By GINNY VAN ALYEA&nbsp;Linda Warren’s past 10 years in Chicago have gone by quickly: the gallery will officially turn 10 this June. Thinking about how she got started, as well as what’s ahead, Warren was in a reflective mood when we spoke in the fall. Though she accidentally got into the art business when she was living in L.A. over a decade ago, nurturing artists’ careers came naturally to someone who lives for today. Her passion for nurturing artists’ careers has given her a personal framework with which to build a successful gallery program, and it has led to some new and surprising projects at home and around the country. -GVWhen Linda Warren was working in production in the Los Angeles film industry in the 1990s, an artist friend asked her to store art in her home after being evicted from his studio. She was more than willing. When Warren started casually showing the artist’s work to film colleagues and selling it, she figured she was just helping everyone out. Soon, another artist asked if Warren would show his work as well. She recalls, “I would get excited and bring a painting to someone, just as a friend—I started out as a conduit from the artist to the buyer, and that really continues today.” Despite never feeling truly passionate about the film industry, she says it was a good living through which she made a lot of contacts. Transitioning from the film world to art didn’t happen overnight. Aware that a lot of the film people she worked with were counting on her for employment, Warren eventually converted her entire Silverlake Hills home to a gallery and began to balance her dual role. The result was what Warren remembers as an “apartment gallery on steroids,” filled with hundreds of people and crazy events. Looking back on the experience, she says she can’t believe she allowed it.In the midst of managing her new profession, Warren reconnected with a man she had known when she was in law school nearly 20 years earlier. After seeking Warren’s advice on acquiring artwork for his home on the north shore of Chicago, the couple decided to reconnect for good. Warren closed the L.A. space and moved to Chicago to marry her former love as well as help raise&nbsp;his four young boys. She put new gallery plans on hold, but it was tough to wait: “I dropped an insanely different life and became a suburban housewife. When I finally opened the gallery here in 2003 I was just ready—I knew this was what I wanted.”In L.A. Warren had reached out to artists and friends and was used to having people come to her. When seeking a space in Chicago she gravitated to the West Loop, where she says he liked living in her own little world. Linda Warren Gallery opened in 2003 and became a Fulton Market destination, showcasing art by a variety of media. She remembers, “When I first moved here Paula Henderson—she was my inaugural show here and I represented her in L.A.— introduced me to some collectors who quizzed me, ‘What are you going to specialize in?’ I just looked at them like, ‘What do you mean’? It’s my energy and money. Why would I constrain myself? I’m going to go with what resonates for me.’ People can take it or leave it.”When working with artists, Warren wants to show quality, as well as what she responds to. She’s ambitious but realistic about the overwhelming volume of work out there, much of which is admittedly poor quality, but a great deal, she says, is also good but simply overlooked. She confesses, “I’m very open to looking at everyone’s art who submits. Maybe other people try, but I absolutely do look at everything; it’s exciting to me. I have a box under my desk of stuff I just like. If I can help an artist, I’ll do it, though this year I might have just 6 shows, and that makes it harder for an artist to have a show here. The ones I work with have to let me do what I do.”Warren favors evolution versus planning in her life. She says, “I view my entire career in this as something that happened very naturally. I don’t plot. Setting just an exhibition schedule is even a struggle for me.” Her attitude is that hard work can make up for planning: “I quit law school to go to Israel, and there I became a citizen and became immersed in day to day life. You don’t think much about tomorrow there—that life sort of fit with me. If I’m alive tomorrow that’s great. I’m a hard worker and I’m passionate about what I do. That’s the key for anyone.”Since moving to a larger gallery space around the corner on North Aberdeen in 2011 and becoming Linda Warren Projects, Warren says business has changed in surprising ways. The space accommodates two exhibition spaces now, Gallery X and Gallery Y, and outside the gallery Warren has taken on a handful of substantial corporate art consulting contracts. Warren is candid about the biggest difference between selling art out of the gallery and working on corporate collections—the financial reward gap is vast. Though she says she’s always been out of the mind-set that she loves the gallery business enough to lose money, now she’s pleased that the corporate work is feeding the business and supporting some overhead.Warren’s current project has been taking her to Cleveland for the better part of two years, where she’s been working on a corporate collection for Eaton Corporation’s new world headquarters. “I didn’t know what I was getting into,” she says, “I got the call when I was out walking my dog. They showed me renderings of the building and they didn’t have a specific budget, but they asked me to come up with a contract based on several scenarios. They wanted it to be reflective or their business.” Warren’s own vision was what the company wanted. Tasked with curating the art for an 800,000 square foot space for 1,000 employees (there are 90,000 worldwide), Warren began with a PowerPoint presentation of 150 artists. When the back and forth began, she says, “They flipped out. They liked 100 out of 150. I didn’t really know what they were going to go with it—it was a crapshoot. We went from there to find out what they loved. A lot of work also had to be commissioned, since we were dealing with 50 and 30 foot walls. We’ve got great work from Emmett Kerrigan, Juan Angel Chavez, and Lora Fosberg, among many others. Warren is now close to the project’s final frontier and can finally see how things are shaping up. It is difficult to begin with just drawings, she admits, but it’s great when you realize it’s been two years and you’re already installing all that art.Warren works hard to support her family as well as her artists. Whereas most dealers today say they have no choice but to travel and participate in art fairs, Warren says she usually does just one a year, though in 2012 she didn’t do any. Art fairs remind Warren of the film industry. She explains, “There’s this insane amount of work and exhausting energy required. You might just be talking to people that are not that interesting. It’s exhilarating if you’re selling, but if you’re not, it’s depressing. I know it’s important to artists. It’s just an energy that I cannot stand. The point of what I’m trying to do with my life is to help the art. How I do that might not be how everyone else would, but I want everyone to succeed. I guess it’s ‘please don’t rely on me only.’ I’m not going to be a slave to it either. &nbsp;Looking ahead, perhaps to the next 10 years, Warren still wonders how to balance her life with the gallery. She acknowledges, “The kids are more independent now, so everything’s going to change. What’s going to happen down the road? I don’t know. I envision doing thing much more internationally. I want the gallery to keep going, and it would be great if I could have one big project every couple years as well.”Warren’s husband has always said the longer you’re in the business the more likely you’ll succeed. To Warren, “I know now that it’s true. It takes a lot of time to get it going in this business. I literally don’t have a strategy. It’s going to take time to understand my aesthetic and it’s changing like everyone else’s. That’s how it’s always going to be. It’s a ton of work and it can be a grind, but I just love it.”&nbsp;

CGN interviews gallery owner Linda Warren. 

Linda Warren Gallery turns 10 in 2013

<html><head></head><body>By GINNY VAN ALYEACollectors Anne and Mark Siebert bought a house in suburban Naperville 21 years ago, and though they like their quieter pace of life 30 miles outside of Chicago, they have become devoted city gallery visitors.&nbsp;After first meeting artist Peter Max one day at a suburban mall, they were so delighted with the personal experience that they started venturing downtown in search of more. They found a community ready to teach and welcome them with open arms, and many of those relationships have become two-way dialogues with artists and dealers that have opened up their world and shown them that art can indeed change your life. - GV&nbsp;Sitting down over coffee and pastries in their tidy kitchen, Mark and Anne tell me when they first realized how eye-opening art could be as a part of their day-to-day life. Mark admits&nbsp;that the first spark ignited in a suburban shopping mall in the late 1990s when they wandered into Merrill Chase Gallery, where painter&nbsp;Peter Max was having an exhibition.&nbsp;Mark laughs and remembers thinking, “‘He’s a really famous artist. Let’s go in.’ So we met him. And we actually bought something.”To Anne seeing an artist’s passion in person was a revelation, and she wanted more. The couple plunged headfirst into what would become an art collecting addiction. Seeking art in gallery spaces in the city, they ventured in by train and introduced themselves to dealers, attended dozens of openings and panel discussions, as well as BFA and MFA shows at the School of the Art Institute Chicago.&nbsp;They got know a number of artists, such as Dan Addington (also a dealer), whose piece was the second one they purchased in River North (Ron Clayton, represented by Addington's gallery, was the first), and William Conger. The dealers they met, like Ann and Roy Boyd of Roy Boyd Gallery, Frank Paluch of Perimeter Gallery, Myra Casis and Meg Sheehy at Zg Gallery, and William Lieberman of Zolla/Lieberman all took the eager new collectors under their collective wing to help them learn. Coming to downtown galleries to see what was new soon became an escape from a structured 9-5 life.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418568/vumr3ezel9tc4glo8kf5.png"><figcaption>The Sieberts lounge in their colorful corner. From left to right: Paul Sierra, Su-En Wong, John Buck, Sarah Hicks (on glass table), Willam Conger (on wall in back corner)</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;To learn more about this new scene, Mark and Anne started going on the free River North Saturday Gallery Tours when they began over a decade ago. Mark recalls, “We continued to go on the tours even after we started to collect. Any space we go into, if you want a direction to explain about the gallery or the artists, they’re more than happy to do it, but on the tour you get so much more additional background. Even with artists we’re familiar with, when we hear the dealer talk we learn something we didn’t know before.”The Sieberts approached their newly discovered passion for art like dedicated students and did their homework.According to Anne, “Neither one of us has a background in art, but once we went to River North, that was it for the malls. We were captivated. Our tastes changed really quickly—they’re changing still even now.”*The Sieberts have lived in the same house in Naperville for 21 years. Having made some updates over the years, their most significant change seems to be the addition of artwork to almost every wall and tabletop.&nbsp;According to Anne, “Everything else is pretty bland in our home—it’s all beige and black, so we’re not limited by colors. We fall in love and make it work.”Their collecting approach is very straightforward, “There is no formula where we think, 'OK, now we have to get this type of art or that type.' We try to keep things different—various materials and mediums, young artists as well as established—in order to have a range.”<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418569/odjavf08p6kszbz5wenq.png"><figcaption>The Sieberts' neutral living room is a showcase for sculpture, ceramics, and colorful paintings. Works seen here from left to right: paintings by Jamie Adams, and William Conger; on the table: William Lieberman, Ruth Duckworth, and Jay Strommen; on pedestal and sideboard: Josh Garber.</figcaption></figure>Connecting with artists has been a particular source of engagement for the couple. “We’re proud of the fact that we support local Chicago galleries. We have purchased art from 13 Chicago galleries, and many of the artists in our collection are local. We treasure our relationships with all of the artists that we’ve gotten to know,” says Anne.&nbsp;About sculptor Josh Garber Mark shares, “We have lunch or dinner with him, or he’ll have us out to his studio. Sometimes he runs ideas by us. At an opening after he’d just found out that he was a finalist for a commission for the City [of Chicago], he was sketching and asking what we thought. It was fascinating to be in that kind of discussion with him.”&nbsp;Anne says they even give him a little feedback when he asks, “I think Josh lets us in on the process. He shows us prototypes—sometimes we snap them up. That’s a lot of fun for us. I think when artists are surrounded by other artists maybe they forget how unique their talents are. As non-artists, we want to tell them how phenomenal their gift is. I think they need to hear it. And anyway, I’m not sure anyone could even stop us from telling them ‘fabulous job!’ I think artists are thrilled with each chance to talk to interested people. They’re all so willing to share with us.”William Lieberman says there’s something special about the relationship with Garber, “Anne and Mark both elevate his process. Josh is so into it—his whole existence revolves around his art. They make him feel it’s really important. They help artists feel good about who they are.*Nearly every piece in the collection has a backstory that the Sieberts are eager to share. A painting by Betty Cleeland, black with scattered bits of red and yellow, hangs in the family room by the TV. Anne tells me that they ended up buying the work when the shuttle Columbia exploded in 2003. The Sieberts watched the news before heading into the city to visit Roy Boyd Gallery. “Betty says you’re either looking through the end of a microscope or a telescope. The painting was a reminder of the mysteries of the universe and the need for space exploration. It especially struck us on that day.”In a tiny room off of the hall is one of Nicholas Sistler’s diminutive works. Mark explains it is based on erotica from the Weimar Republic in Germany, commenting on what many women had to do to make ends meet after WWI. The charged scene is almost too small for the casual observer to see, but Anne clearly recalls a day when a plumber, finishing up some work in the house, had his nose practically in the piece, astounded at the small scale of discovery of a naked woman in a compromising position.&nbsp;She remembers, “I was torn whether or not to pretend to be shocked. His expression was priceless.”•Mark is an insurance attorney, and Anne is a biologist turned textbook representative. She explains, “What we do certainly colors our experience. We tend to be very black and white and analytical in the way we evaluate things. Collecting art has sort of given us the gray. That artistic element is an interesting layer for us that’s added a dimension that didn’t exist before we started collecting. It wasn’t a part of how we used to think.”Looking ahead, Anne reflects, “We plan to be with this art for quite a while, but we get the&nbsp;sense that it will exist beyond us. Since almost all of our works are originals, we lend whenever there’s a request. All an artist has to do is ask. They are also invited to come here to visit their art anytime too, since it’s a part of them."&nbsp;</body></html>

Chicago gallery news features art collectors Anne and Mark Siebert. 

Collector Profile: Anne and Mark Siebert

By MARY DE YOEThe University of Chicago has long been known for pushing boundaries and challenging expectations. The new Reva and David Logan Center for the arts is no exception. Less than a year old—the building had a “soft-opening” in March 2012, then celebrated with the three-day Logan Launch Festival in October—the Logan Center has already demonstrated its strong commitment to the study, practice, and presentation of art that is experimental, multi-disciplinary, and engaging.The glass and limestone structure stands out amid the Neo-Gothic buildings on the UofC campus, punctuated with an 11-story tower. The Center, designed by husband and wife team Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, feels light and open. The tower offers impressive sweeping views of Hyde Park, and as you make your way down the staircase at the south end of the tower you can see the solar paneled-roof of one arm of the Center and the grass roof of another. Williams and Tsien said their design was inspired by urban landscapes and the prairie, with the tower referencing both the city’s skyscraper tradition and silos rising from the Midwestern prairies.This blending of styles and references is a theme that carries through the Logan Center. The space was designed to foster cross-disciplinary encounters and collaborations. With art studios, screening rooms, theaters, classrooms, exhibitions and rehearsal spaces the building allows for dynamic interactions between students, faculty and members of the larger Hyde Park and Chicago community.“We thinking about the Center as a portal between north and south,” said Monika Szewczyk, Visual Arts Program Curator. “We very much want to be open to and engage the South Side community as well as the campus.” The building itself is designed to support this. The box office entrance is located on the south end of the building, making two main entrances—there is also one at the north end—and a symbolic flow of energy from both ends of the city. For Szewczyk, who leads Logan Center Exhibitions, his idea of openness is important.It was for this reason that Szewczyk felt so strongly about presenting Brazilian artist Ricardo Basbaum’s signature project, would you like to participate in an artistic experience. “It was crucial [at the outset] to set an inquisitive tone,” explained Szewczyk— “and Basbaum’s project, which revolves around [a] loaded question does this beautifully. It also connects the program of Logan Center Exhibitions into a global network of practice and inquiry”Basbaum launched would you like to participate in an artistic experience in 1994. Centered around a heavy metal object called “New Bases for Personality”(NBP) and painted white with royal blue trim, the dimensions are approximately 49” x 31.5” x 7”. The NBPs are meant to live outside the gallery for participants to do with as they please. When resting on the ground, the object looks almost like a miniature ice rink. Since 1994 NBPs have been used in artistic expressions in over 40 cities across four continents. “However generous the project may sound, it demands a lot in return,” said Szewcyzk of the challenge of the person (or group of people) in possession of the object.The exhibition, which was on view at the Logan Center this past fall, highlighted through documentation and diagrams some of the ways that the community used the NBPs. One clever example is the MFA student Tucker Rae-Grant, who worked with librarians to incorporate the NBP into the The Joseph Regenstein Library collection where it could be checked-out like any piece of media in circulation.This project by its very nature resists exhibition in a traditional sense, questioning notions about the function of a gallery. As Szewczyk explained, “this work was perfect for a non-collecting entity, and it was a way to repurpose the white cube [in our case] as a type of lab—a place for experimentation.”The gallery, however, is not the only place where visitors will find exhibitions. Running concurrently with would you like to participate in an artistic experience was Wall Text. Co-curated by Szewczyk and Zachary Cahill, Open Practice Committee Coordinator, the show featured 25 text-based works by 10 artists with strong ties to the UofC community, including Jenny Holzer, that were displayed on walls (and windows, in the case of Anthony Elms, who was recently named curator of the Whitney Biennial along with Michelle Grabner and Stuart Comer) throughout the building. The exhibition is accompanied by a booklet produced by artist David Giordano. More than merely an explanatory text, the booklet raises crucial questions and serves as one of the art works in the exhibition. Giordano’s essay stresses how this exhibition challenges and often essential element of traditional exhibitions: “Wall texts explicate an artwork’s historical trajectory...yet, what happens when the text on the wall is the art itself and provides its own context through the use of language? Does it change our relationship to images? Is the wall itself changed through language? Are there texts without language?”Probing questions such as these are ones visitor will continue to encounter through the Logan Center’s roughly 10 exhibitions per year. The shows are curated by Szewczyk as well as guest curators, as in the case of Wall Text, and the Center will also present shows curated and including works by MFA students, whose studios are located in the building. “I am excited about this mix of very young artists with others who are veterans of documenta (international exhibition of Modern and Contemporary art in Kassel, Germany)” said Szewcyzk.In conjunction with the exhibitions, the Logan Center will present a variety of programs that will include visiting visual artists, dancers, musicians and partnerships with the Open Practice Committee Coordinator, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, the Arts + Public Life initiative, and others.In 2007 the University of Chicago announced that David and Reva Logan and their sons and grandchildren made a record $35 million gift to support the building of a center dedicated to performance and creative arts. Both UofC alumni, David and Reva were longtime supporters of the arts and generous philanthropists. They envisioned the Center as a means to improve the quality of life for students and faculty of the University as well as the community. Judging by the pace so far, it seems the Logans’ vision will not be compromised.&nbsp;

CGN features the new Logan Center, an art space at University of Chicago. 

Chicago's new Logan Center: expect the unexpected 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418551/lsnfholubflo2n5ys0gx.jpg"></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEAFor most Chicagoans, Picasso first "arrived" in Chicago in 1967 in a major, public way that still resonates with our city's citizens today. Now 46 years later, his influence may be seen as the beginning of this city's modern artistic identity.&nbsp;Picasso of course never actually set foot in Chicago, or in this country for that matter. He was very, very close - it is rumored that a plane ticket to Chicago for the sculpture's unveling had been purchased by Skidmore, Owings &amp; Merrill, the firm that commissioned the sculpture that today&nbsp;is&nbsp;the star of Daley Plaza downtown. While Picasso is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated, admired and prolific artists in the history of art, Chicago has a few of its own personal ties to the artist and his work. The new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, the first major Picasso exhibition organized by the museum in nearly three decades, makes the case that long before his famous sculpture mystified and delighted Chicagoans in 1967, Picasso's artistic style and influence was key to launching local enthusiasm for embracing modern art.&nbsp;A lot of Chicago/Picasso 'firsts' are covered in the show: in 1913 the Art Institute of Chicago became the first American museum to show Picasso's work, after being a part of the innaugural Armory Show in New York that same year. Inspired by the Armory Show, the Arts Club was founded in 1916. In 1923 it presented Picasso's first US solo showing outside of a commercial gallery. One of AIC's most well-known collection anchors is the Old Guitarist, which was purchased by Frederic Clay Bartlett in memory of his wife Helen Birch Bartlett and given to AIC in 1926. It was the first painting by Picasso acquired by a US museum.&nbsp;The exhibition is vast, including 250 works done in a range of mediums and time periods. The works come primarily from AIC's own collection, and mostly they are not blockbusters (3 major paintings on loan from other museums are separated from the main exhibition and are hanging in the Modern Wing - something I found logistically awkward) but the many pieces in the show add up to an illuminating picture of how Chicago came to see itself in an artistic light as well as be known in the world as a progressive city committed to the arts. &nbsp;It is worth spending time with as many of the pieces as possible, while also seeking out new favorites.&nbsp;A highlight is the opening of the show, where a recording of Studs Terkel interiewing Chicagoans in the Federal plaza (now Daley Plaza) on the day the Picasso Woman was unveiled. It's delightful to hear the candid respones. One spectator was there for a baton contest. &nbsp;Someone else thought a statue in honor of someone who'd 'done something for humanity' would have been more fitting. &nbsp;One gentleman thought it resembled the 'pelvic structure of a prehistoric monster.' Others were worried it would rust and hoped it 'worked out.' &nbsp;Most seemed to gaze in awe that their city had put this project together and made such a show of being progressive. After I saw the exhibition, I learned another secret from SAIC's former president, Tony Jones. He recalled recently leading Paloma Picasso on a tour of the show before it opened. While they were examining the Picasso Woman macquette, she leaned her head into the sculpture and pointed out that her father wrote inside many pieces. For the Woman he had apparently been concerned that the piece would hold up because of the weight of the steel and the strong welding that would be required. Just to make sure the piece would stand the test of time and that the heavy head would not tumble down on visitors, he wrote some simple instructions for the welders in Gary, IN - basically, he said, make sure it's on there tight!&nbsp;Picasso never accepted payment for the commission, instead giving it to the city as a gift. That generous spirit is certainly still present here today.&nbsp;</body></html>

Picasso and Chicago opens at the Art Institute: Our City's Ties to the Artist

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418552/ya0ji1hcey0eohvobrwv.png"></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAAt the busy northside intersection of Lincoln and Diversey, floor to ceiling windows on a&nbsp;corner flatiron building reveal a seemingly&nbsp;out-of-nowhere art gallery, filled with unusual toys and bright figures displayed on the high walls. Inside visitors find quality work by both established and emerging artists in the fields&nbsp;of modern pop, illustration art and character/toy design. Everything within Rotofugi Designer Toy Store and Gallery is devoted to the unusual. Below is my conversation with co-founder Kirby Kerr.&nbsp;–GVCGN:&nbsp;How did the gallery, and Rotofugi Designer Toy Store, get started and how did you come to focus on toys and modern pop?KK: My wife and I opened Rotofugi in July 2004 because we found this thing called "urban vinyl toys" that no one in Chicago seemed to have. In August 2006 we were lucky enough to take over the building next door to our toy store and officially open Rotofugi Gallery as its own space, giving us more room to do regularly scheduled exhibitions. Before moving next door, our first exhibits were held in the back half of our store and ranged from customized toy shows to more traditional paintings and drawings. While we loved showing work in our store, we began to ache for more space after nearly two years of exhibits in the increasingly cramped space.The gallery was, to be entirely honest, almost an accident. When we were first starting out we called ourselves "Rotofugi Designer Toy Store &amp; Gallery" primarily because we wanted to get across the idea that the toys we were selling were not just toys, but art toys. What we quickly found out was that if you put the word "Gallery" anywhere as part of your name people will ask if they can have an exhibit in your space. So, in some way, we accidentally became a gallery space in addition to selling toys.Our focus has always been on showing artwork that we love. In our earliest days we booked a lot of exhibits with friends and customers of the store, and then progressed over time to inviting some of our favorite artists to exhibit in our space. In large part that philosophy has held true...we show things we personally love. These days it's a combination of modern pop, illustration and artwork by folks&nbsp;who are somehow involved in the designer toy world. Our curator, David van Alphen, joined us in 2008 after having owned/operated DvA Gallery for several years. We had long admired the way David curated his own space so when the opportunity arose, we were happy to join forces.CGN:&nbsp;What do you tell or show people who come into the gallery for the first time?KK:&nbsp;We're pretty hands off, preferring to let the work speak for itself. We like to think we've got a unique situation where the gallery gives context to the toys and vice versa. Of course if a visitor wants to talk about the work we're always happy to provide as much information and background about the artist as we can.CGN:&nbsp;Do most of your artists also work as&nbsp;(or with) designers?KK:&nbsp;It's really all over the place. Some are full-time artists, others work in graphic design or even toy design by profession, and many are professional illustrators.CGN: How do you see your gallery in relation to the overall Chicago art scene?KK:&nbsp;I've always struggled with our place in the Chicago art scene. On one hand we're often exhibiting nationally or internationally known artists. On the other hand, because we work in a lesser-known niche, the audience for the work tends to be rather small within Chicago. I'd like to think we're adding a layer of variety and showing work that would otherwise not have a home in Chicago and giving exposure to artists in a positive atmosphere.&nbsp;CGN: Does Chicago have a unique place within the modern pop and illustration art scene?KK:&nbsp;Chicago is home to a number of fantastic modern pop artists and illustrators, many of which we've shown over the years. In particular, we're big fans of both Jeremiah Ketner and Travis Lampe, two Chicago-based artists who have made a good impact with their paintings. Another Chicago artist we love,&nbsp;Jay Ryan, is probably the closest to having help put Chicago on the map, not necessarily for "modern pop" but as a gig-poster artist, another art form we absolutely love.CGN:&nbsp;Describe the scene of your typical&nbsp;openings.KK:&nbsp;It's hard to generalize, but they are for the most part pretty casual affairs. Given the nature of our combined toy store and art gallery setup we tend to be pretty family friendly (no alcohol) and we almost always arrange to have the artist available to meet with fans at the opening.&nbsp;CGN:&nbsp;Are most of the works shown in the gallery humorous or sinister? &nbsp;KK:&nbsp;A little of both actually! We do often show things that could be seen as humorous, but we don't specifically seek that out. A few of our favorite artists tend to explore dark themes too, like Daniel Danger and Derek Hess.CGN:&nbsp;Is the client market for works exhibited in the gallery different than in the designer toy store? &nbsp;KK:&nbsp;Yes...and no. We do have several good clients that purchase artwork but aren't into the toys, but also have many that buy both. In a lot of ways we see the toys we sell, when everything "clicks," as just another way for an artist to reach their collectors. Of course not every toy meets that goal, but we're constantly looking out for artists that are doing interesting things within the designer toy niche.CGN:&nbsp;Do you ever deal in the secondary market?KK:&nbsp;We've toyed around (sorry, pun not intended) with selling a few items on consignment for customers, but for the most part we avoid the secondary market...we're interested in what's new and fresh, not what's hot on eBay.CGN:&nbsp;In the toy store are you essentially&nbsp;selling highly collectible novelty items for adults, or sophisticated toys for kids? Do most of your clients get hooked early on?KK:&nbsp;For the most part the toys we sell are intended for adult collectors, though you're right, many of our good customers are younger kids or teens who appreciate the design elements. I can't say that we intentionally try to hook customers, but collecting toys is definitely an addiction for many... a&nbsp;fun addiction for sure!&nbsp;CGN: Are most of your collectors new to the&nbsp;contemporary art world?KK:&nbsp;I'd venture to say that a majority of our gallery clients are fairly new to collecting original works of art. We see a lot of people starting out with toys and collectibles that later become regular gallery patrons as they seek out unique examples of artwork. In a lot of ways it's not dissimilar to people starting out collecting inexpensive prints and "graduating" to buying paintings. In the end we're just trying to offer good art and design across a spectrum of media and prices, at least that's what we aspire to!</body></html>

CGN's interview with Rotofugi's Kirby Kerr

Dealer Profile- Rotofugi Gallery: Where Toys and Art Meet

By MARY DEYOEWhen it comes to purchasing art and furniture, an “antiques fair” may not appeal to young buyers. It sounds too expensive, too stuffy, and “just not for me.” Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth. On April 26-29 the Merchandise Mart hosts the annual International Antiques Fair. With nearly 100 international dealers the fair is one of many excellent opportunities for individuals to find unique furniture, art, jewelry and decorative pieces for their homes.&nbsp;Speaking specifically about young and new collectors, Leslie Hindman, President and CEO of Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, suggests that people should use opportunities like fairs and auctions to really enjoy the process of collecting. It’s easy (or at least appears so) to go to a mass retailer and pick out a couch or dining room table. But the thought that this is an simpler or less expensive option is just false. “People are smarter to buy objects and furniture that have history,” says Hindman. “These items actually cost about the same as anything you would buy new, and what you’re getting&nbsp;is unique.”&nbsp;The benefit of going to a fair is also the opportunity to talk to the dealers. The dealers want to talk to customers, to tell them about each piece—where it was made; how it was made; why the craftsmanship is significant. Dealers tend to be enthusiastic about what they do and want to share that enthusiasm about the objects with collectors. “It is an extremely fun process,” Hindman adds, “and I think people can forget to or don’t take the time to have fun and to learn.”No matter how much or how little you purchase at a fair, auction or gallery, the experience will be far more exciting and personal than a trip to the mall or time spent online. Attending antiques-focused events will expose you to an expansive range of styles and designs. If you have only ever looked at Mid-Century Modern furniture, you may discover that you also like 19th Century French objects. “It is a fantastic opportunity to find inspiration,” says Hindman.Hindman&nbsp;added that there is also financial benefit to purchasing antiques. A desk from a mass retailer is unlikely to appreciate, while an authentic antique desk undoubtedly will.&nbsp;

Training Young Collectors to Buy Old Antiques

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418552/cjyvtbpyarrlrsxkivsu.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAWhen I arrived to meet Patric McCoy and see his collection in Kenwood, near Hyde Park on the South Side, I was totally unprepared for the volume of work I encountered in his modest condominium. Upon being buzzed inside I followed the friendly voice up the stairs, noticing the art along the way. Stepping into the entryway my eyes struggled to take in the dozens of works hanging all around me. Moving into the kitchen I just stopped and stared. Paintings were displayed on every kitchen cabinet, even behind the toaster oven. A 115 year-old bicycle that once belonged to artist Susan Clinard hung sideways from the ceiling, small tea lights suspended from the spokes. The proud collector beamed and welcomed me in - enjoying, for I’m sure not the first time, the look of surprise on his visitor’s face.&nbsp;-GV&nbsp;McCoy is a native Chicagoan, recently retired as an environmental scientist with the EPA and the University of Chicago, though judging by his art-filled apartment, one would guess he’s spent his life traveling the world and buying art. While McCoy has ventured abroad, he’s spent most of his free time&nbsp;scouring Chicago meeting and supporting local artists. He’s been a first class flyer of a different sort, commuting to work by bicycle for 30 years, taking photos and stopping for conversation along the way.&nbsp;A collector for decades, McCoy laughs when he tells me how he began collecting art in 1967 while still in college at the University of Chicago. “The very first piece I bought is there by the front door - it’s by Scott Stapleton, who was my roommate in college. He was an Art major and I was a Chemistry major. He came in one day and said ‘I’ve done this lithograph.’” Though McCoy was unfamiliar with art terminology, he says he knew what Stapleton was talking about, “In Chemistry you have to learn a lot of Greek prefixes, so I knew ‘litho’ and I knew ‘graph.’ I said, ‘You’re writing with stone, but I don’t know what you’re doing. It was fascinating, so I asked him if it was for sale. I offered him $10, and I’ve had it with me ever since.”&nbsp;McCoy describes his home growing up as filled with art. His parents were highly creative - his father painted, built furniture, and was a photographer, while his mother was a seamstress. Though McCoy first wanted to emulate his parents and be an artist, eventually he found he belonged in the field of Chemistry. He explains, “I believe that my earlier interests and exposure to the arts actually set me up to be a good scientist.” He sees the two fields as inextricably linked, “I tell people with young children you should always expose them to the visual arts; instead of telling them, ask them what they see. That way you’ll trigger creative and critical thinking before they worry about seeing the wrong thing. There’s a lot of thinking and manipulating objects that comes out of the artistic realm. I really appreciate that it ended up giving me the framework to excel in Chemistry.”“Psychologically and socially I didn’t begin to collect until the 1990s. Until then I was just acquiring work – I was doing a lot of it but I wouldn’t claim or admit I was a collector,” says McCoy. Eventually, he wanted to get others to collect, and in 2003 he co-founded Diasporal Rhythms, a group he says represents a different concept of collecting in Chicago, “Our organization is charged with how to redefine the term ‘collector.’ In America it has this meaning of being wealthy, private, academic - having the magic ability to know the future value of something. That’s what the majority of people in this country believe. We’re saying none of that has to be true. Particularly in our community on the South Side, we have to be the first voices.”McCoy acknowledges why most collectors shy away from the term. He says it took him a long time to own his passion, and he’s seen the same behavior with others he’s met and introduced to Diasporal Rhythms: “They have bought into a top-down model, and we’re saying it’s from the bottom up, like every other aspect of the culture.” He sees a model for enjoying art evident in how people appreciate music in their daily lives: “No one asks you as a music collector – and almost everyone in this country is in one shape or form – did you get a degree in music? It is something we readily share with others because we share what we like. It’s not private or expensive. Despite not being academically trained to do so, they appreciate music and view the people who create it as important. The value of music for the buyer is what they personally put into it. Why can’t we do that with the visual arts?” &nbsp;When McCoy was invited to be on a panel at the South Side Community Art Center over a decade ago, with fellow collector Dan Parker, Joan Crisler, the principal of the Dixon Elementary School, and Carol Briggs, principal of DuSable High School, it was one of the first times McCoy heard others say the things he’d come to believe about the importance of art collecting in the African American Community. He says that on the south side, in what he calls “the area of Chicago that is underneath the larger art scene radar,” there is a group operating out of a long tradition of collecting that few know anything about.&nbsp;A particularly resonant consensus was on the importance of artists to the community and in schools. McCoy says,&nbsp;“The two principals on the panel talked about how powerful art was in socializing children. Dixon Elementary School, the only institutional member of Diasporal Rhythms, is where I went in the 7th grade back in the late ‘50s, and it was the most depressing place. At the time it was like a prison. Joan Crisler took overfor 17 years, and she collected art and put it in the school. Visiting there became, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing.’ It was a spiritual environment – now a place of learning and inspiration for young children.”&nbsp;Much of the work in the school was figurative and depicted African American subjects that resonated with children unfamiliar with seeing art they could relate to. Because the art is built into the&nbsp;curriculum of the school, McCoy says teachers would bring the children out into the hall and use the art in lessons. He points out that Dixon, located in the Chatham neighborhood on the south side, is not a selective enrollment or magnet or charter school, it’s a regular Chicago Public School. He says,&nbsp;“You see that original art can be in a public space and it will take care of itself. When I went to Dixon and recognized that these are kindergarten to eighth grade kids, at an age when usually they’re bouncing off the wall like little dynamos of destruction, and these priceless pieces are safe in the halls or above their lockers, I thought, ‘these kids have been socialized by the art!’ These works survive because the children value it.”&nbsp;Today many of Dixon’s students are collection docents.&nbsp;McCoy sees the success at Dixon as more than just a nice story – it’s evidence that by holding the arts in a place of honor, while also making them accessible, you are able to teach children other subjects too, because you have gained their attention and interest. Because of Diasporal Rhythms’s relationships with many artists from the community, the group has adopted the Advanced Placement class at King College Prep, regularly inviting artists to come to the school to do workshops for students. McCoy says that for students, the power of having professional artists work with them cannot be understated. The&nbsp;students are always hungry for more.Diasporal Rhythms was founded in 2003&nbsp;following a museum panel discussion that was part of A Century of Collecting: African American Art in The Art Institute of Chicago. McCoy remembers, “The Art Institute at that time was, in my mind, perpetrating a fraud – I didn’t think they had been collecting for 100 years. Maybe they had a [Henry Ossawa] Tanner 100 years ago, but then there seemed to be a big gap and then more recent stuff. I was mostly struck by how the artists at the panel, who were in this show, shared my view and criticized AIC, saying ‘you have not done what you are presenting with this show.’”&nbsp;It wasn’t long after when McCoy and his fellow collectors created Diasporal Rhythms in an effort to unite their collective opinions and perspectives.&nbsp;McCoy sees another museum in the future now, “Whenever collectors organize, a museum is created at that particular moment. It’s true of the Art Institute and the Museum of Contemporary Art, and others. Though Diasporal Rhythms doesn’t have a brick and mortar space now, we know that’s what will happen down the road. When a collector recognizes that these works of art have a value that is bigger than they are, they want to pass the experience on to other generations.”McCoy undoubtedly spends a great deal of time on his bicycle, traveling to art openings, visiting studios or meeting up with fellow collectors. But his home is where his art experience is concentrated on a daily basis. Having lost count of the total number of pieces in his collection, McCoy says he estimates today that he has between 1,200 and 1,300 works. Nearly all of them are on display in his five-room home. Within the collection 350 artists are represented, including Theaster Gates, Joyce Owens, Luis DeLaTorre, Ed Paschke and many, many more. 90% are African American, and 90% are Chicago artists. McCoy says he also has a strong interest in acquiring work by female artists. Trying to summarize his collection, he points out its most identifiable characteristics, “I believe the face and the figure can tell all of the stories of human beings. We read body language and facial expressions. Color is also important - the use and play of color, and using color for expression. I also enjoy variety and try not to get stuck on any one thing.”&nbsp;When McCoy moved to his current home over a decade ago, he had to reinstall his expansive collection all at once. It was then that he recognized his collecting themes. For instance, in an area near his stereo, he’s assembled works relating to music – small linocut portraits of famous African American soul singers, like Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, are arranged in what McCoy refers to as a sort of musical frieze. &nbsp;When McCoy decided he did not want any blinds or drapes in his living room, in their place he put up stained glass portraits to capture the abundant eastern sunlight. McCoy remembers when he first moved in, “It was quite a colorful neighborhood then. When I’d look out I’d see lots of people going by, so in the windows I put up these sort of masks to remind myself that people wear their own disguises, you just have to look below the surface.”&nbsp;While McCoy enjoys observing people day-to-day, his collection has focused on historical themes, such as the struggle for Africans in the Americas. One room alone acknowledges challenges for black men. The space is divided in half on a diagonal, &nbsp;“One part of the room deals with problems that black men have suffered or created, and the other side represents solutions. A piece I commissioned by artist Brian Ellison for Hyde ParkArt Center’s portrait commission program, Not Just Another Pretty Face, is done here as an African adinkra symbol for the supremacy of God, because philosophically both the problems and solutions are under one God. All of these issues that have tripped up black men in America – drugs, gangs, abandonment, whatever you can imagine as the problem and its solution, there should be an image that reflects that here.”&nbsp;McCoy says the balance of the room helped him avoid the depression that would otherwise result from focusing on only the sad side of things. To him, “I’m a proponent that all people on the planet have had a struggle, so you can’t dwell on it because everyone’s been dogged out at some time.” Opposite another area devoted to struggle is a space devoted to meditation and peace, where McCoy says ultimately he wants to be. In this section is a portrait by artist Mary Qian of McCoy smiling in Jackson Park by the Museum of Science and Industry. As he points out the piece, McCoy reminds me that the Museum began as the Fine Arts building for the White City during the World’s Fair in 1893. He enjoys the significance that the building underwent a transformation from art to science, while McCoy himself eventually went from science to art. &nbsp;McCoy tells a story throughout his home with each step. The works of art are in&nbsp;conversation with him and with each other&nbsp;in powerful ways. More than anything else McCoy is an observer who is keenly interested in people, their struggles, passions and origins. Despite already having so many works in his collection, McCoy says he’s waiting on new pieces to arrive. His collection even overflows into the stairway in his building, so art is the first thing a guest sees. He’s pleased when others enjoy the art he’s acquired, “I think it says something to a visitor when you have a welcoming environment.”Note: for info about the Dixon Elementary School, McCoy recommends a documentary, The Curators of the Dixon School, by Pamela Sherrod Anderson. The film will be screened this fall as part of Diasporal Rhythms' 10-year anniversary at the Logan Center at University of Chicago.&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Collector Profile: Kenwood's Patric McCoy

By&nbsp;KEVIN NANCE&nbsp;Chicago is keenly conscious of its artistic&nbsp;history and reverent toward many of its elders, but it isn’t always a hospitable place for younger and emerging artists. It’s hard for artists of any age to break through the clutter, of course, but this is especially true for artists under 40. Our inability to see them clearly is understandable, up to a point; the past is visible in a way the future can never be. But while there’s safety in venerating artists with substantial track records, identifying artists with the potential for significant careers is a risky business many are unwilling to undertake.At Chicago Gallery News, we’re sticking our necks out. We don’t say that Mariano Chavez, Renee Robbins and Tony Lewis are the future of art in Chicago, but they are three artists of great promise, worthy of the attention of gallerists, collectors and the art-interested public. Of the three, Chavez is the most diverse in style, Robbins the most immediately accessible and Lewis the most intriguingly enigmatic. We’d like to introduce them in these pages as part of a new occasional series highlighting younger and emerging artists to watch. In future installments of the series, we’ll look at younger artists working in sculpture, collage, new media and other modes. In the meantime, we introduce our first trio.Mariano Chavez:&nbsp;Stranger in ParadiseIn a typical Mariano Chavez artwork, there’s a suggestion of narrative that’s both comic and ominous. In First Date, a painting that depicts a group of prehistoric men encountering their hirsute would-be paramours, hell, pretty clearly, is about to break loose. Another painting, Mexican Vacation, pairs Tijuana tourist imagery—a cartoon taco vendor, a blanketed burro—with an iconic weeping Christ, along with the none-too-reassuring phrase “It is finished.”“There’s always the idea of paradise in my work, but also the idea that there’s going to be a tragedy,” says Chavez, 39, who teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and owns an antiques store, Agent Gallery Chicago. “All of the pictures are setting something up, a story in which we don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s not going to be good. If I were making a movie, it would definitely be very Coen Brothers-esque, all about morality and human nature, with something bad going to happen along the way.”Chavez is primarily a painter, but also works to transform found objects, architectural fragments and other materials with color and repetition in a latter-day Pop/surrealist mode; in the process he suggests the transition of symbols from profound to banal and back again. Much of his imagery is drawn from his childhood in southwest Texas near the Mexican border, where his father was from. “Where I grew up, everybody is very religious, and the further south you go, it’s even more religious,” he recalls. “When I went to Mexico on vacation in 1993, when I was 21, that’s where I first felt this super-Catholic mysticism, the sense of the supernatural and the feeling of tragedy behind it. The mixture of all that stuff left a big impression on me.”Inevitably, perhaps, much of Chavez’s art meditates on the ubiquity and meaning of Catholicism in the lives of Mexican-Americans, as symbolized by stickers of the Virgin Mary sold in bubblegum machines in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood when he lived there in the early 1990s. “I’m interested in how an icon passes through time and becomes a cartoon of its former self,” he says. “It’s like how Munch’s The Scream was a very powerful image and then gets appropriated in the form of an inflatable doll. There was a guy who gave me a last-rites cross that used to belong to a guy who passed away. For him, I think, it was a symbol of the passage from the material and the spirit world. But when you make something like that into a toy, as people sort of do, it diminishes its power, but doesn’t eliminate it entirely. That’s interesting to me.”“What I love about Mariano’s work is the cross-pollination of religion and Mexican border-town culture,” says Tony Fitzpatrick, who included Chavez in The Bus: 29 Hooligans from Chitown, an exhibit he organized at Los Angeles’s La Luz de Jesus Gallery in April. “He doesn’t disparage religion; he makes you think about the power of symbols and images. There’s a memento-mori quality about his pieces that reminds us we’re all going to one funeral.” <a href="http://www.marianochavez.com">www.marianochavez.com</a>Renee Robbins: Voyager&nbsp;Growing up in northern Indiana, Renee Robbins wanted to be a marine biologist.&nbsp;The ocean was a place where her imagination swam, picturing what things might look like there. “The ocean was always far away,” she says, “and at some point I realized I was more interested in the visual aspect of science than the actual pursuit of it.”Now, looking at Robbins’s richly colored acrylic paintings, you feel you’re in the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, its portholes&nbsp;offering fantastic views of undersea life in undiscovered corners of the ocean—a submarine that occasionally travels into outer space, touring the galaxies, before shrinking to atomic size and weaving its way through the cells of plants. Considering the terrain and the distances covered—between, for example, representation and abstraction, and between the real and the phantasmagorical—it’s a surprisingly smooth ride.“My work now goes from the micro to the macro, from marine life—sea creatures and plants, coral reefs—out into the cosmos, the stars and planets,” says Robbins, 34.&nbsp;“My images don’t necessarily exist in nature, but they come from natural phenomena, different systems that come together in a work, like a constellation, or the molecular pattern embedded in the structure of a plant. I think they’re a metaphor for how we make sense of ourselves and create a notion of identity.”Even though Robbins became an artist rather than a scientist, she retains a lively interest in how the world works. “I’m sort of obsessed with new discoveries in science, especially things on the nanotechnology level—the latest thing in mitochondria, say, or some YouTube video of a new creature that’s been discovered,” she says. In one recent painting, Holographic Chamber, she incorporated a carnivorous harp sponge, which has spiky white tendrils that look like the strings of a harp. “It’s beautiful, but also menacing, in a very appealing way. That dichotomy between the attraction and the repulsion of it is pretty compelling, I think.”Robbins doesn’t compare or align herself with the Chicago Imagists, but she does identify with their use of neon colors “and their pattern-making, as in Gladys Nilsson’s work.” Chicago painter Joyce Owens, who recently began collecting Robbins’s work, says, “Renee’s pieces are very organic. I think of it as looking at microorganisms and other things that we can’t see normally that she makes visible. It’s complicated work, but not difficult to look at. Some art is complex and you can’t engage with it; hers is complex and accessible at the same time, which I think is great. I like seeing it in my house.” <a href="http://www.reneerobbins.com">www.reneerobbins.com</a>Tony Lewis:&nbsp;Breaking Down LanguageTony Lewis’s graphite drawings on paper give the impression of having been handled a bit roughly; they’re smudged, scumbled and distressed in a way that can seem intentional, even gestural. As it happens, both things are true. In Lewis’s work, the planned and the accidental are indistinguishable, which is itself thought out in advance. More or less.This odd indeterminacy in the work is echoed by its apparent subject, which seems to be the difficulty—perhaps the impossibility—of communication, specifically in the form of language, whose authority comes constantly under attack. Words (or parts of words) are suspended within the frame (often a grid of four pieces of joined paper), hanging and partial, sometimes crossed out and begun again, connected by drawn lines that sometimes organize themselves into misshapen thought balloons. The overall effect is that of speech trying haltingly, at times desperately, to articulate itself.A cerebral, intriguingly austere, modernist aesthetic is in operation here. Its procedures are stark, its deepest meanings elusive, and intentionally so. Lewis, a 26-year-old recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute, offers a sort of skeleton key to several of his drawings in the form of a sentence from which many of the depicted words are drawn. But he doesn’t want the sentence—a looping, elliptical epigram of his owncomposition, relating to the intertwined historical conceptions of “colored people” and “people of color,” and the gap between the two—reproduced in full in this article, or indeed anywhere. “It’s not a scheme to keep people from knowing it, more of a way to create a considerable distance,” he explains. “Thanks for respecting and understanding.”A “person of color” himself (he’s African-American), Lewis says much of his recent work has revolved around the mystery sentence, “trying to figure out what it meant at the time, what it means now,” as he puts it. “My relationship, my attitude toward the sentence has changed to it quite a bit over time, and its meanings have shifted a lot. The sentence has a really weird quality to it. It’s nonsense, on one level, but at the same time it’s charged, and feels like it’s supposed to mean something. It does tend to make sense, sort of, when you break it up into fragments and start moving parts of it around, which is what I do in the drawings.”It’s unlikely that most viewers will “get” the work on what might be called its molecular level, but this is not a concern for Lewis. “For me, it’s not a question of people ‘getting it,’” says the artist, who’s continuing a tradition that includes language-oriented conceptual artists like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Glenn Ligon. “If viewers feel they ‘understand’ the work, that’s fine, but it’s essentially irrelevant, because the piecesare rooted in drawing as much as they are in language,” Lewis says. “The work is just there. It’s just the piece itself, the paper. And it’s what’s there that should prevail—that’s the experience, whether or not you know the sentence that’s being quoted. The sentence is just a structure to attack, to analyze, to break down, to see what happens to language when you put it to through the process of being broken down.”"The graphite [in Lewis's drawings]&nbsp;spreads everywhere and the work’s conceptual underpinnings, the interrogation of race, is metaphorically conveyed in the material contamination," says Michelle Grabner, a professor at SAIC. "Nothing is clean, crisp, nor clear in his large-scale drawings.&nbsp;And nothing is absolute in contemporary racial politics." <a href="http://www.shanecampbellgallery.com/tony-lewis">http://www.shanecampbellgallery.com/tony-lewis</a>

Chicago's Young Artists: What Does the Future Hold?

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418168/kxmplluyyata1q2gabbc.jpg"></figure>By Laura MillerLaura Letinsky’s subtly haunting photographs stick with you. The scenes in her work convey ease and elegance, yet they are conceptually loaded with references to art history, literature, music, and writing. The viewer is asked in changing ways to consider what her images signify to them. Born in Winnipeg, Canada, Letinsky attended the University of Manitoba and Yale’s School of Art before migrating to Chicago, where she is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Chicago. She is represented locally by Valerie Carberry Gallery, in addition to other galleries in the U.S., Canada, and Germany.LM: How does Chicago compare to other cities where you’ve exhibited or where you’re represented?Laura Letinsky: Chicago is a great community. There’s a bit of self-consciousness about being smaller than New York or L.A., with all the negative associations of provincialism and its insecurities, but Chicago is fantastic in that its scale is big enough to be stimulating, challenging, and diverse while still being manageable on many levels. I can live here and manage to make art, teach, have kids, space, a garden, friends - that is, a life that is full and rich. Every place has benefits and challenges but I find Chicago a really productive and fabulous balance.LM: As a University of Chicago professor is there any sound advice that you adhere to personally that you’ve shared with a student?LL: I recently had a critique with a student who was setting up a stranglehold on the possibility for experimentation and learning and seemed at odds with her larger interests. I encouraged her to toss out the division between her art and the rest of her life and to instead revel in the places where she drew fun and enthusiasm, skepticism and challenge; to venture to places she didn’t necessarily know vs. well-trod ground. Art that is about art exclusively is to me relatively narrow. There are artists for whom this makes sense, but I’m most thrilled when art makes me see differently - seeing understood here as knowledge.LM: In your Ill Form and Void Full series the incorporated collage elements add layers of complexity to the work and blur the lines of space and perception: What is real? What is a photo of a photo, or a copy of a copy? What is missing? What might the viewer add? How did this series came about?LL: In 2010 I began work after a year’ hiatus. A number of events had conspired such that I stopped making pictures, uncertain of whether I would be able to continue; knowing I couldn’t continue as I had. A crisis of belief? For years the question, what is a photograph had driven my practice; if anything and everything is ripe as photography’s subject, and given the unrelenting volume of images, why make pictures? What do they do? I now understand the answer has to do with what they are - that is, pictures are how they exist in our world, how we produce and consume them.For the series I decided that to use images, mine and others, indiscriminately with objects, digital downloads, and scans permitted a kind of promiscuity that felt right. It’s a way of negotiating my ambivalence for this medium, a deep and abiding love and irrevocable loathing. To focus this inquiry around home and food portends a potent array of issues including consumption, sexuality, need, want, labor, gender, etc.LM: What are you trying to set the stage for when you’re assembling scenes for your photographs? A specific mood or memory?LL: There’s not really a mood or memory as there was with the earlier manifestations of my still-life work. In this series I am feeling my way around, trying to find a way to set up ideas, ambivalences, conflicts, resolutions, relationships, that bespeak of “home”.LM: Still lifes have such a loaded history. Are there any specific artists you see your work referencing/ influenced by/ commenting on?LL: When I first began my references were the Northern European still life masters, particularly Pieter Claesz, in front of whose work I still get weak-kneed. Later I turned to others in this era, as well as Chardin’s scenes of food, in the Renaissance’s religious and allegorical paintings, Modernists who used the still life precisely because of their disregard for its domesticity, i.e. its familiarity. Stronger for me now are a range of artists whose work explores the tensions between the personal and public sphere: Jessica Stockholder, Richard Tuttle, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mickalene Thomas...For the last two years, writing and music have had more impact for my practice than visual references.LM: How do you feel about including your work in magazines that usually celebrate the perfectly polished? Are you breaking any rules, or maybe starting a new trend—&nbsp;celebrating the imperfect?LL: My pictures are never going to be widely accepted; they are not the new paradigm. I’m grateful for those who appreciate my sensibility, but the aspiration of perfection along with its inevitable failure and dissatisfaction is perhaps too deeply ingrained.Commercial work is really interesting and hearkens back to pre-modernist artistic practice in which we were hired guns, producing work for clients, the church or other patrons. The notion that art if informed by commerce is somehow impure is a modernist invention which, while it served some purpose, is a pretty impossible conceit. &nbsp;LM: Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?LL: Just the usual aspirations for deep and abiding fulfillment of all my wishes and desires, some altruistic, other pretty petty...Family and friends, first and foremost.LM: Any big plans coming up for 2013?LL: I’m really excited about my shows at the Denver Art Museum and The Photographers’ Gallery in London. I’ve also got some travel planned to Istanbul, Guadalajara and Mexico City, maybe Oaxaca, and Beijing. I really want to go to India and feel that I’m taking a circuitous route. I’m looking forward to delving back into the studio so as to continue in the direction I’ve begun.</body></html>

A 2013 Chicago Gallery News interview with local photographer Laura Letinsky. 

Artist Insights: Laura Letinsky

by Kevin NanceWhen the nonprofit grant-making organization 3Arts was founded in Chicago five years ago, its leaders thought they were joining a stable community of similar groups providing financial support to local artists. The organization’s unique, tripartite focus—&nbsp;on jumpstarting and/ or developing the careers of women artists, artists of color and those with disabilities in the performing, teaching, and visual arts—&nbsp;was intended to supplement the funding activities of other funders, including private foundations and government-subsidized agencies. Individual artists (as opposed to arts organizations) who might not be lucky enough to secure funding for their careers and projects, from say, the Illinois Arts Council or the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, could turn to 3Arts.But as the years went by, 3Arts found itself increasingly lonely in the world of Chicago art advocacy. The Driehaus Foundation, which has for years been giving a small number of $15,000 grants to visual artists, discontinued that practice after its board changed its priorities. The Illinois Arts Council, which had once been a major benefactor to visual artists around the state, had seen its grant programs devastated by budget cuts of around 60 percent; its grants to individual artists, which had once amounted to several thousand dollars per artist, have in many cases shrunk to a few hundred dollars—&nbsp;hardly worth the time and effort a midcareer artists would need to devote to the application process. In some cases, artists who had been notified of grant awards later received letters notifying them of the state’s inability to send the promised monies.Now, with a few exceptions such as the MacArthur Foundation (at which a local visual artist’s chances of winning a grant are hardly more than those winning a Powerball jackpot) and the City of Chicago’s Community Arts Assistance Program (whose individual artists awards are capped at $1,000 each), 3Arts is virtually alone in providing substantial grants to individual visual artists. 3Arts now awards 10 unrestricted grants of $15,000 to artists each year, along with an increasing number of grants earmarked for specific projects.“We started out giving about six annual grants, but then during the recession, artists were unemployed at twice the rate of other workers, and we nearly doubled the number of grants to about 10,” says executive director Esther Grimm, who also provides professional feedback and mentoring to artists, including those who are nominated for 3Arts grants but don’t receive them at first. “Then about a year ago, we realized that the one-time support wasn’t enough. Typically when you win a grant like ours, you’re never eligible for another. But our artists need ongoing support for their projects, and so we decided that the most impact we could have was to stick with them over the long haul, helping them build momentum and really get their careers off the ground, or just be there for them when they need us.”3Arts currently has an annual budget of about $740,000, all of which is raised from donors and given directly to artists. (Salaries for the two-person staff, including Grimm, comes from proceeds from a separate fund.) The organization also supports six two-week residencies at Ragdale, an artists’ retreat in Lake Forest, and next year plans to expand that program to include month-long residencies with larger stipends at a national network of similar artist residency programs.“I’m a huge fan of 3Arts,” says Peter Handler, program direction at the Driehaus Foundation. “I don’t know of any other organization like them in the city, and the work they do is tremendously important.”The fact that 3Arts is virtually the only game in town in its niche has made it a crucial lifeline for a community of artists whose careers might otherwise have stalled—&nbsp;artists such as Riva Lehrer, whose professional and personal prospects absorbed a potentially crippling blow when her live/ work condo in Edgewater was flooded by thousands of gallons of rainwater during a storm in 2009 while she was out of town.“It destroyed most of what I owned, and there was more than $20,000 worth of damage that wasn’t covered by my insurance,” Lehrer recalls. “Fortunately I was able to use part of my 3Arts money to put my studio back together. I don’t know what I would have done without it. Really, 3Arts is amazing. They listen better than any arts organization I’ve ever dealt with. They have passionate love for artists and a practical eye for how to help them. They’re a total gift to the city. I just wish we had a lot more people operating at that level. Or if 3Arts could manage to get a significantly larger group of donors, they could be truly transformative.”Something similar happened to emerging artists David Leggett, who used his initial 3Arts grant to pay off debt, buy a computer and rent a larger studio, which allowed him to transition from making small-scale artworks to creating larger pieces. Subsequently, his studio was flooded, and he used the money from a 3Arts project grant to repair damage to the studio and its contents.Then there’s Harold Mendez, who’s using the proceeds from his 2012 grant to develop a collaborative multimedia project at the Studio Museum of Harlem to be unveiled in February. He also plans to use part of the money to visit his home country of Colombia, where he will do family research in the national archives for an art project that’s been in the planning stages for years. “It’s been in my mind since 2005, but until recently I haven’t had the resources to make it happen,” he says. “Without the 3Arts grant, it would take me a lot longer. Chicago is a great city with great institutions, but I feel like the funding structure for artists doesn’t match the other things that Chicago offer, even though there’s so much money here. It’s great that 3Arts exists, because I know so many artists who’ve changed their practice in so many ways because of 3Arts.”There’s also Maria Vergara, a young painter who told&nbsp;Chicago Gallery News&nbsp;that she’ll use a significant portion of her 2012 3Arts grant to buy “a heck of a lot of art supplies” for a monthly program in which she teaches art-making to autistic children from local Hispanic families. “The kids are really good at art, they learn super-fact, but the funds for the program keep getting cut,” she says. “They want to paint on canvas, but I have to give them paper and crayons. But they really deserve it, so i’m going to get them some canvas.”Like Vergara’s teaching, several other 3Arts-funded projects are having what Grimm calls a significant “ripple effect,” providing arts opportunities to a number of underserved neighborhoods in Chicago. One example is The Franklin, a small exhibition space constructed in the backyard of the home of conceptual artist Edra Soto and her husband, the custom fabricator Dan Sullivan, at 3522 W. Franklin Blvd. in Garfield Park. “Dan did most of the construction, but the materials are so expensive,” Soto explains. “We couldn’t have done it without the 3Arts money.”And at 3550 W. Lawrence, in Albany Park, now stands North Branch Projects, a community founded by artists Regin Igloria that gives free instruction in art-making and bookbinding to residents of the neighborhood, which has few arts organizations of any kind. “I created it in 2010 because I was frustrated with the relationship of the contemporary art world to people in Albany Park, where I grew up,” says Igloria, who also works as director of artist residency programs at Ragdale. “There was almost no connection between the art world and non-artists, so the idea was to create a place where the concept of creativity could be explored as part of a broad dialogue with my neighbors.”As it happened Igloria’s 2011 3Arts grant arrived in the nick of time. ‘It was literally a lifesaver, because I used up all my savings and was down-and-out financially, just trying to keep this place running”, he says. “The money really helped me keep the doors open, and it gave me such a morale boost, knowing that someone was there to help me keep it alive.”

From a 2013 issue, Chicago Gallery news features 3Arts, a nonprofit organization. 

3ARTS: Changing Chicago artists' lives for 5 years

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418551/iohwygw7hbjneagcjfz3.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By&nbsp;LAURA MILLERFrom the May-August 2013 print edition of Chicago Gallery NewsChicago artist Angee Lennard wears many hats. &nbsp;When she’s not creating her own work, you might find her teaching art classes or getting involved in various collaborative projects and residencies – both locally and abroad. Additionally, Lennard founded Spudnik Press Cooperative in 2007 and continues to oversee a wide range of community programs that are offered at the vibrant West Side space.&nbsp;&nbsp;What’s your Chicago story – why and when did you move here? I grew up in Michigan on a potato farm and moved to Chicago to attend The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2001. Even though I was raised close to Toledo and Detroit, living in a huge city required a lot of adjustment, but I’ve gotten quite used to the quantity and quality of cultural events here and don’t see myself moving anytime soon.&nbsp;You graduated from SAIC in 2005 with a BFA with emphasis in print media. Are you still connected to SAIC now? Very much so. I’ve worked with interns from my alma mater, and I’m in regular contact with the staff and faculty in the Print Media Department, since they send students to Spudnik Press and donate work to our annual silent auction. &nbsp;I’ve been a guest artist in classes and at a few career-focused events. It’s rewarding transitioning to a peer of my former instructors.&nbsp;How did you start teaching? Marwen and Spudnik Press are the two organizations I consistently teach with. My desire to teach developed out of a frustration that contemporary art is often inaccessible to much of the general public. Art can often be very self-referential and hard to engage with without some education (formal or otherwise) in visual communication/thinking. I felt a big disconnect between my peers at SAIC and my neighbors in Little Village. My teaching works toward shortening this divide.&nbsp;&nbsp;Spudnik Press is a community print shop that offers open studio time, classes, residencies and exhibitions; it has evolved to be an impressive space with many offerings. How is Spudnik today different than how you first imagined it to be in 2007? I opened Spudnik Press with the intent to do exactly what we still do: offer affordable and approachable access to printmaking. However, the scale of what the shop is today was unimaginable to me in 2007. When I started out I knew the communal aspect of a print shop was the most important factor. Through running the studio for 6 years, I have a much more holistic understanding of what it means to run a community space. We bridge a variety of communities, i.e., youth programming overlapping with residency programs; writing classes alongside printmaking classes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Spudnik Press is associated with&nbsp;Chicago Area Artists Residency Programs (CAARP), and you’ve also been an artist&nbsp;in residence at AS220 in Providence, RI&nbsp;as well as Ragdale in Lake Forest, IL. Please share the impact of residency&nbsp;programs to you and other artists.&nbsp; CAARP began very organically about two years ago. Based on shared member experiences we set some goals, such as cross-promotion, collective advertising, and hosting collaborative exhibitions. While many residencies take artists away from the distractions of everyday life, urban residencies ask artists to interact with the community and often host local artists. CAARP has allowed me to be better connected to similar residency programs - residencies that are parallel to what we offer, and are therefore more relevant.&nbsp;The two residencies that I have completed have instigated substantial shifts in my work and allowed me the focus to develop new lingering ideas. I’ve also done “self-imposed” residencies, which I find useful. Last year,&nbsp;I spent a week in a cabin on the Mississippi River and created my first animation.&nbsp;&nbsp;What’s your favorite method of&nbsp;printmaking for your own work? &nbsp; My favorite process is intaglio (etching.) It offers just the right amount of control and unpredictability, and makes me feel a little like an alchemist. My technical skills are strongest for screenprinting, simply because I have had more opportunities to teach and print professional jobs and consignments.&nbsp;How do you balance your own studio&nbsp;practice and how is your work impacted?&nbsp; It is very difficult to maintain a studio practice while running Spudnik Press and teaching, but my students definitely inspire me. Young artists often approach art with such fresh perspectives and eagerness that I often leave class ready to take more risks myself. My newest body of work investigates the relationship between emotional thinking and logical/rational thinking that I believe stems from the tension between the work I do as an art administrator and as an artist. Honestly, the only way I make new work is through residencies and through participating in projects with strict deadlines. Otherwise, my art would always get pushed to the back burner.&nbsp;&nbsp;Are you in the middle of any big projects at the moment? This summer I will head to South Africa as a volunteer teaching artist with Dramatic Need, and I suspect I’ll be working on my own projects while I’m there. I’ll spend three weeks in a town called Viljoenskroon teaching animation with my partner, Colin Palombi. I’m also working on a collaborative project called Ten by Ten, a unique opportunity for visual artists and music composers to collaborate in a meaningful, shared creation. I’m working with composer Randall West to create a print and original score investigating synesthesia to be released this fall.&nbsp;How would you describe Chicago’s art scene? I don’t feel qualified to summarize the whole scene, but where I interact it seems to be tangible, good-humored and relevant. Chicagoans seem to make work that has craftsmanship, and is physical or tactile, often ironic or lighthearted, sometimes even silly. What I love about this city is that so many people make work that has importance beyond the gallery setting - work that speaks to social and political issues, or work that is digestible even by those without a degree in art.&nbsp;Angee Lennard <a href="http://www.spudnikpress.com">www.spudnikpress.</a><a href="https://www.spudnikpress.org">org</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Artist Insights: Interview with Angee Lennard of Spudnik Press

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418552/phqnsirf4ynajjsteijw.png"></figure>&nbsp;During a summer visit to South Side, North Washington Park home of collector D.E. Simmons, his thoughts were decidedly on the fall and the 10-year anniversary of Diasporal Rhythms, a Chicago collecting group devoted to art of the African Diaspora. Having heard about the group’s mission and collecting initiatives from co-founder Patric McCoy, Simmons, who works closely with the group and is their fall event chair, told me about this season’s home-tour series as well as the changes the group has undergone in the past decade. When DR started in 2003 there were four founding members; today they number 60-strong; the ambitious group now has its sights on what to accomplish next in the collecting community. -GVSimmons describes Diasporal Rhythms’ fall home tours as having a uniqueness that comes out of the spirit of the South Side art community and its desire to express to the larger population that there are talented artists doing wonderful works worthy of notoriety, and more important, of being added to other collections. Simmons says, “I always talk about us as the little organization that could, and can, and does. We’ve offered eight versions of the tour in 10 years, and we’ve focused on expanding and making them creative.” Simmons says that tour-goers can get a little overwhelmed at first, but ultimately the sensory overload is productive. “If you’ve never been on the tour and you don’t live with this much art in your home, it’s a lot to drink in,” he explains. “You have several houses to go through and so many ideas can come to you. That pollination effect is powerful - not that we hope to wear people out but we want them to think about what’s possible for themselves.” Simmons acknowledges, “The last couple of years some of thesame homes have been on the tour, and since we’re trying to make a new experience we have to look at different communities. This year the combination of four homes in South Shore and South Chicago, plus our Logan Center exhibition is going to be really powerful.”Getting people to interact at home is more unusual than one might think. Simmons says there is some reluctance to opening up one’s home, “There’s something about not letting people into your space. Socially, I think in Chicago people tend to say, ‘Oh I’ll meet you here,’ but I’ve noticed that many people won’t invite you over. This home tour is special. It’s not only on the South Side, but it makes people open doors - to everyone who has a ticket of course - so others can experience passion in a personal space. It’s a rare opportunity.” Homeowners quickly find it to be a very positive experience. They enjoy seeing guests inspired by the abundance of artwork. To Simmons, “It is a wonderful exchange - you get to talk about your passion for your collection and answer questions. We’re asking people to join the conversation and explore the possibilities. That openness has made many people want to support our organization.”Simmons has received almost shocked personal feedback from participants: “Some of the notes I get say, ‘I didn’t know we lived like this culturally,’ or ‘I didn’t know I could be a collector - I thought it was only high-brow.’ I say it’s about what you like. We want you to join this madcap adventure called collecting because it is enjoyable. We learn quite a bit about certain artists, their techniques, styles, what they’re capturing and then transferring, and we react to it. We buy a piece and bring it into our own environment and thatsays something about what’s resonating within ourselves.”Diasporal Rhythms will stage an anniversary exhibition in October at the Logan Art Center at the University of Chicago. The chance to show member works in an academic setting is a new way to come together, and the time is right to exhibit in a major art center. To Simmons, “Having pieces taken out of collections and shown together as a part of this show allows others to see the progression from when we started buying work and where we are today. Additionally a catalogue will be published for the exhibition, which is a way of documenting this moment and setting the standard for us and others. This has been our first real test, and I think we’ve passed - we have lasted 10 years. So, the next challenge is ‘what are we going to do next?’”Reflecting on the economic difficulties that have been hard on everyone in recent years, Simmons says that many Diasporal Rhythms members have still managed to add to their collections and support artists, and they continue to be interested in art despite less-than-ideal-conditions. Three years ago, in the midst of the global financial tumult, the group reviewed and revamped their mission. “By taking a hard look at ourselves as an organization,” Simmons says, “we had to decide whether we were going to do more concrete things. Being more adroit and focused about how to grow this organization and keep it interesting spurred us to pursue more activities like studio visits to find out what artists are doing. Diasporal Rhythms aims to emphasize that you don’t have to be a multi-millionaire to be a collector. The key is that you don’t have to leave Chicago to find great artists - they’re probably living right next door to you and you just don’t know it.”Simmons led me on a tour of his home and collection the day I visited. From the entryway to the upstairs bedrooms of his vintage home, colorful, figurative works of art cover most of the available wall space. When he acquires something new, it starts out in his office, almost visible from the sidewalk out front through the picture window. Simmons explains, “When I get a new piece it stays here for me to commune with. Ultimately it will go where it’s supposed to be in the house.” He points to the painting that is there now, “This is the only piece that’s come in and stayed and basically said, ‘This is my spot.’ This is my daughter’s work. I saw her finish this and I paid her for it, and she goes, ‘Are you serious?’ I told her yes, but she just thought I was being a dad. When I got it here I just kept looking at it and looking at it. She came over for her birthday, and when she walked in and saw I had it framed, she said, ‘Oh my God, I love it.’ I couldn’t convince her how much I really respected her work, so when she saw it was in this space, she understood that it was for real.”Each piece, says Simmons, tends to have its own voice, and he’s not the only Diasporal Rhythms member who feels this way, “That’s a common theme when you get to know us - we say the artwork speaks to us.” Works by Joyce Owens, Alonzo Evans, Emmett McBain and Theodore Feaster populate the downstairs of Simmons’s home, demonstrating the range of work he’s collected, from large-scale paintings like Owens’s to Evans’s works on corrugated cardboard, to Feaster’s contemporary stained glass. Each piece tells a story, whether through its placement in the house, the materials used, or in the case of Feaster’s stained glass, the tough scene that inspired it. Simmons says that for a while the economy limited his collecting abilities; since he wasn’t able to buy art, he bought frames. To him, as is the case at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where empty frames represent dozens of major works stolen in the 90s, “Everyone was asking, ‘Why are you buying frames?’ and I said, “If you buy the frame, the artwork will come.’” Simmons was eventually able to buy art once again and seek out new artists. The Diasporal Rhythms 10-year anniversary has energized Simmons and the group as a whole, and it is clear that the next 10 years will bring new relationships betweenartists, collectors and their homes.</body></html>

Diasporal Rhythms: 10 Years of Collecting

A young doctor quietly living on Chicago’s North Side fell into collecting art 20 years ago. Like many devoted collectors, he says at first he didn’t know what he was doing, but it’s been a passion ever since. Within his Modern-looking condo, surrounded by faces of all colors and shapes and contortions, one is struck by the number of works by Outsiders - those curious and inspiring artists who are compelled to create art using any means and materials necessary in an effort to express the thoughts within them. Through learning about his own tastes and interests, this collector has discovered the pleasures of meeting artists in unexpected places and the fun in sharing the unconventional with friends at home. -GVCGN: Tell me how you got started collecting works of art? Is your focus different today? DR: The first work I bought was at auction, at Kass/Meridian, probably 20 or so years ago.&nbsp; Unfortunately I was caught in a bidding war - with my roommate at the time! I ‘won’ that battle, only to find I owned a work I knew nothing about, by an artist I had never heard of, but for which I had fought feverishly. That lesson in impulse buying taught me to research, take my time, enjoy the process of discovering what type of art I liked and how to go about finding and collecting it. Much of the art I acquired in the beginning of my collecting days was during travel - I’d pick something up when I was in Vietnam, Peru, Mexico, or London. Eventually, as I formed stronger opinions and learned a bit, I gravitated to Outsider/self-taught artists. I also like to support local artists, and in particular the younger artists who have come from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.You have focused on figurative work as well as Outsider art. What is it about these genres or view points that attracts you? I’ve tried and failed to come up with a unifying theme for the art in my collection, and in the end I’ve realized it’s not important to have one. You hear so often (because it’s true!) that you should collect what you like and what you want to live with, and that is always what I’ve sought to find, whether it is work by self-taught artists, contemporary trained painters or photographers, or furniture designers. I have collected paintings, drawings, some sculpture, furniture and woodwork from various eras - really a hodge-podge, but ultimately from this chaos comes a space in which I love to live. I am constantly changing it to accommodate new additions. The Outsiders appeal to me because they were not beholden to the market or to a perceived audience of collectors, gallery agents, professors, and so on. I think in many ways you are able to see their pure creativity. I have collected works by Lee Godie, Charles Steffen, Jim Work, Henry Darger, Paul Estrada, and Anna Zemankova - some of these artists participated in the established art world and some did not, but all of them have communicated absolutely unique visions.Please highlight any favorite pieces or collecting experiences. Are there lessons you’ve learned through observing and buying art? I found an artist in Hanoi whose work I loved several years ago. She was represented at a gallery there but lived outside Ho Chi Minh City, so I spent a day trekking miles past the finished roads on the outskirts of the city to find the compound where she and her husband, a sculptor, lived. With blond hair, blue eyes, and the biggest nose in Vietnam, apparently, I certainly stood out wading through those fields, so I trailed about ten kids with me by the time I reached the artist. She and her husband hosted me for hours, showing me how and where they worked and looking through all their art - it was really a great day, and I think that was one of the experiences that really hooked me. Part of the joy of collecting is the process, of course, and learning about the lives and influences of the people you meet along the way. Many of the works that mean the most to me I acquired in artists’ studios, or on the streets in destinations like Lima, Peru and Mexico City - places outside the complex that has grown around the art business, such as the mega-fairs and galleries.Are there any reactions to the works in your collection that have surprised you, such as&nbsp; candid responses from friends or family? My friends think I am nuts, particularly when they are evaluating the latest Outsider&nbsp;acquisition: ‘So, he was schizophenic, or&nbsp;bipolar?’ and ‘You paid for that, or you found it on the street?’ or, ‘Can I sell you what my kid did in school last week?’ I think to most people there is more respect for art that comes from traditionally trained artists, or from recognized galleries, or for more figurative work. In my house there is no relationship between a work’s monetary value and how it is received by a casual observer who is over for dinner. In fact Henry Darger’s work inspires the least positive reviews, though when a guest learns the back story it intrigues them enormously and changes many opinions. Along those same lines, not everything in my home is really family-friendly, and Darger is a good example of that; his reverse image with hermaphrodite Vivian Girls only comes out at more festive dinner parties!

Collector Profile: An Eye for the Outsider

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418167/itdrdtvw7b68klneai3i.jpg"></figure>By KEVIN NANCEThere will be no special exhibit, no monograph, no hoopla whatsoever commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Richard Gray Gallery this fall. “We spent a lot of time thinking about that, but didn’t come up with anything that needed to be done,” gallery director Paul Gray says one recent morning in his office at the John Hancock Center. “Fifty years is a substantial achievement, I recognize that, but we looked at things others have done on major anniversaries, and none of them inspired me to devote time to that. We started work on a publication, but it seemed self-indulgent and not very meaningful, so we canceled it.”So, this fall it will be business as usual: two major openings (new paintings by Alex Katz September 20–November 2, 2013,&nbsp;followed by a show of older works by David Hockney at Frieze Masters in London and later in Chicago), participation in large international art fairs (including EXPO CHICAGO at Navy Pier) and the usual whirl of buying, selling and brokering transactions of mostly blue-chip work by famous artists to deep-pocketed clients in the Windy City and around the world. The gallery’s clients now include more than 10 percent of the Forbes 400 list, including nine members from the Chicago area, as well as similarly high-rolling collectors and museum curators from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America. In 2012, sales were just under $100 million.The decision to avoid anniversary-related festivities is both typical of Paul Gray (who took over management of the city’s most successful gallery from his father, Richard Gray, nearly two decades ago) and telling. The younger Gray, now 58, is known for his preference for a tightly focused business strategy, concentrating on a single niche of the art market—the high end—rather than the more eclectic approach once favored by his father, who dealt in antiquities, tribal art and works on paper in addition to the early and mid-20th-century paintings and sculpture that have always been the gallery’s primary stock-in-trade.“My father always wanted to be sure that there were many opportunities for success in the course of the year, but I felt that that was making us more mediocre on all levels, that we were spreading ourselves a little thin,” says Gray, whose hair, elegantly tailored suit and even his argyle socks are visual reminders of his family name.&nbsp; “I wanted to be more of an expert in something, so I decided to specialize in more expensive art, regardless of medium, and I wanted to relate to collectors who were a little further along on thedevelopment timeline—collectors who were really knowledgeable and demanding, and who would be appreciative of whatever we could bring to them.” If it can’t be done well, in short, Paul Gray doesn’t want to do it, including anniversary celebrations.The Richard Gray Gallery opened on November 4, 1963, at 155 E. Ontario. The elder Gray—his son was 9 years old at the time—had worked for his own father for several years and had been casting about for a new direction.&nbsp; Trained as an architect, he’d long been interested in the visual arts, particularly painting and sculpture, and he’d married into a family of art collectors.&nbsp; When a friend suggested that he open an art gallery, it struck him as an opportunity to combine business with pleasure.“Maybe because of my architecture background, I had a particular interest in draftsmanship, prints and drawings,” says Richard Gray, 84. “When I opened the gallery, I had the idea that I’d be handling that kind of thing, and that’s what happened. I started out by representing established and emerging artists primarily working on paper.” Quickly, however, Gray sold works by a number of painters and sculptors, including Jules Olitski, Morris Louis, Louise Nevelson, Hans Hofmann, Fernand Léger and Jim Dine, an impressive list that would eventually grow to include Hockney, Josef Albers, Joseph Cornell, Richard Diebenkorn, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol, among many others. Gray also made significant forays into aboriginal and African art.“My standards were about trusting my own eye, my own sense of aesthetics,” Gray recalls. “It wasn’t the particular style or period that interested me; it was the individual work of art.”&nbsp;Demonstrating a talent for networking with artists and clients, Gray quickly established a reputation as the Chicago gallery with the deepest bench, the longest reach and the highest ambition. “They were the best gallery in Chicago, as far as I was concerned,” says Dine, still one of the Grays’ most-shown artists. “Richard has a tremendous eye and a great world view, and he was really the only truly international gallery in Chicago for a long time. I was very pleased to be there.”&nbsp;For most of his youth and early adulthood, Paul Gray gave little thought to the prospect of joining the family business. He was mildly interested in visual art—like his father, he had dabbled in painting and drawing in high school—but lacked a deep or abiding passion for it. As his father went about the business of making the gallery into a success, the younger Gray was no more absorbed by the process than most young people are in the careers of their parents. “I was raised around the art world and didn’t totally take it for granted, but I didn’t idolize it in any way, either,” he recalls. “It certainly wasn’t preordained that I would go into this field. I didn’t even think about it until I was nearly 30.”After five years as a theater producer on the East Coast, Gray returned to Chicago to attend graduate school at Columbia College and began working at his father’s gallery one day a week, hanging art, making follow-up calls to artists and clients, and generally learning the business. It was a ground-up apprenticeship that eventually led to his succeeding his father as managing partner in 1994. (Richard Gray maintains a presence at the gallery, where he keeps an office from which he manages his personal affairs, but he no longer plays an active role in its management.) Paul Gray opened a New York branch of the gallery in 1996. In years since then, he gradually phased out many of his father’s initiatives, including separate departments for tribal art and prints and drawings, as part of his overall strategy to pursue a narrower and potentially more lucrative focus on the market’s highest strata.As part of that process, the younger Gray also represents fewer emerging or even mid-career artists than his father did. There are exceptions, such as Jan Tichy, a Czech-born new-media and video artist who moved to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute. “Jan is very busy, but he doesn’t have a large commercial market at this point, and he doesn’t have any commercial impact on our business,” Gray says. “But I took him on because I find his work compelling.” Still, Tichy is the exception that proves the rule.“Of course Paul had his own notions, his own particular tastes, some of which were different from mine,” Richard Gray says now. “But he’s done extremely well, building a first-rate reputation, not just in Chicago but internationally. I was absolutely happy for him to do his own thing.”In at least one respect, Paul Gray is a chip off the old block. Just like his dad, he quickly showed a flair for cultivating professional and sometimes deeply personal relationships with clients and artists, despite—or perhaps because of—the latter group’s reputation for eccentricity and prickliness. “Artists play a special role in culture, because they’re the bravest, most adventurous, the most willing to bare their souls in public,” he says. “They have a lot to teach us, and that’s why people are drawn to their work. On the other hand, I think most artists would acknowledge that they’re not the easiest people to be close to, because they’re pretty uncompromising and pretty self-involved; they’re focused on making that next discovery in their work. They can be social, but they can be highly antisocial also, and that’s one of the things I respect about them.”Gray has formed a particularly close relationship with the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, best known in Chicago for his Crown Fountain in Millennium Park, and to whose portfolio Gray now assigns two full-time staff members. About the same age, Gray and Plensa initially met at the artist’s first show in Chicago in 1996. “We hit it off in two seconds,” Plensa recalls. “Since that day Paul and I have grown together, developing a beautiful friendly relationship. Richard and his wife, Mary, really embraced me as one more member of their family, and I consider Paul a brother, even though he insists on teaching me to swim in any ocean despite knowing that I can only swim in the Dead Sea.”Paul Gray has also proved adept at the delicate art of connecting some of the world’s richest art collectors with each other, acting as a go-between in private transactions involving large egos and even larger sums. In his biggest such coup several years ago, Gray brokered a deal between Los Angeles mogul David Geffen and Chicago hedge-fund billionaires Anne and Kenneth Griffin. The Griffins, regular clients of Gray’s, were interested in acquiring a Jackson Pollock; Geffen, also a client, was interested in selling one—for which purpose Gray introduced the two sides. “Over lunch at Geffen’s home, Ken Griffin’s eyes kept drifting toward a very, very important Jasper Johns painting on the wall nearby,” Gray recalls. “When we left the house, he said to me, ‘I think that painting is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen.’”The Griffins didn’t buy Geffen’s Pollock, but after a week of intense negotiations overseen by Gray, the Griffins purchased Johns’s False Start (1959) for $80 million, the highest price ever paid for the work of a living artist at the time. (The Griffins have since loaned the work for exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art.) In the process, Gray’s reputation as an experienced liaison between collectors buying and selling art to each other was cemented.“It used to be that any serious art collector in Chicago would come by the gallery at least once a month, but that rarely happens now,” says Gray, who recently moved the gallery to a larger space with higher ceilings on the Hancock Center’s 38th floor. “Now we largely go to the collectors as advisors and curators. It’s part of the evolution of the business.” <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/richard-gray-gallery--2">The Richard Gray Gallery</a> keeps evolving right along with it.&nbsp;Image: Paul Gray, photo by Kevin Nance</body></html>

CGN interviews Paul Gray of Richard Gray Gallery on the occasion of the gallery's 50th anniversary in 2013

50 Years: A Milestone Arrives Quietly at Richard Gray Gallery

September = art. That sums up this month in Chicago's creative community. Beginning tonight things go full steam in galleries and art spaces around the city. Dozens of gallery receptions take place and you can plan whatever kind of arty evening strikes your fancy. Grab a copy of&nbsp;CGN&nbsp;to guide you on your artistic search, or just go where the crowds take you. Many galleries save their strongest shows of the year for this big opening season, while others take advantage of the chance to introduce their new stars to an engaged audience. Check out&nbsp;our list of who's opening&nbsp;where tonight - you'll be able to visit dozens of spaces in River North, West Loop, the suburbs and on the North Side. &nbsp;Join our&nbsp;Flickr group&nbsp;to post your opening night photos, or be sure to Tweet us&nbsp;@ChiGalleryNews&nbsp;and keep up with the crowds.If you can't make it out tonight, then go on a free Saturday tour of the galleries tomorrow - details here.- Happy gallery hopping!