<html><head></head><body>By GINNY VAN ALYEAHalloween is almost here and Dia de Los Muertos is also upon us. This weekend offers some spooky art and ghoulish inspiration. The spirits are out and so is the art. Below is our wrap up of festive exhibitions and art events taking place around Chicago this holiday!&nbsp;Trick or treat!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419292/sdvysdhrjvnjfxgxdqyd.jpg"><figcaption>Martha Gabriela Driessen, Mayra y su vestido (Mayra and her Dress), Guanajuato, México, 2021, black and white digital photograph / fotografía digital blanco y negro, 17" x 22", courtesy of the artist</figcaption></figure><a href="https://nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/events/dia-de-muertos-living-presence">Día de Muertos, Living Presence</a>Thru December 10National Museum of Mexican ArtThe museum's 37th annual Day of the Dead exhibition remembers the thousands of people who died in the February 2023 earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. The exhibition will also memorialize women around the world who have been violated, disappeared or murdered, with a large installation by 18 local artists. This year the Mexican community lost distinguished artists and dear friends whose lives and work we will also celebrate.&nbsp;With flowers, food and drinks, we await the return home of loved ones who no longer walk this Earth. The living presence of loved ones is felt on the Day of the Dead (November 1 and 2) by offering them what they enjoyed in life. This ancient tradition, with Mesoamerican and Spanish roots, unites Mexicans on both sides of the US/Mexico border as they create ofrendas and altars in homes, cemeteries, galleries, and museums to celebrate their lives. Curated by Dolores Mercado and Gustavo Herrera• Also taking place at the museum October 28: <a href="https://nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/events/dia-de-los-muertos-xicago-3">Join us on Saturday, October 28th</a> as we celebrate Día de los Muertos by transforming the Museum and its surroundings into a beautiful space to remember our loved ones. On this special day, guests can enjoy ofrendas created by community members, live musical performances, art activities, and a large illuminated ofrenda projected outside of the museum.• Then next weekend: <a href="https://nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/events/dia-de-muertos-love-never-dies-ball">Día de Muertos: Love Never Dies Ball</a>, November 4, 2023, 6:00 pm&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419293/mtbt4kixzuj9ufxmsbbn.png"><figcaption>Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago &nbsp;</figcaption></figure><a href="https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/streeterville-dog-halloween-party-2023/">Streeterville Dog Halloween Party 2023</a>October 28, 9-11:00 amMuseum of Contemporary Art&nbsp;From the Queen of England to a furry taco, from Dorothy and Toto to dinosaurs from Jurassic Bark, over 250 doggies and frequently their people, will don their most elaborate costumes for the 34th annual Streeterville Doggy (And Kitty) Halloween Costume Party and Parade, on Saturday October 28th, hosted at the MCA Sculpture Garden! It will be a pawsitvely fun morning where everyone is a wiener. Registration is recommended.The Doggy Parade kicks off at 9:30 AM and will be judged by 2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins and Streeterville resident Maureen Schulman, who will award prizes to every pawtcipant.Have a kitty at home? Upload pics of your feline friend to the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/streetervilleDoggyHalloween">Facebook event page</a> to enter the Virtual Cat Costume Content.<a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/36th-annual-streeterville-doggy-and-kitty-halloween-party-tickets-695536086157?aff=oddtdtcreator">Register Here</a>Taking place in the <a href="https://mcachicago.org/about/locations/anne-john-kern-terrace-garden">Kern Terrace Garden</a>. Enter through the MCA's back gate bordering Lake Shore Park.This is a free event, but registration is recommended. Leashes and/or carriers are required.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419294/zjsffguhizx7arscneaw.jpg"><figcaption><a href="https://www.artic.edu/artworks/93798/picture-of-dorian-gray">Picture of Dorian Gray, 1943–44,</a> Ivan Albright</figcaption></figure><a href="https://www.artic.edu/events/5789/teen-studio-workshop-halloween-block-prints">Teen Studio Workshop: Halloween Block Prints</a>October 28, 1:00–3:00The Art Institute of ChicagoThis spooky season, take inspiration from the work of Caravaggio, Ivan Albright, and other Art Institute horror icons to experiment in block printing. You’ll join teaching artist Jose Casales for lessons on image transferring, carving, and inking your own block prints to share with friends and family.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419294/cjtjwohgwdz4tgn6bn1c.jpg"></figure><a href="https://events.uchicago.edu/event/225050-1?mc_cid=5421424877&amp;mc_eid=d57bd5477e">Logan Center Ofrenda</a>Oct 30–Nov 6Logan Center for the ArtsIn celebration of Día de los Muertos, the Reva &amp; David Logan Center for the Arts present an altar about remembering and honoring. A chance to connect the living world with the invisible one, we invite visitors to place images of their loved ones who have transitioned, leave delicious foods and satisfying drinks they took pleasure in, and gift toys to the children who couldn’t stay with us long. All the little trinkets that brought joy to our furry friends while alive also have a space here.Empty picture frames on the altar are available for anyone to use. Include completely sealed food items, fresh flowers, knick-knacks, and un-opened drinks. Incense may be left, but it cannot be burned. Donate any items you feel comfortable leaving out to the public.The marigolds and butterflies will help guide our people here. Our love and tributes will return them full and whole till next year.&nbsp;</body></html>

Spooky and Festive Events for the Season

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419286/kboq9uso5bmqqidczvbl.jpg"><figcaption>AIC Lion</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By Ginny Van AlyeaHalloween can be enjoyed in many ways beyond trick or treating, and one distinctly artistic way to celebrate this year is to attend the 9th annual Arts in the Dark Halloween Parade, a family-friendly happening presented by <a href="https://luma8.org">LUMA8</a> (Light Up My Arts), an independent not-for-profit that strives to elevate Chicago as a focal point of artistic innovation to enrich the lives of its citizens and create economic impact. The parade takes place at night and features unique floats, spectacle puppets and all forms of creative performance.&nbsp;The co-founder and artistic director of Arts in the Dark Halloween Parade is former Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Mark Kelly. Kelly shared, “I am very excited to have the League of Chicago Theatres, in partnership with BandWith Chicago, leading the parade,” this year. On some of the specific featured groups, he commented, “Reinvent Ability and their wheelchair dancers will join over 40 dance organizations, while several striking IATSE film locals will remind us of their importance to the cultural life of our city. The amazing creative life of our city is truly captured in this playful and singular event.”Arts in the Dark came about when Sharene Shariatzadeh, the then Executive Director of the Chicago Cultural Mile organization, was tasked with producing a Halloween parade and she contacted Kelly because of his work leading the&nbsp; Columbia College Wabash Arts Corridor initiative. Kelly remembers, "Having thought for many years about the creative potential of Halloween for Chicago’s arts community, the question struck me like a thunderbolt." Within 24 hours he had prepared a vision statement proposing a Halloween parade celebrating Chicago’s cultural landscape and declaring Halloween as the artists' holiday. The rest of the plans came together just as quickly, with the Chicago Cultural Mile board endorsing Kelly's plan and Kelly and Shariatzadeh forging a partnership as co-founders of what began as "The Halloween Gathering" and shifted a few years later to the "Arts in the Dark" parade, produced by LUMA8, the company Shariatzadeh founded in 2017. Kelly is currently the Artistic Director and a Board Member of LUMA8.*This year the celebration takes place Saturday, October 21, from 6–8pm in the Loop. Attendees are urged to arrive early to find a good spectating spot and attend a pre-Parade candy giveaway starting at 5pm featuring HARIBO’s Goldenbear (that's a gummy bear) and more. Of course creative costumes are definitely encouraged; many attendees come dressed in their own colorful and creative costumes to join in the festive fun while watching the parade of participants celebrate Halloween as the “artists’ holiday”. Parade members include participants from major cultural organizations, inspiring youth programs, and aspiring artists in every field. Named ‘One of the best Halloween celebrations in the world’ by UK-based Wanderlust magazine – this dazzling production annually delights an audience of 50,000+ gathered along historic State Street, from Lake to Van Buren Streets.This year’s parade holds a record number of applicants, with a selection of approximately 90 arts organizations participating. Families can expect to see well over 4,000 parade participants with virtually every neighborhood in Chicago represented. Colorful costumes, masks, installations, lighting, fire, acrobatics, puppetry and spectacle, dance moves and choreography, music, theatrical performances, street arts, circus arts, and cultural traditions will fill State Street.A parade could take place any time of year and for a range of holidays, but the timing of late fall, and the choice of Halloween is key. Says Kelly, "This is a time which is embedded deeply within the history of human culture as we acknowledge that light is fading and darkness looms, a time when we don masks and costumes, wrestle with our mortality, engage the spirits, take on personas, and seek playful connection with each other. Halloween is the great American holiday with little of the weight which comes from our holidays framed with religious, nationalistic and family expectations."As the parade nears a decade in existence, Kelly says he thinks that several key ideas are fundamental to its success. "Chicago is a world cultural capital," he explains, "but it lacks a special moment when it celebrates the breadth and depth of its cultural landscape. We encompass film, museums, schools, theater, music, dance, the visual arts, architecture, design, teaching artists,&nbsp;literature and so much more. We are a universe of creative practice invisible to ourselves and to the larger world. Arts in the Dark creates a celebratory moment in which we come together in playful solidarity and expand and excite our audience’s imagination about who we are and how important we are to the vitality of our city." "With Mardi Gras and Carnivale as our North Star," he says, "we seek to build a mission driven and curated parade that brings artistry, creativity and performance to the street. There will be no waving politicians, traditional beauty queens, or sponsorship floats in our parade. Bringing together a mix of masks and costumes, light and fire, theater, music and dance, an array of puppets and spectacle, circus arts, and ethnic cultural traditions, we will create a sense of collective joy for our audience and our performers."&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419288/qpc8mdqot3x2vrypbnxs.jpg"><figcaption>Rogue Llama, 2022. Raf Winterpacht Photography</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;* This year marks the parade’s inaugural bilingual emcee, Spanish-speaking WGN-TV journalist and co-anchor Lourdes Duarte, who will provide commentary on the parade from her staging between Monroe and Adams Streets.&nbsp; This year’s parade will feature close to a dozen Mexican contingents, many of which choose to represent their cultural heritage by showcasing the traditions surrounding Dia de los Muertos. Noteworthy as well are the remarkable contributions of Chicago’s Black cultural organizations and traditions to the parade. A wide array of ethnic and cultural traditions will be represented as well, including Brazilian, Columbian, Irish, Indonesian, Peruvian, Caribbean, Jamaican, Polynesian, and Indigenous groups.Chicago’s diverse dance community will be well represented with a selection of 40 dance organizations including Reinvent Ability dance group and their wheelchair dancers, The Joffrey Ballet, Forward Momentum Chicago, Ballet Folklorico de Chicago, Astronaut Flee, Trinity Dance School, Aztec Dance, and more. Dance genres will include footwork, tango, hip hop, house, stepping, clogging and ballet. And this year, audiences can expect a collection of 12 marching bands and drumlines and several music ensembles. Select music groups include everything from the South Side Jazz Coalition to the Lakeside Pride Music Ensembles. The parade showcases a variety of music genres including hip-hop, jazz, gospel, opera, Mariachi, house, pop, steel pan, rock, punk and more.For Kelly this creative coming-together is an important work in progress. "While we speak proudly of Chicago’s cultural landscape, we also recognize that we are divided by race and class and further divided by genre, neighborhoods, the lack of resources, and the grind of our daily work. Arts in the Dark recognizes these fissures but also seeks a moment when we all come together to celebrate our collective ethos."&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419289/wwt3pfqpf3y4wfdll6de.jpg"><figcaption>Ballet Folklorico Xochitl girls in a line, 2019. Distract Your Face Photography</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;LUMA8 President &amp; CEO Sharene Shariatzadeh shared that her company will provide over $70K in grants to parade groups who might not otherwise be able to participate.&nbsp;“Our priority is to ensure that Arts in the Dark is a true reflection of Chicago’s diverse cultural and ethnic community,” she says. “Thanks to the support of our sponsors and a 2023 Chicago Presents Grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), we are able to offer the assistance that allows organizations from every corner of Chicago to celebrate together in the heart of the city.”Arts in the Dark is presented by LUMA8 and the City of Chicago. And Halloween also wouldn't be halloween without candy. Apparently Chicago is known as the ‘Candy Capital of North America.' In recognition of this sweet title, the parade is co-sponsored by two giants of the candy industry: Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, and HARIBO, the world's leading manufacturer of gummi products. The event also has Major Support from the Chicago Loop Alliance, is produced in partnership with DCASE and is a proud recipient of a 2023 Chicago Presents Grant. Additional support is provided by Choose Chicago, Harris Theater for Music and Dance at Millennium Park, and William Blair.&nbsp;For more information visit <a href="http://www.artsinthedark.org/">www.artsinthedark.org</a>&nbsp;#&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419290/vwca4rwqcar5jkv6zqhr.jpg"><figcaption>2022 Dancers</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Arts in the Dark 2023: An Artistic Way To Celebrate Halloween

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419252/u0x4ii9xx6obrfytqqft.jpg"><figcaption>John Currin (American, b. 1962) Stamford after Brunch,&nbsp;2000 oil on canvas 40 × 60 in. Art Institute of Chicago Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection</figcaption></figure>By BIANCA BOVAI have the privilege of working in a museum. The Art Institute of Chicago occupies in my life the role of the definitive museum, by virtue of being the first that I experienced as child and a space that has served as the backdrop to many moments of significance personally and professionally in my adult life. I am lucky in this regard, if, at the moment, in no other.&nbsp;In a refrain echoed by many of my colleagues, I readily confess to spending less time in the museum's galleries than I should, considering I am already in the building. When my life was beset by bad circumstances last winter, for the first time I made a concerted effort to spend more. I have long held the belief that there are no novel experiences. In the whole unrecorded history of humanity, someone else has undoubtedly encountered just the set of circumstances one finds themself in, albeit arriving there by different means. Likewise, I believe in the canon of art history there is bound to be something that speaks to every human experience; something that reflects it, or that it can be hung on, or pinned to. This is, after all, an argument for why we have museums in the first place, or at the very least, why we collect art. A collector says they “fell in love” with a piece or that they “saw it and just had to have it.” It’s possible that what they saw was dollar signs, or that there is some degree of compulsion at play not dissimilar to the compulsion a gambler feels walking by a blackjack table. It is more in line with my experience, however, that it is a matter of seeing something that calls up some interior aspect of oneself–though, in the heat of that moment, it is seldom clear what aspect–that is the real driver. This abiding belief defines for me, more than any other, the work I do for a living as work worth doing. In an encyclopedic museum like the Art Institute, one generally not need to look too far, either.&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;I began my intentional exploration, as a matter of habit more than anything else, on the second floor of the Modern Wing. There are works there that I have long been in the thrall of, and they now held the promise of stability at a time when I felt the floor perpetually slipping out from under my feet. It was comforting to know I could go up to gallery 296 anytime I wanted, and there, in the same place on the same wall, unchanged would be my favorite work in the whole museum, John Currin’s Stamford After Brunch (whatever judgment that admission earns me I welcome as entirely fair). I know the contents of the Modern Wing 200’s more or less by heart. I have given tours of them. There’s the de Kooning, there’s the Pollack, there’s the Frankethaler, there’s the Mitchell. Old friends. There’s the Robert Gober, perfect and sad and hopelessly attractive, and the Cady Noland that never fails to cause a certain populist shame to rise to the surface. I began going with regularity up to gallery 293 to gather a piece of candy or two from Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), hoarding them in my desk drawer. After all, what is there to know about the bedfellow relationship between love and grief that can’t be gleaned from Félix González-Torres?&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419253/wmlyep5utfaol6tlxhdq.jpg"><figcaption>Félix González-Torres, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). Photo by Bianca Bova.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;In moments of uncertainty there is always the temptation to return to the well. For me, at the bottom of the well reside an unfortunate pair, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edward Hopper. When I realized the impact of wandering the Modern Wing 200’s was less the salve I had hoped it would be, I changed route and wandered in the American Art galleries instead. This development only lasted two days, during which Isamu Noguchi’s impossible aluminum Miss Expanding Universe sent me ricocheting back to Ruth Page’s Sex essay, an undated and diary-ish account of her marriage to Thomas Hart Fisher and her affair with Noguchi, and perhaps the most clear-eyed view of the politics of love in the art world ever committed to paper.&nbsp;Hopper, in turn, dragged me back to the ground, where in the expansive quietness of his work was the bitter confirmation that everything has a price, and proof of the resolve that I was willing to pay it. I also at this time picked back up The Crack-up, a book with a sort of damned quality about it. Curious in that it is both by and about Scott Fitzgerald in turns, it is full of aberrant details that require a depth of familiarity with his oeuvre and his life to grasp that verges on being too much to ask of the general readership. It remains a deeply formative volume for me, but one that I was quickly reminded did not contain any examples of how to handle being in crisis that were not, categorically, cautionary tales.&nbsp;When the art and writing of the 20th and 21st centuries failed me, I turned to art historical criticism by contemporary critics. Over one weekend I revisited Jerry Saltz’s essay on Sandro Botticelli’s La Derelitta, a gut-wrenching piece on a work of art unseen in person by its author, as good an argument for the validity of secondhand consumption of art as it is for the overwhelming power of the works that go undiminished by it. I followed this up with an account of the late Peter Schjeldahl’s legendary tours of the Frick Collection, which included a description of Jean-Honore Fragonard’s The Progress of Love (Love the Avenger) (c.1790), a startling painting that depicts a winged cherub, aloft, with a dagger raised and ready to be plunged into the white dove that, mid-flight, is grasped by the cherub’s other hand. Here, I remember thinking, is a painting I can get behind. It caught me off guard in a way I found pleasing, spoke to me in the way I wanted to be spoken to in that moment; it succeeded where all of the other works I had been desperately seeking connection to had, for the first time, failed.&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;My grasp of art history preceding the 20th century is thinner than I care to admit. I could not, even now, off the top of my head accurately provide the temporal parameters of the Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, and Rococo periods with any accuracy beyond a reasonable certainty that I have named them here in the correct linear order. My relationship to historical European art derives entirely from being Sicilian and also Roman Catholic. I remember with great clarity the gold-framed print of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper that hung over my grandmother’s kitchen sink when I was a child. In the house where I grew up, a terracotta bas relief of an angel presided over the strings of dried herbs and pepperoncini next to the pantry cabinet, while an elaborately painted and feathered model of a Sicilian cart (replete with horse) had pride of place on a shelf all its own. And the defining piece of decor in my parents’ bedroom was an extraordinary hand carved marble wall rosary. As such, in my adult life, alongside the contemporary art I collect, for many years there could be found in my apartment a retablo of St. Gertrude nailed to the wall, in order to keep the rats at bay. Ex-votos, statues, and gilded prints of saints come and go from the altar that occupies half of my bar as-needed. These objects have been to me something closer to furniture than to art, as they are, in their way, functional.&nbsp;Nevertheless, the next time I ventured into the Art Institute, I headed to Painting and Sculpture of Europe, chasing the high of the Fragonard. The department consists of a network of smallish galleries with jewel-toned walls, interconnected and accessed by narrow, dimly lit hallways. Situated at the heart of the museum’s original building, the warmth and richness fulfills every cliche of what a great museum is supposed to look and feel like. I walked through, my historical ignorance relieving me of the preoccupations that had informed my other late afternoon jaunts.&nbsp;What gratified me about these works was that their complexity was somehow not at odds with their lack of ambiguity. In Jacob Jordaens' The Temptation of the Magdalene (c.1616), an animalian figure is seen emerging from the shadows of the background and into the light, waving two fistfulls of snakes above the exhausted Magdalene’s head. It is, the label explains to us, “a menacing symbol of evil.” The label does not, however, elaborate on the skull she holds tenderly in her lap, as a brothel owner and an angel battle for her soul.&nbsp;Where conceptual art invites us into a set of circumstances and asks us to evaluate them, the art in Painting and Sculpture of Europe seemed only to ask that I bear witness to it. Tintoretto’s Tarquin and Lucretia (c.1578-80) stops time as pearls fall under foot from Lucretia’s broken necklace, and statuary topples in her struggle against Tarquin. This is, emphatically, not a painting of the revolution that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic, though it depicts the events that set it off. Terrifyingly, it demonstrates that it is possible to distill even something so historically momentous down to a single moment of cataclysm. As someone waking up every day wracked with the thought How did my life come to this?, the painting seemed to dispel in one fell swoop the notion I was clinging to that bad luck is so vast and random that it must be indefinable. Here, it answers: this is how.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419254/xkprclqdqklrdj02ktwq.jpg"><figcaption> Bartolomeo Manfredi (Italian, 1582-1622) Cupid Chastised,&nbsp;1613 oil on canvas 69 × 51 3/8 in. Art Institute of ChicagoCharles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;If these were minor revelations, it was Bartolomeo Manfredi’s Cupid Chastised (c.1613) that rocked me back on my heels. It depicts the god of war beating Cupid for causing his affair with Venus, as Venus tries in vain to intervene. It is a shockingly violent painting. Similar to Fragonard’s cherub and dove, the absence of bloodshed and the depiction of the drawback of a weapon–rather than the moment of impact–allows the image to maintain a strange and dramatic visual grace. Fragonard’s title, however, steers us quickly towards a brighter question: what does it mean for love to avenge against peace? Manfredi by contrast does us no such favors. Such is the brutality of Cupid Chastised that on my first viewing of it, my instinct was to look away, as though I might see the first blow land if I looked too long. Cupid, blindfolded, with wings pressed to the floor and an open mouth that suggests the catch of his breath, is one of the most striking figures I have ever encountered in a work of art. He is a portrait of vulnerability and comeuppance.What unnerves me most of all about these works–and compels me to revisit them often–is the awareness that all art is contemporary art, insofar as all art is the art of its own time. When confronted by the peculiar charm of Fragonard’s cherub, the radical humanity of Manfredi’s cupid, or even the ineffable weirdness of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem’s Venus, Cupid, and Ceres (c.1604) (also on view in Painting and Sculpture of Europe–and acquired, suitably, in 2020), there is the sense not of a historical continuum, but of something less rigid bridging the chasm of time. I would perhaps sleep better if I could convince myself that the true vitality of these works has been inevitably lost to the passage of centuries, if I could reduce them to academic objects for further study. I know that I am better served by the inability to do this, that it would be a disservice to the work and to myself not to acknowledge the aphorism they affirm: Ars Longa Vita Brevis. Art is long, life is short.&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Wandering Through Art History In Pursuit of Solace and Hope 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419235/yhl2k9qpcrqtvkvt1zna.jpg"><figcaption>Derrick Adams's Fun Time Any Time in Polk Bros. Park. Photo CGN.</figcaption></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEAAt the start of summer I found myself at Navy Pier purely for family adventure and not to spend days walking Festival Hall during an art fair. As it was a cold, windy day we weren't able to enjoy the outdoors for long – we spent 30 minutes playing a &nbsp;wet, quick round of Putt Putt golf, and having paid for parking and determined to get our money's worth, we set out to see Chicago's number one tourist destination as tourists in our hometown.Before heading indoors from mini golf, we walked into Polk Bros. Park, at the west end of the Pier. Thanks to EXPO CHICAGO, the annual rotation of public art installation, part of <a href="https://www.expochicago.com/programs/in-situ-outside">IN/SITU Outside</a>, gives any visitor to the Pier a reason to come back to see new art long after EXPO ends in April. Derrick Adams's Fun Time Any Time was still on view when we visited (it came down after June 25) and the shiny black unicorns were unoccupied. It fell to my family to show other onlookers that the art could, in fact, be interactive and fun. Adams's quartet of magical creatures are also vehicles for leisure as well as cultural understanding. Both adults and children took turns riding the glossy, rainbow-maned unicorns, with my seven year-old son looking like he was training for the Triple Crown.The Navy Pier of today is, thankfully, a far cry from the tired, worn, heavily carpeted Pier of the late '90s and 2000s. A major overhaul, unfortunately timed right around the pandemic, managed to update and refresh all the surfaces and spaces and to also introduce new destinations. The food court is still the food court, and throngs of people still gobble up Garrett's Popcorn and overpay for branded souvenirs and tchotchkes, but the overall look is light and airy and sleek. This may be a tourist destination but it is a modern, very Chicago-style one.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419236/iyjtdsecyndjvrwr2nwc.jpg"><figcaption>Hebru Brantley's Flyboy. Photo CGN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;After a little lunch (at Harry Caray's – not modern but still fun) we found ourselves standing outside the entrance to the Chicago Children's Museum. We hadn't visited the museum in about 6 years, but now that my children are 7 and 9, and familiar with hand sanitizer, they were desperate to go inside, so off we went. There was much more to do for older children than I remembered, and the art on display, as well as the many creative activities, was prominent. Outside the museum on the south side of Navy Pier near the tour boat docks, we had seen one of Hebru Brantley's towering Flyboys installed, a kid dressed as a hero and ready to take off or at least make some art. Inside the museum Hebru himself could be seen, at the entrance to the art lab in a display explaining the benefits of getting messy and expressing your ideas on paper. A selection of completed art studio works by children are on installed in a glass case nearby. I personally enjoyed seeing a visual artist positioned as an inspirational super star rather than an athlete or movie star.&nbsp;At the entrance to the art studio, an illuminated sign quotes Hebru Brantley in both Spanish and English,&nbsp;<blockquote>"From Kirby's Clubhouse to Sky Studio, my hope is that in these spaces, you will feel free to immerse and express yourself in all sorts of creative ways."</blockquote>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419237/opqlxfw8eakdmylum5q4.jpg"><figcaption>The Art Studio. Photo CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419238/actoavl725kiibr8bljd.jpg"><figcaption>An animated sign in English and Spanish welcomes visitors to the Art Studio. Photo CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419239/u4irbdlp22n1whjp3czq.jpg"><figcaption>Works by artists at the Art Studio. Photo CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;*&nbsp;Just down the walkway from the art studio is a climbable sculpture available to kids and adults alike, as long as you don a helmet. Titled Cloud Buster, the structure by Kevin Winters is built out of steel, wood, wire, rope, acrylic, fiberglass and artificial turf. Winters was inspired by the structure of the particle accelerator complex at Fermilab in suburban Batavia, IL. Bringing art, design and physics together, Winters has created a dynamic playground in the sky through which to expend energy of another sort. After all, young visitors to the museum can be expected to stay still for only so long, even when they're making a mess in the art studio.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419240/abyhxn25htxchjumajbz.jpg"><figcaption>Kevin Winters's Cloud Buster. Photo CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;A visit to any museum wouldn't be complete without having to exit through the gift shop (you also enter the museum here), but in addition to browsing toys and t-shirts for sale, you notice several handwoven, patterned sculptures suspended from the museum entrance's ceiling. Helpful signage visually identifies each work and which group of children created it. Some were crafted at the museum – collaborations between visitors and resident artists – while many others were made by local school groups. 200 visitors, community center members, students, and professional artists were invited to contribute to the collection. Each spinning work is made of yarn and is a tactile exploration of color, layering and storytelling - many resemble traditional Native American God's eyes that watch over and engage these bright, hopeful young minds that pass in and out of the Children's Museum in the heart of a busy city. These parting images from the museum are a reminder that art isn't always right in front of us on the wall, it is often above and all around us, waiting to be explored or even created.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419240/txvbwoiphbv5cetanmhf.jpg"><figcaption>Woven creations at the entrance/exit to the museum. Photo CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;#&nbsp;The Chicago Children's Museum Offers Free Family DaysIn 2023: Last Thursdays from January – May and September &amp; October!In partnership with Navy Pier, Chicago Children’s Museum guests can enjoy five fun-filled activities for families and children (ages ten and under) on the last Thursday of each month from January through May and two additional days of activities in September &amp; October. Free admission to Chicago Children’s Museum.&nbsp;No pre-registration is required. $10 discounted parking at Navy Pier with validation.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org/family-days">Details here.&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

Artistic Discoveries at the Chicago Children's Museum 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419272/b0ocnv99gjxvfj8aozxm.jpg"><figcaption>Ruth Duckworth, Earth, Water, Sky, 1967–1968, Ceramic mural, 400 square feet, covering four walls and the ceiling, Located in the entrance to the Henry Hinds Laboratory for Geophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago, Presented to the University in honor of Jane H. Sherr by the Leonard J. Horwich Family. Photo by Michael Tropea. © Estate of Ruth Duckworth.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By MARY DEYOEThis fall the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago presents the monographic exhibition: Ruth Duckworth: Life as Unity (September 21, 2023–February 4, 2024). The show focuses on the artist’s sculptural work, and features nearly 60 objects made between 1966–2005, some of which are on loan from close friends of the artist and have never been publicly exhibited.&nbsp;In the documentary from the early aughts by Karen Carter, Ruth Duckworth: A Life in Clay, the octogenarian artist says “I don’t think everyone has a destiny. It’s more haphazard than that.” This rings true for an artist whose sculptural work demonstrates a deep fascination with nature, geomorphology and the interconnectedness of the natural world as a whole.“Like many women working in craft media at the mid-century, Ruth Duckworth (1919–2009) did not receive the critical consideration her work merits,” said Laura Steward, Curator of Public Art. “This exhibition and accompanying catalogue are the result of the growth of ‘eco-criticism’ in the field of art history. This novel critical framework allows us to center the artist’s relationship with the natural world, which in Duckworth’s case was profoundly influenced by the ‘Satellite Era’ and her engagement with geophysical sciences at UChicago.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419273/zwvhakjmhbhyuapenbmh.jpg"><figcaption>Ruth Duckworth, Untitled (Wall Sculpture), 1970, Porcelain, 33-3/4 x 17-1/2 x 5-1/2 inches, Courtesy of the Estate of Ruth Duckworth and Salon 94. © Estate of Ruth Duckworth.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;In 1964, Duckworth came to Chicago after receiving an invitation to teach at University of Chicago’s Midway Studios. She planned to stay for only one year, but instead made Chicago her home. She lived in the city until her death in 2009. Although widely known as being a “British studio potter” (she attended art school in England to escape Hitler’s Germany, and lived there for nearly two decades before coming to the United States) her childhood in Hamburg and life and career in Chicago played important roles in shaping this artist.The title of the exhibition derives from a quote by Duckworth, which evocatively captures the range of scale in which the artist worked as well as the common thread throughout her career. “I think of Life as a unity. This includes mountains, mice, rocks, trees, women, and men. It’s all one big lump of clay.” From the magnitude of the mountains to the tiniest of creatures, Duckworth saw them as all connected. It is fitting then, that in addition to the exhibition, two of Duckworth’s massive murals will be available to the public for viewing throughout the exhibition. Clouds over Lake Michigan, originally commissioned in 1974 by Dresdner Bank for its Chicago office and was recently gifted to the University by Cboe Global Markets and installed at the Joseph Regenstein Library on the UChicago campus, and Earth, Water, Sky, commissioned in 1968 for the Henry Hinds Laboratory for Geophysical Sciences. Both works are huge, and are in contrast with her sculpture, much of which can easily be held in one’s hands.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419273/fuf830z4dmooiz1lux4d.jpg"><figcaption>Ruth Duckworth, Untitled, 1972, Stoneware, 17-1/4 x 19 x 3 inches, Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of Margaret Fisher, 1967.24. © Estate of Ruth Duckworth.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;With Life as Unity, Steward readdresses much of the artist’s work through the lenses of “eco-criticism” - focusing, in part, on new approaches of the natural sciences and environmental perspectives and activism of the 1960s. The exhibition draws connections between Duckworth and key figures at the University of Chicago and in Hyde Park such as Laura Fermi, who founded the Hyde Park committee for Cleaner Air and Professor of Meteorology Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita, whose photographs of clouds Duckworth first encountered when working on the commission Earth, Water, and Sky.&nbsp;When one enters the exhibition, they are met with nearly 30 objects in stoneware and clay – earthy-hued abstracted figures (some birdlike), vessels, pots, and nearly translucent porcelain sculptures&nbsp; – the majority of which, like much of Duckworth’s pieces, are untitled. As the artist explained “titles pin people down [...] I want them to have their own ideas.” The presentation is punctuated by murals and wall sculptures many of which illustrate the influence of geomorphology on her work. Indeed as a result of the Satellite Era, Duckworth was able to view images from space of weather patterns. In the documentary, while standing in front of Clouds Over Lake Michigan she points out just some of the many different types of clouds she sculpted on the surface.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419274/kfhdwwj0flbi06mcd00q.jpg"><figcaption>Portrait of Ruth Duckworth inside of Earth, Water, Sky, undated. The University of Chicago Archival Photographic Files, apf1-05879. Photo courtesy of Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Ruth Duckworth: Life as Unity shines a light on an artist with deep roots in Chicago and the UChicago community. Duckworth saw herself as “a survivor.” She said, “I survived Hitler, being a refugee, being poor several times in my life, being depressed - I have survived. I’ve had accidents that should have killed me and they didn’t.” She is undoubtedly survived by her own large body of work that, for us and for future generations, fortunately continues to reveal new threads of interconnectedness. It is, afterall, “all one big lump of clay.”*In conjunction with the exhibition the Smart Museum presents a series of free programs from tours, kiln crawls, and musical performances to family days and scholarly talks featuring faculty from UChicago’s Department of Geophysical Sciences and the Divinity School.&nbsp;The accompanying catalogue features an introduction by exhibition curator, Laura Steward as well as essays and contributions by Abigail Winograd, Jack Schneider, and Kendra Thornburgh-Mueller. The catalogue is also fully illustrated with images of all the works in the exhibition, including new documentation of Clouds Over Lake Michigan in its new home in the 1st floor reading room of the Joseph Regenstein Library.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/ruth-duckworth-life-as-a-unity/">Ruth Duckworth: Life as Unity</a>Smart Museum of ArtSeptember 21, 2023 - February 4, 2024&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

A Transcendant Sculptural Legacy: Ruth Duckworth

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419272/sj3s3bsp433nu2zsgwrn.jpg"><figcaption>Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The Cardsharps, about 1595. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Two of the Italian master’s rarely loaned works are on view the Art Institute of Chicago this fall.&nbsp;Visitors to the Art Institute have a rare opportunity to view a stunning pair of paintings by Caravaggio, on loan from the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas and the Detroit Institute of Arts. The works, dating from 1595 and 1598, rarely travel, so this trip to Chicago is a special journey. At The Art Institute they will be accompanied by 16th century groupies, if you will, known as Caravaggisti, or followers of Caravaggio. Since there are only seven Caravaggio paintings in collections in the United States, this is a rare opportunity to view the innovation and influence of Caravaggio’s work in person without springing for a plane ticket to Italy. Don’t miss the chance to see the drama and eternal beauty of these remarkable works up close. Then perhaps consider how influential they were in their own time as well as centuries later.&nbsp;&nbsp;Among Friends and Rivals: Caravaggio in RomeSept 8–Dec 31, 2023The Art Institute of Chicago&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419273/sllhzuzbxiioucun5d9q.png"><figcaption>Martha and Mary Magdalene, about 1598Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Detroit Institute of Arts, gift of the Kresge Foundation and Mrs. Edsel B. Ford</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419274/qa7cxvtxwznfbjdbblhx.png"><figcaption>The Resurrection, c. 1619-20, Francesco Buoneri</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

City Highlight: Caravaggio in Chicago

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419272/pt1q0eizji2mbvhrzs6u.jpg"><figcaption>Vito Acconci and Judith Kirshner in&nbsp;Maze Table, 1985. Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By BIANCA BOVAChicago’s place in the commercial art world has always eluded easy categorization. You can find as many people who insist its relevance is ironclad as you will those who insist it is little more than an afterthought in flyover country. As time and the tides of the market have shifted, both have been true in turn. While Chicago’s galleries may not operate competitively with, say, New York in terms of real estate (Gagosian’s Chelsea location alone occupies 25,000 square feet), or with London in terms of historical pedigree (Colnaghi, Est. 1760) its defining merit is its galleries’ highly individualized programs.There are the galleries which have for decades served as tent poles for the Chicago art world–beginning with Rhona Hoffman, its doyenne. The gallery’s artist roster reads like the table of contents of a twentieth century art history book: Sol LeWitt, Gordon Parks, Jenny Holzer, Gordon Matta-Clark, Vito Acconci. There is also a prominent Chicago streak: Michael Rakowitz, Amanda Williams, Judy Ledgerwood, Richard Rezac, Julia Fish. Few are the galleries (and fewer are the dealers themselves) who endure long enough to restage significant works, as Hoffman did in exhibiting Acconci’s Maze Table, first in 1985-86, and then again in late 2022. This dual model of developing the careers of the brightest artists working, while also maintaining a commitment to their practices long enough to introduce their canonized works to a second generation is, quite simply, art dealing in service to its highest purpose. It’s also not a bad way to make a living.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419273/no76zbrxlysje1nbqxjn.jpg"><figcaption>GRAY at 60, Gray Chicago, 2023. Courtesy, Gray Chicago/New York. Photo: Jim Prinz</figcaption></figure>Richard Gray is another name that looms large in Chicago’s commercial history. The gallery’s recently mounted anniversary exhibition, GRAY at 60, included works by sixty artists who have shown with the gallery (or whose works the gallery has specialized in) since opening its doors on East Ontario in 1963. Representing over a century of art making, the exhibition rivaled a museum show in its scale and scope.&nbsp;Despite this grandiosity, GRAY’s program is so well-defined as to leave a kind of signature on art collections it has helped to build.&nbsp;In a recent New York Times profile on winemaker Maggie Harrison, it was noted that Harrison, now in her fifties:“Grew up in a suburb of Chicago,” and that her parents’ “passion was collecting art. The walls of their otherwise unremarkable house were crowded with canvases by David Hockney, Alex Katz and Chuck Close. A large painting of a heart by the artist Jim Dine hung in Harrison’s bedroom.”&nbsp;Is there any question what gallery her parents were clients of?&nbsp;Reaching such milestones as Rhona Hoffman and Richard Gray have first requires surpassing other, smaller milestones. MICKEY, as well-appointed a gallery space as you will find anywhere (unsurprising given that it is the work of Dirk Denison Architects), has just reached one, celebrating five years of operations on Grand Avenue last month. As evidenced by MICKEY, a summer group exhibition, a survey on view until September 10th that includes a work by every artist the gallery has shown since opening its doors, the program there is, in a word, wild. It seems distinctly possible that the only straight line that can be drawn through the work of Michelle Grabner, Michael Madrigali, Paul Heyer, Leonardo Kaplan, Chloe Seibert, and Zach Meisner is gallery owner Mickey Pomfrey’s almost alarmingly keen eye. Pomfrey is, after all, one of the first dealers to have shown the work of art star Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), albeit under the auspices of an earlier space, Courtney Blades. The highly refined strangeness of MICKEY’s program is perhaps only rivaled by the highly refined strangeness of the gallery’s informal, in-house wine program. Ask director Tim Mann to recommend a bottle before your next dinner party; you won’t regret it.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419273/bbu8eyxfs3rsflcowsfe.jpg"><figcaption>Five years of MICKEY installation view, Courtesy of MICKEY, Chicago</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;This hyper personalized approach to programming a gallery is not a new concept. A look over the exhibition history at Dan Devening’s gallery, Devening Projects (one of the first spaces to make the move to Carroll Street in West Town) shows a veritable who’s-who of the last two decades in the Chicago art world. While it’s no surprise to see names like Nathaniel Robinson, Richard Rezac, Jin Lee, Peter Fagundo, and Christine Tarkowski on the roster, it’s often a curiosity to see when in their careers Devening mounted these shows. What’s more fun is to see the names of dealers, curators, and other industry figures who maintain their own practices as artists crop up, including Jason Pickleman, Aron Gent, and Sterling Lawrence. Add to this Devening’s impressive CV as an artist himself, and his long tenure as a member of the faculty of the School of the Art Institute, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more professionally embedded. Bearing this all in mind, it would serve collectors attracted to young talent well to keep an eye on the emerging artists like Zander Raymond, Maggie Crowley, and Jacqueline Surdell that show with Devening.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419274/r4ssxnnexiafo8fq7t55.jpg"><figcaption>&nbsp;Jacqueline Surdell, Score! installation view at Devening Projects. Photo by Ian Vecchiotti courtesy of the artist and Devening Projects &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;These are, of course, homegrown examples of why Chicago’s market has sustained. Long is the list of great galleries that had their genesis in Chicago and later expanded–Feature, Richard Feigan, GRAY, and Document, to name a few–and rightfully so. In more recent years, Chicago has also become an attractor of galleries established in other markets. Mariane Ibrahim Gallery moved operations in 2019, closing its original headquarters in Seattle in favor of relocating to Chicago. Having subsequently expanded to Paris in 2021 and Mexico City in 2022, bypassing the opening of any additional domestic spaces, it seems Chicago serves the gallery’s American market more than sufficiently.&nbsp;With the recent acquisition of EXPO Chicago by Frieze, and the rampant speculation surrounding the likelihood of a significant uptick in the blue chip art market in the city it might bring, one wonders if Chicago will increase in desirability as location for future outposts of other galleries with established global footprints. Perrotin? LGDR? Gagosian? A girl can dream.While there is much to be said about the economics (macro and micro) of the art market, and the geographic and political boundaries that have a way of regulating it (or not), at the end of the day, there is no greater force or factor that defines a gallery than the vision of its founder, and the program they build. Chicago is rich in these legacies. Taking into account the view from this moment, it appears it will be for generations to come.&nbsp;</body></html>

The Gallery Continuum: Reviewing Spaces Standing the Test of Time

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419272/q6tiiaa5gaatj61qv9cb.jpg"></figure><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NationalMuseumofMexicanArt">National Museum of Mexican Art Unveils New Mural Created with Chicago Bulls</a>The Museum's youth initiative, Yollocalli Arts Reach unveiled a new mural in partnership with the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chicagobulls?__cft__[0]=AZU_Mst33WCbFpRyJaboY1zrgoZm9W2hYU6Ojwe4-cu1StyxfVlBemNRJZrPO1FrCmpTd-lLPztqjmYjtqT5ice7Bd54Uqa9J0ejcC30Uw4DF51qBfJRNWwa2vNdNLfztAATdtAClOUsre6d9uB4hkPkyOUnwaAXiRZ_ywkhwwIPfEhYpQhf_L3BA8uY0KQqD-aKDhrFaxbY0Kv3AW3Q7v7U&amp;__tn__=-]K-R">Chicago Bulls</a>! Youth from Yollocalli’s Street Art Program participants spent the summer alongside their teaching artist, Mario Mena designing and painting a mural with an uplifting message that celebrates Mexican culture. The mural is located at 1859 W. 19th St.&nbsp;<a href="https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/09/11/new-lakeview-master-plan-calls-for-wider-sidewalks-safer-crossings-and-more-public-art/?utm_source=Pico&amp;utm_campaign=369f678aa1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_09_11+Morning+List+3&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_-cbdb1cc15c-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&amp;mc_cid=369f678aa1&amp;mc_eid=9fac193df8">Plans for Lakeview Arts Include Art Spaces Called 'Alleries'</a>With a new master plan, neighborhood groups are hoping to improve Lakeview and Roscoe Village by adding more art and advocating for projects that cater to pedestrians.&nbsp;Throughout the past year, the Lakeview and Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce surveyed more than 700 residents and 65 business owners to develop a master plan that will help guide development for the next decade.&nbsp;One way neighbors hope to add more public art to the area is by turning alleys into art galleries, called “alleries,” particularly along Lincoln Avenue. Planners envision business owners would donate their back walls to display art and allow the alley space to be used for community events.Via Block Club&nbsp;<a href="https://rivernorthdesigndistrict.com/podcast/?fbclid=IwAR3DT3UWDYJ7pl6rAgw8imrlSRVlLkodormbzbHmFyk95K2kn-uUePkP55g">RNDD Releases Latest Art and Design Podcast&nbsp;</a>A new episode of Design District is out now. In this episode of Design District, RNDD sits down to chat with Cristina Dordas, National Commercial Sales Manager at Roca Tile USA, Jennie Bishop, Principal and Founder of interior design firm Studio Gild and Zach Pruitt, Design Channel Manager of JC Licht. Listen in as we talk about trends in wall surfaces.<a href="https://rivernorthdesigndistrict.com/podcast/?fbclid=IwAR3DT3UWDYJ7pl6rAgw8imrlSRVlLkodormbzbHmFyk95K2kn-uUePkP55g">Listen here</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419273/k7tdeq70xg3cof54kprd.webp"></figure><a href="https://fineline.org/pages/the-great-orb-hunt?fbclid=IwAR3pGexRKjkL6YOxcm4zJmvS50KMLvNe8Qm_GiNdb_WBbFVaqHfw7AoMqVA">Fine Line Creative Arts Center Hosts 'Orb Hunt' for Art Objects</a>Fine Line Creative Arts Center has teamed up with the Forest Preserve District of Kane County on an Orb Hunt in the forest preserve, hiding hand-crafted glass and ceramic orbs on the grounds at Fine Line and at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve.Visitors are invited to walk or bike around both locations and find one of these orbs. If&nbsp;you are lucky enough to find an orb, it's yours to keep,&nbsp;but we ask that you only keep ONE orb please.&nbsp;If you find another orb, leave it where it is to be found by another seeker.&nbsp; &nbsp;</body></html>

CGN Art World Recap: 9/12/23

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419242/vy3eebrebwj9kumgjbrn.jpg"><figcaption>RNDD Members in front of an Art Walk vignette.</figcaption></figure>By CGN STAFF &nbsp;Fine art and residential design are symbiotic. An industry group that has managed to conjure the magic of design and art for a decade is the River North Design District. With more than 90 members, and even a podcast, RNDD has been serving the designer community as well as partnering with area galleries and artists since its founding in 2013.&nbsp;RNDD member Doug Van Tress says, “Golden Triangle was on board from the beginning. RNDD is the only group that brings every one together – the big showrooms, the small shops, the designers, the contractors and artisans. Now we share, learn and show. And we have really great parties. We have a good time together, and the world of beauty is fun and interesting.”&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419242/ifhvdimllbo5alzsr4wt.jpg"><figcaption>A Golden Triangle vignette.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The collective interest of the art and design world is a tide that lifts all boats. Oscar Tatosian, President Oscar Isberian Rugs Inc., is another member and advocate of Chicago’s place atop the global creative landscape. “RNDD brings together creative, passionate and enterprising people,” he says, “beautifying homes and offices while reenforcing Chicago as a World-Class leader of design. I’m proud and optimistic for our City.”The most visible, and anticipated, embodiment of RNDD’s commitment to design and art is the annual River North Fall Gallery Walk. This year the walk, presented by Daniel Kinkade Fine Art, takes place on September 8 in 19 locations throughout River North, and features 26 artists and 17 designer vignettes.&nbsp;The walk is free and open to the public, except for the after party (hosted by LG Group). Showrooms have extended hours on September 8. Vignettes are on display until October 10. Details, maps and tickets at <a href="https://rivernorthdesigndistrict.com">rivernorthdesigndistrict.com</a>Guests looking to make a weekend out of it can also take advantage of a special discounted rate at the nearby <a href="https://rivernorthdesigndistrict.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e0870a7816f3dc842c7b94542&amp;id=7c7f6b1dcb&amp;e=25d5172d25">21c Museum Hotel</a> too!&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419243/vjuyewgo6ez7fvdwx77g.jpg"><figcaption>RNDD member duxiana’s The Sculptor’s Residence apartment exhibition in Stockholm, Sweden featuring sculptures and ceramics by nicholas shurey and sofia tufvasson.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

At The Intersection of Art and Design: RNDD at 10

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419252/qe5snd2rkhkatkdtd2ob.png"><figcaption>The fall 2023 Issue of CGN, featuring Luftwerk on the cover</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">Subscribe to the print edition of the fall 2023 magazine&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAThe beginning of September in the art world is akin to New Year’s Eve. This time of year I feel a little wistful to see the days get shorter as the light fades on summer, but I am excited to see the sparks of a new season. The end of August is, hopefully, a time to take a few days off before school and work ramp up again. Galleries typically close for vacation and then spend Labor Day installating the fall shows. When September dawns, the gallery-going public is reenergized and ready to attend a whirl of cultural and social events after a summer reset. Make sure to see all that is ahead on CGN's packed <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events?filter=upcoming">calendar of events</a>.While I am always sad to see summer come and go too soon, this issue reflects what CGN is looking forward to in the remaining months of 2023.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2023/8/light-over-light-petra-bachmaier-and-sean-gallero-of-luftwerk">Our cover feature</a> is an interview with artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero, the duo behind Luftwerk, about their upcoming exhibtion, Light Over Light, coming to Volume Gallery in November.&nbsp;After years of working with electric light, Luftwerk has shifted to embracing and sculpting ambient illumination. Their exhibition will open just as the fall days grow darker as we head into winter.&nbsp;Collector Zach Smith had a light-bulb moment with a remarkable painting at the Art Institute several years ago, and he’s been pursuing art for his collection ever since. Bianca Bova’s interview with Smith shares a lot of advice for other young and future collectors.&nbsp;A recent multi-site installation of works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres was intended to provide enlightening encounters with the public. Jason Pickleman shines light on what can happen when art is exhibited outside of museum or gallery walls, as Gonzalez-Torres’s subtle, grayed images provide a contemplative refuge admist blaring sounds and screeching lights of CTA platforms.&nbsp;Ruth Duckworth: Life as Unity, an exhibition coming to the Smart Museum this fall, looks at the work of a woman who considered herself a survivor above all else. Duckworth overcame many challenges throughout her life that are unimaginable for most people. For her there was always light at the end of the tunnel. Her work means that light will never be entinguished.Art in these pages–and well beyond–is shining brightly. We are so fortunate to bask in its glow. I hope that you find time to enjoy fall in the art world as well as precious time with friends and family. May everyone get a little more light under the sun before it fades into 2024.–GV&nbsp;Note: Our feature articles and interviews from the Fall 2023 issue of CGN will be posted on chicagogallerynews.com in the coming weeks.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">To subscribe to the print edition please sign-up here for $25/year.</a> You will also receive the 2024 CGN Arts Guide and the Spring 2024 magazine out in April.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Publisher's Letter: Fall 2023

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419242/puxqo3ugen33pafs8qkg.jpg"><figcaption>Courtesy The Suburban</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By BIANCA BOVAJason Pickleman began painting in the 1980’s. His earliest body of work, the Prefix and Suffix paintings, addressed the plasticity of language and its inherent relation to visual abstraction. The works served as formal investigations as well, with the artist noting, “At the time I was making these works, I really just wanted to know what paint does. I was very much involved in the Chicago-base Conceptualist group, many of whom were using language in their work and that influenced me in making this series…at the same time, I was beginning my career as a graphic designer, and developing an interest in typography.” Some forty years on, Pickleman is still producing paintings that ask us to consider the ambiguity of language; to pay attention to its implicit and explicit meanings; to consider the significance of its form.&nbsp;Making time for JOY, currently on view at The Suburban, consists of nine new works derived from various iterations of the logo for the dishwashing detergent brand Joy, originally conceived of in 1949 by the legendary American designer Donald Deskey. Pickleman isolates the logo, then treats it as a material, splitting, flipping, and wrapping it, while faithfully maintaining the integrity of its original form. Rather than coming across as a manipulation of Deskey’s work, the works read as an homage.&nbsp;There is an inherent Pop quality to the logo itself, and to Pickleman’s treatments of it. Two works on outdoor-rated vinyl, ULTRA ULTRA JOY JOY JOY (black on white) and ULTRA ULTRA JOY JOY JOY (white on black) radiate a compulsive energy, while YO JOY (mottled; blue O) has a sly playfulness and irresistible graphic kitsch about it, while also showcasing Pickleman’s masterful paint handling.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419243/rm6ljukhqryqdr129b6x.jpg"><figcaption>Courtesy Bianca Bova</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Two diptychs, JOY DIVIDED (green O, diptych) and JOY DIVIDED (blue O, diptych), each bear the logo bisected vertically across two canvases, separated by an approximately two inch gap. While no less visually buoyant than the other works in the series, these two pieces hint at what the logo belies. Consider the environment in which we might naturally encounter it: the epicenter of the home, the kitchen counter. The divide in the logo transgresses the notion of domestic bliss the brand name implies, the way a smile stretched too thin conveys displeasure more explicitly than the absence of a smile; not authentic joy, but a performance of joy for the sake of appearances. What would the neighbors think?&nbsp;JOY FLIPPED (full color) and JOY FLIPPED (white on black), each featuring mirrored iterations of the logo, are perhaps the most ambiguous paintings in the series. The result is an undeniably mask-like form, talismanic and uncanny. It could be interpreted as a cave painting as easily as a death mask, calling to mind Pickleman’s Icons series (which includes <a href="https://www.sculpturemilwaukee.com/jason-pickleman">Hand Heart</a> (2021) and <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/society-for-contemporary-art-collectors-sale/hourglass">Hourglass</a> (2020) among others), and his talent for inviting reassessments of the enduring symbols of humanity.Centered on the salon-style main wall of the exhibition is the most diminutive and most stunning of the paintings, BLUE JOY. Utilizing a version of the logo from the 1990’s, the letterforms dynamically fill the volume of the canvas, the “J” and the “y” wrapping cleanly around the outer edges. This single gesture is Pickleman at his best as an artist, intervening with extraordinary precision while respectfully maintaining the source material, to deliver a work that is unmistakably his own. It is the heart of the exhibition.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419244/hhria2jpathkegikr8lw.jpg"><figcaption>Courtesy Bianca Bova</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The only quasi-sculptural work, SILVER JOY, hangs on a separate wall, apart from the paintings. Composed of silver acrylic letterforms that seem to float on their mounts on gesso board, its reflective surface captures, at turns, the viewer, the space, and the companionate works in the exhibition. Few are those who can resist playing in its presence, striking a pose, snapping a selfie, or simply feeling the need to move around the work to get its full effect. With irresistible charm, it brings Pickleman’s dictum to “make time for joy” into practice.&nbsp;Tucked in a corner of the gallery on a pedestal is one final work, though one not found on the checklist. It consists of a framed sheet of Parapaque with the Joy logo cut out, alongside the logo’s three corresponding pantone swatches, with two registration marks drawn in. When asked about it, Pickleman acknowledged that he wanted to underscore the graphic design roots of the work, and added, with a grin, “I wanted to see if I still knew how to do it, too.”&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419244/rzik8qu05yvoh13kwadg.jpg"><figcaption>Courtesy The Suburban</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Pickleman, of course, was the proprietor of the studio JNL Graphic Design for over 30 years, having only recently closed his doors. His notable clients (including museums, artists, restaurants, hotels, and galleries) are too numerous to name. That Pickleman chose to respond to the work of Deskey is made all the more intriguing when his own career is considered. Along with Joy, Deskey was also responsible for the now-iconic logos of Crest toothpaste, Tide laundry detergent, and Jif peanut butter, sympathetically, among Pickleman’s most well-known commercial designs is the logo and packaging for the wildly popular popcorn brand Skinny Pop.&nbsp;Once, as he gamely accompanied me on an errand in my favorite grocery store, Devon Market, Pickleman remarked on his dislike of grocery shopping.&nbsp;“Someone designed every item in this store. There are so many decisions sitting on these shelves,” he lamented.&nbsp;Making time for JOY pays respect to those decisions, to the designers and artists whose legacies surround us. For Suburban owner Michelle Grabner to invite Pickleman to exhibit this body of work in a gallery whose previous exhibitions include those by Luc Tuymans and Wade Guyton places him squarely where he belongs: in the canon of great contemporary painters who have devoted themselves to excavating the residue of daily life to illuminate its most intimate corners.&nbsp;Making time for JOY is on view through August 31st, 2023 at The Suburban, 723 S. 5th Street, Milwaukee, WI. For more information visit <a href="http://www.thesuburban.org">thesuburban.org</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Making time for JOY – An Artist's Exhibition Pays Tribute to Design

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419193/bho2fzobfud8b3eb9ifz.jpg"><figcaption>Pictured: The founding members of ARC Gallery were Dalia Alekna, Jan Arnow, Gerda Meyer Bernstein, Judy Lerner Brice, Ellen Ferar, Imfriede Hogan Lagerkvist, Maxine Lowe, Mary Min, Kay Rosen, Civia Rosenberg Gina Rosenblum, Sara Skolnik Rosenbluth, Laurel Ross, Myra Toth, and Monika Wulfers. Image from the 2nd Annual Members’ Exhibition.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;By JACQUELINE LEWISIt is no small thing to make a gallery last for five decades, and this year ARC Gallery &amp; Educational Foundation is turning 50. To celebrate the history of one of the country’s oldest co-ops of its kind, ARC has a fall exhibition planned, as well as opportunities to invite the art community and the general public to ensure its next 50 years.&nbsp;Recently we spoke with current ARC president Cheri Reif Naselli, who contacted ARC founding member Gerda Meyer Bernstein – the main force for the formation of ARC (Artists (in)&nbsp;Residence&nbsp;Chicago) five decades ago. Not long after her own 100th birthday in January of this year, Gerda shared some recollections with Cheri about ARC's founding and said she was compelled to start ARC because at the time, there were no places around Chicago for women to show their work. "I felt there were huge things we could accomplish together."&nbsp;When Gerda first started what would become ARC, she gathered a group of just 7–10 artists. Some came and went, Gerda remembers. She says there were good memories but it was a fair amount of trouble starting at the time, because there was not a lot of strong interest that matched her own. Today Gerda is still making art and she plans to have work in ARC's 50th Anniversary Show planned for this fall.&nbsp;*ARC was first opened in 1973 at 226 E. Ontario, across from the original location of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Started by a group of women artists when there were a lot of changes were happening around the country, local artists were starting to form their own galleries and build a thriving art community in Chicago. Today ARC is based in the vibrant West Town neighborhood. In the ‘70s, amidst a climate of ending sexism and conformity, ARC provided a professional exhibition space for women artists who were left out of the mainstream art scene and the commercial gallery system. Women across the country were compelled to overtly challenge the dominance of men in the art world, and in society, through art. The gallery, still operated as a cooperative nonprofit run by its women-led membership, continues to maintain strong links with its legacy of feminist art leadership through the cultivation an inclusive and welcoming space for exhibitions, workshops, and discussion. Via the women-run space, ARC exhibits work by artists of all genders.&nbsp;ARC is the only surviving, not-for-profit, women’s cooperative gallery in the Midwest and has exhibited the work of over 6,000 unique artists from around the globe. Exhibition opportunities for innovative and emerging artists exist today to an extent unheard of for women 50 years ago. ARC’s current and ongoing commitment gives exposure and support to countless artists through mentoring and by donating exhibition space to underserved regardless of gender-identity to help subsidize the costs of solo exhibitions.&nbsp;To publicly celebrate ARC Gallery will mount a 50th Anniversary Exhibition showcasing artwork from past and present gallery members. Current exhibition dates to plan for are September 28-October 21, 2023, with an opening during West Town Art Walk on September 29. Exhibiting artists will lead discussions at a special reception and speak about their art and the impact that ARC has had on their career and life. ARC also plans to host a lecture led by art historian Johanna Gardner-Huggert on the past 50 years of feminist art. Additionally there will be a panel of representatives from several female-run spaces and art historians discussing the future of feminist art titled “The Next 50.” Dates are still to be determined as of press time, so please check <a href="https://arcgallery.org">arcgallery.org</a> and CGN’s calendar for updates.#</body></html>

ARC Gallery at 50

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419235/cgyzmawulabjxvarwbrv.jpg"><figcaption>Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled”, 1995, Billboard. Dimensions vary with installation. One of multiple outdoor billboards installed along the CTA lines as part of Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1900s–Today. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Chicago, IL. November 2022–April 2023. © Estate of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy of Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Above: As seen at the Chicago Avenue CTA Red Line Station &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;As seen on Chicago Transit Authority Rail Platforms&nbsp;By JASON PICKLEMAN&nbsp;A horizontal black and white photo of an evenly gray sky depicts a bird flying left to right, its wings outstretched, up and down. The bird is a black silhouette—elegant, formal, and free.As seen in Chicago Transit Authority’s underground subway and on its elevated passenger train platforms, the image is located amidst conventional advertising billboards. Unlike its neighboring images that advertise legal services or fast food restaurants, the image of the flying bird is bare of any text, or any explanation. No logo. No copy. No text. Just the image of the bird, flying.Conceived by the artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres in 1995 as a multi-sited installation beyond gallery and museum walls, Chicago’s recent installation heralds and introduces the exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1900s–Today at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA). As noted by the curator of the exhibition Carla Acevedo-Yates, with Gonzalez-Torres’ work out in the city “the exhibition begins before one enters the museum.” 67 reproductions of the image are presented at over 22 CTA stations (often with more than one on display at each platform).&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419236/barckch52xezegsbsqjl.jpg"><figcaption>The fourth floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, at the entrance of the exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1900s–Today.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Measuring 60” W by 48” H, the images are printed and mounted on rigid cardboard, and then slipped into a standard billboard frame. To prevent theft, each image is stapled randomly, though unobtrusively, to the backing of the frame. As of this writing, none of them have been pilfered.&nbsp;“Untitled”, 1995, Billboard was located at the following CTA stations:&nbsp;35th-Bronzeville-IIT (Green)Adams/Wabash (Loop)Belmont (Brown, Purple, Red)Cermak-Chinatown (Red)Cermak/McCormick Place (Green)Chicago (Red)Conservatory-Central Park Drive (Green)Fullerton (Brown, Purple, Red)Garfield (Green)Garfield (Red)Grand (Red)Harold Washington Library-State/Van Buren (Loop)Howard (Purple, Red, Yellow)Logan Square (Blue)Loyola (Red)Merchandise Mart (Brown, Purple)O’Hare (Blue)Roosevelt (Red)Rosemont (Blue)Sox-35th (Red)State/Lake (Loop)Western (Brown)Western (Orange)&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419237/hweaskye6p6idacxddgt.png"><figcaption>Felix Gonzalez-Torres,“Untitled”, 1995, Billboard</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;According to the artist, the installation of the images should be exhibited in mostly diverse neighborhoods—a description accommodated by the list above. “Allowing the image, freed from the walls of the art institution and their interpretive sway, to become part of the landscape itself, thus creating the potential for more private and unmediated encounters with the work,” writes Acevedo-Yates.The billboard presentation of the black and white image of the flying bird, “Untitled”, 1995, Billboard was the last work that Felix Gonzalez-Torres conceived before he died of AIDS-related illness on January 9, 1996. As far as I can tell, the billboard(s) were not exhibited within his lifetime. It has subsequently been exhibited many times, all over the world. A partial list would include presentations in Sweden, Ghana, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Italy. In the U.S., the work has been seen in New York and Texas. All posthumously.Birds, of course, are migratory creatures; and migration is very much a part of our global humanitarian strife. Yet birds are merely hungry creatures and live irrespective of boundaries and fences. They fly and land wherever they can or want. In that sense they are emblems of freedom and independence. A poetically charged icon for any artist.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419238/hqhxpnvqysbcthbcmyu2.jpg"><figcaption>“Untitled”, 1995 as seen on the CTA randomly placed next to a conventional advertisement. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The image that comprises “Untitled”, 1995, Billboard comes from a series titled on the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation website as “Birds in Sky.” Uniquely similar, they all feature a gray sky with most often a single bird in flight. The range of clouds within many of the photos can vary considerably, as can the tonal quality of the sky. The image seen on Chicago’s transit system is one of the few whose sky/cloud/background is a remarkably neutral, even gray. The bird’s silhouette is almost perfectly symmetrical, with wings, head, and beak all clearly distinguishable.Beyond the billboard presentation, “Birds in Sky” works have been produced on many substrates and in many media: as a C-print jigsaw puzzle in a plastic bag, 1989; on paper (poster-size) and presented as stacks on the floor, free for the taking, 1992/1993; and printed as a bound 12-page booklet, “Untitled” (Passport #II), 1993, again stacked on the floor for the taking, as seen at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in the 1994 exhibition Traveling.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419239/gkstmmiy6rlpjmclcnh5.jpg"><figcaption>The loading dock door on Chicago Avenue, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;It should be mentioned that two additional installations of “Untitled”, 1995 are on display at the MCA proper: one on the MCA’s loading dock door off of Chicago Avenue, and another before greeting visitors outside the exhibition’s galleries on the MCA’s fourth floor.What attracts is the serenity of the image—it has a quiet peacefulness. And when seen on the subway next to the loud scream of colorful commercial advertising, a strangely calming and meditative effect. It is so odd to see an image on the street that isn’t selling or advertising. It is a gift.&nbsp;<blockquote>Hope is the thing with feathers—That perches in the soul—And sings the tune without the words—And never stops—at all—&nbsp;Emily Dickinson</blockquote>&nbsp;</body></html>

Felix Gonzalez-Torres  “Untitled”, 1995, Billboard

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419224/jummsju43zcntjg32sc1.jpg"><figcaption>Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup cans, 1969 from a portfolio of two screen prints on paper, 28/250. Bank of America Collection</figcaption></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEA &nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419225/x2c0pbeympqiv3dd5gef.jpg"><figcaption>Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989), Andy Warhol, 1986. Gelatin silver print, 5/10. Bank of America Collection</figcaption></figure>Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop/Works from the Bank of America Collection opened last week in suburban Glen Ellyn at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art. Typically this is the time of year when the museum opens its annual major exhibition to draw art collectors, supporters and others west of the city to this mighty museum that is part of the College of DuPage.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theccma.org/warhol">The Warhol Exhibition</a> includes 94 works from from the Bank of America Collection on loan through Bank of America’s Art in our Communities program. Spanning multiple floors and even spilling into an exterior courtyard/lawn space, there are over 11,000 sq. ft. of interactive experiences including a Biographical exhibit, Video installation, 150+ photos taken by Warhol, Children’s Print Factory, Studio 54 experience and a Central Park-inspired outdoor space where you can sip your coffee in a special Warhol exhibit themed tumbler.&nbsp;The core of the exhibition is the collection of Bank of America, but all around the works displayed in the museum's main gallery space there are biographical sections that discuss the span of Warhol's life and the arc of his phenomenal career, from his childhood in Pittsburgh to when he encountered inspirational artist contemporaries like Claes Oldenburg, to why he started Interview magazine (to curry favor and proximity with celebrities) to what led him to create The Factory. Along the way helpful wall-stickers accompany text and illustrate timelines and decades. Some works of art have also been created by artists living today who continue to be inspired by Warhol, such as a tower of Brillo-like boxes and a wall installation of famous residents of DuPage County (Tom Skilling, Jim Belushi, and Jeopardy's James Holzhouer, among many others) that is part of <a href="https://www.theccma.org/warholdupageevents">The DuPage Warhol Pop Art Challenge</a>The children's section is also back. I enjoyed this area with my children when we visited the Frida Kahlo exhibition two years ago. There is no end to the inspiration here and there are lots of fun art materials just at the right level for a creative child.&nbsp;The exhibition is up until September 10, and there are dozens of related programs and talks taking place throughout the summer, both at the museum and in the area.&nbsp;Tickets, programs and additional information may be <a href="https://www.theccma.org/warhol">found here.</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/warhol2023/">#Warhol2023</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419226/sxqduwehze3sdctxn4rh.jpg"><figcaption>At the start of the exhibition a section explores Warhol's childhood and the impact of many factors and institutions, such as his family regular attendance at church, where the religious imagery and bold colors used in various Biblical scenes may have influenced Warhol's later use of color. He also greatly admired the actress Shirley Temple and pored through celebrity magazines himself as a child when convalescing.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419227/ewmlmpbhfbdtuv5ft4k0.jpg"><figcaption>Todd Irwin, Silkscreen on board, 17" × 17" × 14", 2023. Heart and Bones Signs Hand painted Boxes, 17" × 17" x 14", 2023. These original sculptures created by Todd Irwin and Heart and Bones Signs are contemporary responses to Warhol's Brillo Box sculptures.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419228/r3s0wceyrwp8gajrbfzu.jpg"><figcaption>Various covers of Interview magazine, which Warhol founded in 1969 and led until his death in 1987. Celebrity interviews were usually unedited.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419229/y4rstqjwxzyfvjeholue.jpg"><figcaption>A view of Flowers, 1970 (left) and Sunset I–IV, 1972 (right)</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419230/xdpk8rgt5q6nubopfeof.jpg"><figcaption>Keith Haring (American, 1958-1990), Andy Mouse, 1986. Portfolio of four screenprints, 28/30. Bank of America Collection. "It's like treating him [Warhol] like he was part of American culture, like Mickey Mouse was. That he himself had become a symbol, a sign for something complete, universally understandable. He sort of made this niche for himself in the culture. As much as Mickey Mouse had." – Keith Haring</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419231/gsquwvhbjr8yizjequjd.jpg"><figcaption>Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, 1980. Portfolio of ten screenprints on Lenox Museum Board, 127/200. Bank of America Collection. The Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century portfolio was Warhol's first collaboration with Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. In most instances, Warhol would simultaneously render the same subject matter on canvas and paper. For each of these series, the artist and his dealer would amass long lists of possible items for inclusion and would then whit tle them down to the ideal number of ten images. Warhol referred to his Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century series as the "Jewish geniuses" project. Ranging from the well-known Gertrude Stein and George Gershwin to the relatively obscure Louis Brandeis and Martin Buber, these portraits were based on preexisting images.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419232/srcigm0dqhihtuujatqc.jpg"><figcaption>Geoff Bevington, DuPage Pop Art Challenge 2023. In the spirit of Andy Warhol's fascination with fame, celebrity, and icons we challenged each town in DuPage County to identify the four most famous people in their community. &nbsp;Bevington then created digital Warhol-style portraits based on photos that were provided, and they were blown up into murals to be proudly displayed in their respective region. Each area used different criteria, some chose home-town heroes, other veered to historic founders, and some went for fame, but all resulted in civic pride through public art.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Vivid and Educational Exhibition of Works by Andy Warhol on View at Cleve Carney Museum of Art

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419213/wiwbha1woxa1ng9pmxhm.png"></figure>June 1: Art Encounter KaleidoscopeOn June 1 Art Encounter celebrates 45 years of service as well as its mission: to educate, empower, and connect people of all ages and backgrounds through meaningful engagement with visual art. At their benefit event, Kaleidoscope, they will honor EXPO CHICAGO founder Tony Karman at the Greenhouse Loft, Chicago while also recognizing Jeff Morthorst, Activities Director, and his team at the&nbsp;Center for Independent Futures&nbsp;as Community Partner of the Year.You can attend the event as well as bid on Art Encounter's art auction and take home pieces by renowned local artists in a variety of media, from painting and ceramics to printmaking and photography, all while supporting a great cause. Works by the following artists are part of the auction: Candida Alvarez, Dan Addington, Terry Karpowicz, James McNeill&nbsp;Mesplé, Corey Postiglione, Carlos Rolón, René Romero Schuler, Seymour Rosofsky and many others.<a href="https://e.givesmart.com/events/slO/i/">Bid online or donate here.</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/art-encounter-spring-benefit-2023-kaleidoscope">Full details here</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419214/l5kpbkpibk7y2fjwsqwu.jpg"></figure>June 2: Visionary Ball 2023Intuit's annual Visionary Ball happens on June 2. Hosted by Ball Chair Lionel Rabb and honoring Visionary Awardee Dr. Charles Smith, Visionary Ball 2023 will unite the worldwide community of artists, art appreciators and advocates for Intuit. All proceeds support the museum’s ability to offer outsider and self-taught art exhibitions and programs to students, teachers and audiences around the world for free or at low cost.In-person event: 5–8:30 p.m., House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn StreetZoom Livestream program: 7–7:40 p.m.<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/visionary-ball-2023">Full details here</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419215/ioblxhcwnx3f54zqhgdc.png"></figure>June 8: DARKROOMThe Museum of Contemporary Photography's annual benefit, DARKROOM, takes place on&nbsp;June 8&nbsp;at the Columbia College Chicago Student Center. There is a VIP Champagne Hour: 5:30-6:30 p.m. and the Benefit and Auction: 6:30-9 p.m.The benefit includes MoCP's renowned photography auction featuring important works by contemporary artists from around the world and one-of-a-kind art experiences. Event proceeds support essential MoCP exhibition, education, and community engagement programs.Bob Thall is this year's Silver Camera Awardee and Catherine Edelman of Catherine Edelman Gallery is this year's DARKROOM Honoree.&nbsp;Jill Hopkins is this year's&nbsp;DJ &amp; emcee. The <a href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=c9a7499103&amp;e=d76e1da35a">auction website</a> is open and up until noon on Friday, June 9. Sandro Miller is also offering a portrait sitting, and there is a one-week stay in a villa in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico courtesy.&nbsp;Tickets are $175 for the benefit and $500 for the VIP portion.<a href="https://www.mocp.org/darkroom-2023/">Full details here.</a>&nbsp;Top image: a past DARKROOM preview event&nbsp;</body></html>

June Art Benefits Support Local Organizations

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419213/tvl9nqz1o6socabxexym.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By Ginny Van AlyeaThe Randolph Street Market is BACK this weekend with probably their biggest summer kick off ever (so far) since the 2023 season marks 20 years. The summer markets take place the last weekend of each month and feature vendor booths both indoors and out. You may attend searching for something in particular but it’s more likely you’ll find furniture and the best vintage fashion and decorative arts you didn’t even know you needed. Opening weekend is always a party, and this year there will be eight bands, three DJs and several food trucks. The people-watching is also epic.&nbsp;Founder Sally Schwartz will tell you that while 20 years is certainly worth celebrating, making it this long was not inevitable. The market is at its heart all about creativity, and that’s what has kept it going all these years through economic ups and downs and heart-stopping events like the pandemic. “When I embarked upon this journey in 2003,“ says Schwartz, “I wanted to create a Chicago version of my favorite antique flea market — London’s Portobello Road — and the Chicago Antique Market was born outside on historic Randolph street and inside Michael Jordan’s basketball gym. Customers came from far and wide to grab our treasures, everyone was making money hand over fist. I fully expected to be cashing out in about 3-5 years.”Times changed quickly recalls Schwartz. Though there was a lot of new money in the city, the taste was new too. Antique meant old and old was definitely out. Schwartz admits to once cleaning the parking lot herself after a show to save $100. Today, Schwartz‘s market is known around the world, and she’s managed to keep vintage fresh and appealing. 20 years on the Randolph Street Antique Market is sitting pretty, Schwartz says, because the West Loop draws the most affluent 25-50 residential demographic in the city, buyers who are eager to express their own style sustainably.View the full market schedule and list of vendors and their specialties <a href="https://randolphstreetmarket.com/2023/05/2023-summer-markets/">here</a>. Happy summer and happy treasure hunting!<a href="https://randolphstreetmarket.com/event/randolph-street-market-may-2023/">Buy tickets</a><ul><li>10am-5pm each day</li><li>Kids under 12 always FREE!</li></ul>PLEASE NOTE: There will no longer be a trolley shuttle from Michigan Avenue due to the increasingly poor reliability of the trolley service due to the congestion on Michigan Avenue and cross town traffic.&nbsp;</body></html>

Randolph Street Market Turns 20 and Throws a Party Memorial Day Weekend

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419193/lmq8k6fkfuy3elh2b6nq.png"></figure>&nbsp;Southwest Michigan is a scenic and creative destination just a short drive from Chicago’s city limits but refreshingly a world away. On the other side of Lake Michigan, the area is known for charming small towns and beautiful beaches. Its unique art scene offers some stellar exhibitions and dynamic institutions. Now that the start of summer is upon us, a day or stay in Michigan is on the list!&nbsp;– GV&nbsp;New Buffalo, over the border from Michigan City (which is in Indiana), is a historic Lake Michigan beach town that has seen rapid development in recent years as many Chicagoans opt to use the freedom of remote work, or retirement, as an excuse to spend more time in Michigan, just 70 miles from Chicago’s downtown. Plans are in the works for <a href="https://kavigupta.com/Information/">Kavi Gupta</a> to open a gallery outpost in summer 2024, just a mile from the late artist Roger Brown’s home and studio. <a href="https://www.saic.edu/academics/libraries-special-collections/roger-brown/roger-brown-his-life-and-art/new-buffalo-michigan">The River Pavilion and Guest House</a>, built in 1977 with Brown’s partner George Veronda, now hosts a year-round residency for students of the School of the Art Institute.East of New Buffalo is the town of Three Oaks, a “picker’s” dream for sourcing vintage finds and antiques. Several galleries are located here as well. <a href="https://www.arbor3arts.com">Arbor3arts</a> opened in 2020 and celebrates contemporary female artists creating affordable art and working in a range of mediums. Many have Chicago connections, from Jessica Tampas to Janis Kanter and Maggie Meiners. Next door is <a href="https://newbuffaloexplored.com/shop/trilogy-antiques-design/">Trilogy Antiques</a>; across the street is <a href="https://judyferraragallery.com">Judy Ferrara Gallery</a>.&nbsp;Travel north along the lakefront through Union Pier, Lakeside, Harbert and Sawyer along the Red Arrow Highway where many side trips&nbsp; and diversons beckon. <a href="https://newbuffaloexplored.com/shop/judith-racht-gallery/">Judith Racht</a> has long led the way for serious art in the area; her eponymous gallery’s focus has been on Outsider Art for years. <a href="https://localcolorartgallery.com">Local Color Gallery</a>, housed in a converted barn in Union Pier, has featured local artists since the ‘80s.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419194/xrk4pwdmcf2ucxjwzrbw.jpg"><figcaption>The Krasl Art Center and Richard Hunt's sculptures</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The <a href="https://krasl.org">Krasl Art Center</a> in St. Joseph is a hub for contemporary art, showcasing a range of exhibitions, workshops, and events. They host the lively Art Fair on the Bluff each July. KAC also publishes an online Sculpture Map featuring public art throughout St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Two soaring sculptures by Richard Hunt, who has a studio nearby, greet visitors to KAC.Saugatuck and Douglas are popular all year long, in part because there are so many galleries and creative opportunities. Through its affiliation with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the more than 100 year-old <a href="https://www.ox-bow.org">Ox-Bow</a> offers one and two-week credit and non-credit courses for beginning, intermediate, and advanced students. The <a href="https://sc4a.org">Saugatuck Center for the Arts</a> focuses on contemporary art that engages with social and cultural issues.&nbsp;And on the “Art Coast of Michigan” in Douglas <a href="https://jpettergalleries.com">J. Petter Galleries</a> blends wine with art, featuring a collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, jewelry, and glass plus boutique wines, artisan cheeses, and hand-poured chocolates in the onsite wine bar and shop. The gallery is hosting several events this summer in honor of its <a href="https://jpettergalleries.com/show/j-petter-galleries-50th-anniversary-gallery-stroll">50th anniversary</a>.Many Chicago-based artists have ties to the area, such as Michael Hedges, whose colorful painting fills out the Lower Peninsula of Michigan pictured at the top of this page. Candida Alvarez opened a studio in Baroda, MI during the pandemic. And Anna Kunz has a home/studio in Buchanan.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419194/luqcuu6xtkkfnnasnplm.jpg"><figcaption>A the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Gardens</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The immensley impressive <a href="https://www.meijergardens.org">Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Gardens</a> in Grand Rapids is conveniently right off of I-96. The welcome center’s mezmerizing figurative marble walls were sculpted by world reknown artist Jaume Plensa (pictured at left). The sculpture park, inside and out, amazed at each turn. Nina Akamu’s large scale bronze horse from 1998 was as captivating as the history behind the commission. Additional sculptures by Deborah Butterfield, Roxy Paine, Keith Haring, and many others invite visitors to wander the grounds and enjoy fabulous, accessible works meant to be enjoyed in all seasons and by everyone who visits.#&nbsp;</body></html>

Seeking Art Across The Lake: Southwest Michigan

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419192/wzdjhu5rmpcr1lmzyfen.jpg"><figcaption>Miller &amp; Shellabarger installed at (northern) Western exhibitions</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419193/yuugfyewvald9ezv9gnf.jpg"><figcaption>WHO Modern</figcaption></figure>SKOKIEIn downtown Skokie, north of Chicago but still on the city’s CTA, <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/northern-western-exhibitions">(northern)Western Exhibitions</a> is Western Exhibitions’ second location. Its primary space is on Chicago Ave. in West Town. The Skokie space will have around five specially curated exhibitions a year featuring works by artists from the gallery’s 20-year history. The second exhibition at the space to date, on view through May 6, features work by married artist collaborators Miller &amp; Shellabarger, who use self-portraiture, laborious material processes, and considered craftsman ship to meditate on love and death.&nbsp;An exhibition of stone figures and mud drawings by <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/lilli-carre-s-stone-figures-mud-drawing">Lilli Carré</a> is on view through August 13.&nbsp;The gallery is one half of a renovated single-floor bow truss&nbsp;building that is also part store – occupied by the also-newly opened <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/who-modern">WHO Modern</a>, a mid-century modern-focused vintage source co-run by Donald Schmaltz, formerly of auction houses Toomey &amp; Co. and HINDMAN, and art collector Zach Williams, who owns the building. Who Modern offers rare and unusual decorative objects, furniture, and art from the mid-20th C. to today, featuring&nbsp;iconic designs by Ettore Sottsass, Angelo Mangiarotti, Enzo Mari, Poul, Kjaerholm and Hans Wegner, shown alongside contemporary designers. Williams says he will add modern and outsider art to the mix as well. By sharing the building, the two spaces complement each other’s offerings and can draw from the mix of visitors who come for art as well as vintage design.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419194/iuknnfndagfyzefqfg4q.jpg"><figcaption>Image: Sally Michel, The Baumbachs, oil on canvas, 40” x 50”, &nbsp;Anne Loucks Gallery</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419195/refzdvsf0fhfeun2q9i4.jpg"><figcaption>Vivian Maier</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;GLENCOE<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/anne-loucks-gallery">Anne Loucks Gallery</a> at the corner of Green Bay Rd. and Park Ave. in Glencoe opened in 2001 and specializes in contemporary American painting, photography and works on paper by emerging and mid-career artists in a range of styles and mediums, most notably abstract art and rural landscapes. Many, but not all, gallery artists come from the surrounding suburbs.&nbsp;Down the same block is <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/alan-koppel-gallery-north">Alan Koppel Gallery’s</a> second location, which brings bring modern and contemporary masterworks as well as furniture and design to the North Shore. Koppel has long been in River North on Dearborn St. Recent North Shore exhibitions have included <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/diane-arbus-a-secret-about-a-secret">Diane Arbus: A Secret about a Secret</a>, and <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/photographs-by-vivian-maier">The Photography of Vivian Maier</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419196/xw6mknwilmzlyllmpqen.jpg"><figcaption>2022 Exhibit Fiber • Fashion • Feminism in the Center Gallery at the Art Center Highland Park</figcaption></figure>HIGHLAND PARK<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/the-art-center-highland-park--3">The Art Center Highland Park</a> is a suburban cultural center, presenting changing, simultaneous exhibitions in multiple galleries and featuring local, international, emerging, and established artists as well as community-focused programming. Other events taking place include annual benefits, monthly artist talks, collaborations with other local cultural arts providers and public arts classes. In 2022 The Art Center devoted select programming to the 4th of July shooting in Highland Park.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419196/n6lxb9phay5eezshvcbm.jpg"><figcaption>Art Post</figcaption></figure>NORTHBROOK<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/art-post-gallery">Art Post Gallery</a> opened in the 1980s. Originally a framing and art supply store in downtown Northbrook – Art Post – current owner Chris Bates purchased the store and changed the name to “Art Post Gallery” and immediately upgraded the framing, eliminated the art supplies and began building a collection of original art.&nbsp;In 1987, she moved to Carillon Square in Glenview and expanded the business.&nbsp;She moved the gallery to its present location in 2012. The gallery is set to host an exhibition featuring lost photographs of <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/the-lost-weekend-the-photography-of-may-pang-candid-photos-of-john-lennon">John Lennon</a> over the course of one weekend in June.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For more Suburban art spaces <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/districts/suburbs-midwest">click here</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

Suburban Spotlight: Skokie, Glencoe, Highland Park and Northbrook

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419193/fivmlhraplvl04xnxaap.jpg"><figcaption>Diasporal Rhythms home tour guests on a visit to collector and Diasporal rhythms co-founder Patric McCoy’s South Side home.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By JACQUELINE LEWISWhen art collector Patric McCoy spoke with CGN 10 years ago, he shared the story of how a collecting group based on the South Side of Chicago had started a decade prior. Diasporal Rhythms, he explained, represented 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.”This year Diasporal Rhythms is marking 20 years of exhibiting and preserving art from the African Diaspora for the people of Chicago, and they have plans to celebrate in a big way.&nbsp;Founded in 2003 Diasporal Rhythms is the result of a spirited panel discussion at the South Side Art Center’s Collector’s Forum regarding the need to expand the appreciation of contemporary art to include the artists of the African Diaspora. Founders McCoy, Daniel Parker, Carol Briggs and Joan Crisler saw a need to create more equitable opportunities and a space for Black artists to showcase their art and access further opportunities. In the years since Diasporal Rhythms has consistently worked to provide programs and opportunities that amplify the voices of Black artists and collectors, all while providing a platform for art enthusiasts of all levels to engage learn, and network.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419193/aey8qicwfn7igx5ccuco.jpg"><figcaption>A collector describes the art in her home on a Home Tour</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Kate Lorenz, the former Executive Director of Hyde Park Arts Center sums up 20 years of impact in Chicago:“Diasporal Rhythms has helped create a deep, vast, and authentic network of reciprocal support and admiration between artists and the community that defies categorization. As mainstream arts organizations and philanthropic organizations are called on to address racial justice and embrace community as part of their mission and work going forward, there is much to learn from Diasporal Rhythms.”Diasporal Rhythms will present Perspective 2023 at Navy Pier to commemorate their anniversary. Perspective occurs yearly but this year’s edition will specifically honor and celebrate 20 years. It will run from October 6, 2023–January 31, 2024. An auction fundraiser is planned for October 15 &amp; 23, and an Intimate Spaces Home Tour for October 7 &amp; 8.Tickets and details are at <a href="https://diasporalrhythms.org">diasporalrhythms.org</a>#&nbsp;</body></html>

Preserving Art from the African Diaspora: Diasporal Rhythms Celebrates its 20th Anniversary

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419198/q7v7zkxx5zxxvjmzwq3g.png"></figure>&nbsp;By BIANCA BOVAFlatfiles have an inherent allure. There is a certain kind of person (often, unsurprisingly, art collectors) that tend to own them, that treat them as pieces of domestic furniture. Expensive, heavy, and sporting an industrial appearance incompatible with a substantial array of interior design aesthetics, their presence signals that their utility is so necessary, so practical to their owner, as to be worth the trouble. To own a flatfile is to be envied, at least in certain circles.&nbsp;The archivists, the registrars, and the simply nosy among us know the thrill of sliding open their drawers. Their pristine steel exterior, evocative of the golden age of downtown offices and high-heeled secretaries, just as often gives way to perfect organization as it does belie something far more exhilarating and chaotic. This is, after all, where the things loved sufficiently to be preserved, but which, for reasons of taste, vanity, or simply capacity, haven’t received the honor of being put on display are housed. To dig in the flatfiles is to peer into the psyche of their owner.&nbsp;Flatfiles are never merely storage. When a gallery maintains them, art dealers make their own equally telling promises: I just had to have this in my inventory. This is a great work, I just haven’t had the right exhibition for it. Come and see this, I’ve been saving it to show to the right collector. Being granted access to them becomes a quietly coveted marker of status, a nod to the deserving nature of those being led into the back room.So when a gallery builds a not insubstantial part of their program around keeping well-stocked flatfiles, it's worth taking note; and when they mount an exhibition that frees the work from the drawers and lets it live (at least for a little while) on the walls, as the Chicago gallery <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/goldfinch">Goldfinch</a> has done with their recently mounted and simply titled exhibition A Flatfiles Show, it's certainly worth having a look.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419199/l5jdmvbuycsjyegexkss.png"></figure>&nbsp;Goldfinch’s Flatfiles Program began in 2017, the year following the gallery’s opening. The program stocks work across painting, drawing, collage, printmaking, photography, mixed media, and (rather unconventionally) also includes modestly sized sculpture. The available works on paper range in scale, with dimensions varying from 4.3 x 6.8 inches to 40 x 38 inches. Pricing comes in at no less than $200 and no more than $1,500, a deliberate scale that gallerist Claudine Isé notes is, “geared towards beginning collectors, art consultants, and anyone looking to find contemporary artworks that are accessibly priced.”&nbsp;Unfortunately, the flatfiles are not open for perusal during gallery hours. Rather, interested viewers must browse an online database on <a href="https://website-artlogicwebsite0761.artlogic.net/store/artworks/">Goldfinch’s website</a>, and prearrange for works to be pulled for viewing at a private appointment. This makes the current exhibition, which is hung salon-style with new works rotated in each week, all the more pleasurable to stroll through. Nearly every artist included in the Flatfiles Program has work on view in the show, from the more established (Cameron Harvey, Kuras &amp; MacKenzie) to the emerging (Madeline Galluci, Mara Baker).&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419201/c1higfhw9ukr4igcoya8.png"></figure>&nbsp;By taking this broad approach, the show offers not just an opportunity to browse works viewers might not otherwise see in person, but provides a capsule version of what the gallery is about. The hand of the artist is almost always visible in the works in A Flatfiles Show; the works themselves often come across as cerebral or abject, delicate without crossing into decorative. Taken as a whole, it's a keener, more condensed version of Ise’s vision for the gallery’s overall program.&nbsp;To that end, it’s worth making your way to the space not just for the Flatfiles show, but to see two additional exhibitions currently on view, that exemplify the tenets of the gallery just as well: Irene Wa’s survey of ceramic sculptures and drawings that spring from the Mexican artist’s recent study of diphonic singing, Crisálida de sal and Sarah Leuchtner’s striking installation of three new sculptural drawings, Sequential Escapes. All three exhibitions promise great rewards for time devoted to close looking, and a worthwhile way to spend a Sunday afternoon.&nbsp;View Goldfinch's CGN listing <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/goldfinch">here</a>#</body></html>

Affordable Treasure in the Flatfiles at Goldfinch

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419193/zhz2wmvrfvc0o1l9z4pe.jpg"><figcaption>The Spring/Summer 2023 Issue of CGN.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAEvery morning Lin Brehmer proclaimed on the radio, “It’s great to be alive.”We each understand that life is short, but we feel it acutely when we lose someone or when time seems to move too fast. In January Brehmer, DJ here in Chicago at WXRT for decades, died. His death from cancer was one of too many recent reminders that what he said on air every day is indeed worth remembering. I listened to him on the radio for half my life. Lin was known for staying out late at concerts until the wee hours and then waking up practically in the middle of the night to go back on the air at 6am. He loved music, art, literature, the Cubs, and Chicago. He had lots of friends. I admired him so much. His time was too short, but he made it count.&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;So what can we recommit to doing while we’re here for such a short time? Looking through past issues of CGN, I came across a <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2016/8/collector-jason-pickleman-s-creative-life">2016 interview</a> with designer, artist, collector and all-around art lover Jason Pickleman, who said then that art is a kind of memory device. Art can remind us of the past, and it can outlast our short time on earth. He admitted then to buying almost everything for his collection at first sight. If it piques his interest, he buys it immediately. He does not hem, haw, think, or research. He abides by a sort of “seize the art” motto. His words are also a reminder to enjoy art as well as life. Life is short. Art lasts longer.&nbsp;In this spring issue, we record how fast time flies. EXPO is 10. ARC Gallery is 50. Richard Hunt is 87. We aim to capture stories about working to make a difference through art. Each person we interviewed expressed a gratitude for being part of this community as well as a wish to creatively give back to it, either by creating, celebrating or collecting art every precious day.&nbsp;William Lieberman is both a dealer and a collector committed to supporting living artists. Artist <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2023/3/the-many-colors-of-anna-kunz">Anna Kunz</a> talks about depicting relationships through color and her pride of being from Chicago all her life. MCA Director Madeleine Grynstezjn makes the case for Chicago’s gift to the art world right now. We also share insights from five art world leaders who are each making new things happen in 2023 and beyond.&nbsp;Through the end of the summer there are anniversaries to celebrate, road trips to take and exhibitions to explore, hopefully with someone you’re close to. Maybe you will stay up a little later and wake up a little earlier to do it all. Through art we have the opportunity to glimpse the past, make new memories and make each day count.&nbsp;Happy spring. It’s great to be alive.&nbsp;#This letter is from the Spring 2023 issue of CGN. More stories from the print magazine will be posted online in the coming weeks. To subscribe to the print edition <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">please click here.</a>Note: the Spring cover features art by Anna Kunz: The Tide, 2021, 66” x 60”, Acrylic on canvas. photo: Dario Lisagne NYC&nbsp;</body></html>

Spring 2023 Publisher's Letter: It's Great to Be Alive

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419183/ijmptmz6lazrfysszyzy.jpg"><figcaption>Candida Alvarez, Zip Me Up, Courtesy of James Prinz Photography</figcaption></figure>right: art by Ivelisse JiménezTwo Chicago-based artists have been commissioned to create new works at <a href="https://www.fashionoutletsofchicago.com/TheCollection">THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion</a>, a multifaceted contemporary art program located in an unconventional setting: within Macerich’s Fashion Outlets of Chicago in suburban Rosemont, IL. On site are 19 permanent commissions as well as a rotating exhibition series. Other artists with work on site to date include Daniel Arsham, Derrick Adams, Matthew Hoffman, and more.&nbsp;The program’s latest site-specific installation is a two-story abstract mural by Puerto Rican-American artist Candida Alvarez. “Much like clothes in the closet that we love and pull out to wear from time to time, ‘zip me up’ is a return to, and remix of, an earlier painting of a dahlia flower that lived on a Chicago rooftop,” said Alvarez. “This commission by Fashion Outlets was a wonderful opportunity to dive back into my own archive and remix this painting to give it a bold, evocative new life.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419184/wqmuuuaalklduiyh2z3n.jpg"><figcaption>More rose than crimson by Ivelisse Jimenez. &nbsp;Courtesy of James Prinz Photography</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;A new rotating exhibition, featuring sculptural works by Puerto Rican artist Ivelisse Jiménez, is also now on view. “Fading Through Gradations” will fill THE COLLECTION’s three rotating exhibition cases through May 2023. Playing upon the experience of color and its afterimage as an element that produces constant change for our eyes, Jiménez’s works speak to the transformative space of process and the transitory merging of traces.&nbsp;</body></html>

Where Art Meets Fashion: The Collection's New Commissions

<html><head></head><body>There is no shortage of love and heart-themed art in the world, and we're leaning into the sweetest of days by sharing the following works of art with you today on Valentine's Day!&nbsp;XO<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419167/pkkswqchesks4sfowsfr.webp"><figcaption><a href="https://tonyfitzpatrick.co/collections/store/products/the-heart-of-chicago">Tony Fitzpatrick</a>, The Heart of Chicago Poster</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419167/tci3crszpyypbouz1snt.jpg"><figcaption>Margaret Wharton, Valentine, 1978, chairs in snow. <a href="https://jeanalbanogallery.com/artists/margaret-wharton/">Jean Albano Gallery.</a></figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419168/jtlwwylx4jms5rhjdc5t.jpg"><figcaption>SAORI AND MOSSIMO HOLDING HANDS, AMALFI, ITALY, 2007archival pigment print 20” x 20”. &nbsp;<a href="http://loucksgallery.com/artists#/rodney-smith/">Anne Loucks Gallery</a></figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419169/gfw0xsn2gntzpdjcelb5.jpg"><figcaption>The National Museum of Mexican Art's Gift Shop, <a href="https://national-museum-of-mexican-art.square.site">The Tienda Tzintzuntzán</a>, has an array of unique gifts perfect for your best friend or loved one.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419170/geobmwpixf3q3gobgqzz.jpg"><figcaption>James Tissot, How Happy I Could be with Either,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.expressiongalleries.com/19th-century-artists/tissot"> Expression Gallery of Fine Art</a></figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Happy Valentine's Day to Art Lovers

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419155/jxk46iqxdjct90heymof.jpg"><figcaption>Installation view of The Observers featuring John Opera at DOCUMENT, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist and DOCUMENT, Chicago, IL.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By BIANCA BOVABuying art—despite what the instagram art market “gurus” that seem to proliferate by the day would have you believe—is not a privilege reserved for the moneyed few. Certainly if your ambition is to own a Gerhard Richter or a Claude Monet (or, for now, an Anna Weyant), you will be boxed out unless your checkbook, your existing collection, and your connections all pass inspection. If your ambition is to simply build a meaningful collection of works that reward you for living with them, that remains achievable. Determining an overall budget for collecting and a spending ceiling for individual acquisitions is a practical first step, as this will be invaluable in determining where you can realistically expect to acquire work.&nbsp;If your range falls at $5,000–$10,000, the good news is that most mid-size galleries will have some work in their inventory that fits in your budget. The work you acquire will have a reasonable likelihood of appreciation, and you will be supporting a living artist whose career you will have the pleasure of following for years to come.&nbsp;If you plan to buy from galleries, the first order of business is identifying what galleries in the appropriate tier of the market have a program that suits your interests. By way of recommendation, in my view the best gallery in Chicago is DOCUMENT, led by its founder Aron Gent and gallery partner Sibylle Friche. The smartest, chicest program in town by a mile, it encompasses energizing young artists like Kiah Celeste and Gordon Hall alongside artists whose careers have grown during their tenure with the gallery including John Opera and Sara Grenberger Rafferty, while still creating opportunities for experimentation by established artists like Barbara Kasten, and space for market darlings like Paul Mpagi Sepuya. The start of the year also marked the opening of a second DOCUMENT location in Lisbon, Portugal, one of the most undeniably intriguing market expansions of a gallery its size globally.&nbsp;You might also get into the habit of browsing fundraising auctions. It has become increasingly common in the past few years for institutions and nonprofits to partner with both major houses (Sotheby’s, Christies, Phillips) as well as independent platforms (Bidpal, Artsy, and once upon a time, Paddle8). Oftentimes the works in these auctions have expansive value ranges, with some lots starting bidding at under $1,000 and others starting bidding at over $100,000. Depending on where the auction is administered and by whom, as well as the nonprofit status of the beneficiary, you may also find that the price you pay remains lower than in a traditional auction, as buyer’s premiums and some taxes may be waived. Doing your due diligence will pay off in this area.&nbsp;If you have social relationships with artists, or you are interested in one sufficiently enough to request and be granted a studio visit, you might also acquire works directly from an artist’s studio. Pricing may be more discretionary in this area. That said, I do not condone acquiring works directly from artists when it is done to intentionally circumvent their galleries. Art dealers work incredibly hard and bear the burden of ever-increasing overhead, and they do not deserve to be cut out of sales in the name of anti-market moral righteousness or by cheapskate collectors. Proceed with caution.&nbsp;Art fairs are another area of the market that is often miscategorized as inaccessible to collectors with modest budgets. When attending major fairs, be on the lookout for young gallery and emerging artist focused segments; Art Basel’s Statements section, or EXPO Chicago’s EXPOSURE section, for instance. Smaller fairs–frequently held as satellites to major fairs–like those put on by the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) are often excellent, and you’ll find the dealers are apt to engage in conversation and invest time in getting to know new collectors in this setting.&nbsp;If your budget and individual acquisition ceiling hew closer to $5,000 and under, editions can be an excellent entree into collecting. Editioned artwork is typically priced at a fraction of the market value of primary artwork by the same artists (take note, this is naturally reflected in its value retention and appreciation as well). Editions may be available through an artist’s gallery, through nonprofit organizations (often as a fundraising endeavor) or through publishers.&nbsp;Printed Matter’s current catalog is a reputable and expansive resource for this type of acquisition. It includes works from such art historically important artists as Lawrence Weiner, Jenny Holzer, and Sterling Ruby beginning at a couple hundred dollars. Their overall inventory of editioned works ranges from as little as $5 (a snap-bracelet by Taiwanese artist Son Ni) to $15,000 (a print by Richard Prince). If you’re in New York, a browse around their primary location in Chelsea or their publication-focused second location on St. Mark's Place can make for a satisfying afternoon, and you’re unlikely to leave empty-handed.&nbsp;“I don’t have a budget for acquiring art” is one of those beguiling phrases that contains a polarity when invoked by those at the very top of the market and those at the very bottom. For those in the latter category, don’t despair. If you have a sufficiently developed eye and are willing to put in the legwork, there are always thrift stores, garage sales, and church rummage sales. I’ve come across works by Richard Haas, Peter Sarkisian, and Morris Barazani in just this fashion. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you get a thrill and a bargain.&nbsp;For the more intrepid, there are also the depths of internet sale-by-owner sites. A habitual 2am trawler of the “art” categories on eBay and Craigslist myself, my sleepless efforts have yielded everything from a Sophie Grinbarg painting bearing labels from inclusion in a 1937 exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, to a full mint-condition Meissen Porcelain Monkey Band, to a print of a tiger–from an edition of 100!–released by Tony Tasset at the age of 12 (of the aforementioned, I only acquired one, but a desire to maintain some pretense of financial responsibility and good taste prevents me from revealing which).&nbsp;There is a great deal of art in the world, and always more being made. Paying attention, learning your own taste, and knowing your place in the market remain a solid foundation for building a collection that, at any price point, can hold great personal and artistic value.&nbsp;#&nbsp;Completely new to collecting? Have a very modest budget? Start here:• <a href="https://hi-buddy.org">BUDDY</a>A storefront offering editions, publications, and art from predominantly Chicago-based emerging artists, located on the ground floor of the Chicago Cultural Center.&nbsp;&nbsp;• <a href="https://www.saic.edu/life-at-saic/campus-life-and-involvement/student-art-sales">SAIC Biannual Art Sales</a>We all have those friends who purchased work from Sterling Ruby’s graduate studio, and later sold it to put their kids through college. If you have a great eye, you might acquire work by an artist you will never again be able to afford. At the very least, you’ll be supporting the next generation of artists.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

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