Director of Curatorial Services at the museum and the woman who brought Jean-Louis to the DuSable. We talked about how art and beauty can be used as vehicles for contemplating and understanding larger issues. After meeting Jean-Louis I not only looked at paper in a whole new light, but I understood the possibilities of recontextualizing multiple histories. Jean-Louis was born in Haiti, and she says her work is primarily informed by her Afro-Caribbean heritage, black culture and the dialogue of mysticism. By reinterpreting generally recognizable images of European (white) nobility and recreating the traditional trappings using deceptively simple materials such as paper, Jean-Louis sets up immersive scenarios though which viewers can reconnect to a violent and complicated past while reimagining a more beautiful and hopeful history. Viewers who encounter her work first see a stunning, familiar image, and then they 36 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
Fabiola Jean-Louis: And then we started having conversations with the new curator at first, and then for about a year and a half, about a small group show with two other artists. CH: I had to climb the ladder where I could bring her in. [Laughter] FJL: There were changes happening at the museum and they were looking at the new face of the DuSable and what the new exhibitions would look like, and that took time. When Lee Bey came on board, together with Clinée he said, “We’re gonna make it happen.” And at that point it was like a race to get ready. CGN: Have you had an exhibition on this scale anywhere prior to now? You must have needed a lot of time to get everything ready. FJL: A lot of time. The first ever show that I had with Rewriting History was when it was still very young at the Harlem School of the Arts. That show consisted of two and a half sculptures and maybe four to six prints. By the time Clinée and I started working together I had added more pieces and improved my skill set with how I was making the dresses. So, I got to the point where I needed to remake dresses again. Here is a dress [points] with a totally different type of paper. It’s an archival paper. The original was
in that sense, but when it comes to the work for Rewriting History it really has to start from this very organic, raw place. Sometimes I don’t even read; it’s about what I know has happened already. I think about the black experience as being non-linear, and I try to tap into as many different aspects of that story as I can. For instance, being a black woman, being Afro-Caribbean – I don’t identify as African American – personally it’s me working from those different places. I also look at the space of the black experience being African American. What does that look like and how does that relate to me? It ends up being part of a larger story, but it’s different chapters. It doesn’t mean that the stories aren’t related in some way. They’re all relative. It’s ultimately about the same thing – injustice, trauma, and violence against black bodies. CGN: When you think about the horrors of so many aspects of history for African Americans, Afro-caribbeans, black people, are you using beauty to get attention or communicate? Is there an element where beauty is a sort of mask? How do you use beauty to connect to something so atrocious? FABIOLA JEAN-LOUIS, MADAME BEAUVOIR’S PAINTING, ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT, 40.5” X 52”, EDITION OF 5
a newsprint. This paper just had a better flow. Also the cut of the dress is different. I wanted something that is more true to what existed, as far as shape, and the original wasn’t. So for display purposes, I really wanted the actual sculpture to have the right cut and proportion, and it needed to be redone. I also had to spray a dye onto it versus using acrylic paint. The DuSable is my first museum show, and I’m so happy. I’ve always said that it was really important to show my work in a black museum. It also helps that DuSable is a Smithsonian affiliate, since another goal for me has been to get to the Smithsonian. This is a dream come true. This is like the granddaddy of all the granddaddies. CH: Fabiola doesn’t make work catered to the space, and that’s what I loved about her work. At first I didn’t know what was done to make
a piece, but once the show was going to happen I had to ask, ‘What’s the checklist?’ FJL: It actually takes me four to five months to get one shot, because of conceptualizing, and making the dress. I had to get to a point where I could pump out a dress in a week. CGN: The beauty of each piece is the tip of the iceberg. There’s also the historical context and the story behind it. Are there different stories connected to each piece, or are they each different chapters of a larger story? FJL: Different chapters of a larger story. I do my research and think about history, but I’m not an academic. It’s something that I have to go and find. Also, prior to doing Rewriting History, I was a premed student. My career was set to become a doctor, so I’m academic
FJL: I like that word, actually. I haven’t used that word mask, and it’s making me think. I think that here beauty can be seen as a mask used to uncover something deeper, for sure. CGN: We do that all the time. FJL: That’s right, because I use beauty as a vehicle to carry my viewers through this journey and take them to a place that’s uncomfortable at some point. But mask, I think, is also very true to that. It’s also being used to uncover something that’s very ugly. It definitely speaks to my response to how I see our society being desensitized to injustice and again, violence against black bodies. Early on in the series when I was creating, I knew for sure that I wasn’t interested in showing the blood and the gore. Us being murdered. Even when I do presentations, I don’t include pictures that are during slavery or even in the ‘50s when black Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 37
FJL: It’s more of a What if? What if I could? What if we were always celebrated? The series just shows black female bodies, black women. That’s what I’m most comfortable showing. It’s not that I don’t want to include black men in the work, but as a photographer, as an artist, I’m more comfortable working with the black female body. We’ve been disrespected, so this for me asks a question, while also remembering what actually happened. I’m a firm believer in the saying that in order to know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been. You have to know where you are. It’s not about forgetting the past. It is about rethinking how we see beauty, how we celebrate the black female body, and rethinking what freedom actually looks like. Is freedom always this big grand thing, or is freedom the simplicity of just sitting for a portrait? The leisure of having the time to be painted or photographed. We take the simplicity of freedom for granted. So the series is about going deeper into what freedom actually looks like, and what freedom is.
ARTIST FABIOLA JEAN-LOUIS AMONG WORKS IN PROGRESS
men and women are hanging. It’s so important, to me, to preserve us in some way. And I feel like every time we see us being shot and blood and all that it’s just like there’s no respect. CGN: Well sometimes it ends up being distracting. People just want to look at the blood and gore without thinking about how it got there. FJL: Exactly, without connecting to the actual thing or incident. So I knew early on that I wasn’t going to do that. I took my time to think about how I was going to present it, and beauty became a very clear means, because at the same time I wanted to create work that would be welcoming to different people, and not just the Black Diaspora, but anyone interested in talking about race. I want them to feel welcomed into this space to talk about it. That’s
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not to say that there’s [something] apologetic in the work at all or that I’m going to hold back from what I feel is important to the story. CGN: When talking about history you said you reference historical situations you know are true, but you’re not relying on academic texts or timelines. The title of the exhibition is Rewriting History. What do you think about being revisionist? It sounds to me like you’re not trying to rewrite the past. You’re actually just trying to understand it from now going forward. FJL: Right. The rewriting part is not literal. It’s not for me to do, because I can’t anyway. CGN: You’re not rewriting it because you’re showing what happened.
CGN: There’s another level of just considering a woman’s lifestyle – the trappings of beauty, all of the stuff that has to be out adorning, rather than just within, the body. FJL: We can talk about leisure and the freedom to be painted, but we also acknowledge how even those women were imprisoned, in a way. Fashion was a means to do that. They had to wear these tight corsets. CGN: You mean beauty is pain. FJL: The corset for me takes this on. It’s something really beautiful and aesthetic, but when we think about what it actually stands for, it’s not. It’s confining. It’s choking. The corset represents, for the black women in my works, society, racism and all the limitations that we’ve had. It’s always a dance between how fashion and the celebration of beauty and taking and owning space relates to the things that we take for granted: like fashion, a painting, or who gets to wear what.
CGN: Tell me about your artistic process. The sculptures are each related to the photographs, and you said it can take months to set up a single shoot. FJL: I don’t look at other photographers as inspiration for my work. I always look at paintings. My library has just books and museum catalogues that show actual garments, if they have it, and paintings – Boucher, Fragonard, Rembrandt, artists like that. Rewriting History is me showing a contemporary way of what I think a painting looks like. I’m not a painter, even though the pieces in my photographs I’ve painted. I try to get a digital photograph to look like a painting. The first part of the process is looking at those master painters and doing research. Sometimes, the work is a response to what’s happening currently. Other times it’s intuition – a conversation I’m having with my ancestors. Then through that space I think about the concept I want to bring to life. When I figure that out I decide on the style and design. I’m always looking at 16th–19th Century Fashion for reference.
look that way. And there’s another reason why it needs to be like a painting – that’s where we are often missing. If I go to a museum, I’m not going to see the black body in a master painting celebrated in that way. If the black body is in that painting, someone is often either enslaved, or they just disappear into the backdrop. CGN: Or they’re in an exotic culture. FJL: And fetishized in some way. So it starts there with a painting; the goal was always to have them in a museum. CGN: You want to put them where they are not. FJL: So I’m not very interested in a photograph really. Even though I use the camera as a tool, like a painter uses a brush, my goal is not to get something that literally looks like a photograph. I’m more interested in something that seems otherworldly.
CGN: That’s a pretty big time-span. FJL: [Laughter] Well, I think about the style that’s most appealing to me, and sometimes the dresses are going to be replicas of what was in a painting. Early on the dresses were a mixture of different periods. Now, I’m more interested in replicas. I don’t sketch anything. I just can’t operate in that space. It’s too limiting for me. CGN: I would not have guessed that. FABIOLA JEAN-LOUIS, REST IN PEACE, ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT, 40.5” X 52”, ED. OF 5
FJL: I have five notebooks for sketching that I convince myself that I’m going to use, but I just can’t do it. CGN: So, it’s really as you go? FJL: That’s what’s so free about it. I can add on, and it’s all about emotion. At the same time I’m also thinking about the set. I have to think about the design and how I’m going to bring the lighting in and tell the story. CGN: Does every piece end up as part of a photograph? FJL: Usually, yes,but not every single piece. For the DuSable they have two dress that have not been worn yet, and so there are no photographs of these pieces. It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be. I have to work backwards because I had the design and the dress already, but I want to add them into the photographs. CGN: Your photographs have a painterly quality, as you said. Here you photographed your daughter wearing your sculpture and props, and then you digitally apply a veneer that makes it not quite real. FJL: It’s become my style of photography. I just love everything that’s painterly. That in itself takes hours to do. After the photograph is done, it takes me about four days of editing to just paint and Photoshop to get it to
CGN: What materials do you use? FJL: I use acrylic paints. I use dyes, coffee [and] natural stain. I use handmade Japanese paper, or just a simple French craft paper. Sometimes I make my own paper. It depends on what I’m working on and the scale of it. Now my work has progressed to include furniture, jewelry and shoes. So, it’s a madness. CGN: You are at the beginning of your career. Where do you think you will go next? FJL: Rewriting History is inspired by my history and my identity. It’s about analyzing myself and who I am as a black woman, as an artist, as a mother. I’m grateful for the series because it inspired a lot of work that’s going to be an extension of Rewriting History. The work is continuous and still developing. It’s never-ending. Rewriting History is on view through May 23 at the DuSable Museum of African American History. Note: After the interview was conducted Clinée Hedspeth moved on from curatorial work with the DuSable Museum in April 2018 to independent art consulting and appraising. She continues to represent Fabiola Jean-Louis’s projects.
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 39
BUILDING A HOME FOR ART REVIVING AN INDUSTRIAL SPACE IN RAVENSWOOD
BRIAN WESTPHAL AND MICHAEL MCVICKAR’S OPEN LIVING ROOM IS FILLED WITH PAINTINGS HUNG SALON STYLE, COMPLEMENTED BY CONTEMPORARY FURNITURE AND DESIGN
By GINNY VAN ALYEA During one of Chicago’s very snowy days this winter, I made my way down a quiet North Side block blanketed in white and pulled up to an industrial looking building that, from the outside, I wasn’t quite sure was the right address. I knew only that I was supposed to visit collectors at their Ravenswood residence. I peeked into a side window and saw someone at a desk jump up to meet me at the door, and a moment later Brian Westphal and Michael McVickar invited me out of the snow and into their art-filled home. After shedding my down-filled layers and meeting the couple’s cats, we first enjoyed some gourmet coffee prepared in a hidden, designer prep space just off of the kitchen. The story of how Brian and Mike’s home 40 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
came to be was on my mind as soon as I walked in. While the walls are filled with dozens of contemporary paintings and other works of art, the character of the open, ground floor space is also largely defined by its industrial bones, since the building once housed a motor oil company. The couple gutted and rehabbed their previous home, a worker’s cottage in Roscoe Village. According to Mike, “It was a beautiful little house, but it was on a smaller than normal city lot. We basically still had this list of things that would be nice to have.” One day, when Mike was looking through The Chicago Reader real estate section, he noticed an ad for a small factory building for sale in Ravenswood. The listing, he recalls, had bells and whistles that both he and Brian wished their existing house had.
“So,” Mike remembers, “I said let’s just go check it out. We called our realtor and came over for a look. Basically it was just a brick box.” The building was two stories, with the first floor totally open and without a kitchen. It had also been neglected. Open windows had let in water, which led to moldy floors. The walls that did exist didn’t go to the ceiling. Because the previous owners had left Chicago and not kept a close eye on things, the space had also been broken into. Graffiti tags were spray painted on the concrete pillars on the first floor. Mike adds, “It was kind of a hard living space. We walked out, and I said, ‘No way in hell are we buying this place and leaving our really nice, finished little house.” Brian remembers it differently, “He didn’t say that.”
“Yes I did,” counters Mike. “Brian was the one who said it was perfect and that we could do so much with it.” Eventually, of course, they did buy the building. Brian saw promise in the larger lot size and the yard. Even though there was nothing there yet, he says, “It was just grass, but it was clearly a cool space.” Mike admits, “Had we not previously been through a whole house construction project, I would have run out the door. But we did understand that we could probably get it to look like we wanted.” Though the project did seem daunting, a previous owner had originally purchased the property intending to live there. They cleaned up the environmental issues, such as a tow truck in the yard and old storage tanks, which were still present once the factory had closed. By the time Brian and Mike came along, the building had a new roof, as well as a new heating system and windows. They were able to move in and live in the space for a while as they began the work of putting in the first floor kitchen, as well as bathrooms and rooms upstairs. They maintained the original open floor plan and kept concrete ceilings, but they covered up some of the exposed brick in order to hang art and simplify the look of the space. Brian and Mike began buying art together long before embarking on their home renovation. As Mike recalls, “It was a natural evolution. First we had posters, and then Brian started buying some finer framed things.” Brian tells Mike, “You actually said, ‘I don’t want to hang a bunch of posters on the wall.’ And since we had had a good friend of ours stay with us, and he had been collecting art –” “Yes,” finishes Mike, “He was the first person we knew who had art. That opened the door for us to see that real people do actually buy these things.” Those regular encounters through their friend got Mike and Brian to think that they could also learn about and buy art that they loved. For Brian, he admits that they began to understand they val-
WESTPHAL AND MCVICKAR SEATED AT HOME IN FRONT OF LAURIE HOGIN’S PAINTING, FABULOUS EXOTICS
ued their friend’s art because it made them ask questions. They were constantly curious about what it was and what made it stand out to them. The next step to discovering art on their own meant visiting galleries. Though they acknowledge that galleries seemed intimidating at first, mostly due to their own inexperience, as well as what they recall as sticker shock, they slowly got to know a few established dealers, such as River North veteran Ann Nathan, and little by little they overcame what Mike considers initial hurdles. Victor Armendariz, who worked with Nathan for many years, told the couple when they were starting to buy that once they got into it, they wouldn’t be able to stop, something that they now know to be absolutely true. “There was a piece by Jeffrey Kamberos,” says Brian, “that we had seen at least a year before we bought it, and it just so happened that it never sold. We kept talking about the piece, and after a year, we thought, ‘We obviously want this painting,’ so we finally bought it and, as Victor warned, it’s been downhill ever since.”
Standing in Mike and Brian’s living room, I sensed many pairs of eyes on me. Looking around I noticed many different faces and bodies in the art on view. Much of the work that the couple collects is figurative, which explains their early interactions with dealers like Nathan and Armendariz, as well as William Lieberman, who each represent many figurative artists. As Mike explains, “We were definitely drawn to figurative work.” Brian adds that they didn’t set out with an exclusive collecting focus, but rather it revealed itself as a dominant draw over time. Eventually the pair decided that narrowing their collecting focus would help further develop their taste. Eventually both Brian and Mike had to acknowledge that they had gone beyond casual art buying. “It took me a while to say I am a collector,” admits Brian. For Mike, the label came almost out of a necessity to define their role in the art world, “Well, people will ask, ‘Are you an artist or a collector?’ So, you kind of end up owning the term collector, because we are not artists,” he says.
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 41
sometime to help us hang it, but they came to the party and put it up right then. It was a fun example of how so many things come together in the art world.” When explaining what it is about figurative work that appeals to each of them, Mike says, “It comes down to the fact that I just don’t get abstract art. I can understand some of it, but I just find it kind of esoteric that you have to go in and you have to learn. It’s not a bad thing to have to learn the artist’s perspective of course, but I want to look at something and be able to form a narrative on my own.” Brian gets to the point: “We don’t ultimately care whether there is a meaning behind these pieces. People come over and ask me, ‘What’s this about?’ Well, we don’t know. I usually say it’s whatever you want it to be. But for us there’s resonance to seeing people, rather than the abstract.” MARIA TOMASULA, ROYALTY, 2008, OIL ON PANEL, 32” X 36”
Like other collectors in Chicago I have had the pleasure of interviewing, Brian shares a familiar sentiment about a life with art, “We buy what we love and we love to live with it, so that’s why we do it.” For Mike as well, he says they are not really trying to amass a collection of anything. He emphasizes, “I mean, it really just happens.” Brian and Mike continue to spend plenty of time visiting galleries and art fairs, but they also acknowledge the ease, as well as the pitfalls, of having so much art available online. For Brian, “These days its much easier with everything being online, since you can easily see and find lots of work. On the other hand you don’t have to go out as much. It’s become like anything else – it’s sort of an Amazon.com world.” They do still go to galleries, though they confess not as much as they used to. It’s a little awkward to admit, but Brian says, “We used to go a lot more.” Despite the lure of the comforts of home, the social aspect of the art community cannot be obliterated by the Amazonification of everything. Mike explains, “We like seeing the gallerists and artists, we like running into other collectors. It’s the people who really draw us out.” Now the couple says they average at least one purchase a year, their most recent being a porcelain, multimedia piece by Rodrigo Lara Zendejas. Mike interjects, “We had a party here, and we had just gotten this piece that day. William [Lieberman] and Brian [Gillham] from the gallery [Zolla/Lieberman] had told us they were going to come up 42 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
To Mike, art is primarily visual, and it should be personally appealing, “It can be beautiful to you or not. Maybe sometimes it gets more beautiful the more you look.” He sees the attraction like a relationship, one that in order to last must go deeper than a first impression. For Mike and Brian, art must also defy its surroundings. As Mike puts it, “I just can’t stand hearing people say something like, “Where am I going to put that? Will it fit over the sofa? That’s not why you buy a piece of art.” Talking more about why exactly you do buy a piece of art, Brian and Mike went back and forth about how their own collecting journey might look to a younger generation that has been adamant about seeking experiences over things. Reflects Brian, “To me these paintings are not things, they are not objects you are going to use for a while and either dispose of, or just upgrade, later. These are things you want to live with, so in a way they are experiential because every time you walk into the room you know you are affected by what they do to you in this space.” Mike is enthusiastic about the uniqueness art brings to his day-to-day routine. “I love that I’m the only one in the world that has that painting by that artist,” he says, pointing to a striking scene of a cluster of older, nude women embracing each other and laughing, like they’re sharing secrets while posing for a candid photo in school days. He explains, “That’s an interesting piece – it’s a very inviting and realistic portrayal of these aging women together. One of them is the artist’s mother, and the others are her family friends. It was kind of a woman-power thing, years ago before all the stuff people have been addressing now. The artist, Aleah Chapin, is an amazing person. To me it’s the whole package.”
Brian and Mike first saw Chapin’s work at the New York Academy of Arts several years ago. After wandering through the various spaces and seeing work by first and second year students in various stages of progress, they noticed a painting that a young artist who was getting her MFA, Chapin, was working on. Some time later, Brian saw another piece of Chapin’s become available through Flowers Gallery in London. The couple decided to buy it, since it had been on their minds all that time. A few months later she was announced as a finalist for the 2012 BP Portrait Award in London, and eventually she was named the winner for the piece that Brian and Mike had seen back at NYAA. “The prices for her art went through the roof, if you could even get them,” says Brian. “We loved the piece we bought, number one, and we wanted it for that reason, but it’s fun to think we did a good job identifying it early on. I’m delighted that we have this in our house.”
ART WALKS + TOURS
ATTENDEES ON A SATURDAY MORNING GALLERY TOUR IN RIVER NORTH. PHOTO: CHLOE YOO
ATTENDING REGULAR OPENING NIGHTS OR OPEN STUDIOS AND TOURS IS A GREAT WAY TO GET TO KNOW CHICAGO’S VISUAL ART SCENE AND TO EVEN START COLLECTING ART. THE FOLLOWING REGULARLY OCCURING EVENTS TAKE PLACE THROUGHOUT THE AREA. River North Art District Summer Walks May 4 and July 13, 5–7:30pm • Free 20 galleries near Franklin/Superior streets Flat Iron 1st Fridays 6–10pm • Free. $5 suggested donation 1579 N. Milwaukee wickerparkbucktown.info Chicago Arts District 2nd Fridays 6–10pm • Free S. Halsted + 19th St. (Pilsen East) chicagoartsdistrict.org Fine Arts Building 2nd Friday Open Studios 5–9pm • Free 410 S. Michigan fineartsbuildingstudios.com ALEAH CHAPIN, LAUGH, OIL ON CANVAS, 40” X 48”, 2011
For Mike, he says he loves the back-story about the painting’s subjects as well as the tale of how they found it, but ultimately he just likes how it looks. “It’s great to have that history behind the painting, but I don’t need that to appreciate this. That’s what I think I miss in abstract art – I feel like I can’t appreciate it unless I always know everything about the artist and all the elements of the work. For me hopefully any one of these works [at home] stands on their own. You can love or hate it, but you don’t necessarily need to know the details to really appreciate it.” Brian agrees, “There’s enough art out there for everybody. You can pick your own style and decide what you like. For us, this is what we love.”
Bridgeport Art Center 3rd Friday 7–10pm • Free 1200 W. 35th St. bridgeportart.com Oak Park Arts District (OPAD) 3rd Fridays on Harrison St. 6–10pm • Free oakparkartsdistrict.com Zhou B Art Center/Bridgeport Art Walk 3rd Friday 7–10pm • Free • 1029 W. 35th St. zhoubartcenter.com River North Free Saturday Tours 11am–12:30pm weekly, except on major holidays. For details and locations visit chicagogallerynews.com Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 43
A NEW WESTWARD MIGRATION
GALLERIES MOVE IN SEARCH OF SPACE AND COMMUNITY
RHONA HOFFMAN’S NEW WEST TOWN GALLERY SPACE IS SHOWN DISPLAYING A WORK BY SOL LEWITT AND JUDY LEDGERWOOD’S APRIL 2018 EXHIBITION.
By FRANCK MERCURIO In his poem, Carl Sandburg summed up Chicago’s rough-and-tumble reputation as a city concerned with only one thing: making a buck. Proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation. But turn-of-the-19th-century Chicagoans were also involved in the commerce of art. Wealthy industrialists purchased art and encouraged artists to settle in the city, especially after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition had ended. Philanthropists Anne and Lambert Tree even financed the construction of Tree Studios— still thriving at Ohio and State Streets—providing artists with live/work spaces on the Near North Side. Soon after, artists, writers, and musicians congregated in the neighborhood surrounding the Water Tower, then known as Towertown.
44 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
As North Michigan Avenue developed into the commercial district we know today, the Bohemian types moved on, but artistic enterprises remained. Katharine Kuh opened her eponymous gallery inside North Michigan Avenue’s Diana Court Building, which ran successfully from 1935 until 1943, despite the economic challenges of the Great Depression. Writing in the Encyclopedia of Chicago, MCA Curator Lynne Warren elaborates on the city’s first gallery district: “North Michigan Avenue and its immediate environs were the prime location for commercial art galleries from the 1940s until the 1980s. Pioneering spaces included Madeline Tourtelot’s Gallery Studio, Benjamin Galleries, and the Frank J. Oehlschlaeger Studio.” Today, a few gallerists still call North Michigan Avenue home, most notably Richard Gray (though they opened Gray Warehouse, an expansive West Side outpost, in 2017). But, as time passes, neighborhoods inevitably change. When River North became revitalized in the 1970s, the heart of Chicago’s gallery scene shifted from Michigan Avenue to the intersection of Superior and Franklin, which became the new hotspot for art.
THE 1709–1711 W. CHICAGO AVE. BUILDING ONCE HOUSED A FACTORY. TODAY IT IS HOME TO SEVERAL GALLERIES THAT HAVE MOVED FROM THE WEST LOOP.
Today the neighborhood supports a concentration of approximately 20 galleries, including veterans Carl Hammer and Zolla/Lieberman, one-year-old Gallery Victor Armendariz, and now a pop-up from Aron Packer Projects. As gentrification of River North increased, a new generation of gallerists went in search of less expensive space; many found home in the West Loop, just south of Randolph Street’s restaurant row. Now, as development in that area rapidly increases, several galleries are moving on, seeking larger spaces, less expensive rents, and new audiences in West Town. “Fifteen years ago, the West Loop was all meat packing,” said Anastasia Tinari, director of Rhona Hoffman Gallery. “Now there are cranes on either side of our [former] building; it felt prohibitive. But people already come to this neighborhood [West Town]; and with Rhona having just moved here, her gallery serves as an anchor, along with the galleries upstairs.” Hoffman Gallery recently joined Western Exhibitions, DOCUMENT, Volume Gallery, and Paris London Hong Kong in a large commercial building at 1709 W. Chicago Avenue, making the intersection of Ashland and Chicago the new art nexus of the neighborhood. A new restaurant coming to the same building will also draw regular crowds; Funkenhausen, touted as a big beer hall with traditional German dishes, is a project of the building’s landlord, Daniel Boyd, and chef Marc Steuer (El Che and Carraige House).
West Town isn’t new to the Chicago arts scene. A loose confederation of experimental galleries, called Uncomfortable Spaces, was located in the neighborhood in the 1990s. Corbett vs. Dempsey has also been a dynamic presence here since 2004. But recent events have made West Town a magnet for even more galleries. “The West Loop is getting too dense,” said Scott Speh, owner and director of Western Exhibitions. “The landlord of our old space offered this building [1709]; it seemed like the best solution after looking for a year or more. We [the gallery owners] all live nearby and wanted to be on the western fringes of the West Loop.” Hoffman has been in the gallery business for over 40 years, and in that time she has run six different spaces. Her philosophy is practical, keeping the needs of the customer in mind. “If you want to see galleries in Chicago, you have to spend a day getting everywhere,” she says, “So you need to have some kind of a center.” Just up the street at 864 N. Ashland, Jefferson Godard relocated his gallery, Aspect/Ratio, from the West Loop in 2017. Aspect/Ratio had been operating at 119 N. Peoria, directly across the street from Hoffman’s previous space, for several years. Known for cutting-edge video installations, Godard’s 3rd floor West Loop gallery had no street visibility. The new space has large windows looking onto Ashland Avenue and a 1,000-square-foot floor plan, nearly five times the size of the old gallery. “We decided to move to a better, more prominent location,” said Godard. “West Town/Ukrainian Village Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 45
WESTERN EXHIBITIONS MOVED FROM THE WEST LOOP IN EARLY 2017. SHOWN ABOVE IS THE GALLERY’S INSTALLATION OF HAND-EYE COORDINATION: SPORTS AND ART IN 2018.
offered us a great space and community.” The community is growing as other gallerists relocate near the intersection of Chicago and Ashland Avenues, including Mongerson Gallery, Mickey Pomfrey (of Courtney Blades Gallery) and Monique Meloche Gallery. Architect Dirk Denison is designing Meloche’s new space in an expanded location in West Town. The gallery opens June 9 with a solo exhibition of Jeff Sonhouse’s works. “We’ve been looking for a couple of years to move, and we’ve always liked being on the west side in Wicker Park/ Bucktown,” said Meloche. “So it was natural to keep looking in the same general area. My gallery has always been a destination, but we are happy to soon be within walking distance of some of our colleagues.” “Like everything else, things change,” said Speh of Western Exhibitions. “Whenever I see articles about changing gallery districts, and bemoaning that, well this is historical. Every 10 to 15 years, things shift.” With ample street parking and multiple public transportation options, West Town has become a convenient and appealing art outpost. And with new restaurants and amenities continuing to move to the neighborhood, Chicago’s newest gallery district is becoming a destination to spend an afternoon or evening enjoying a meal and viewing art.
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WEST TOWN GALLERIES West Town’s general boundaries are considered Bloomingdale to Kinzie; the Chicago River to Kedzie. Neighborhoods within West Town also include: East Village, Humboldt Park, Kinzie Industrial Corridor, Noble Square, Smith Park, Ukrainian Village, and Wicker Park. For the purpose of identifying this new gallery center, we consider the West Town-ish arts boundaries to be between Augusta and Lake and the River to Western The list below is current as of April 2018. ASPECT/RATIO CHICAGO ARTISTS COALITION CORBETT VS. DEMPSEY COURTNEYBLADES DOCUMENT RICHARD GRAY WAREHOUSE RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERY JOHALLA PROJECTS THE MISSION MONGERSON GALLERY PARIS LONDON HONG KONG MATTHEW RACHMAN GALLERY REGARDS ROOTS & CULTURE SPUDNIK PRESS LINC THELEN GALLERIES UKRAINIAN INST. (UIMA) VOLUME WESTERN EXHIBITIONS
864 N. ASHLAND 2130 W. FULTON 1120 N. ASHLAND 1635 W. GRAND 1709 W. CHICAGO 2044 W. CARROLL 1711 W. CHICAGO 1821 W. HUBBARD 1431 W. CHICAGO 2251 W. GRAND 1709 W. CHICAGO 1659 W. CHICAGO 2216 W. CHICAGO 1034 N. MILWAUKEE 1821 W. HUBBARD 1620 W. CARROLL 2320 W. CHICAGO 1709 W. CHICAGO 1709 W. CHICAGO
ART DESIGN CHICAGO
INVISIBLE FORCES AT PLAY
HIGHLIGHTING CREATIVITY
Out, Out, Phosphene Candle: Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2018. View includes loaned work from the Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia.
OUT, OUT, PHOSPHENE CANDLE: Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck HECTOR DUARTE’S HOME, STUDIO, AND MURAL.
Art Design Chicago is a year-long comprehensive arts initiative spotlighting many aspects of Chicago’s creative history, and it has inspired and facilitated many collaborative events and exhibitions around the city. ADC celebrates the unique and vital role Chicago plays as America’s crossroads of art and design, creativity and commerce with a scope and ambition befitting Chicago’s grit and can-do determination. More than 30 exhibitions and hundreds of public programs taking place in 2018 tell the stories of the artists and designers that defined and continue to propel Chicago’s role as a hub of imagination and impact. This summer several notable tours and celebrations taking place. View the full list at artdesignchicago.org
On view through September 2 FREE admission This exhibition series is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding was also provided by the Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, Kohler Foundation, Inc., and the Frederic Cornell Kohler Charitable Trust. The Arts Center thanks its many members for their support of exhibitions and programs through the year.
Chicago’s 71s t Annual 57th Street Art FAir
Bus Tour: Mexican Influence – Art in Pilsen
May 17 – Includes the National Museum of Mexican Art’s exhibition Arte Diseño Xicágo and guided tours of Pilsen’s murals and the studios of painters/muralists Hector Duarte and Marcos Raya.
Opening Reception: A Home for Surrealism
June 7 – Attend the public opening of A Home for Surrealism: Fanstastic Painting in Midcentury Chicago at the Arts Club of Chicago
Bus Tour: Charles White and African American Visual Legacies
June 16 – Featuring a viewing of Charles White: A Retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago
Bus Tour, Sculpture in Chicago, Featuring Richard Hunt
July 12 – This day-long suburban bus tour visits artist studios and Oakton Community College’s Koehnline Museum of Art in Des Plaines to view Sculpting a Chicago Artist: Richard Hunt and his Teachers. Participants attend a reception with Richard Hunt.
June 2–3, 2018
www.57thStreetArtFair.org
Summer 2018 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | 47
ART SERVICES + ADDITIONAL RESOURCES VISIT CHICAGOGALLERYNEWS.COM FOR COMPLETE LISTINGS, AND VIEW DETAILS IN OUR 2018 CGN ARTS GUIDE
19TH CENTURY TERRA COTTA DOG SHOWN HERE WAS RESTORED BY BROKEN ART RESTORATION
ART CONSULTANTS, PRIVATE DEALERS & APPRAISERS
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LESLIE HINDMAN AUCTIONEERS • LESLIEHINDMAN.COM SOTHEBY’S CHICAGO • SOTHEBYS.COM TOOMEY & CO. AUCTIONEERS • TOOMEYCO.COM
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48 | CHICAGO GALLERY NEWS | Summer 2018
JOHN TOOMEY GALLERY BECAME TOOMEY & CO. AUCTIONEERS IN 2017. PICTURED: JOHN WALCHER.
FRAMING
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INSURANCE
CHARTWELL INSURANCE SERVICES • CHARTWELLINS.COM WILLIS FINE ART, JEWELRY & SPECIE DIVISION, WILLIS OF NEW YORK, INC. • WILLIS.COM
AREA ART FAIRS
CHICAGO ANTIQUES + ART + DESIGN SHOW • MAY 17–20 57TH ST ART FAIR • JUNE 2 AND 3 OLD TOWN ART FAIR • JUNE 9 AND 10 RANDOLPH ST MARKET • ONE WEEKEND A MONTH AMDUR PRODUCTIONS • MULTIPLE SUMMER DATES THE ANNUAL • SEPT 18–28 AMERICAN CRAFT EXPOSITION • SEPT 21–23 EXPO CHICAGO • SEPT 27–30 FILTER PHOTO FESTIVAL • SEPT 27–30 THE OTHER ART FAIR • SEPT 27–30 SOFA CHICAGO • NOV 1–4 COMPLETE LISTING AND EVENT DETAILS MAY BE FOUND AT CHICAGOGALLERYNEWS.COM/ART-SERVICES
Chicago Artists Coalition’s Annual Benefit
JOin us this year to celebrate Chicago artists in CAC’s new home!
2018 Honoree Rhona Hoffman TICKETS ON SALE APRIL 26 CHICAGOARTISTSCOALITION.ORG