<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419183/zf4zieer7ecethcokkop.jpg"><figcaption>Anna Kunz, UNSEEING GREEN, 2021, 66” x 60,” acrylic on canvas. photo: Dario Lasagni NYC &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;This interview is CGN's spring 2023 cover story. To subscribe to the print edition <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">please click here.</a>&nbsp;By Alison Reilly&nbsp;In 2022, Anna Kunz stepped down as Associate Professor in the Art and Art History department at Columbia College. Throughout her 20 years at the school, she mentored many young artists as they began their careers. As part of her legacy, Kunz generously established a scholarship called the AK Prism Award. “For ambition and kindness, my initials - AK,” she told me. She explained that she wants to use her work as an artist to help others. During our recent conversation, I found myself wishing I could have sat in on one of her color theory courses. Her warmth, compassion, and creativity were evident during our time together. Kunz, who recently created an ambitious and immersive solo exhibition at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco and will be showing with McCormick Gallery and Manneken Press at EXPO Chicago, told me about her process, inspirations, and other new projects.&nbsp;CGN: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist?&nbsp;AK: I loved to listen to the WFMT radio show hosted by Harry Bouras (the Harry&nbsp; whose name inspired the artist group the Harry Who) called “On Art and Artists‚“ when I was a teen. When he said, “An artist’s job is to continually reinvent themselves,” I thought, that would be a great job.&nbsp;CGN: I read that your father worked at the Art Institute of Chicago and you used to sit in front of the Rothko painting and watch visitors’ reactions. What did you observe?&nbsp;AK: Yes. My father was in the hospitality industry. I’d have to go to work with him as a kid, and I’d sit in the gallery that housed a Rothko painting. People would stop to look, sometimes laugh, get angry, become emotional. It made quite an impression upon me–how color, and the “exterior form”, painting, could invite all of that in the viewer.&nbsp;CGN: You have talked about choreographing color - what does that mean to you?&nbsp;AK: I always feel like I understand dance, poetry and music better than painting. Choreography and dance use the body as material and turn ritual actions into a kind of poetry. It is very similar to the way I approach my process. Colors are stand-ins for relationships I observe in nature’s structures, or even the social sphere. I think of color as a body that generates forms and creates relationships and movement. My approach to choreography in painting means I pay attention to time and space on the surface to generate compositions. There is a word choreographers use–kinesphere–the arena or the space around the body. I translate this in painting to be the canvas or architectural space (in the case of my installations).&nbsp;CGN: What is a typical day in your studio like?&nbsp;AK: I arrive early and begin each day by moving around many works in progress to create new conversations between the paintings. I decide on color. I work usually with one or two specific hues at a time and apply it in a ritualistic way. I play to develop new approaches and processes in another area of the studio with smaller paintings or paper, or collages. If I’m in my studio in Michigan, I work outside and let unexpected things happen.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419184/oegjk6rrxx38uzruaktv.jpg"><figcaption>Installation view, Color Cast, The Hyde Park Art Center, CHICAGO, IL 2018. Mixed Media, sound by Beth Bradfish, 20’ x 40’ x 125’. Photo: Tom Van Endye, Chicago&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Tell me more about your studio in Michigan.AK: Yes, it’s in Buchanan, Michigan. My husband, Bryan, and I bought the property about 16 years ago. Little by little we’ve been transforming it into a sanctuary space. There are a lot of building projects going on, so I work in a space that’s pretty raw. I have a very large deck, so I can work in sunlight or outside. A lot of times I try to do some things more experimentally, like work in the forest, or see the work juxtaposed with nature. Sometimes I leave work outside and chance things happen – leaves will fall, or insects, or rain. Things will fold in the wind differently. And I take a lot of photographs of my work in different situations. That helps me get ideas for new work. Outside is more unruly.&nbsp;I also love to work with water as a material. If there’s a water source that I am around, I can incorporate that, but even the paintings in my studio are very water based. Instead of thinking of the water as just as vehicle to send paint, I think about the water as a material, as a life force.&nbsp;CGN: What are some of your earliest memories making art?&nbsp; &nbsp;AK: My grandfather worked at the Hammermill paper factory in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was a pulp stirrer, and every time he’d visit me, he would gift me a ream of paper and new Crayolas. I would think of it as the best present and color every sheet. I got very good at inventing colors and arranging the drawings on the floor.&nbsp;CGN: And you still work on the floor, right?&nbsp;AK: Yes, in my studio I have several large paintings going at once because I envision them as one continuous work. Even though they all end up as individual paintings, in my mind, I’m still thinking about building this immersive environment. I work on the floor‚ 360°, turning them. It’s extremely physical work. There’s arranging, and a rearranging, so I can see what kind of conversations are generated through the different relationships I create. I also work on planks, which allow me to perform on top of the painting, if you will, or traverse the painting. I also use them as a measuring device sometimes.&nbsp;CGN: And you are working mostly on canvas along with paper?AK: Yes, I work in different scales. But the scales are all specific to my body. If I work on paper it’s usually 11 by 13” or 13 by 15”, which are my head size and neck size. Sometimes I work in a small format like the palm of my hand. Sometimes I work in 60 by 66, which is my personal wing span, my body measurement. They’re all scaled according to my body proportions.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419185/azn4bem4v37motckayon.jpg"><figcaption>Installation view, 2O22, Anna Kunz, Drawing With Scissors Group Exhibition. Pictured: Half Ocean, ink and dye on silk, 14’ x 8 x 3’ d. Berggruen, San Francisco, CA. Photo: Glen Creriton Impart Photography, San Francisco.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Have you always worked that way?AK: It started out intuitively with my works on paper. Sometimes those paintings end up as fabric work or they inform fabric works that are a little more ephemeral and meant to be suspended in space. I was given an opportunity at Hyde Park Art Center and it’s this giant space. I looked back at the last 10 or 15 years of my artistic output and reassigned new material identities to some of the work I’ve done. For example, a small, intimate work on paper, gouache on Sakamoto paper, would then inform a new large work on silk. The vocabulary would stay the same. It’s a way for me to almost have my own retrospective. I reinvented my previous work to inform the larger and more ephemeral work. Everything in that show was familiar to me from a previous version or iteration. Instead of just showing working from the past, I reinvented my old work in new forms.&nbsp;CGN: Can you describe your approach to designing and planning an exhibition?&nbsp;AK: I like to take a lot of time thinking about any exhibition. I never like to make work for a show, so I just keep a continuum in my studio of lots of different kinds of work. Bryan is an exhibit designer and has an architecture studio. We have had many conversations about space and scale. Planning an exhibition always starts with a small to scale model and a feeling for what kind of experience I want to present to the viewer. I do really look at the site lines of painting to painting and the relationships so that the viewer’s perception is wholly engaged, not just on a head-on vision of looking at a painting. I consider what might be happening in the periphery of vision, and multiple viewpoints.&nbsp;CGN: What are you working on in your studio now? What projects do you have coming up for this spring and summer?AK: I just closed a large show of paintings and works on paper at <a href="https://www.berggruen.com">Berggruen Gallery</a> in San Francisco.&nbsp;In April at EXPO CHICAGO I’ll show monoprints at <a href="https://mannekenpress.com">Manneken Press</a>, and paintings with <a href="https://www.thomasmccormick.com">McCormick Gallery</a>. I’ve worked with Tom [McCormick] forever – I’ve known him for more than 25 years. I’m also planning another show at McCormick for the fall, which will be more experimental.&nbsp;And I’m planning to make two different books. One is a project that is an homage to artists who have lost their mothers. I also have some non-commercial projects to think about. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419185/k87fwlggotgtlq3b7efs.jpg"><figcaption>&nbsp;Installation View, Anna Kunz: With Rays, 2021, Alexander Berggruen, NYC. Pictured, L to R: Saved Hour, Difficult Rhythm, Early. Each 66” x 60”, 2021, Acrylic on canvas&nbsp; photo: Dario Lasagni &nbsp;NYC&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Can you tell me more about the homage?&nbsp;The writer Ocean Vuong has written that after losing his mom, he is “half” forever more. I’m just using that spiritual event, the right of passage that we all go through, or will have in common, to inform some of his artwork. The thought of the mother as the creator. Honoring mothers for the gift of life, but also modeling creativity. I started to experience through friends, artist friends, women friends, their thoughts about their personal losses and how they use them and try to find a way to transition sorrow into something more meaningful for their artwork.&nbsp;My mom was a really amazing reconstructive surgical nurse. She worked a lot in volunteer groups. One was called Operation Smile, which would take surgical helicopters into different parts of the world where children were suffering facial deformities. She taught me a lot about the transformative power of using your creativity. That is always in my mind when I think about why I am an artist, how did I arrive at this.&nbsp;When my mom left the planet, she left behind an enormous amount of costume jewelry. She was a pretty eccentric person! I had the jewelry, and then I noticed a lot of women friends who had caregiven their mothers had been gifted their mother’s jewelry collection when they passed on. This book, which is in the preliminary stages, is exploring that. The artist Judith Brotman and I will see where we find commonalities and similar feelings. We both had the extraordinary experience of caregiving our moms. A lot of other artist friends have also expressed that once you lose your mom you’re never really the same.&nbsp;CGN: What impact has Chicago had on your formation as an artist?&nbsp;AK: My family has been in Chicago since 1885. They came here with nothing. I feel pride about belonging here, reflecting on the many generations before me over near Wayne Avenue. The city’s grid, its hospitality, the traditions in theater and comedy all end up in my mind when I’m asked about Chicago. There is a work ethic here and an attention to craft and style that I think about.&nbsp;#&nbsp;Visit <a href="http://www.annakunz.net">annakunz.net</a> for more works by and information about the artist.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

The Many Colors of  Anna Kunz

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419113/plmoizzy0aaej99idfua.jpg"><figcaption>Sara Dulkin. Photo by Candice Cusic</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By JACQUELINE LEWISThousands of people see Sara Dulkin in her gallery. Dulkin touts that she actively posts multiple times a day <a href="https://www.instagram.com/chicagotruborn/">@CHICAGOTRUBORN </a>as a way to promote artists as well as genuinely engage with her clients, fans and (more than 21K) followers. When she’s not posting Instagram reels, making clever time lapse videos, or cheekily rolling her eyes about how easy and affordable it is to buy art, she’s running an in-person space, an online storefront and a mural consultancy. Before social media consumed a large part of her day, Dulkin forged a relationship with Chicago as a city through its street art.When I asked Dulkin, who opened Chicago Truborn in West Town years years earlier than other galleries did, how she decided to start the gallery she said it was in order to create a space for art in which she personally felt comfortable and where the art was affordable, a mission she continues today.&nbsp;CGN: Tell us about how Chicago Truborn came to be?Sara Dulkin: When I was a 20-something Columbia College student graffiti and street art helped me to better understand and connect with the city. The gallery itself arose because, as I was learning about art and attending galleries for the first time, I felt extremely intimidated in that particular type of space. Also when social media was just beginning, I was paying close attention to the tags and wheatpastes going up in Chicago. I became more familiar with what the artists creating them were doing and I was able to connect in person. Suddenly I was watching artists paint and getting an inside look at the entire process and culture. It didn’t take long before I realized graffiti and street art really wasn’t being represented here and honored in a gallery setting. At the same time I wanted to create a space that made sense for people like me – those who want to collect art, within financial reason!&nbsp;In 2011 when I first started Chicago Truborn we were vending at street festivals and pop-up shows, utilizing other retail spaces. I used that time to meet artists and grow a collector base. In 2013 the gallery became an official brick-and-mortar storefront. The rest is history.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Chicago Truborn has been considered a sort of “anti” gallery. Can you explain what that means?SD: The term “anti-gallery” was actually meant to encapsulate a feeling of community and inclusivity. In all of my previous experiences in galleries–whether it was self-inflicted or otherwise–I felt unwelcome (and often still do!). In most cases I barely even got a welcome nod, let alone any information on the exhibit. And I definitely couldn’t afford anything.&nbsp;“Anti-gallery” is representative of a space that’s inviting and accessible–one that goes against standard norms. It’s everything a “traditional” gallery isn’t. No white walls, no price sheets, no pretense. Just come on in, enjoy yourself and fall in love with some art. We offer prints from $25, smaller artisan collectibles, even pins and sticker packs starting at $10. On average pieces here are going to be in the $350–$1,500 range. I really stress affordibility, and it’s one of Chicago Truborn’s core values. We have a special section on our website dedicated to art under $150.No matter if you’re looking for a massive focal piece or just a small starter work, I want to help.&nbsp;CGN: You have coined the phrase, “Become a Collector.” Do you have stories about new collectors where that term really made an impact?SD: I have countless stories of first time customers who’ve evolved into die hard collectors. Over the last decade many, if not most, of my customers have similar stories to mine where they felt they could never afford art in galleries or, in some cases, had never visited one. It’s the most rewarding experience to be an integral part of someone’s journey as an art lover and a collector. It typically starts with something small, like a print. From there, via social media or frequent visits, our collectors are able to learn more about the artists they like while at the same time figuring out what they want their collection to look like. Price points become a bit less intimidating once a collector learns about the person and process behind the artwork. No matter what the entry point is, the result is they can’t wait to build their collection. &nbsp;One story is about a Chicago collector who was vacationing in Mexico and got talking with a woman about a shared love of art and a subject that coincided with a show we were having. Through this encounter, a piece was purchased and shipped to Calgary to a new friend and collector. Word of mouth is just as valuable as an actual sale. This story really resonated with me and I am so grateful for the loyalty of my collectors.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419114/ml7roaouesmvm1nvqj72.jpg"><figcaption>A work by JPO &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Do you find that most of your sales are in person or virtual? How does Chicago Truborn handle both experiences for the collector?SD: Throughout the last decade, the majority of our sales were in-person at the gallery. Opening nights are historically the busiest time for us. Of course since the pandemic everyone had to a pivot a bit. I’ve always been dedicated to building an online presence via social media, while also providing a seamless, easily navigated, online storefront. If you’re not providing your collectors the ability to purchase work online that’s clearly a missed opportunity. Before COVID we were 70/30 in-person/online, and now I would say we’re 50/50. I love the surge in online business. It’s incredible that this small gallery ships pieces all over the world. Utilizing social media continues to be a large part of my success; I can’t emphasize enough the importance of speaking to and connecting with your client base directly in that way.&nbsp;CGN: How has your day to day business adapted since the onset of the pandemic?SD: One common denominator between any small business who is lucky enough to have survived the pandemic is that, yes, changes were made! I started producing virtual openings immediately upon news of the shut downs. Our first virtual show was April 2020. I had my exhibitions already scheduled for the year, and my artists had worked so diligently creating all the work. I was determined to find a way to show it. By utilizing Matterport technology we were able to do a 3D scan of the gallery and provide an online experience that opened our doors to collectors all over the world. Viewers can actively participate in an exhibit however and whenever they see fit, zooming in on specific pieces, “walking” around the installation spaces, and even purchasing art through the tour. After two years I still continue to produce a virtual tour for each show (in addition to in-person). I’ve even received feedback from out-of-town artists who become interested in working with me solely based upon discovery of our virtual shows.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419114/c0wbtfvyd40y5s7mozl2.gif"><figcaption>The exterior of Chicago Truborn, with the mural by Eelco Van Den Berg</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Tell me about Chicago Truborn’s work with so many muralists and local public art projects.&nbsp;SD: Seeing as Chicago Truborn is dedicated to exclusively showing the work of street and graffiti artists, mural production has been a very natural progression. My artists love to paint big walls, and I love to make it happen. As a collector myself, I find it exciting to love a piece of public art and then be able to collect a piece or version of that artwork for my home. I’ve curated and produced dozens of murals over the last decade in Chicago. Our murals–some ephemeral, many permanent–can be found all over the city, from West Town and Lakeview to Evanston, Berwyn and beyond. One of my favorite murals can be seen on the facade of the gallery itself. In 2017 Eelco Van Den Berg painted a three-story piece on the building; it is still one of my favorite pieces in the city. I see people stopping to photograph it every single day.&nbsp;CGN: What are some of the differences between managing gallery exhibitions and murals?&nbsp;SD: Both are extremely hands-on, of course. The exhibitions in the gallery are always different, but the recipe is the same. I have a schedule and a groove that works for me. I know when I’ll be prepping the walls, when I’ll be hanging the work, when I’ll prepare the online catalogue. &nbsp;When I’m preparing for a mural, there is a recipe too, but there are different factors at play. We’re examining wall textures and looking out for safety hazards like traffic and electrical lines. I’m arranging lifts and large amounts of paint –we’re usually battling with some type of extreme weather, from rain and snow to brutal heat. We’ve done it all. I’ve learned that there is no forcing anything, and that flexibility is the key to success.At this point I have years of experience working with corporate entities as well as neighborhood groups and private commissions, and no wall is too big, or too small.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What is next for Chicago Truborn?SD: I’m so pleased to share that Chicago Truborn’s 9 year anniversary show takes place this September. Although the gallery began in 2011, the actual storefront wasn’t opened until 2013. The anniversary show will feature nine artists near and dear to Chicago Truborn – artists who have played a significant role in our past, as well as a few who have debuts with the gallery in 2023. The opening spans two days, September 23 and 24, and coincides with the West Town Art Walk. Everyone can find details and a show lineup on our website and social media.&nbsp;Chicago Truborn • 1741 W. Chicago Ave. (60622)&nbsp;<a href="http://chicagotruborn.com">chicagotruborn.com</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/chicagotruborn/">@chicagotruborn</a></body></html>

Chicago Truborn: Sara Dulkin is a Dealer on a Welcome Mission

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419113/cq5zbhxxoyo7w4mmwfdv.jpg"><figcaption>Barbara Kasten &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By ALISON REILLYAs an accomplished artist with more than 50 years experience, Barbara Kasten is used to traveling back and forth to Europe for her work. But during these past two years, due to the pandemic she stayed close to home in Chicago. Fortunately, she had the space to create a home studio, and when it was safe, she started working again at her Mana Contemporary studio. This fall there are plenty of opportunities to see the fruits of her labor. She has two solo exhibitions opening: the first on September 15 at Sammlung Goetz in Munich and the second on November 4 at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/barbara-kasten">DOCUMENT</a> in Chicago.&nbsp;CGN: Could you tell me about the show at DOCUMENT? I know you are still working on it.&nbsp;BK: I’m working with Aron [Gent] on a new body of work, and it has to go through a lot of experimental phases to be where I want it to be. I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to be except there will be unique pieces printed on linen or canvas, I’m not sure which one at the moment. It’s something that I actually entered into photography to do, back in the ‘70s. I really was looking for photography to be a tool in my painting practice. At that time, people weren’t thinking that way, but I started working with photograms&nbsp;and cyanotypes, because it was still a painting process. Everything I’ve done since has been either a combination of painting, sculpture or some sort of interdisciplinary gesture, because I’m not trained as a photographer, and I don’t think of myself as a photographer. I use photography, but I use it like you’d use a brush or paint. I think that is evident when you look at the 50 years I’ve worked.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Were you trained as a painter?&nbsp;BK: Yes, more as a painter. In my graduate days at California College of the Arts (at the time it was California College of Arts and Crafts), I was in textiles and fiber, but I used that as a material to make sculptures– again, not a traditional kind of fiber approach but one where I used the materials of a discipline in an entirely different way than was intended.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419113/yk1jtiibd8dbjm49d4hx.jpg"><figcaption>Barbara Kasten, PLAN 1-B, 2022. Archival pigment on raw linen, 56 1/8 x 42 1/8 in (142.6 x 107 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Bortolami, NY. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Right. I was looking at some of the photos of the sculptural chairs that you wove. Those are pretty incredible.BK: I did those when I was on a Fulbright scholarship. That’s an indicator of what I was thinking when I was doing textiles. But then I made some photographs–called diazotypes–they look like cyanotypes but are really a blueprint that architects used. In fact, I did a book on those, when I had my show at the Graham Foundation in 2015. They published all the images I created in a book. We just called it The Diazotypes. It was limited edition, which completely sold out and really surprised me, because now it’s going for like $500, who knew! But it was an important step along the way for me. I never really did anything with figures, this was an abstraction of a figure to go along with the abstract chair.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: With a few exceptions your work has been abstract through and through.&nbsp;BK: Right. We are creating a book with Skira, an Italian publisher. Stephanie Cristello is the producer/designer/editor of the book. It features only the sculptures and videos that I did from 2015 to 2020.&nbsp;And so that’s in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition at DOCUMENT.&nbsp;CGN:&nbsp;Some of your works are photographs of installations that you’ve done. When you approach an exhibition, is documentation important to you?BK: No, maybe that needs to be clarified. I don’t make installations to photograph per se. I work in a three-dimensional, sculptural manner and use that as the subject matter of the photographs. It’s not intended to be a documentation of an installation.&nbsp;They’re joined together by the interaction of my creating something in space and then stepping out of that role to go behind the camera and record that space on a flat plane. The word “documentation” is true, but it’s not true, which is kind of like my work. Is it real or not real, you know?&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419114/fi0vhvytsp7ofkbsjvd1.jpg"><figcaption>Barbara Kasten, SHIELD IV, 2022&nbsp; Cyanotype on raw linen, steel, 24 1/2 x 24 1/8 x 4 in (62.2 x 61.3 x 10.2 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Bortolami, NY.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure> &nbsp;CGN: Did you grow up wanting to be an artist? Was it something in your childhood that you thought about?BK: Yes, I’d say pretty early on. I grew up in Chicago. This is my home town. I went to a Catholic school, and there was a nun who was a painter and within the church she had a great reputation for painting. She wasn’t an art teacher, she just happened to be teaching second grade. She took notice of me, and I started taking art lessons through her tutelage. She instilled this concept in me of being an artist, because I came from a really normal, middle class family, and I didn’t have any dreams based on family history of being an artist.&nbsp;So she really instilled that. I’d say since second grade I thought of myself as an artist, because she told me I could be.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: You went to a Catholic school in Chicago—was that through elementary school and high school?&nbsp;BK: Yes, both. I went to a Catholic, at the time, girls school. My dad was a policeman, and he was shot on duty. He was injured, so he went on a medical leave, and then my parents decided to move to Arizona for his health. I was already out of high school, and I said you’re not moving without me, I’m coming!&nbsp;That was my move out of Chicago.&nbsp;In 1959 I finished at the University of Arizona, and then I went to California for grad school, with a lot of time in between. In 1998 I came back to Chicago at the invitation to teach at Columbia College. I had been in New York for almost 20 years, and I didn’t expect to leave, but the circumstances were that my elderly mother was by herself and my brother was here. Family circumstances and this job offer made it possible. In New York, I was living off the sales of my work.&nbsp;CGN: How long did you continue teaching?&nbsp;BK: I taught at Columbia from 1998 to 2010. I was mostly involved in the graduate program there. And of course, my work was different from that of most of the photography faculty and the direction of the program, but that’s what the chair wanted—somebody to work in a different way—so it was actually a very great experience. In fact, I’m still in touch with some students that I taught in my very first year. I just had my 86th birthday, and a couple of students from my first class celebrated with me. I made good friends, and I had a better time teaching than I thought I would.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: I’m interested in how you source the industrial material for your work. I’m also wondering how your access to those materials has changed over the years.BK: I like going to hardware stores (before they grew into big box stores like Home Depot.) When I was in LA I lived near Venice and&nbsp;the boat industry. I would go poking around in different places to look at the apparatus the [boaters and builders] used–there were pulleys and wires and things like that that they used for the sails and such. I would take those and make some sort of sculpture. Not to replicate anything like a sailboat, or any identifiable thing, but as a material.&nbsp;Different materials became really important to me. I did a lot of cyanotypes, and I found a fiberglass screen that was used to keep bugs out of windows, and I used that to create flat forms that then could be manipulated into three-dimensional forms. In using that I began to see all the possibilities when light is used with screen material. I could get different layers of moirés with different lights and shadows. Again, it’s a matter of being curious about materials and hanging out and looking in places where you might find something unique. It was also the time of the light and space movement. There was a lot of plastic around, and people working in resin. I never poured in any resin, but I did use plastic. Once I find the material that has possibilities I really push looking into all it can produce. It’s a curiosity with materials.&nbsp;Maybe that’s why I don’t do any digital work. I really have to have a hand on whatever it is that I’m creating. It’s not just a visual, it’s definitely my being in the set, my moving and touching and manipulating, it’s more of a sculptural energy than it is a visual one. You can do all these things on the digital screen but it’s a different experience.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419115/ayqe8oqwkygrfakpamld.jpg"><figcaption>Barbara Kasten, Figure/Chair: 12, 1973, Diazotype, 16 x 20 in &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Yes, that’s interesting. I didn’t realize that, but it makes sense given your interests. Could you talk about your relationship with theater and performance? It seems like it’s been important to you to collaborate with performers or bring that aspect into your work.&nbsp;BK: It was really more inspired by the Bauhaus than it was by any real desire to work as a collaborative effort with performers. That came about because, in the Bauhaus, they accepted so many different disciplines and forms. [Oskar] Schlemmer made wonderful, very bizarre costumes—I love that kind of thing. I was moving in those three-dimensional environments, and it became a static image. I wanted to move away from that into something where motion was added. One step leads to another and so that’s how the video pieces came into play. Just like I used the sculpture in front of the view camera to make an image, I actually incorporate a kind of sculpture in the set of the video. The video is not just a projection on the wall, it actually is an extension of the image into the space. And I incorporate sculptural elements into it.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: At this stage in your career, what are your goals? What are hoping to achieve with your work?BK: I hope I live long enough to do some more work! I did have a modicum of acknowledgment and reputation back in the eighties in the photo world but it turns out that the ICA Philadelphia show (Barbara Kasten: Stages) and the examination that the curator Alex Klein gave to my work opened up the eyes of a lot of public and curators.&nbsp;That’s why the book–Barbara Kasten: Architecture &amp; Film (2015–2020)–is interesting to me because I’ve really developed a lot of ideas that I had when I was younger but I didn’t have the opportunity to show. Unless you can put the work out there—if it stays in your head or in your studio, it’s not the same growth. I’m fortunate to be recognized enough to have opportunities and to still be healthy enough to be making art.&nbsp; &nbsp;CGN: That’s great. And to have that recognition during your lifetime and be able to grow and learn from it.BK: For me it’s not the recognition as much as the ability to grow. I did a public mural in Toronto right before COVID. Those are things I always wanted to do but that’s an expensive project; you don’t get to do those things unless you can prove that you can or people will take a chance with you. That’s the best part about getting old and still working—lots of opportunities.&nbsp;#&nbsp;This interview appears in the Fall 2022 40th anniversary issue of CGN. To subscribe in print <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">click here</a>.&nbsp;</body></html>

After 50 Years Barbara  Kasten Still Finds a New Perspective  

<html><head></head><body>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419077/wbappxynbyon7agcthcx.jpg"><figcaption>Installation view, works by David Klamen</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIEnter Gray Gallery’s echoey warehouse on Chicago’s west side. As you approach three rows of stalagmitic sculptures on pedestals, you begin to recognize common objects–a deflated doll head, shoes, frogs, and vaguely familiar tchotchkes–intersecting each other as the sculpture visually tapers to a point.&nbsp;At first glance, David Klamen’s Life Trophies may seem like a departure from his painting practice (or meta-painting practice, for the initiated). However, these ‘sculptures made of sculptures’ bring to the forefront the philosophical questions recurring throughout most of Klamen’s work: “How do we know what we know?” His Life Trophies ask a new question: of what stuff is life made?&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/zEk5I2JVyBUeJchp2iUsOdk8XQeDZRJ0NtBni_lVFiEqy2uQN3IU2SME-qcMYr4T4TGXQ4FuK08RBSD33s0DAjWEgpLD7bEhVyrC2QH-Ei2_qEfAmUq5UFtBr3p0595694MIjMMcnQXQNA5zEA"><figcaption>David Klamen</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;About five years ago Klamen sketched the first prototype for Life Trophies. “When I was making these sketches I was thinking of myself as an accumulation of experiences, memories, and forgotten incidents.” The process of transforming his ‘sketches of heaps of ambiguous elements’ to life is what he ascribes to ‘overflowing gumption’, knowing which artistic rules to break without jeopardizing the structural integrity.&nbsp;From the beginning, he knew that these drawings required a third dimension. “I envisioned them as made out of ceramics. I also knew that they needed to not be found objects.” Though ceramics was terra incognita for the painter at the time, Klamen soon found himself hiring a U-Haul to lug back tons of mostly unused slip cast molds to a COVID–vacated ceramic studio. There, using a combination of slip-casting–a technique of pouring liquid clay into plaster molds–and hand throwing, he began creating individual ceramic objects that he would later stack, fuse, or pitch like a ball. “They are formed in many ways by chance and gravity and contingent relationships,” he says. If a piece did not fit in a regular kiln, Klamen would modify a garbage can and unrestrainedly throw in slip cast pieces for bisque firing.&nbsp;Because he was able to reuse some of the molds, we can recognize the same shape (ie. sparrow, asparagus, worm; one visitor remarked that the gaping frog crowning one of the sculptures was also a soap-dish) in a different piece, a new iteration, severed, reattached and so on–an artistic experiment of assembly akin to young Frankenstein fabricating his creature. “I'm not premeditating. I’m discovering it as it’s being made. I allow them to be constructed out of all of these broken and bent elements,” Klamen says. Sometimes it seems like the only thing fusing the objects together is the glaze, which ranges from a highly reflective chrome to painted greenware.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/CN1Iw4XwY0lDy-k96MDV5iI9E9VLRcXeqObVlW9D7YeGIblDiX73uRIWydTsKgMGrBG9c6zCicEkRyh0fd12D5N6EIb4WMCJDOEOWbbrCVzzk7k4rAgHZh-Kf50ifb1l9S9r96dFGa9vgtsLMQ"><figcaption>David Klamen, Untitled, 2021–22, Glazed stoneware, Dimensions variable</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;“The final resolution of these pieces takes place with trying to find the right answer to what goes on top,” he continues. “It’s usually something that has a sense of appreciation and commemorates the present moment of finishing the piece.”&nbsp;Lodged in one of the sculptures, a candle drips wax over the sculpture's royal-icing glaze. At exactly 7pm on the night of the opening, a member of the gallery’s staff swiftly blows it out, a universal signal that the party is over.&nbsp;**&nbsp;CGN: Can you tell me more about your sketches for Life Trophies. How did they evolve into this new body of work?DK: The first sketches were made 5 years ago, and the first piece was made somewhere around 4-5 years ago. Most of the works were made in the last two years when I had complete access to a vacant ceramics department in Indiana. Throughout this time I’ve continued my painting practice, but this has really grown into a meaningful part of my creative effort.&nbsp;In my painting practice, I have experience visualizing things without needing to make sketches, but this was far enough outside of my artist vocabulary that they required me to sit down and sketch the idea. They solidified what was in my head and made sense. Once that happened I knew that I needed to make something.CGN: You mention that your paintings tend to be more meditative, ‘almost quiet,’ whereas these sculptures require some degree of collaboration, spontaneity and looseness. What links the two practices together for you?DK: In my mind all of my work revolves around this consistent interest I have in exploring answers to the question of ‘how we know what we know’ and then testing different historical answers. Some of my paintings have been linked to empiricism or Eastern methods such as daimoku that suggest that we gain wisdom and enlightenment through repetitive chanting or memory and introspection. Even Op-art, which might suggest that some knowledge is a purely optical experience. These sculptures derive from that, of me trying to answer the question: how do I reconcile the complexity of my thoughts with this one moment that appears in my brain and consciousness?&nbsp;CGN: You take great care into what goes on top of the sculpture. What do we know about Trophies?&nbsp;DK: I think of Life Trophies as a metaphor for accumulated experiences and memories that are incomplete—at times cherished, at times regrettable, at times uncertain—that coalesce in some ways together to create a sense of self. [With the trophy,] there's a sense of recognition for past accomplishments and a way to solidify something of your life for the future. It’s something that you can share with the people around you. In these cases it is the bittersweet absurdity of them—the humor of the past attempts and the shared optimism of the current moment.&nbsp;CGN: A serious question: what was the strangest thing you found yourself doing or including in this body of work?DK: I find myself laughing and smiling and feeling a sense of ridiculous accomplishment when I add something like this frog, which in some ways seems so kitschy and naïve and in other ways is destined to be one of the future elements to pile on top of. There is a sense of spontaneous discovery—I take whatever I have I put on top and then I walk away. Then there’s a sense of capturing it when it is right that isn’t a narrative, it doesn’t finish a story but it has a certain sense of hopefulness and appreciation and maybe naïveté.&nbsp;*When I ask Klamen about current projects that he is working on, he shows me some recent sketches with more Borg-like, or atomic, flourishes. “I would say I am a workaholic, but that sounds too disciplined. It’s more that I get up and do what I want to do–and what I want to do to work on my next piece.”&nbsp;Even when we don’t know what’s next–in art, in life, in a sentence–it's reassuring to think that we can compound everything that is imperfect and uncanny into art. “I think that aesthetic experience and visual experience are one of the most profound things that convinces us that the things that we know are what we know.” Lately, he tells me I find myself wondering what a consolation prize would look like–the visual equivalent of ‘Congratulations, you’re here.”&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/david-klamen-life-trophies">David Klamen’s Life Trophies is on view until June 24th</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

Out of the Mold and into the New: David Klamen’s "Life Trophies"

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419059/wl7xvfy909vzxrxed8vt.jpg"><figcaption>Sungi Mlengeya, Mdada, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 59 1/10 × 55 1/10 in &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIPicture being so close to a piece of art—no white-gloved museum guard barking at you to step back—that you could almost smell the coconut. Just by pointing a finger at the wall, an artist appears, espresso in hand, ready to answer your questions. This is not a fever dream, or a pitch for the next “immersive art experience,” but the home and art collection of Chris Craft.&nbsp;Craft is a tech entrepreneur by day, and a self-professed ‘amateur’ art aficionado by calling. Though Craft considers himself a novice art collector, his collection is already outgrowing his Ravenswood home.&nbsp;*&nbsp;When I visited Craft at on a January morning, he was drinking coffee with Jabari Jefferson, a mixed-media artist from Washington D.C. As any Chicagoan could attest, a bleak mid-winter visit signals a true friendship.&nbsp;“Jabari’s like a brother to me.” Craft says when he introduces the artist of The Library Series. “He was just teaching me about some art techniques. It’s how I like to learn about art.” It’s not unusual for Chris to talk about artists as though they are a part of the family. Each painting features a character, or a personal history, which anchors him to a specific moment in his life.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419060/eyhfbcpaumcl00ui8ls2.jpg"><figcaption>Artist Jabari Jefferson (left) and collector Chris Craft seated in front of a painting by Jefferson</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The three of us talked about how artistic talent, and by extension objects, gets passed down as we made our way to the piece that started it all: a sculpture by his father. “I started collecting as a tribute to him.” In 2017, he remembers visiting the Art Institute for the first time after his father died. While there he gravitated towards pieces by Matisse and Braque, colloquially known as ‘Picasso’s competitors.’ He stopped when he recognized Caravaggio by name rather than reputation. “That’s my stepbrother’s middle name!” he thought. Suddenly the fraternal association convinced him that art had always been a part of his story, and he realized he wanted to actively add to it.&nbsp;One of Craft’s first acquisitions, and the first painting that greets us in his living room, is Sungi Mlengeya’s Mdada. For the uninitiated, Mlengeya is a Tanzanian self-taught artist, whose mastery of minimalism and striking contrast is unparalleled. Mdada, the cool woman in the portrait, wears negative space well, making any viewer feel under-dressed. She seems at home in the Craft residence, as do his other 150+ pieces.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419060/sgxqsllxyxoqdayabecv.jpg"><figcaption>Kajahl Benes, Alchemist, 36 x 48 inches, Oil on canvas over panel, 2021</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Across the hall we encounter Kajahl Benes’ Alchemist. The painting’s sculpted protagonist looks like he is carved out of onyx. He is caught in a moment of pensive illumination, interrupted only by Craft leaping onto the desk to point out the lustrous sheen of the painted robes.&nbsp;Craft’s energy and appreciation for art and its history is contagious. When I ask him about his approach to collecting, he admits that he is still learning. Guided by intuition, this makes his collection more intimate– refreshingly less ‘branded,’ or motivated by boosting one’s portfolio. Yet it is still both business and personal.&nbsp;If Craft is drawn to a piece or believes in its message, he makes the effort to get his name on endless waiting lists for art (these days, getting an organ transplant might seem easier than acquiring a coveted artwork). “I love living with art; it’s my own personal and emotional album,” he tells me.&nbsp;Deeper into his home, Craft’s basement feels like an exclusive club. It’s also where we enter the ‘un-curated’ part of the house (the guest room has an 83”x 68” in painting by Aplerh-Doku Borlabi titled Tomboy. Doku’s ‘tomboy’ is literally made from coconut.) Here, we play the-floor-is-lava around an unfurled canvas that was just delivered—it’s a painting by London based artist Richard Mensah titled Hold On, part of his Why We Resist series. Mensah visually juxtaposes the 1968 Olympics medal ceremony in Mexico City with a cotton plantation.&nbsp;My gaze moves from overseer on horseback to police car, cotton fields to polypropylene surgical face masks littered on the ground. Among them, I can see a poster of Breonna Taylor, captioned “Say Her Name,” that echoes a page from yesteryear.&nbsp;As we move from the background to the foreground - past to present - the focus ends up on a young girl. Like Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, she charges ahead on her scooter, raising a Black Barbie donning Nigerian colors instead of a French flag. Her black sock quotes a new iconography that athlete John Carlos sparked when he took off his shoes at the Olympic ceremony. One wonders: if history is written by the winners, then who are the illustrators? Craft’s basement holds some of the answers.*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419061/eznjgwrvbrcqu9soau0f.jpg"><figcaption>Collector Chris Craft seated in front of Contemporary Ghanaian artist Aplerh-Doku Borlabi’s&nbsp;Tomboy, 83” x 68”, coconut sheath and oil on canvas, 2021 &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Though Craft has had an eye towards preserving history through art for awhile, in recent years, it became important to him to find art that speaks to the times we are living in now. “I do not want these stories to be lost,” he says. His way of holding himself accountable and keeping the conversation going was to found the&nbsp; Black Collectors Guild, a network of collectors interested in supporting emerging artists while also helping each other navigate the nebulous world of art collecting. From conversations that have come out of the group’s time together, Craft has been able to fill his walls with work by artists such as Max Sansing, David Aplerh-Doku, Solomon Adufah, and Anthony Akinbola, to name a few. It is important to note that though Craft is refining his interests and building his art network, his tastes continue to evolve. At one point, he recalls, he was drawn towards bright colors and textures, seeking out Akinbola’s weavings of durags into artwork and Sansing’s saturated designs that can rupture monotony. Ismael Kateregga’s Nakawa Market Corridor even offered a kind of visual escape for Craft during a time when actual travel was not possible. “I wanted to be there [in that painting],” he explains.&nbsp;*As we wrap up our tour, Chris points back to Jabari’s Response of the Navigator (Library Series, 2021) and A Bright Future, They Say (Library Series, 2016-2018). Jabari says he had almost forgotten about the Bright Future piece, as it was a painting he worked on B.C. (before COVID). Each of these pieces seem to offer a snapshot retrospective of the artist’s own trajectory as he moved away from repetitive painterly strokes in favor of incorporating textiles, texts, and found objects. A morning spent discussing art felt familiar after so much time mostly isolated from others. Here a collector’s basement ends up being more than a place to look at art or entertain. It has becomes a place to leaf through books on African Art and debate where artists will go next. Here, fortunately, is where the man wearing white gloves waves you over for an opportunity to really get to know the art, an artist, and all the stories behind the scenes.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Chris Craft: A Collector Discovers Friends and History Through Art

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419036/zkiwuymwn0gotiwgmmsw.jpg"><figcaption>Candida Alvarez in her Baroda, MI studio. Photo by Sarah Ayers, studio manager.&nbsp; &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKI&nbsp;Who’s afraid of Picasso? Many artists love to hate him—his audacity, controversial personality, and, we daresay, knack for abstract have earned him a spot in the “one-name-only” hall of fame. Candida Alvarez, through her dazzling configurations, shows us that associating Picasso with mosquito bites is just one way to upend the canon.As we learn in a recent conversation with Alvarez, Picasso is yet another source to be reckoned with, and further proof that to survive as an artist we don’t always need to start from scratch. Sometimes we just need to scratch the surface.*New normal is a funny thing. I caught Alvarez adding colorful daubs to a canvas (I, a floating head on her screen, and she, wearing a yellow apron speckled with paint). This is the first year in her new studio after an impressively productive and fruitful year. In February 2021 she was granted the Foundation of Contemporary Art’s Helen Frankenthaler Award for Painting (2021). On September 22, 2022, she will be honored, alongside Chicago art-dealer Monique Meloche, at Chicago Artists Coalition, <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/work-in-progress">Works in Progress: Radiance and Reunion</a>. Add to the accolades her recent appointment as F.H. Sellers Professor in Painting at the School of the Art Institute and it’s a wonder how she does it all.“Why did I suddenly move to Michigan?” She says, “I listened to that voice that said ‘Girlfriend, you need to be here.’”&nbsp;By “here” she means a 2,500 square foot barn-turned-studio with lots of natural light, replete with a library, quotes by Frida Kahlo, Rainier M. Rilke, and John Cage, house plants she brought from Chicago—and paintings of course.One observation from the move was the change in color-scape, and how it makes a cameo on her canvases in surprising ways: “I’m surrounded by a lot of brown, lately, from all the trees and mud. There’s even a hops farm and a prairie next door. I’ve been living in the city for so long that the move was a huge transition. The chatter you usually hear in the city disappears.” Since listening plays a major part in her practice, she uses the change in volume to muse over the artists she invites onto the canvas. “I spend a lot of time listening to them instead, and searching for patterns.”*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419037/kqkkl2pcdghm9dzihzem.jpg"><figcaption>Candida Alvarez, Stand, 2020-2021, acrylic polymer paint with glitter and uv-cured ink on canvas 80 x 60 x 2 in, 203.2 x 152.4 x 5.1 cm. Courtesy of the artist and GAVLAK</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Alvarez is currently working on a new painting, in all its kaleidoscopic glory, for her son. “I just finished putting some bling on it.” Next to it are a couple of paintings from Pica Pica, a series loosely based on Picasso. Several paintings from her Pica Pica series will be on view at Monique Meloche Gallery’s booth at EXPO CHICAGO in April.“I grew up looking at these dead artists, who seem to follow me around like ghosts,” she tells me. “I started bringing Picasso into the studio because he was someone I have looked at for a long time—everybody knows him. Because it was 2021, I thought ‘Wow. In 1921, Picasso painted Three Musicians.’ I could either love Picasso or hate him. Actually, he makes me itchy. Hence the name of my series, Pica Pica— from me pica (it itches)— because I was getting bit by mosquitoes. But also because I wanted to figure [the painting] out.”To do so, she uses a range of sources such as personal photographs, drawings, and famous paintings. “I have cultivated a way of working where I can source from the history of painting and weave in what is in front of me in the present,” Alvarez explains. “Lately I’ve been inviting Bob Thompson to the canvas, but I find inspiration in everything: Matisse, Kahlo, Piero della Francesca are just a few of the artists I’ve worked with.”&nbsp;After she manipulates or distorts her reference she is then able to fully dive into the process. “I might enter a painting with a certain color palette in mind, but it might change in order to achieve that harmony. It’s like alchemy.”Painting on this scale requires the meticulousness demanded of Paint by Numbers—except that in this case the artist is responsible for both lines and colors. “There’s a membrane that gets pierced. It begins with a drawing that is added to, or taken away from. The drawing is a holding pen for the liquid,” Alvarez reveals. Due to the complexities of each piece–and each one comes with a unique set of challenges–Alvarez tends to focus on one piece at a time.&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419038/kducqbefwghendhmvxjp.jpg"><figcaption>Candida Alvarez, Pica, Pica 5, 2021 acrylic on linen 20 x 20 in.50.8 x 50.8 cm. Courtesy Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Alvarez compares the end result to a palimpsest: an unearthed, multilayered, vellum-y object harking back to medieval history. Her Palimpsest series emerged from that fascination with transparent layers and traces of what lies beneath the surface. She recently finished showing these “chatty abstractions that mix and remix themselves” in GAVLAK Gallery in LA.“I wanted to work with a series of ten drawings that I had done two years ago, and bring them together. I looked at words that were ten letters long and came across ‘palimpsest,’ which is a beautiful word all about process. It has multiple histories. Painting is like that for me. I assemble it from a Rolodex of images that I cut and paste, not in a collage-sense, but by shifting shapes by adding and taking away from them. I don’t hold on to an ideal, I just love the process of finding, searching, and witnessing the painting become itself.”Having worked with a myriad of materials, from vellum for drawings, watercolor pencils and acrylics on gessoed linen, to PVC plastic hung from aluminum frames, she explains that, with each layer she learns how the materials react to each other. She seeks balance between the base material, which sometimes peeks out from under matte, subdued shapes, pops of pigment, undirected lines, or bling of course.&nbsp;“I used oils in the past, but over time I really loved acrylics. You just needed the paint, the brush, the bucket. I loved that it was fake, that it was plastic. It was not beautiful. But I loved the rawness of the material.”*&nbsp;Alvarez always suspected she would become an artist. As a student at Fordham university, she was mesmerized by the oversized portfolio her friend was carrying for drawing classes. “It was settled, I was going to take art classes, too.”Through the encouragement of some of her professors, such as Jack Whitten, she abandoned her tiny paintings in favor of larger, more robust works. This cemented her decision to return to Yale and later Skowhegan. “I just fell into it and never stopped. I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for a long time.”One of the most impactful experiences was producing artwork at the then PS1 Residency. “I was affiliated with Museo del Barrio in Upper Manhattan in the ‘70s. It was glorious because it was full of Latinx artists. It was the first time that I encountered real collaboration, in that we could work on something together.” The collaborative spirit finds its way into her teaching as well as her practice.“I have been teaching at the Art Institute for over 25 years, and I find that it brings contemporariness and conversation to the canvas. When you are in collaboration with others, the conversation becomes another way of being present. In the same vein, it helps us be critical.” Otherwise, painting can be a solitary endeavor.Alvarez moved to Chicago in 1998 to take up a teaching position at SAIC and has since become a community staple. One of her first shows in the city was through Hyde Park Art Center, Mambomountain in 2012. In 2017, she was commissioned by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to create paintings to be displayed on Lower Wacker Drive.However, in a manner of months, she experienced a tremendous set of losses. Before the exhibition Here at the Chicago Cultural Center closed, her father died. Three months later, Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico, leaving her to worry about how to reach her mother and sister.&nbsp;“I was born in Brooklyn, but my parents were from Puerto Rico. It is an interesting thing, because while we are Americans, they were first and foremost Puerto Ricans. In New York we became ‘Nuyoricans.’ In a way that absence makes the longing deeper, there’s a kind of romanticism about it, a connection to a place even when you aren’t on that land.”While the hurricane brought these connections to the surface, Alvarez was always invested in the process. So, she wanted to create work that stood on its own. It was during this period that she created Air Paintings, or paintings “with little feet,” as she calls them. &nbsp;When she set out to create the paintings, she realized she didn’t have to work from scratch. “I was able to use the proofs from the Chicago Cultural Center, and work on top of them. Air also became this material I had to consider. I thought about airplanes and the passage from Puerto Rico to Chicago. The whole idea that a lot of them had to rely on planes to see family.”For Alvarez that was a turning point. Gathering shapes from that painting, and embracing the flexibility of the material in order to make something that you can almost see-through.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419039/sdpkj7ha40pzc2y7pdmo.jpg"><figcaption>Candida Alvarez, Mary in the Sky with Diamonds, 2005 Acrylic and enamel on canvas 72 x 84 in. 182.9 x 213.4 cm, Courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;“I love to laugh,” she explains. “You have to keep yourself alive! You can’t take yourself so seriously. I like to be the person who is flexible, who can move at the drop of a hat.”“For people who trust themselves,” says Alvarez, “who have the courage to be themselves, doubts and risks are all part of the process. You have to be willing to take the risk. There is no manual. Plus, there is a mystery to the kinds of processes that choose us.”In 2022, Chicago Artists Coalition will honor <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/work-in-progress">Candida Alvarez and Monique Meloche</a> during its annual fundraising event in September. Candida’s work will be featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art’s upcoming Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s - Today (Nov 19, 2022–Apr 23, 2023). If you are in New York, her work in no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria will be on view at the Whitney Museum of Art Nov 23, 2022–Apr 2023&nbsp;More information about Candida Alvarez and her work may be found on her <a href="https://www.candidaalvarez.com">website</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Catching up with Candida Alvarez

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419041/gh5zwtcewmd9hugjyjgk.jpg"><figcaption>Nick Cave. Photo: Sandro</figcaption></figure>By ALISON REILLYNick Cave’s highly anticipated retrospective, Forothermore, is a much-needed respite, a shared space to both celebrate and grieve as we emerge from the isolation of the past two years. Opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) in May, the exhibition presents an in-depth view of Cave’s multidisciplinary works and still-expanding influence. The artist, designer, educator, and mentor to many in the Chicago community will not only be honored, in typical showstopping style, in the galleries at the MCA but at locations across the city, including: Art on theMart, the DuSable Museum of African American History, 679 North Michigan Avenue, and the Garfield Green Line CTA station, demonstrating how Cave never does just one thing. Highlights of the MCA’s exhibition include Spinner Forest, an immersive installation comprised of thousands of kinetic spinners and Beaded Cliff Wall, made of millions of colorful pony beads threaded by hand onto shoelaces.Cave, born in Fulton, Mississippi, received his B.F.A. from Kansas City Art Institute. He is known for his transportive performances and iconic Soundsuits, which he originally made in response to Los Angeles Police department officers brutally attacking Rodney King in 1992. 30 years later, Cave continues to make Soundsuits both as a form of self-expression and reflection of society. His work has evolved to include videos, bronze sculptures, and large-scale, immersive installations. Along with his day-to-day work as an artist and as a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in 2018 Cave, with his partner Bob Faust, co-founded Facility, a 20,000 square foot multidisciplinary art space in Old Irving Park in Chicago. Through Facility, Cave and Faust were able to provide support for students and artists throughout the pandemic when many other organizations and institutions shut down.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419042/rfeo8awh1yqaiqj15xa9.jpg"><figcaption>Nick Cave, Wall Relief, 2013. Mixed media including ceramic birds, metal flowers, afghans, strung beads, crystals and antique gramophone. 4 panels, each: 97 x 74 x 21 in. ©NickCave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;*&nbsp;CGN: What was your experience as a graduate student at Cranbrook Academy of Art like?Nick Cave: Amazing! I mean to be surrounded by [Eero] Saarinen’s architecture and to be part of an institution so focused around the arts and crafts was fueling. But it was the balance between Cranbrook and Detroit at the end of the day. I needed both to really make it work for me.&nbsp;CGN: How has teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago influenced your art practice?NC: I don’t know that it influences my practice as much as it provides a way for me to give back, as well as stay connected and current being surrounded by the students. I like to be around young, creative minds.&nbsp;CGN: It was so generous for Facility to host the 2020 SAIC master’s graduates in Fashion, Body, and Garment thesis exhibitions. Please tell me about your relationships with your students and what it meant to be able to give them that space during such a tumultuous time?NC: My relationships with my students are really important, because they’re the next generation of artists, creators and designers. I’m curious to see what they do with themselves and how their careers are designed and shaped. But you know to be able to host them here at Facility was really just the right thing to do. Bob Faust and I have the space and the desire to use it this way.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419042/ymmlz775k3umhjafmmz1.jpg"><figcaption>.Nick Cave, Untitled, 2018. Mixed media including a table, a carved eagle and 119 various carved heads. 48 1/4 x 120 x 45 1/4 in. ©NickCave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What do you see for the future of Facility?&nbsp;NC: The future Facility is just as it is today. To facilitate whatever is needing attention at the moment. A place where we can act immediately with passion and purpose and without waiting for approvals or grants or permission for that matter.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What significance do rabbits or bunnies play in your work?&nbsp;NC: It stems from our Easters as kids on my grandparents’ farm. You know, with seven brothers, we would all get our own live bunnies each year that would then live on the farm. It was such a joyous time, exuberant and really sort of epic.&nbsp;CGN: How did you decide to incorporate cast bronze elements in your work?&nbsp;NC: Bringing cast bronze elements into my work was my way of preparing myself for my first bronze sculpture. It was really me learning and getting a solid understanding of how I could utilize the medium in my own way.&nbsp;CGN: How has your relationship with the Soundsuits changed since you first created them after Rodney King’s beating?&nbsp;NC: Soundsuits 2.0 are a more extreme version of the original, in terms of the materiality and couture making, but they are also sort of shrouded in a black netting that darkens the light dramatically. What’s going on in the world will dictate the next sort of direction or the shape that they may take...&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419043/eghiiv0rx60brm3covtd.jpg"><figcaption>Nick Cave, Bunny Boy, 2012. Digital transfer file. 14:05 min. ©Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Can you tell me about your new installation for the MCA retrospective - Spinner Forest?&nbsp;NC: It’s the first piece that you encounter when you come into the exhibition, and it’s a reflection on the state of Chicago and the world. It shines a light on all the senseless gun violence that’s happening right in our own backyards.&nbsp;CGN: Tell me a bit about what it has been like working with Naomi Beckwith to organize the retrospective? What has your collaboration looked like?&nbsp;NC: Working with Naomi around the exhibition has been amazing. Just getting the invitation alone was exciting, and then to collectively come together and really put everything out on the table and distill the show was a very interesting process, too. I am grateful for this opportunity, and it’s been really quite lovely to work with her.&nbsp;CGN: Your retrospective is not just limited to the galleries at the MCA. Why was it important for you to have collaborations with other organizations like DuSable Museum and Art on the Mart?&nbsp;NC: It’s about bridging gaps, building relationships, and making connections. We all need to connect with our neighbors and what’s better than art to do that? Bringing my art into other neighborhoods and into the public realm helps us find commonalities and ultimately to unify.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419044/ios1hul4hsmrsmru7dhj.jpg"><figcaption>Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2011. Mixed media including vintage bunny, safety pin craft baskets, hot pads, fabric, metal, and mannequin. 111 x 36 x 36 in. ©Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Note: this is the cover interview for the Spring/Summer issue of CGN. To receive a print edition and <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">subscribe for the year, click here</a>.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419045/mtecdnvy3jkbt2fvuu2e.png"><figcaption>The cover of the Spring/Summer 2022 Issue of CGN features Nick Cave's Wall Relief, 2013. Mixed media including ceramic birds, metal flowers, afghans, strung beads, crystals and antique gramophone. 4 panels, each: 97 x 74 x 21 in.©NickCave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;NICK CAVE: ForothermoreMuseum of Contemporary Art ChicagoMay 14–Oct 2, 2022&nbsp;<a href="https://mcachicago.org/exhibitions/2022/nick-cave-forothermore">mcachicago.org</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Nick Cave: Art Guided By History in the MCA's Retrospective

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417561/i3nnnwp5y7jt1zabdwmm.jpg"><figcaption>Margo Wolowiec, Look to the Oceans, 2020, Handwoven polymer, linen, sterling silver leafed thread, reflective mylar emergency blanket from disaster preparedness kit, deadstock organic cotton, dye sublimation ink, acrylic ink, mounted on linen support. 46 1/2 x 72 inches &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>BY ALISON REILLYMargo Wolowiec, who lives in Detroit and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), uses a complex process involving digital image manipulation, transfer paper, and a floor loom to create arresting textiles that, from a distance, read as paintings. Inspired by current political and social conditions, Wolowiec considers how existential threats like climate change are expressed through our increasingly digital lives. This fall, her work will be featured in an exhibition showcasing artists from the Midwest at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: How have the past 18 months since the pandemic started been for you (as an artist)? How has your art practice changed during this period?Margo Wolowiec: The pandemic has been a challenge for me, the early months especially drained my energy levels. It’s been pretty inspiring that a lot of artists and musicians have put out some really beautiful and thoughtful work throughout the pandemic, but for me it was a low time creatively. I do think it has influenced my practice quite a bit though. I have been making new work that I feel really connected to, I’ve been taking much more interest in my own mental health and wellbeing, so I’ve also slowed my pace; I say no to things more than I used to, and I take care to protect my energy. I feel like the work I’m currently making is a reflection of that right now.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist?MW: I’ve wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. I was encouraged at a young age by my art and music teachers to pursue the arts. For a while I thought I’d study piano, but as I got older I became much more interested in painting and drawing. I begged my parents to help me go to art school. It was a tough sell, but I eventually convinced them that it was the only thing worthwhile, and they helped send me to SAIC. I’ve been focused on building a career as an artist ever since and worked service industry jobs for quite some time until I could make the switch to a full-time studio practice. I can’t see any other way of living—I know I’ll be making art in some form for the rest of my life.&nbsp;CGN: What was your experience like at SAIC? Do you still have connections to the city of Chicago?MW: My time at SAIC was really expansive, and the interdisciplinary model really worked for me, especially since my understanding of art was pretty limited going in. I really had only a background in drawing and painting, so being able to take classes in any discipline and learn printmaking, lithography, darkroom photography, fiber and weaving, as well as the critical and theoretical foundations of each discipline, was eye opening for me. I fell in love with weaving while at SAIC and have been weaving ever since. I still have a lot of connections to people I went to school with, so many shows I do or lectures I’m invited to give are through SAIC connections. I also met some of my favorite artists and mentors at SAIC - Christy Matson and Josh Faught have been especially supportive. I have learned so much from them and am a huge fan of their practices.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417561/ahd2qhymonpt4anldkel.jpg"><figcaption>Margo Wolowiec,11 Cities, 2019 Handwoven polymer and linen, dye sublimation ink, acrylic paint, indigo dye, reflective mylar from emergency preparedness kits, hot rolled steel 70 x 66 inches</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How did growing up in Detroit influence your decision to become an artist? How has the city changed since you moved back?MW: Detroit is a really incredible city. It’s a small town in a lot of ways, compared to New York/LA, but its creative force is so vast. So many hugely influential artists have come out of the city, especially in the music industry – it’s the birthplace of Motown, I’ve seen Smokey Robinson walking around town, we are home to Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Madonna, Alice Cooper. I grew up seeing Detroit as a sort of creative nexus, and since you can feel that energy here, being an artist always seemed like a totally achievable career path to me. I never really questioned that. The city has changed a lot since I’ve moved back. It’s being gentrified – there are some serious concerns around that – and I hope the city does more meaningful work to protect Detroit’s oldest and most vulnerable residents, but it’s still the same, in that it is home to amazing art and music, and there are even more galleries and working artists here now than I think there ever have been.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What is your studio like?MW: My studio changes often because I have been moving around a lot. Currently it takes up two rooms of my house. Working from home has been a great setup throughout the pandemic, but I usually work outside of my house. My looms and equipment take up a lot of space, so I prefer commercial loft type buildings that I can expand into, especially if I’m working on large scale projects. I’m also big into work/life balance and try to keep a healthy equilibrium between my home life and studio life.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: How would you describe your studio practice?MW: My workflow fluctuates—when things are busy I schedule my weeks and months in advance and hold regular studio hours for myself so I stay on top of everything. When things are slower, I’ll wander in and out of my studio at a more leisurely and unstructured pace. My process is very labor intensive and physically demanding, so I take care to avoid burnout and protect my time to stay refreshed and energized in my studio. That’s when I feel most productive.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What is your process to create your textiles?MW: I usually start with an image collection process based around a specific idea or theme. I’ll use Google searches, with keywords or hashtag and geotag searches, and mine various online image sharing platforms for source material. I collect more than I use and let myself have a free-flow association between images, texts, screenshots of news articles, or whatever pops up based on my searches. After I choose the sources I want to work with I piece them together in Photoshop. This is when I start to envision how the source materials will translate into a woven form. After I get the images where I like them digitally, I print them out onto transfer paper using dye sublimation ink, then transfer the images onto sets of individual threads. This transfer process I’ve developed is based on a traditional fiber dying process called Ikat that is used to create repeating patterns or pictorial motifs. Once the images are transferred to the threads, I weave them together on a floor loom. I play with the images a lot while I’m weaving them, manipulating the threads as I work to either keep the image in focus or let it blur and distort. I also incorporate other non-traditional materials in my weavings and sometimes hand paint or over-dye the textiles to highlight or obscure certain areas.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417562/vl66eqplmtrgxn9ql6ln.jpg"><figcaption>Margo Wolowiec,&nbsp;Seed Surge, 2020Handwoven polymer, linen, sterling silver leafed thread, reflective mylar emergency blanket from disaster preparedness kit, deadstock organic cotton, dye sublimation ink, acrylic ink, mounted on linen support 47 x 45 inchesCourtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How did you develop an algorithm to source images for your work?MW: I used to use an algorithm to automatically mine images based on geotag or hashtag inputs. For instance, anytime anyone uploaded a photo with a geotag in a set defined area, that photo would automatically download to a folder on my desktop. There are stricter data protections in place now, and this auto mining process is blocked on all image sharing platforms. This is likely because companies were mining personal data for advertising purposes and who knows what else, so it’s probably a good thing that this isn’t available for anyone to use anymore. Now I hand sift to gather my sources and collect images and data that are licensed under Creative Commons or other open source licenses. I cull from an array of social media and image sharing platforms, as well as news media platforms, or any other relevant databases based on what I’m interested in.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Some of your new work (Seed Surge, Exit Plan,) includes reflective mylar from emergency preparedness kits, which stood out to me in the list of materials. How did you source this material and why did you decide to incorporate it into your work?&nbsp;MW: This stems from my interest in the darker corners of the internet – the Reddit rabbit holes and conspiracy theories that are born in online forums. The 2016 election really amplified a wave of misinformation and general fear that we will be dealing with for a long time, and these anxieties played out on the internet through a hyper-focus on emergency and doomsday preparations. I made some sculptural panels at that time that incorporated a woven copper mesh that is used to protect sensitive equipment from electrostatic interferences and electromagnetic waves. This sort of technology trickles down to wearables, such as hats that are woven with copper or silver shielding to protect the wearer from wireless radiation, or pouches that shield cell phone signals to ensure the device and all its private data goes undetectable.&nbsp;I started collecting a variety of materials like this to incorporate into my work and am currently playing with emergency blankets that are found in preparedness kits. They shield and protect the wearer with lightweight and high-visibility heat-reflective mylar. In my work this material signals protection and safety while sounding an alarm.#&nbsp;</body></html>

Margo Wolowiec: An Artist Translates Signals of Our Times

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418944/eum9ebjsvyxyymspnnsu.jpg"><figcaption>Pooja Pittie in her studio. Image courtesy of Petra Ford &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>BY ALISON REILLYIn February 2020, artist Pooja Pittie rented a large studio at Mana Contemporary. Supported by a 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the University of Chicago at Illinois, she was looking forward to the opportunity to create large-scale paintings, “moving as much of my body as possible, laying down paper on the floor, getting really close to the surface,” she explained to me during a recent conversation. However, almost as soon as she had moved into the new space, Governor Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order for all Illinois residents. Like many across the country, she was in a state of shock. Although Pittie has lived in the U.S. for 22 years and considers Chicago her home, her family lives in India, so her feelings of isolation and anxiety were compounded by the distance between them.&nbsp;Fortunately, Pittie still had her home studio set up, so she could continue to work, “but it didn’t feel like I could just continue to paint as before,” she said. Instead, she gravitated towards drawing and started making small-scale compositions with stitching on top, using yarn she had at home. “I really delved deep into stitching, sewing, knitting, not in any skilled manner,” she admitted, “just remembering what I was taught at my all-girls school in India.”Pittie was diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of progressive muscular dystrophy in 2000, but her symptoms did not begin appearing until about a decade later. “I was able-bodied for many years living with the diagnosis,” she told me.&nbsp;While she was looking forward to experimenting in the large studio at Mana, she acknowledges that her home studio is most conducive to her workflow. “With my needs, it’s pretty clear that I need workspace at home. Now with my complementary practice of working with drawings and yarn, that happens in my living room in the afternoons when I’m too tired to be in the studio,” she explained.&nbsp;“My day is divided by energy. I’m the most energetic in the morning so I go into my studio, and then when I’m tired, I’m creating from the couch. But I’m creating a lot. I spend a lot of hours with the drawings. Not to sound like a cliché, but the studio can be anywhere. I just need to keep creating and doing something with my hands.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418945/fzhsqopfp2yfhxnbqlrt.jpg"><figcaption>Pooja Pittie, Fields of Consciousness, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 40 inches. Image courtesy of McCormick Gallery &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Pittie’s drive to make art has been present throughout her life, even before she identified as an artist. Growing up in India, as a child, she taught herself to draw by copying cartoons, images from fashion magazines, and still-life pictures. Although her peers noticed her art skills, she was focused on becoming financially independent, inspired by her father who was an industrialist. She excelled at school, eventually earning accounting certifications and pursuing a career in finance. In 1999, she moved to the U.S. to be with her then-husband, and, although she considered going to art school, she instead earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Her interest in art persisted, and, after her divorce in 2005, she started taking evening painting classes through SAIC’s Continuing Education program. While she enjoyed the classes she was taking, making art was not a priority in her life as she was balancing the responsibilities of being a young, single mother and running her own children’s book business.“My studio, my space has changed so much in a very short span,” Pittie explained. In 2015 when she started regularly drawing, “it was on my couch. Then I moved to the dining table with watercolors, then into my little home office. I set up my easel there and it eventually became a full-blown studio, and then I moved to a bigger apartment so that I could have a larger studio space.”&nbsp;The continuous expansion of her space to accommodate a growing art practice felt natural to her. While she had exceled as a businesswoman, she said, “It’s not my innate skill, which is why I always felt so inadequate. My dad is a natural-born entrepreneur. I thought that’s who I was, and he thought that’s who I was, and everyone else around me probably thought that too, but I didn’t feel like that. Establishing a regular art practice really made me feel like much more of an expert than all my years of training.”Pittie made her first acrylic painting in 2016, and since then, she has completed residencies at Chicago Artists’ Coalition and Hyde Park Art Center and gained the support of McCormick Gallery. This fall, a series of new paintings and drawings will be on display at the gallery in the West Loop. “My current work is very motivated by needing to express energy, which is diminishing and is an extremely precious resource for me,” she said. “I’m finding that color is the way that I’m expressing this energy. Both in the paintings, the drawings, and the fiber work that I’m doing, the starting point seems to always be color.”Her recent abstract paintings feature looser, more gestural brushstrokes. In her previous work, she overlaid small dots on these marks, as if to mask some of their irregularities. As she spent more time with her drawings and weavings, she began to move away from the repetitive, precise stokes. Her new canvases teem with an energy similar to that found in the abstract expressionist paintings of Joan Mitchell. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418946/xwkduksefsm6ioovcsyn.jpg"><figcaption>Pooja Pittie, Time Spirit, acrylic on linen, 30 x 40 inches. Image courtesy of Robert Chase Heishman</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;“I work on multiple pieces at the same time, so I’ll start several canvases when I’m feeling energetic and I really want to capture that energy, and they’ll rotate on and off the easel,” Pittie explained.&nbsp;While she now fully embraces her life as an artist, in retrospect, Pittie has identified two major fears that delayed her in pursuing her passion. “How could I be an artist if I haven’t been to art school?” she said, “And I saw how physically challenging it was. I used to wonder how am I going to carry canvases back and forth? How am I going to carry a portfolio? I didn’t use mobility devices back then but still it was difficult for me.”Pittie was raised by her parents to believe that to be successful, you must attain the highest possible education in that field. “If you’re not ready to do that or if, for some reason, you haven’t done that, then what makes you think that you can have a committed career?” she asked herself. Her second major fear is familiar to many artists, “What if I get bored of making art every day? Or if I enjoyed it all these years, but what if I don’t want to make it every day?” She nevertheless admits, “Both of those notions are so laughable right now. They haven’t mattered one bit. I am definitely not bored! These are the fears, the blocks, you put in front of yourself, and they can be quite difficult to ignore.”Along with her exhibition at McCormick Gallery this fall, Pittie is working on a commission by the University of Chicago to create a work for the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this fall. This is the first private commission that she has accepted since January 2021, and while she is very excited to work with the University of Chicago, she wants to be careful not to overwhelm herself.&nbsp;“I feel like I’ve been running so much since 2016. I’m extremely grateful for how quickly things progressed and how organically they’ve grown, but during the pandemic, I have been reevaluating what is truly important. I am trying to hold onto all that slowness.”&nbsp;Pooja Pittie: New Paintings, opens September 16 at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/mccormick-gallery">McCormick Gallery</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Pooja Pittie's Colorful Energy

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418952/teto4m2el49f8bmza9nn.jpg"><figcaption>Artist and writer Audrey Niffenegger is the founder of the Artists Book House. Photo by Anna Dobrowolski &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIRavens, cobwebs, dust, and mold. Against the backdrop of a decommissioned lighthouse, six years of neglect turned Evanston’s historic Harley Clarke mansion into a setting befitting a horror movie. Now, a new foundation dedicated to the book arts is set to reverse the shudder. Artists Book House is the brainchild of Audrey Niffenegger, a visual artist and author best known for her novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife. In July, she invited me inside to talk about how she will make the house a home to the book arts. &nbsp;Since the City of Evanston’s council decision on February 28th to lease the coveted Harley Clarke Mansion to Artists Book House, paperwork quickly escalated to groundwork. The task: to restore and update the Harley Clarke grounds. Undaunted, Niffenegger faces the challenge with John Eifler, Nick Patera, and the team at WB Olson, Inc. on her side, in addition to a team of trusted board members and volunteers.&nbsp;We shouldn’t expect a housewarming party anytime soon, though. As she shows me, there’s plenty to be done between now and its opening in 2026.&nbsp;***<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418953/d8rpfqhxabrhqi1po6uq.jpg"><figcaption>A view of the conservatory at the Harley Clarke Mansion. Photo by Anna Dobrowolski</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;“Here we are, surrounded by phantom books,” she laughs as we walk into a wood-paneled library. For any self-respecting writer, empty bookshelves usually warrant concern. Not to a history-lover like Audrey, for whom an old setting for future bookish pursuits is a lesson in time travel. (As if renovating a mansion wasn’t ambitious enough, she is also working on the sequel to her best selling novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife.)&nbsp;On our tour of the impressive 22,000-square-foot space, she leads me to the conservatory where ABH will hold paper-making workshops. Curious onlookers appreciating the gardens curated by Jens Jensen Gardens could peer into the windows to witness the transformation of pulp to fiction, or any other genre.&nbsp;Steps away, she pictures a bookstore, art gallery, and a cafe with a view of Lake Michigan even the most bibliophobic visitors could appreciate. She recalls her first time visiting the Harley Clarke mansion – then the Evanston Arts Center –when she was a fourteen-year-old printmaking student. It was the beginning of a time-tested relationship between herself and the building. After graduating from the Art Institute, she returned to Harley Clarke to teach for 15 years.&nbsp;Outside, ornate lead gutters catch our eyes; the original pipework was forged by the grandfather of her friend, a blacksmith. Now, the third generation of metalworkers keep the tinkering tradition alive, proving that the mansion’s future depends as much on conservation as it does on innovation.&nbsp;As expected from a mansion left to its own devices for six years, Audrey’s current ‘studio’ flaunts the unglamorous hallmarks of a home whose maintenance has been deferred. Rooms once housing offices, darkrooms, and various studios remained bare, save a few visitors. She points to flour left by the city of Evanston on the ground, “That’s to see where the raccoons are coming from!” (A pawprint is just my size...) To make the three-story building more accessible to humans rather than critters, she plans to convert an empty passage next to the butler’s pantry, a vestige from the building’s residential past, into an elevator.We make our way to the basement and take turns deciding whether the ghoulish green paint was original. Here, Niffenegger envisions a printmaking studio because of its capaciousness, even if it is more secluded.&nbsp;Her work is cut out for her, sure, but there’s something elemental about rolling up the proverbial sleeves to build something new.***<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418953/nvjtq9eyg2ao7tfo6mbh.jpg"><figcaption>Vacant no more. Evanston’s coveted Harley Clarke mansion, built by Architect Richard Powers for the Clarke family in 1927 will be the future home to ArtistS Book House, a foundation dedicated to the book arts. Photo by Anna Dobrowolski &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>What do the book arts mean to you, personally?&nbsp;Back in the empty library, Audrey describes the real star behind the entire operation, the book arts. That is to say, “any idea or skill, philosophical or conceptual approach, that you could bring to bear on the idea of the book,” she tells me. Traditionally, papermaking, printmaking, calligraphy, and bookbinding fall under this category.&nbsp;“Sometimes an idea exists in the ether but never takes on physical form. You might approach bookmaking because you want to make the actual object or you have a story to tell, like in a memoir or epic poem,” says Audrey.&nbsp; “We are interested in a multitude of approaches and are here to help people realize their ideas of the book and not be limited with what a book can do.”&nbsp;What goes inside the book is just as important. ABH will function as a literary center, library, bookshop, as well as an arts center. “What really excites us is to have all this exist in one building where the disciplines can cross-fertilize,” she says. Someone writing an epic poem might go downstairs and discover people who are printing or experimenting with movable type.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418954/rvv6ii2vbfkgpangtcvf.jpg"><figcaption>From 1965 to 2013 the Harley Clarke mansion housed the Evanston Art Center. This used to be the old darkroom for enlarging and developing film. Photo by Anna Dobrowolski</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;“There’s more than just making paper for books. I’m thinking about paper sculptures Erin Cramer makes. Her work is inspired by vegan taxidermy.” Anyone in the community, from paper virgins to seasoned bookmakers, could flirt with other paper-centric projects such as tunnel books, fiber-based sculptures, comics, puppeteering, or zines. For the completely unconvinced, the ABH’s website hosts various tutorials and interviews. “There’s so much that can happen when you get people from different disciplines together.Having multiple disciplines under one roof appeals to Audrey, who has been carving a niche into an international and locally established bookmaking tradition since 1994. “This would be the third-generation book arts center in Chicago and the ‘spiritual heir’ of the Book and Paper Center in Columbia College Chicago.” In 2019 the center closed to make space for classrooms, leaving its artistic members virtually homeless. Once the Artists Book House is completed, it will be a second homecoming.After the fall of the center, there was some concern whether small book-making traditions could ever grow obsolete. Following prolonged digital engagement, we admit longing for imperfect paper and DIY projects in true ‘arts and crafts’ fashion. In the 19th century, William Morris, a champion of the book arts, led the UK-based Arts and Crafts Movement. In his later years, he went on to develop the Kelmscott Press to produce luminous leather-bound books replete with calligraphy and illuminations-- a gothic revival that renewed interest in the book arts, if only as a productive outcry against mass-produced books which he notoriously called ‘ugly’.&nbsp;Is Niffenegger a modern-day William Morris? I wonder. The same unadulterated passion towards handicrafts is there. Her approach is to open these arts to the community as an educational center to keep the traditions alive.&nbsp;***<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418955/otpummbfb8ogyjpipdul.jpg"><figcaption>Harley Clarke’s former conservatory doorway. Photo by Audrey Niffenegger &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;“Dare we ask another pandemic-related question? What did the process look like? How does a new organization take shape and establish community these days?”“It’s been such a strange time. Before the pandemic there had been a tremendous amount of discussion surrounding the building.” The Harley Clarke had almost been demolished in 2018 and faced many competitive proposals since. Niffenegger and her board turned in the Artists Book House proposal for the Harley Clarke Mansion in February 2020, about a week before the world shut down.&nbsp;It wasn’t until May of the following year that they received the keys. “I was watching the city council vote on the proposals on a laptop while I was cooking dinner. We were not expecting it to happen when it did!”“The pandemic changed everybody’s focus like that,” she adds, “I don’t think anybody can really know how the pandemic will change the art scene or Evanston or funding or any of it. Artists Book House could have been just as easily Artists Book Warehouse or Storefront! It just happens that we now have a house.”&nbsp;Getting the keys to the house in the middle of the pandemic had some advantages. “Because we are so small and new, we didn’t have any established patterns to uphold or break. We didn’t have any staff. We didn’t have a building.” Despite not having any physical classrooms, they managed to build an online presence and archive of videos, interviews, and tutorials on their website. Not to say the pandemic was in any way good. “In a way it leveled the playing field amongst art institutions. It was actually okay for us that not much happened. It meant fewer people to disappoint. Whatever craziness we’re about to do we will do from zero.”&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418956/tfiwql8yruen7yl4u5tk.jpg"><figcaption>Downstairs, the former billiard room will be transformed into a printmaking studio. Photo by Anna Dobrowolski</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Though the opening is far away, are there any dream collaborations or visitors?&nbsp;“It goes two ways. There’s a lot of amazing local talent that we would like to uplift if we are in the position to do so; and there are people we would like to be here so that people can experience different artists. At some point, we would love to host conferences for the North American Hand Papermakers, the Guild of Book Workers, College Book Arts and the Ragdale Foundation, to name a few. You just never know who will be interested or inspired to do something.&nbsp;Now that things are starting to take shape, how are you planning on reining in the community? What do you need from artists, community members?&nbsp;“We’ve been receiving a lot of support. People really want another central gathering place, and this happens to be a nice stage because it’s a hinge between Chicago and the North Shore. We are trying to partner with bookshops and a coffee shop. A lot of people are donating books. People are interested in volunteering.&nbsp;There’s a lot to do between now and the day we open to the public, which we hope to do in 2026. We are hoping that we can use the time for fundraising, constructing and doing all the physical work. At the same time, we are trying to let people know that we are slowly coming into existence. One thing that we are planning to do is to organize tours and find ways to bring people in so that they don’t have to wait five years.”&nbsp;&nbsp;***For the time being, Niffenegger and her board are looking forward to mingling with people at events such as Evanston’s Out of Space concerts. Other events that will take place on Harley Clarke grounds will be announced on their <a href="https://artistsbookhouse.org">website</a>.&nbsp;A tip: keep your eyes open around Halloween time. A house with phantom books is sure to set a scene.&nbsp;#&nbsp;</body></html>

In Pursuit of Bookish Things: Audrey Niffenegger on Building  Artists Book House  a Home in Evanston

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418944/lt8vydd0cxlu6vwtvtuz.png"><figcaption>Isobel Neal (center) with daughter-in-law Jeanette Sublett and son Langdon Neal, pictured at the family’s law office of Neal &amp; LeRoy in front of a painting by Robert Dilworth</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAIsobel Neal was looking for something to do. By the 1980s she had been a retired teacher for more 10 years, and when Neal told her friend Ann Nathan that she wanted to open a gallery, Nathan said, “You must be crazy.” Neal responded, “Well, I guess so.” Nathan would know, as she had opened her own gallery in River North a few years prior.&nbsp;Neal wasn’t afraid of crazy, having managed a classroom of 60 fourth graders during her years as an inner-city public school teacher at Beethoven School on 47th street. In fact, it was art that helped her manage the daily chaos, wielding it as an incentive to work.&nbsp;She recalls, “At Beethoven if you had any difficulties behaving, you lost your chair. Nobody wanted to stand all day, so art worked as the treat and a motivator. They wanted to get their work done so they could have some fun.”At home she employed art in the same way with her young son Langdon, who still remembers working on potato prints and string paintings he was proud to put up on the wall.&nbsp;Neal’s impulse to open a gallery was no vanity project. She had years of experience as an educator, and she had gradually found herself with a new lesson to teach, having realized that no one in Chicago was representing the scores of Black artists whose work she was seeing. She knew she wanted to do something about it.&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418945/zbc2lil6emsu5edr9nd8.png"><figcaption>Painting by Alvin “Al” Loving &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Prior to living in Chicago, Neal lived in New York City, where she attended NYU. When she took an interest test upon graduation, she was still surprised that her top result was art. “I laughed,” she recalls. “I said, “Art? What am I going to do with that? At the time [women] were either going to be&nbsp; teachers, social workers or nurses. Those were the options. So, I never thought about art for years, except that I liked it.”Neal taught in Chicago for two decades. When she retired, she wanted to pursue other interests fully. At her husband’s encouragement she took a sabbatical and went back to school, spending time in California getting a master's degree in anthropology/archeology. Upon returning to Chicago she taught adult education classes on African pre-history and archeology at the Northwestern Center for American Archeology as well as at the Field Museum.Around the same time she was asked to chair the Black Creativity Art Show at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was when poring over slides for the juried exhibition that Neal says she began to see so many artists from all over the country send in work they wanted to submit.&nbsp;Neal began to think, “Who’s representing all these Black artists? What I found was that this town, at that time, only knew about Richard Hunt. Other Black artists who were living here, or not, would drop off a piece in a gallery, leave it on the floor, and if somebody saw it and wanted to buy it, that’s the way it went. Nobody was getting an exhibit or any real backing.”<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418946/ja6soageom9stqqicddq.png"><figcaption>A painting by Calvin B. Jones hangs in the law offices of Neal &amp; LeRoy &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>Neal was inspired to look around for a space to rent so that she could begin to think about building a gallery program around Black artists. “I wanted the kind of space that everybody else had then,” she says.&nbsp;It was the 1980s, and things were buzzing in the area that had become known as River North. It was also at that time that she got Ann Nathan’s frank opinion on opening a gallery. Neal thought she was on to something, crazy or not, and she settled on a space, located at the corner of Superior and Wells streets, that she could divide up into three distinct areas to show different artists simultaneously.&nbsp;Neal knew the building from years earlier, during her time as a teacher for Homebound, a public school program that was the Zoom of its time. She had been assigned to teach a child who was unable to come to school, and she was sent to a family that lived at 200 W. Superior. She remembered just standing outside the building. It was in such disrepair, she says, that she didn’t go in. “I sort of walked in the hall and thought, ‘I’m not going up there. Nobody’s around to tell me which apartment it is.’”&nbsp;The neighborhood changed quickly, once pioneering galleries, run by figures like Rhona Hoffman, Donald Young, and Carl Hammer, moved in, and the district expanded and became established. Eventually Neal moved into a renovated space in the same building that she didn’t want to go into all those years before.In search of artists to exhibit, Neal ventured to New York, using some connections to meet new artists. She went on a shopping spree of sorts, buying a range of art from artists like Ed Clark, Romare Bearden, and Jacob Lawrence, and she visited African American art dealers.For the gallery’s first opening, at the start of the fall art season in September 1986, Neal decided on a show of work by local artists as well as others from around the country whose work she admired.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418946/rzyhjog3lxzpi6npmhlb.png"><figcaption>Neal in her gallery in the 1990s</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Chicago artist William Carter was part of the inaugural show. Neal recalls, “He had quite a following, but he had been selling out of his house. A big, heavy man, right before the opening, I realized he would need a place to sit, so I ran across the street to another gallery to borrow a big, antique chair.“Carter sat in the corner, and he just loved it, because it was like a throne. There was a big crowd. All my family thought I was crazy, but my friends said, ‘We’ll come.’” The success of that evening was the beginning.&nbsp;“[Openings] became a meeting place,” remembers Neal. “The day after I was scrubbing [scuffs] off the white walls. I was really busy, and it was exciting. I was never bored. I was thrown in with artists who were as fun to talk to and be with as you could ever imagine.”In 10 years, Neal says she showed 100 artists, doing exhibitions every six to eight weeks, usually with three different artists’ work at a time. She was never at a loss for artists.&nbsp;“I didn’t have to find anybody. They found me from everywhere. I had an artist who was Haitian, she was living in Paris. I had people from Canada and from Mexico. There were so many Black artists who needed exposure.”Jeanette Sublett, Neal’s daughter-in-law, who is married to her son Langdon, remembers, “The gallery was sort of the place, at the time in this area, for these artists to be exhibited, not to mention represented. Isobel always threw a great opening. Sometimes she had live music. There was always great food and drink. A lot of people attended; it was a place to be and to be seen.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418947/cohkygwl27ocbmkkytmf.png"><figcaption>Neal seated in the antique "throne" chair in the gallery&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Giving Black artists the opportunity and visibility to be full participants in the art economy drove Neal. She also needed to make that a reality for the gallery in order to continue her work. Though electrified by the enthusiasm for her gallery, business success was not immediate. Neal realized that selling enough art to pay the bills was going to be tougher than she expected and that the teaching nest egg she had used to get started was rapidly running out.&nbsp;“I thought I had a lot of money until maybe two or three months went by,” Neal says, “and then I thought, ‘Oh.’ So, the family stepped in and became backers, and it became a family business.”Her exclusive support for Black artists gained the attention of other prominent Black Americans. She once hosted a reception at the gallery for Mae Jemison, the first Black female astronaut, when she returned from a space mission. Neal recalls that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley offered to have a reception for her at Soldier Field, or Navy Pier, but Jemison said, “I want it to be at Isobel Neal Gallery.” Neal had taught with the astronaut’s mother at Beethoven School and had discussed the gallery with her a little. “It was a huge crowd,” Neal remembers. “I have a wonderful photograph of the aurora borealis that she took from space. She wrote on the top, ‘To Isobel Neal Gallery.’ We just got flowers for her, but she was the star.”&nbsp;*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418948/esu139yc1ugcy2kwzal5.png"><figcaption>A painting by Clarence Ferguson on view at Neal &amp; LeRoy</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Neal’s roster of artists ranged from well-known figures like abstract painter Ed Clark, and Mexico-based Elizabeth Catlett, who studied with Grant Wood in the 1930s and showed prints with the gallery, to many artists who were not (yet) widely recognized but who did find recognition in line with their talent. Herbert House, a sculptor, sold so much work through the gallery he fulfilled his life-long dream and retired to Hawaii. Preston Jackson and John Rozelle both were offered jobs at the School of Art Institute because of their exhibition history. Neal’s crazy idea to start a gallery gave many artists the critical exposure and CVs they needed to reach new levels.&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;Neal’s husband, who was a prominent attorney at his own firm, considered that no artist should have a show without a sale. That commitment greatly scaled up the amount of art the Neals collected, because, if there was no sale, they bought something. The focus was on the artist’s success.&nbsp;Neal had been collecting art for quite a while before she began selling it, and she always enjoyed returning to New York and visiting galleries. She fondly remembers one trip when she picked out a Charles Alston painting as a birthday present. But, she confesses, what she and her husband largely did to fill their walls and amass their collection was attend events like The South Side Community Art Center yearly benefit auction as well as Hyde Park’s 57th Street Art Fair to find a range of appealing prints, sculptures and paintings, even commissioned portraits. In at least one such case a picture of young Langdon Neal was painted by an artist on the spot in the street.&nbsp;*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418949/a3rybwcjwfp4i3xiyjcj.png"><figcaption>Neal, second from left, with an artist and collectors at an opening</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;As the child of serious collectors, Neal’s son Langdon grew up exposed to art from the beginning, but what sticks out the most from his youth was making art. His mother incentivized and entertained him as she did her students. “We passed time during those early years doing art projects in school and at home. It was just kind of what we did to fill in the day.”Over the years he graduated from art making to being a part of the collecting. Now they each consider their family’s leadership and art mission a collaborative effort. “It is definitely a family art collection,” explains Langdon. “Part of it is in my mother’s home now, part is in Jeanette’s and my home, more of it’s here in our [law] office, and we have things in storage. Between all of us we don’t have enough walls to display our artwork.”&nbsp;The collective effort is a shared pride. “It was a combination of,” admits Langdon, “the enjoyment of giving African American artists a place to show their works, something they never had, and carrying that into displaying their art in places where people could enjoy them. Even now having art throughout our [law] office means clients as well as our staff can enjoy this work. The collection was bigger than just the art itself. It was about opportunity and exposure for Black artists.That is still our focus today. Even outside the art world we try to act as mentors and supporters.”Though the collection is dispersed amongst the Neals’ homes and their office, I was surprised to learn that it has not been exhibited in its entirety. Works by artists like Catlett and Clark have been loaned to the Museum of Contemporary Art and other museums, but so far, not the majority of the collection. Assembled over a period of decades, drawn from several sources and by multiple people, the sheer volume of art and historic material that has come together should capture the attention of a very ambitious curator.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418950/nfssxzikxm1boivxlykj.png"><figcaption>Robert Dilworth</figcaption></figure>*<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418951/kox1qvw24gmlbfe8ekrr.png"><figcaption>A bronze sculpture by Preston Jackson</figcaption></figure>Neal closed the gallery in the late 90s. Today she is focused on her work with the Art Institute of Chicago, where she sits on the Board of Trustees and on several of the museum’s committees, continuing to work on behalf of Black artists. Neal serves with Denise Gardner, who will officially become the first Black person and first woman chairperson of the board this November. The two women are friends, and Gardner is a former client of Neal’s gallery. “Denise and her husband Gary credit me for getting their collection started.”When I ask Neal about how she sees her role today from the position of a trustee of an internationally renowned museum, compared to her time as an art dealer starting out, she says she’s seeing a real attempt at change, so far, with some of the Art Institute’s collections and the representations within them–a natural continuation of what inspired her to start the gallery.&nbsp;“These are big changes,” she explains. “This has been a huge upheaval that we’ve lived through, not only through COVID, but George Floyd. [The Trustees] have looked at pages and pages of changes and had Zoom meetings galore about where to go next.”&nbsp;While much of the conversation around representation is very familiar to Neal, she says the perception of value in the market and within institutions is different this time. It’s what she sought for Black artists decades ago. When I ask her why the change might be for real now, she refers back to those busy openings at the gallery in the 80s.&nbsp;“I can’t say that nobody ever did it before, but there wasn’t a dedicated initiative to show Black artists. I feel that my greatest contribution, really, in 10 years at the gallery, was to make the art world know that African Americans had disposable income. I think that is the basis of why nobody widely showed work by Black artists before. They didn’t believe that anybody would buy their art. At my gallery, they saw people literally lining up. These artists were worth the money.”&nbsp;Because of Neal, no longer could collectors, and others, think Black art was only created and shown on the South Side, when every few weeks a diverse clientele was packed into a popular gallery on the North Side of Chicago, showing exclusively Black art.&nbsp;Neal never stopped being a teacher, and she continued to use art as a motivator. “I purposely wanted to have the gallery where everybody else was,” she says. “That was my whole drift: to educate, I suppose, everyone. My philosophy really was that art was universal. Everybody can enjoy it, and everybody can recognize talent. That’s the story.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Stewards For Generations: The Neal Family's Influential Support for Black Artists

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1761315735/avpnqhlkoohtgafvnx2g.png">Tony Fitzpatrick. Photo: Peter Rosenbaum&nbsp;&nbsp;Fall 2021 CGN Cover Interview. &nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAFresh from a positive report from his cardiologist, artist Tony Fitzpatrick invites me to sit down and indulge in some fried chicken and cake. Following a 2015 heart attack Fitzpatrick, at 63, is full of life and fire. A widely-known creative force in Chicago and well beyond, the artist says he was given a second act (or third, or fourth, if you listen to his stories of previous close calls) in order to keep making art.&nbsp; Fitzpatrick’s stories are legend, and he loves a listener. More than that, he loves an audience. He’s sure to get one this October, when he opens Jesus of Western Avenue, an expansive exhibition taking place at the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/jesus-of-western-avenue" target="_blank">Cleve Carney Museum of Art</a> in suburban Glen Ellyn. The artist will also be publishing Apostles of Humboldt Park, a book featuring a collection of work Fitzpatrick created in isolation: signature drawing collages of birds he’s observed and admired throughout Chicago’s famed west side park. As much as Fitzpatrick loves connecting with people and sharing his stories, from Facebook to a theater stage, he seems most at home in his west side studio, working on his latest collages as well as directing deliveries and shipments of art, hosting visitors or introducing artists and collectors through exhibitions at The Dime and T.F. Projects. If Western Avenue is the solar system, Fitzpatrick might be its sun. There is a gravitational pull that keeps everything in orbit around this particular star.&nbsp; Fitzpatrick wears his heart (tatooed) on his sleeve. There is no speak softly and carry a big stick. There is if you don’t like what he says, you can see yourself out. What pours from Fitzpatrick’s stream of unselfconsciousness are positions on a multitude of topics. When Fitzpatrick took to Facebook during 2020’s lockdown to encourage fellow citizens to be masked and socially distant, he chose the hashtag #staythefuckhome over the more pedestrian, #StayHomeStaySafe. Art, not surprisingly, occupies many of Fitzpatrick’s areas of opinion. For the dozen or so years I’ve known him, Fitzpatrick has frequently shared that he dislikes art fairs. The multi-day, scene-obsessed frenzy they can generate has represented, for him, the apex of all that can be obscenely money-driven, ego-centric and just plain ridiculous about the art world. However, during a recent shared ride to attend the funeral of a friend, Fitzpatrick had the chance to tell Tony Karman, founder of EXPO Chicago, one of the country’s most prominent contemporary art fairs, that he sees fairs in a different light now.&nbsp; Where he once ranted at the affront of an art marketplace that seemed to rule at the expense of true creativity and art appreciation, he says he now realizes that when many people gather for fairs there are celebrations of art as well as unparalleled opportunities for idea sharing and artist recognition; not everyone is a self-interested speculator. The professional convergence and standards set at the best art fairs have facilitated timely and productive discussions and projects that benefit a broader public. Fitzpatrick sees Karman, amidst a landscape more challenging than ever, as a man trying to harness the best forces of the market in order to bring people together – to Chicago – in a way that positively moves art and artists forward together.&nbsp; “I think Tony’s been a good steward of culture in this city. He’s the most brutal optimist you’ve ever met in your life. It’s infectious,” Fitzpatrick exalts.&nbsp; This about face is just one sign that Fitzpatrick continues to be full of surprises. He considers, “I got a new lease on life from heart surgery, and I lead a really different life now. I swim every single morning. I don’t eat fried chicken a lot (just today).” His opinions, as well as his habits, are like the man himself: sometimes stubborn, but never immoveable.&nbsp; “In the last five years I realized the glass is half full. I wasn’t looking for the good, but I found it. I learned that even just walking around Humboldt park could do me a world of good. I’ve gotten into birding in a big way and also become kind of an activist on behalf of birds and the environment.”&nbsp; With more time to himself in 2020, except for socially distanced jigsaw puzzle deliveries via pizza peel to friends and clients, Fitzpatrick says he had the chance to care more about the local and global environment and how change relates to weather as well as his much loved local birds. “That’s one issue I think we really have to face as a culture and as artists – being better stewards of our planet. Everything’s changed. I think COVID kind of made us somebody else.”&nbsp; Fitzpatrick has also been a sort of activist on behalf of emerging artists who need mentoring support and exhibition exposure and has launched several gallery spaces in Chicago, from partnering on AdventureLand, to founding The Dime, and the newer T.F. Projects. In each case he has sought to adjust the traditional gallery model from an even split between dealer and artist to one that favors the artist. Fitzpatrick recently appointed a new full-time director, Rachael Raab-Wasaff, to manage the galleries and lead from a female vantage point, while also managing Fitzpatrick’s career, freeing him up to work on his art.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1761315736/r35o7oqd6exebe4dkbta.png">Blackhawk, Illinois Indigo Bunting (Dreaming of Stars), 2021&nbsp;Of course, Fitzpatrick is really never just making art. He’s also designing puzzles, publishing books, collaborating on public art–he unveiled a large-scale mural for Steppenwolf Theater Company this summer–and preparing for what he says will be his final museum show this fall, at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art. “I feel really good about the exhibition,” says Fitzpatrick. “Right now we have at least 75 pieces in it, so far. We may have to cut, but we’re working with a lot at this point.”&nbsp; The Cleve Carney Museum of Art, formerly the Cleve Carney Art Gallery, part of the College of DuPage and the McAninch Art Center, underwent a renovation and expansion of its galleries as well as a name change in 2019, in anticipation of Frida Kahlo: Timeless, which, along with Fitzpatrick’s show, was delayed for a year due to the pandemic.&nbsp; When I ask about Fitzpatrick’s connection to the museum, he reveals, “I started caddying for Cleve Carney’s father, Marv Carney, in the 70s when I was about 12.” Looking across the table at Fitzpatrick, wearing his favorite White Sox hat and with gray in his beard, his fair skin mostly obscured by colorful tattoos, I am trying to picture him as a country club caddy, let alone a pre-teen. Fitzpatrick confirms he was never a golfer. “Why would I wear funny pants and chase a little ball around?” he asks me. He explains, however, that he was particularly good at reading greens, a skill he possessed because his drawing acumen helped him understand planes and trajectories.&nbsp; Fitzpatrick emphasizes that he learned a lot from that time. “You wouldn’t think it would be the job that most formed me, but it did. I learned how to win graciously, and how to lose gracefully.” Fitzpatrick also got to practice the art of listening (to more than a few dirty jokes), as well as getting, and holding, someone’s attention – skills that would all be put to use when he would later perform and tell stories in theaters and on film.&nbsp; He says, “I had a remarkably bad attitude, but Marv liked me because I read his putts, and they played for money.” Following some remarks on the course one day–Carney let Fitzpatrick know he needed a haircut as well as an attitude adjustment–when asked what he was going to do with himself in life, Fitzpatrick responded, “I wanna be an artist.” To which Carney exclaimed, “Fuck. You’re not going to make any money. My kid’s into that. He just got out of law school. Every damn dime he makes, he spends on art.” Carney offered to introduce Fitzpatrick and his son the next time he was out golfing.&nbsp; However stern Marv was, Fitzpatrick says, Cleve was a lot of fun. “If I were to liken him to something in nature, it would be a pond full of otters.” When he did get to know Cleve, eventually Fitzpatrick showed him some drawings, and Cleve, in his late 20s at that point, responded by telling the young artist about many others, such as the German expressionists, and the artists of the Weimar Republic. When Fitzpatrick shared that he wanted to learn how to make etchings, Cleve pointed him to study Hogarth, and Picasso. “He really came to me with the right things at the exact right time [in the 70s.] When I started making a name for myself in the 80s, Cleve was the first guy to come to my studio, and every time he came, he would buy something. He was just unbelievably kind and supportive of me.”&nbsp; Cleve Carney built a major art collection over the years and championed a wide range of nonprofits and causes throughout Chicago. His 2012 donation of $1 million in cash and art to the college helped establish the Cleve Carney Arts Gallery which became the Cleve Carney Museum of Art in 2019. Fitzpatrick knew he had to do this exhibition, the one he says will be his last museum show, because he credits the support of this one man with making him an artist.&nbsp;&nbsp;* <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1761315737/vscybt9k2moxbjs2elgp.jpg">Left: Western Avenue (Street of Crocodiles), 2021; Right: The Emerald Bird (Absinthe Bird for Lenora Carrington) drawing collage, 2018&nbsp;I’ve heard Fitzpatrick talk about lasts before, so knowing he’s looking to keep going, following his heart attack, rather than call it quits, I press him if he really means it. Does he wonder what new, impossible to pass up offer could still come along?&nbsp; “The museum thing, for sure it’s the last,” he responds. “It’s time to get out of the way for people who don’t look like me. If I deal myself out of that equation, then some institutional wall space becomes available for somebody else. I think it’s important for us to create some equity, and it starts with every single artist.”&nbsp; He emphasizes the significance in artists recognizing that they are each other’s advocates as well as worthy of accepting each other’s support. “The one thing the community has to realize is the most valuable assets we have are each other. Most things one artist cannot do by themselves. You put four or five of them together, and you can move mountains.”&nbsp;* <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1761315738/oeufjhadvmcevvbjqezm.webp">Art work for Fitzpatrick's mural, Night and Day in the Garden of All Other Ecstasies.&nbsp;Fitzpatrick’s new Steppenwolf Theater mural, titled Night and Day in the Garden of All Other Ecstasies and completed this spring, may also be his last mural in Chicago. Created in honor of the theater’s former artistic director, and Fitzpatrick’s friend, Martha Lavey, it represents the evolution of the storied company. At 12 feet high by 76 feet long, the mural hits some firsts for Fitzpatrick–his first outdoor mural and his largest work to date. Artist Danny Torres is credited with the laborious process of digitizing Fitzpatrick’s images for the mural inch by inch, which took him six weeks before they could be transferred to tile by a company in Italy. The quality and durability of the images on tile means that the mural won’t be as vulnerable to degradation by sun or weather. Says Fitzpatrick, “I think it’s a future of public art. I love the romance of painting onto something, like Michelangelo, but how often is most of that covered up?”&nbsp; Coming off of the Steppenwolf mural, Fitzpatrick and Torres started their own company–Fitzpatrick, Torres, Humboldt, Caballo–and are now looking for opportunities around the country and the world. Though this is supposed to be the last one they do in Chicago, time will tell. Either way, their work will not end.&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;Whereas some people become more stubborn with age, swearing off new things, and people, Fitzpatrick thrives on fresh energy. His friendship and business partnership with Torres, who is about half Fitzpatrick’s age, was also borne from what followed Fitzpatrick’s heart attack. Torres’s aunt, a cardio rehabilitation nurse at St Mary’s Hospital where Fitzpatrick received care, called Fitzpatrick. He recalls, “She just says, ‘This is Rosa, who restored you to life. I want you to meet my nephew, who is a marvelous artist.’ The minute we started talking, it was like we knew each other. We were already kind of the same.”&nbsp; Fitzpatrick liked Torres and wanted to support him, so they talked about taking 18 months to get enough work ready to hang at AdventureLand, the gallery which used to be where T.F. Projects is now. Torres sold out his first show on the opening night. Not long after that was when Steppenwolf approached Fitzpatrick about the mural for their new building. He knew he could make the maquettes but he would need a top crew of artists to work with to execute it on a grand scale. Torres was his first choice. And once COVID altered the project’s entire timeline and prospects, just the two of them were mainly left to see it through.&nbsp; “No one could say they knew what [COVID-19] was yet,” Fitzpatrick recalls, “We were kind of lost for a while, until Mike Tobin, the head of Steppenwolf’s board, introduced us to the guys at Imola Ceramica.” Around for centuries, the company became known for fabricating decorative porcelain and ceramic tea sets before delving into cutting edge imaging about 30–35 years ago. That connection made the Steppenwolf mural’s production possible, and it also revealed new collaborations for Fitzpatrick and Torres, as well as any future players who come into their orbit.&nbsp; The mural commission was obviously a significant artistic and business win for Fitzpatrick and his team, but what he says he finds most valuable is the work as public art in Chicago that will last long after he is gone.&nbsp; “To do this in a public way, where people don’t have to pay a dime to see it? I love that.”&nbsp;Jesus of Western Avenue is on view at the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/jesus-of-western-avenue" target="_blank">Cleve Carney Museum of Art</a>: October 16–Jan 31, 2022&nbsp;<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1761315739/yya9ayqnlsfbmbsiyrug.png">Tony signing limited edition posters for Steve Earle's tribune album to his son Justin Townes Earle&nbsp;&nbsp;

A Man Walks Into a Museum: For Tony Fitzpatrick, 2021 is a Return to More Than Before

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418918/wzsiisrlugmblo8empe6.jpg"><figcaption>An-My Lê, November 5, Sugar Cane Field, Houma, Louisiana, 2016, Inkjet print</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIWho are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? These are just some of the existential questions tethered to creatives in any age, but this summer, as part of the upcoming multi-site exhibition Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, 29 artists add another question to the enduring list: Are we paying attention?The exhibition materializes as we emerge from isolation (and general art deprivation) to once again encounter artists’ creative solutions to contemporary issues. Abigail Winograd, MacArthur Fellows Program 40th Anniversary Exhibition Curator, spoke with me about some of the collaborative efforts involved in the project. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418918/jmuc7te15wjmeb2j8kbl.jpg"><figcaption>Jeffrey Gibson working in the studio. Photo courtesy of the artist. Gibson's exhibition <a href="http://www.newberry.org/sweet-bitter-love-exhibition">Sweet Bitter Love</a> is on view at the Newberry Library thru Sept 18 &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: 29 artists, 19 exhibition venues, and over a dozen research partners and community partners — in only three short years? Can you tell me more about Toward Common Cause and how the initiative unfolded?&nbsp;Abigail Winograd: Three years ago the MacArthur Foundation invited me to propose an exhibition to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Fellow’s program. The invitation included an open-ended proposal to present a theme. I made a selection of artists and proposed an exhibition that uses the “commons” as a thematic umbrella to look at four areas of inquiry: human society and communication, the natural environment, the built environment, and identity and representation.&nbsp;The show was a response to what felt like, at the end of 2017 and start of 2018, a moment in which we were, as a society, grappling with the realization that what we had thought was common ground or a common understanding, was being called into question.&nbsp;CGN: One of the first exhibitions to open is Much Unseen is Also Here, which runs from June 3–August 29 at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP). Can you tell me more about the process, and some of the conversations you had with the artists An-My Lê and Shahzia Sikander and the curators?&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418919/zuptqecte5rejno7lzma.jpg"><figcaption>Shahzia Sikander, Promiscuous Intimacies, 2020, patinated bronze, 42 x 24 x 18”, edition of 5 with 2 APs. © Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Jason Wyche, New York, Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>AW:&nbsp;In the past couple of years, my conversations with artists An-My Lê and Shahzia Sikander involved thinking through their identities and representation as women of color in this moment in history. It developed into a conversation about their relationship to America and American-ness. That was happening in the midst of debates about monuments; the whole world, it seems, has been experiencing this moment of iconoclasm. After the murder of George Floyd, we see monuments literally being pulled off their pedestals because we’ve reached this moment of reckoning.*Both artists were already questioning the role of monuments through their own media and practice—An-My Lê through a 19th century photography apparatus, and Shahzia Sikander through mixed media (drawings, video installations, and patinated sculptures).Since 2015, An-My Lê has been working on a large-scale photography project, The Silent General in which she explores the complicated relationships to landscape, war, and history. As part of her project, she documents the decommissioning of the statues of General Robert E. Lee and General P.G.T. Beauregard Monuments (2017) from their established locations to the Homeland Security Storage in New Orleans, where they were ultimately withdrawn.Shahzia Sikander was interested in monuments from another angle. In 2017 she served on the Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments and Markers in New York City, which exposed her to ongoing discussions and competing public opinions surrounding the role of monuments. This culminated in an anti-monument, such as her Promiscuous Intimacies (2020 patinated bronze sculpture) depicting Greco-Roman Venus and the Indian Devata. An anti-monument cross-examines the social tenets underpinning monuments: its historical and classical implications, material structure; the power structures they inherently reveal along with the histories they conceal. Bringing these two bodies of work together into MoCP’s space crescendos into a duet of artistic practices that interrogate how –and whose—history is portrayed.When Winograd conceived the idea three years ago, she could not divine that the project would coincide with a pandemic. If anything, the work by the MacArthur fellows gained another level of urgency. She felt deeply grateful to forge relationships with participating artists who were already using their art as a platform to confront realities and injustices in the world. “In this fraught moment, working with this cohort of artists and spaces is an unimaginable privilege. It’s been all a very humbling experience,” she says.&nbsp;“It’s also been special for me to work on one of the largest exhibitions I’ve ever done in my hometown. It really took a village.” Chicago was the natural choice for the exhibition, not least because it is the home of the MacArthur headquarters, but also because of its wealth of art schools, ethnic diversity, and working-class roots.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418920/qciw9woeygiyxlbixl5w.jpg"><figcaption>Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Well 35°58’16”N -106°5’21”W (Santa Clara Pueblo, NM), 2014. Pictured: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Courtesy of the artist. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: What is Chicago’s role in this project? Does the initiative underscore the city as an exhibition space?&nbsp;AW: From the beginning, what we hoped to do was try to make the art available to as broad an audience as possible, which means lowering barriers of access. We thought about where museums and cultural resources are located and how we can integrate alternative venues to diffuse art across the city.We are collaborating with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) for one of the exhibitions. This is the first time the CHA has participated in a contemporary art exhibition. After the last year, we all need more art in our lives. The CHA is another chance to work with organizations that don’t normally participate in these projects.*Due to the number and breadth of the exhibitions distributed across the city, it is impossible to look forward to just one. The fellows in the initiative – such as Jeffrey Gibson, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Kara Walker, and Kerry James Marshall, to name a few – field a spectrum of social, environmental, and political issues in their practice. Toward Common Cause exposes where we are left vulnerable as a society and allows us to reflect and take the necessary steps to move forward.&nbsp;Are we paying attention? If so, how can we unearth common ground? &nbsp;For more information visit <a href="http://towardcommoncause.org">TowardCommonCause.org</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

Seeking Common Cause: The MacArthur Fellows Program at 40

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418907/fultlgrl9lpfjfu2qdsb.jpg"><figcaption>A bright painting by the artist Federico Herrero has served as Gary’s Zoom background since last Spring. Displayed on the custom sideboard, from left: Lynda Box by Haas Brothers; Giolight lamp by Johanna Grawunder. On the right wall, clockwise from left: Jake Troyli, Beverly Fishman and Wendy White.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAVisiting the home of an art collector has, for me, always been a very personal as well as in-person endeavor. Requesting that someone let me invade their privacy and ask that they divulge what they buy, from where, and why, is an intimate thing – one I feel better about doing face-to-face, in order to find out what collecting art is like for Chicagoans, as well as to show how it is never the same thing for anyone.&nbsp;This past year has taught me to rethink how I do a lot of things, and collector interviews have not been spared the increased distance that so many of us have experienced. But clearing hurdles has meant meeting opportunities.Despite the apparent challenges, connecting with collectors Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson was a pandemic delight. Already Zoom experts, having attended dozens of art events virtually for a year, Gary and Scott and I met from our respective homes and offices, sharing screenshots and Instagram stories to keep the interview going in a way that would not have happened previously. It also allowed me to sit with and study Gary and Scott’s collection for a couple of weeks, enjoying it fully and for repeat visits. While this interview format may not be needed forever, I was surprisingly grateful for it this spring.&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418907/lnspewzs9jwn3tmbrfyz.jpg"><figcaption>Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson at home. Pictured: a sculpture by Neil Goodman</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Gary and Scott’s fondness for color is apparent in their home and their art collection. An abundance of saturated, modern hues – which touch most surfaces in their three bedroom River North condo they’ve inhabited for 15 years – dominates a variety of objects, from the orchids, to the linens, to the art. In particular they both love orange. Bold pigment serves as bait, luring the couple to the thing they first admire and then get hooked on, while unifying their taste and lending a vibrancy and sense of fun to the space.Amidst all the first-impression giving colors, I notice a range of artwork and mediums on display in each room, from mid-career contemporary artists who are Chicago-based, to those with international profiles: constructions by Theaster Gates and Nate Young, a text painting by Mel Bochner, an edition of America: A Hymnal by Bethany Collins, photographic portraits by Ayana Jackson, Ian Michael, Hellen van Meene, and Carrie Schneider, among others. Quite a bit of sculpture – pieces by Neil Goodman, Chris Garafalo and Kennedy Yanko – and ceramics, not to mention artist books, are also placed on nearly every available surface.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418908/xczvxzc0nn4mm8g6d2rz.gif"><figcaption>Photograph by Carrie Schneider; An American Hymnal by Bethany Collins; ceramics by Noah Singer and Jessie Mott. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Though the walls are not yet full, the art, particularly smaller works, has tripped onto tables and sideboards, floating shelves and nightstands. I can imagine reaching for a drink and picking up a four-inch wire sculpture instead, or looking into a corner to discover a glazed piece by Anders Herwald Ruhwald. If I need to iron a shirt, perhaps I can borrow (kidding) a Roger Brown painted 1930s iron, featuring ship passengers visible through yellow-lit portals. I realize a guest can’t see, or appreciate, all the art in a single visit.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418909/zxjvrbx395vq8hwszwwb.gif"><figcaption>Pictured: Robert Bernier, Ricardo Homen, Joel Ross, Norman Zammitt, Chris Cosnowski, Edie Fake, Jeroen Nelemans.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418910/lx9wooluzhffcxf5rrrs.jpg"><figcaption>Photograph by Izima Koaru, and ceramics by Carolyn Ottmers. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;I asked Gary to give me an idea of the scope and scale of the collection, as I was interested in just how many pieces they had acquired to date and if they considered a focus for their lively assemblage.&nbsp;“We should be a bit more organized,” Gary admits. “We have every invoice of every piece we ever purchased, but we just never made one of those lists for when people come over. It’s taken us a while to think of ourselves as collectors.”&nbsp;Gary and Scott’s reluctance to admit they are collectors sounds familiar. One by one works of art are purchased and then carefully installed. Invoices are filed, and eventually careers are followed, museum donations are made and gifts are promised. Yet many resist the designation of ‘collector.’ It sounds so obligatory. Gary estimates they now have about 80 works in their condominium – he suspects they may be out of room – with another 32 in his Gold Coast office, where he is the head of Sotheby’s Chicago location.&nbsp;Yes, they are definitely collectors.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418911/lq8ggsni1vs6huwixlsw.jpg"><figcaption>Works on display at the Sotheby's Chicago office, where Gary works</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Gary explains that his very first personal purchase was when he was just ten years old. Having saved some money, he tagged along with his art loving parents at the Beth-El Synagogue Art Fair, found something priced under $500 and convinced his parents he would pay them back the difference. This piece, a 1920’s Belgian poster, was purchased from a dealer Gary would later do business with. &nbsp;Having more or less been a part of the professional art world since he was in graduate school, Gary remembers that on a trip to New York in 1986 – with Lori Kaufman, a great friend and mentor and part of Hokin Kaufman Gallery, where he had his first art world job – he went to visit Marlborough Gallery. It was there he pointedly asked what he could afford, and was told he could buy two Alex Katz prints for $300 each, unframed.&nbsp;He bought them on the spot and still has them on display today.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418912/v3htbckiwaqdsshpp5ba.gif"><figcaption>Metzner's pair of prints by Alex Katz</figcaption></figure>*&nbsp;Scott and Gary began buying art together years ago. Though they got their starts in different ways and at separate times, they have jointly amassed a collection of artists with diverse backgrounds, and they enjoy keeping things varied. As a couple they have adhered to the sage advice to buy what they like, and they have come to enjoy the communal nature of collecting art, soliciting suggestions from colleagues, curators, and advisors. While Gary’s auction background means he is often giving advice to clients, he and Scott rely on shared insights and often check out galleries or auctions to see what might catch their eye next.&nbsp;Scott recalls he has always loved art and he has regularly visited museums around the country ever since he was young. When he began working at the University of Chicago hospital, following graduate school in Boston, and was commuting to Hyde Park from the North Side, he says he was living near art rather than with it. For awhile he was focused only on starting out in an intense career that left little time for anything else. It took meeting Gary to really introduce him to the art world in Chicago.&nbsp;While one was the first to bring the other along, today they both cite local museums as doing an incredible job helping them learn about art. The couple spent their 20’s regularly visiting the Smart Museum in Hyde Park, and today they are formally supportive of most of the museums in the city. They credit these museums, and other area spaces, with hosting high-quality, amazing programming even during the pandemic, something they appreciate as a great source of information as well as activity when they could not be together in person with other collectors and artists. &nbsp;In return for what they’ve learned from these institutions, they also actively give back. Gary is on the board of the Driehaus Museum and Depaul Museum of Art, and they are both a part of Emerge at the MCA, as well as the Society of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. This June they will co-chair the Chicago Artist Coalition’s virtual Work-in-Progress benefit.&nbsp;&nbsp;*Learning about and acquiring art takes a great deal of time, focus and resources. I wondered if they had sold any works in the collection either to adjust their focus or to make more space at home, and of course I was curious if Gary had sold personal pieces at auction.&nbsp;“We sell very little,” he says. “I know I sell people’s art for a living. I guess if we finally run out of space and there are artists that have a market to resell, we could, but not all do.”&nbsp;Charity auctions have been one outlet for deaccessioning while benefitting a good art cause. “We have donated quite a few works this way. It’s a great way to help museums and organizations.” Gary says they have also started to designate some pieces as promised gifts to area museums. He likes that the work will end up being shared with the public some day, but for now they can still enjoy them at home.&nbsp;For the most part, works stay in the collection. Gary credits his Sotheby’s colleague, Helyn Goldenberg, with encouraging him to make something new work. He shares, “She always says, ‘Don’t worry about space. You will find room if you really like it.’ I don’t know how, but it always seems to work.”Gary has held a prominent position with Sotheby’s since 1997 (his 25th anniversary at the auction house is this July). Locally he has a reputation for actively supporting galleries. I asked him what he thought about that old sticking point that auctions and galleries are in competition with each other, particularly now that there is more overlap between the two markets, due to the pandemic and the absence of in-person art fairs and large market events. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418913/rljg3jejojd1zw4mka2g.gif"><figcaption>A work by Ian Michael centers a wall in Gary and Scott's home, flanked by a piece by Lui Shtini hanging above a pair of small scale pieces by Elizabeth Wilde (left) as well as a painting by Alex Katz (above right) and Walter Spindler's 1894 drawing for the set of Izeyl, starring Sarah Bernhardt</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;He responds, “I think it’s so important to support the local art scene and galleries in general. They make a huge effort to put on exhibitions. Yes, they are for sale, but the effort going into these shows demands they be seen. Scott and I have spent much of the pandemic going to galleries on Saturdays. It’s been masked and safe, and with museums closed [this winter], it was a great activity to do together. I feel one of the things the pandemic has done was to bring galleries, museums and auction houses together to help each other and collaborate. With all the art fairs on hold, Sotheby’s started the Gallery Network last summer as a place for galleries to sell works online to the Sotheby’s audience. Again, it was a way to help each other.”When the fairs do come back, it can’t be soon enough. “We have traveled to Miami many times, and we have never missed an EXPO CHICAGO, ever,” says Gary. “Tony Karman is the king of hospitality. I think we have bought something each year. When we attend an art fair outside Chicago, we end up hanging out with our Chicago gallery friends there too, and we usually buy something as well. It sounds funny, but I think it’s because dealers often bring the best works to a fair, now even a virtual fair.”Clearly art is a social, as well as professional, focus for Scott and Gary, but for now the big art parties are still in the rearview mirror. Gary says it’s hard to recall the last in-person event they went to because they’ve been busy toasting and connecting online. They have also been meeting with co-chairs to plan Chicago Artist Coalition’s June benefit, as well as brainstorm with another area organization to host an event in the fall.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418914/my1c9lmlpuzmaykb33yo.gif"><figcaption>One of Gary and Scott’s newest acquisitions is Black Rice, by Ayana Jackson, purchased from Mariane Ibrahim Gallery. Shown at right: Leaf Face by Brian Bress. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;While ready for a return to in-person, they’ve managed to engage well with virtual talks and events. Gary recalls a Zoom talk he and Scott attended where collector and MCA board member Helen Zell spoke with MCA Director Madeleine Grynsztejn last year. Zell said one of the most rewarding things she has enjoyed about collecting is the relationships with artists. For Gary, “We hadn’t really done that, or at least made a point of it. We love the dealers, but now [during COVID] we’ve had more time to directly connect with artists online, in galleries, or even just on social media. It’s sort of just been happening, and it’s great.”&nbsp;Devoid of an in person social calendar, Gary and Scott have made the effort to buy art throughout the pandemic. Says Gary, “It’s been great to support galleries at a difficult time.” In fact they began buying when the March 2020 lockdown went into effect, acquiring a work by Andrew Holmquist from Carrie Secrist Gallery. Next they selected a piece by Ian Michael, a new artist at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery. As we were on the phone coordinating the interview, they were arranging for delivery of a bright new Beverly Fishman sculpture from Kavi Gupta.There is still one piece, at least, on the way, which Gary confesses he snagged from the Sotheby’s Christo auction in Paris. He says he can’t say any more, or it will ruin the surprise: it’s for Scott’s Birthday this summer. He assured me, “Let’s just say we will have room for it.”&nbsp;Indeed, with a home and art collection that is certainly full, but not yet overflowing, Scott and Gary have focused their collecting enthusiasm on local artists and galleries, supporting so many while adding to the vibrancy of their day-to-day life in a challenging but also suprising year.&nbsp;#&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418915/bdopwlxfmacltk8aegk3.gif"><figcaption>Roger Brown</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418916/ccialkfvapg0ihadtfxw.gif"><figcaption>Andrew Holmquist, above a work by Liliana Porter</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Vibrant Art Enlivens a Home: Collectors Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418894/m4hvbuup0lnxp9qikg98.gif"><figcaption>Anywhere But Nowhere, installed at the Arts Club of Chicago, April 2021. Photo Credit: Michael Tropea; Courtesy The Arts Club of Chicago &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By JACQUELINE LEWISAs The Arts Club prepared this past March to open its third exhibition since the arrival of the pandemic, Anywhere But Nowhere, by 2017 Turner Award nominee Hurvin Anderson, I sat down with the club’s Executive Director and Chief Curator Janine Mileaf to discuss Anderson’s new works, the artist’s ongoing barbershop theme, as well as the challenges involved with successfully mounting an international exhibition during the time of COVID-19.&nbsp;I was also fortunate to connect with Mr. Anderson for this interview, and he graciously added deeper insight to this exhibition in regards to his identity as a British-born artist, one step removed from his familial homeland in Jamaica.&nbsp;CGN: How did the Arts Club begin collaborating with Hurvin Anderson?Janine Mileaf: This exhibition has been on the books for quite some time. It was supposed to take place about a year ago, but the pandemic postponed it. I had met the Hurvin Anderson and did a studio visit in London a couple years a year ago, after which I offered him a show here. He graciously accepted.&nbsp;CGN: Can you give us an overview of the exhibition?&nbsp;JM: The exhibition includes two series coming together: brand new paintings on the subject of Jamaica and its sites of tourism, as well as ongoing work regarding barbershops. Hurvin’s barbershop work is very well known – it’s been going on since 2005 – but he’s made brand new, significant work in that series.By bringing the Jamaica and barbershop series together, he’s considering both his ongoing, formal aesthetic approach, while also thematically linking the two.&nbsp;The barbershop series has to do with the Jamaican diaspora in Britain. Hurvin is a UK–born artist with Jamaican heritage. While growing up in Birmingham, he went to barbershops with his dad. They were a sort of cultural, makeshift space that became a Jamaican hub for him. So they are a closed, interior space of Jamaican gathering within the UK. In contrast the Jamaican spaces depicted in Hurvin’s new paintings are all exterior landscapes. He wanted to bring together these two worlds and explore how they mirror each other in this new exhibition.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418895/hoq5xz6hasglc37tyspg.gif"><figcaption>Hurvin Anderson, Jungle Garden, 2020, acrylic, oil on linen, 71-1⁄4 x 59-1⁄8 in. Courtesy de Ying Foundation Photo: Richard Ivey</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How do the works depict the dualities of development and dereliction surrounding the Jamaican tourist sites? Can you explain how they happen simultaneously?JM: That was actually the impetus for this series of works.&nbsp;Hurvin took a bunch of photographs when he went to Jamaica in 2017. He was struck by the sites where he would see giant construction projects adjacent to places that were falling apart. There was this investment in the new without care for the existing. It struck him as problematic, so he focused on it visually.In the paintings, you don’t necessarily see the cranes and the active building, but you see a hotel site that’s built in limestone. He focuses on this perforated stone wall covered in foliage, and you cannot tell if it’s being built or torn down. There’s this constant need for redevelopment, growth and construction, but at the same time there’s neglect and decay.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418896/gfay0iidn9jqz2m4gj2w.gif"><figcaption>Chalet 1, 2019, ink and pencil on cartridge paper, 10-1⁄8 x 14-7⁄8 in (25.8 x 37.7 cm) Photo: Ben Westoby</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What does the title “Anywhere but Nowhere” mean?JM: The title itself comes from a KC White reggae song of the same name. There are a lot of musical references in the titles of Hurvin’s works. But he’s also referencing the specificity of place – a kind of familiar view that is not specific in terms of its locale. A lot of Caribbean touristic sites are kind of treated in this same way.There’s a monumental landscape painting in this show titled No One Remembers, and for Hurvin, it’s extremely specific in terms of Jamaican context. It’s a combination of abstract planes and signage. To him it’s the visual imagery you see all over Jamaica. For someone familiar with that it would be very recognizable.Anywhere but Nowhere is also wrapped up in a concept of utopia Hurvin is playing with. There is this value placed on a homeland by those who are part of the diaspora, so he has a romanticized Jamaica that he’s never really lived in. He’s a foreigner there, yet he has this very close connection. There’s a paradise people get in their minds, including him, that doesn’t really exist.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418897/qcmm3ct8bv3yzifqtrhs.gif"><figcaption>No one remembers, 2021, acrylic on paper laid on Dibond, 59-1⁄8 x 354-3⁄8 in. (150 x 900 cm) Photo: Ben Westoby</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How does Anderson’s British Nationality and experience intersect with his Jamaican roots in this exhibition?JM: I actually spoke with Hurvin today, and he said that a goal of his is to merge them. In this exhibition they are still two separate things, but both are equally part of him. He wanted to see them together for structural and thematic reasons, but I think they still do remain separate.There’s a utopian view of both places: this internal community in a broader place like the UK, and then this image of a paradise that’s externalized in the Jamaican scenes. He plays them off each other conceptually.&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418898/xlal1xuxcxv0tsmumv64.gif"><figcaption>Hurvin Anderson, Photo Credit: Sebastian&nbsp; Nevols &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Mr. Anderson, will you please share your experience as a British citizen visiting your familial country of Jamaica?Hurvin Anderson: In this body of work I’m offering a representation of Jamaica as told to me through two generations of the diaspora. Although based on photographs of a real location on Jamaica’s North Coast, these works are also creations of my imagination and born of a powerful oral history.&nbsp; As such, I am always one step removed, trying to understand the visceral pull of a homeland I’ve never known but that has been so richly described. The Jamaica of people’s memory dominated conversations in my childhood, so representing these conjured images on the canvas is, I suppose, a way of filling a loss or void. Life in Jamaica was not my experience, but in recreating a version in my own language I can, in part, relate or share in it.&nbsp;The retelling of stories from Jamaica mythologised the country of my parents and siblings’ birth. On a visit in 2017, my mind was full of descriptions of the charm of the place while physically confronted with the beauty yes, but also the reality of economic hardship.&nbsp; The abandoned hotels became a metaphor for me for these mixed feelings of grandeur and loss, of a garden of eden, a lost city and the pain of nostalgia.&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;CGN: Since the artist is based in the UK, and international travel is difficult during the pandemic, did the Arts Club have to employ new ways to collaborate on this exhibition?JM: Happily I had been to Hurvin’s studio long before the pandemic, and he had basically sketched out the entire exhibition. We were lucky in that way. He just had more time to work on it.This morning we were looking at floor plans to figure out exactly where things would go, and we have FaceTime check-ins scheduled over the next couple days. We’ll do a little with the exhibition, show him virtually, and then repeat the process.Normally he would be here at this point. We’re hoping that he may still come in person this summer for a closing event. That would be nice. We’re all working on getting vaccinated, and travel may be possible, so we haven’t written that off yet.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418899/lkkzxlhrxs5hkjqv0jjn.gif"><figcaption>Hurvin Anderson, Flat Top, 2008, oil on canvas, 98-3⁄8 x 81-7⁄8 in., Collection Thomas Dane, London Photo: Hugh Kelly &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Do you think that technology like this could allow for even less separation and lead to a more interconnected, global art experience?JM: I mean, you can get things done, depending on the planning, but the richness of the artist’s presence is very much missed.&nbsp;CGN: How is The Arts Club approaching exhibiting art during an ongoing pandemic?JM: We were closed, then open, then closed, and then open by appointment. Now with Hurvin’s exhibition, I believe that we will be able to open at regular gallery hours. We are always watching and will respond based on the city’s guidelines.Unfortunately we cannot have a live opening, but we have been doing some public, mini tours instead of a big tour, as well as a public Zoom talk in April. In June we will have an open house with tours. Over the summer and depending on regulations, we may have another talk or event.&nbsp;CGN: What aspects of the exhibition are you most excited for people to experience?JM: I am excited for people to experience the tactile qualities of the art that you just cannot get on a screen. The scale and the embodied relationship between the viewer and the painting is also very important in these works, as well as those physical textures. There is also this structure under his paintings that reveals itself gradually, making time extremely important for his works.&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurvin Anderson: Anywhere But Nowhere, Thru August 7, 2021 at The Arts Club of Chicago • artsclub.org&nbsp;</body></html>

Hurvin Anderson's Artistic Translations at The Arts Club of Chicago

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418870/w6u7nxqhsbzsniasqkak.png"><figcaption>Victoria Fuller in her studio.</figcaption></figure>By CGN StaffIf you have taken a walk around Chicago in the past decade and noticed any whimsical public art, there's a good chance you have stumbled across a work by Victoria Fuller. &nbsp;A graduate of SAIC and a Chicago-based artist for several years, Fuller has spent her career working in sculpture and painting. Following a year in lockdown, this spring she is the featured artist in Ephemera, a show at The Art Center Highland Park that begins in May. We asked Victoria a few questions about how she got started as an artist, what challenges and opportunities she's experienced in recent months, and what might be next.&nbsp;CGN: What was the first piece of art (or artist) that really mattered to you? Do you remember how old you were?&nbsp;Victoria Fuller: I was 5 years old, on the Pennsylvania farm I grew up on, when a friend and I disturbed a swarm of bees. I remember our babysitter first put mud on our bee stings, and then she said that when a bee stings you, their stinger comes out and they die. In my 5-year-old mind, I worried about the dead bees. I imagined that their souls would become angels in heaven, so I drew a picture of a bee with a halo. When my father asked me about it, I responded it was a “Bee Angel.” He was enchanted with the idea, so he turned it into our Christmas card that year.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: At what point did you determine you wanted to be an artist? When did you choose to pursue sculpture?VF: My grade school art teacher sat me across from another student and told us each to draw a portrait of the other. I had never done that before. When I was finished I was astonished to see the image I drew looked just like my classmate. My parents encouraged my talent, and the first art award that I won was for a decorated Easter egg. By high school I decided I wanted to major in art at college. At the University of Denver, I took classes in painting, ceramics, sculpture and printmaking. A visiting installation artist assigned us to find man-made objects in hardware stores and make art with them. That was when I was introduced to the concept of found object art and the artist Marcel Duchamp.&nbsp;After two years at the University of Denver, I moved to Aspen and continued to paint, make ceramics, dabble in paper making, and take classes at Anderson Ranch Art Center. While completing my college degree through the University Without Walls program through Loretto Heights College, I did two semesters at The San Francisco Art Institute. There someone stole one of my paintings in the storage racks. The attendant shrugged his shoulders and said, “Perhaps a student who couldn’t afford materials took your painting and painted over it.” Discouraged, and not feeling it was safe to store paintings at school, I started experimenting with sculpture. Now, I do both painting and sculpture in a variety of materials and forms, as well as work with found and appropriated objects.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What prompted you to pursue an MFA?&nbsp;VF: After getting married and divorced, and living in New York City for a year to seriously pursue my career, I returned to Aspen for a short period. Then I decided that if I was to be taken seriously, I should get an MFA. At that point I was 39 years old, and I was accepted at SAIC. I wasn't accepted at some other schools, but ultimately I was glad because I felt out of place on those campuses. When I came to Chicago, it felt right. I loved the Art Institute, and some of my art heroes from the “Harry Who” movement were here. Later I had the distinct pleasure to have had Jim Nutt and Barbara Rossi as graduate advisors.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418870/hlvlpwzowes6ba7m9hle.png"><figcaption>Many Suns Exhibition, Sunflower Sun, Sperm and Egg Sun, Rubber Glove Sun, Sunflower Pollen</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Do you have any advice for current MFA students or to recent graduates?&nbsp;VF: When I entered graduate school, I had had a career in art for several years and was able to discern and trust my own judgments about what worked and what didn’t in making my art. After starting school, I lost that innate sense of knowing my decisions because the teachers and students would question and criticize my choices – which is what happens in critiques. You look at aspects of your work you may not have considered. However, it took me a year and a half to once again trust myself when making my work. I guess my wisdom would be to take critiques with a grain of salt. Listen to what they say, consider it, but if you know what is right for you, stand up for yourself and continue on your path. If you know you are making the right choices, then continue. For those who have recently graduated, I would say that networking with fellow artists and people in the art world is very important. Those connections will help you get into shows and advance. Go to art openings (someday) and network on social media.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out?VF: I didn’t know anything about the business of art, and it was not taught in art school at that time. I wish I had known more about that. I really didn’t know about the networking either.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: You received an individual artist grant from DCASE in 2019. Was there a specific project you worked on as a result of that?&nbsp;VF: Yes, I created an inflatable sculpture called Bring Back the Extinct Northern White Rhino. It’s a life size replica of a rhino, 13’ x 5.5’ x 4,’ made of vinyl, with a hide of printed faux wrinkles and texture. It inflates and deflates repetitively on a 3 minutes cycle, continuing until the gallery space closes.&nbsp;When deflated, we are reminded that it is extinct; when inflated, it references the magnificence of the species when it was alive and the attempt to bring it back through “artificial reproductive techniques,”&nbsp;via frozen sperm and eggs implanted in a closely related subspecies. The inflation and deflation are also like inhaling and exhaling lungs, symbolizing the breath of life. &nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Have you ever been walking and happened upon one of your own works on display?&nbsp;VF: I haven’t had that experience, exactly, but one of my artworks, Directing Traffic, made of highway signs, is along McCormick Blvd., just south of Skokie Sculpture Park, in Lincolnwood. I did encounter it when I went on a group bike ride. We stopped and took pictures next to it. I guess I felt proud to show it off to people.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418871/gsegfdvbrisxdpftozco.png"><figcaption>Peanut Plant, Going Nuts, and Going Nuts (closeup)</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What has been your most enjoyable project or commission?&nbsp;VF: I love all of my artworks, they are like my children, but making Shoe of Shoes, was my first large-scale public artwork, and I learned a lot from it. It was fun to see my concept of a giant shoe made from around 2,000 cast aluminum shoes become a reality. I first showed it at Navy Pier, and then it went to St. Louis, where it was in a show at City Museum, called The Really Big Shoe Show. Then it was purchased by Brown Shoe, also in St. Louis. They have since rebranded to Caleres Shoes. Shoe of Shoes sits outside of their headquarters.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Almost one year into the pandemic, what do you miss? Have you experienced anything positive or surprising?VF: I miss going to art openings and talking openly without wearing masks. I miss getting together with friends at a restaurant and gathering at people’s homes for parties.&nbsp;I guess the silver lining is that I have a lot of time to myself, without much interruption, to work on art. I admit the time leading up to the elections in the fall was distracting, and I was glued to the TV to see what was going to happen, and then the horrible insurrection at the Capitol happened. I didn’t get much artwork done during that stressful time.&nbsp;But overall this year has been good for me. I have been in several online shows, and I was juried into the Rockford Midwest Biennial and the Evanston and Vicinity Show. I was honored to have been awarded the Dean Alan Olson Purchase Award by the Rockford Art Museum and I won Best of Show at the Evanston and Vicinity Show, tied with another artist Annie Zirin.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What are you working on now?VF: I am working on a series called On the Brink, revolving around the threatened circumstance of many of the animals on earth, that are either extinct, nearly extinct, or endangered. The human species should be included in that category, given the state of the planet and the situation of pollution, plastic waste and climate change. I am presently working on making Sea Turtle hatchlings and their eggs, as part of an installation that I plan to do with sand.&nbsp;I will also be the Featured Artist at the Highland Park Art Center's Ephemera: The Power of Impermanence exhibition which will run from May 7-June 12, including the Center's annual benefit on May 8. I will guest jury the show and will feature some of my favorite works focusing on systems of man and nature and the impact of that nexus. Pieces will include my Many Sun Series as well as Bring Back the Extinct Northern White Rhino mentioned previously.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Artist Q&A: Victoria Fuller 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418803/grf4y22mbjrc1aypu6sl.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Caroll, Cooking the Goose, Digital Photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIIf you’ve ever felt like you’ve walked in on a crime scene when looking at some of Patty Carroll’s photographs, you are not alone. Carroll, influenced by bright, vintage colors and British interiors, is guilty of one thing: framing it on the room. &nbsp;Before many of us were stuck at home, Carroll was already reflecting on what it means to be surrounded by so much stuff, whether it be items that act as an extension of our selves, or the media and the politics we consume on a daily basis. Her latest book Domestic Demise catalogs women being ‘done in’ by their physical environment, possessions, labels (or lack of thereof) and, unsurprisingly, their impeccable taste in drapery.These past few months have set the stage for her photographs. At the start of pandemic, Carroll had to put her art on hold for personal health reasons. Now fully recovered (and her sense of humor unscathed) she has since been conjuring images of women bombarded by reality and putting the pieces together.I visited Patty Carroll at her studio to talk about her women and how recent events have crept into the foreground of her photography.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418804/vjt5sb9r5dydmihrwflw.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, the artist hiding in the drapes herself</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What’s a typical day in the studio look like now? What are you working on?Patty Carroll: I had this idea about having patches or pieces together, so before we got to the studio, I had bought these carpet tiles and brought back these wallpaper books to start building the scene. Shopping and acquiring the right materials are a huge part of the process. Then, my assistant and I cut out pages from the wallpaper books that we thought would work together. At one point I decided that we need a lamp and a square chair, so I brought one back from Indiana and spent most of the day covering that and the lampshade. I also had to find a dress for her to wear….it takes a couple of days.&nbsp;CGN: How has your art practice changed over the past couple of months in light of the pandemic?&nbsp;PC: It didn’t change my practice as much as it changed my perspective on work. I’m still using my woman who is alone in her house, but now she is kind of a metaphor for all of us who are stuck in our houses. The woman is dragging herself around her house, depressed, or watching TV all the time; whereas people are obsessed with cooking, cleaning, and sort of confined doing. The fact that I was working [on these themes] before COVID-19 was kind of fortuitous.&nbsp;My work took on a different meaning when we all became confined. For example, I have a gallery in Houston, and because times were hard, we were offering things at a discount. We sold a couple, but my perspective was that it suddenly became too close to home. I mean, if you are already feeling claustrophobic the last thing you want is to look at is a picture about a woman being claustrophobic.&nbsp;CGN: Interior lives have been very prominent in your work. How did you get to this point?&nbsp;PC: First of all, I love color. The whole work I did for at least three quarters of my career was outside, in the world of tacky, wonderful places. I took many photographs of Fort Lauderdale, Miami and cheap little motels that reminded me of the places we stayed at when I was a kid.&nbsp; &nbsp;Then, it developed into this whole series of photographing&nbsp; hot dog stands, which started in Chicago. I had no studio experience and all of this work was outside, in the world, and seeing what the world had to offer – in as much color as possible.&nbsp;Once I got into studio work (Spirited Visions: Portraits of Chicago Artists. Photographs), I was more interested in who the artists were in their work, not who they were in reality. I was trying to photograph someone’s inner life.&nbsp;Like many photographers, I began photography to try to get away from home. Then, my husband and I came back from England. It was like literally coming home—physically, mentally, spiritually. I was trying to figure what is home and where is it and what does it mean—and how do we express that. It was a round circle. It is really hard to figure out when you are a photographer, because you are confined to reality.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418807/yfhhz5irg8nk82wwxdmi.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Protected, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How do your recent photographs, including those from your book Anonymous Women: Domestic Demise, evolve from your earlier series, Anonymous Women: Reconstructed, Anonymous Women: Draped?&nbsp;The Anonymous Women series started out with the idea that the home is an integral part of every woman’s identity. She was behind the drapes for the first part of the series.&nbsp; She was very alone, hidden, and so she was anonymously making this home. At the same time, she was getting entangled in the process.After that part of the series I wanted to introduce stuff, because all women have objects that are important to them—cooking utensils, art, red balls, you name it. People have all kinds of things that they need to surround themselves with as part of their identity.As I kept adding items (fabrics, furniture, appliances), I realized the figure was very stiff. I thought about how the combination of activities and obsessions in the home and decorations and stuff can overwhelm anyone. This last part of the series is all about that: taking an activity like reading or moving furniture that engulfs the woman and really ‘does her in.’CGN: Was that what sparked the decision to make short videos of the draped woman performing impossible tasks?&nbsp;It coincided with two things: the first was that Photoshop introduced video editing, and the other thing was that I was feeling that they were so stiff and the whole idea was just kind of heavy. There’s only so much you can do with a model. The second thing was the time my niece was in town and I told her to get behind the drape and turn the lamp on. She couldn’t find the knob to turn the lamp on because, obviously, she couldn’t see behind the drapes. I thought, “That’s the point!” It was hilarious to watch these women in whacko situations fail because they can’t see what they’re doing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418808/hqpmpnumrnhrk57gdimh.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Political Party, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: In what ways does your Woman, the faceless mannequin in the pictures, address current events? What is, to borrow your phrase, ‘doing her in’? &nbsp;I did a few photographs, such as Campaigning and Cocktail Party, for my Red, White, and Blue series that were about patriotism, and democracy—how the lack of democracy is doing us in. The obsession with all of the politics is just making us crazy. That’s one theme.&nbsp;I made a couple of Pride pictures in June. Then, in July—we were all wearing masks and cleaning everything all the time and I thought I should just do a picture about protecting ourselves: Protected. Plastic seems to be the material of choice these days. I still want to do one with bandages and stuff, but I haven’t gotten to that yet. It was too close to all my physical illnesses (laughs) and having skin glue and stuff on bits of me. And I thought, “I can’t quite do this yet.”&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418809/tzrb9qcubfprxyvwlgge.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Pieces, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;In Carroll’s latest picture, Pieces, the recurring lone woman is slouched in a chair, obscured by scraps of wallpaper samples and mismatched fabrics. In true Dr. Frankenstein-like spirit, Carroll explains, “I wanted to work on pieces to bring her to life.” She continues, “Every time we turn around there seems to be something new and awful happening.” In Pieces, Carroll’s departure from her usual highly saturated color scheme speaks to our political reality: “It feels like people are so upset with the way things are going that a neutral environment seems natural. With that, I’m piecing together life.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418810/j7idtl28rbtftkpeepoo.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, News, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418810/juefqdcwpdxi9iuvbgtr.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Planty, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418811/nhedexgbapmwt8o1cfcv.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Toasty, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Patty Carroll: Investigating Domesticity

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418803/dflh9rxdog8an2ddhxkm.jpg"><figcaption>Bey’s Southern Exposure series begins with this image of Pride Cleaners, built in 1959 at 79th and St. Lawrence.&nbsp; &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By JACQUELINE LEWISLee Bey is an author, lecturer, photographer, and writer. A South Side native his passion for Chicago stands out in every aspect of his career. Formerly an architecture critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Bey’s knowledge of Chicago, its culture, and its buildings reveals a deeper understanding of the city for anyone who appreciates the vast array of the city’s experiences.&nbsp;Most recently, he published Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side, which captures the South Side through a series of photographs and stories shining light on the beauty and relevance of the area’s architectural footprint and reminds everyone, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot, that Chicago is more than just the North Side and Downtown.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418804/xhlehzfcnblurf1ierne.jpg"><figcaption>Photographer Lee Bey</figcaption></figure>CGN: Can you tell us about your new book Southern Exposure? What drew you to this specific subject matter?&nbsp;Lee Bey: Southern Exposure is kind of a hybrid. It begins as a memoir and family history of a South Side native and resident. Then it expands into a broader story about the history and architecture of the South Side. Stitching it all together are photographs of South Side architecture and public landscapes. Being a South Sider is what drew me to the subject matter, and my desire as a native son was to tell a different story about the South Side. Too often, the only story we hear is the narrative that the South Side is just a violent ghetto for the rest of the city to avoid. Especially at this moment we’re in now. I wanted my book to say, “Yes, there is that. But there is architectural beauty — some of the best buildings and spaces you’ll see anywhere in this city — that’s been overlooked.” I also wanted the book to make the reader confront the racist housing and lending policies that have robbed black folks on the South Side — and the West Side too — of its wealth and contributed to, if not created, problems we see there.CGN: What do you think are some of the factors that cause Chicago, and beyond, to overlook the South Side?LB: In the book, I say outright that it’s race. “Nothing to see here. Just Black people. And it’s unsafe. Besides, anything really important is on the mostly-white north side or downtown.“ That’s been the mindset for 70 years or more. And it’s widespread. I was at a speaking event in Indianapolis last year, and one of the sponsors, when he found out that I lived on the South Side, that I didn’t just write about it, asked me, “Are you afraid to live there?” I said no. But I thought, “Indianapolis is more dangerous per capita than Chicago—what are you talking about?”&nbsp;Those of us who live on the South Side, we’re not overlooking or not recognizing these well-known architecturally rich places and spaces. We appreciate what’s there. While doing the photography for the book, I’d be out early in the morning or before sunset, and folks would often come out and tell me a little something about the building I was photographing, its official history or even the off-the-books history that was made when the neighborhood became a Black neighborhood. So, we know. It’s others who don’t, especially those who have made architectural, urban planning and preservation policy over the last few generations in Chicago.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418805/fohkt5idq55es0vtfpn1.jpg"><figcaption>Lavezzorio Community Center, 7600 S. Parnell, Studio Gang, 2008. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Do you believe that the architecture of an area reveals a deeper story regarding the community it inhabits?LB: It really does. And too often. That connection makes the story of architecture far more rich. The book talks about the historic architecture of Bronzeville, and they are fine buildings like the former Eighth Regiment Armory, for instance. But when you also understand these buildings marked Black people’s arrival in Chicago during The Great Migration—and these are places where we made history—it adds another dimension to the building’s story, other than cornices, arches, and window openings.CGN: What photograph from Southern Exposure has the most personal meaning?LB: That’s a tough one! I’ll have to go with Pride Cleaners at 79th and St. Lawrence. I put Pride in the book because it is a spectacular example of modernist architecture that I bet most people outside the South Side haven’t seen. I’ve loved the building since I was a kid. What makes this personal is while I was writing the book, my cousin McKinley — who was like a little brother to my late father because they were close in age — told me, in the 1960s he and my father would stand in the parking lot of that building and try to figure out how that tilted concrete roof was held up. It’s a story I never knew. The book covers how my father turned me onto architecture, but the fact that he and my cousin were both fascinated by the same zany dry cleaners made me love that building a little bit more.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418805/fqgyzduv9ogig9r69ubz.jpg"><figcaption>Victoria Soto High School, 5025 S. St. Louis, Wight &amp; Co. 2013. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Where did you grow up, and how has it shaped your view of Chicago?LB: I was born on the west edge of South Shore, at 73rd and Kimbark, then we moved to the Avalon Park neighborhood a little further south. It shaped my view in that my introduction to architecture wasn’t the famous downtown buildings or the Gold Coast high rises, but the churches, school buildings, and housing across the South Side. Oak Woods Cemetery is in the book because I saw it as so beautiful and park-like as a kid. That was before they put that thick concrete fence around it that blocks views from the street. Chicago Vocational High School is [in the book] because it’s a magnificent Art Deco building, but it’s also my alma mater.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418806/zgvuxjf41gqpak45l45h.jpg"><figcaption>St. Gabriel Catholic Church, 600 W. 45th, Burnham &amp; Root, 1888. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Most of your work is Chicago based. What about this city most specifically captures your creative energy?LB: It’s the contradictions about this city that energize me, frustrate me, and anger me. The city will give you the John Hancock Building, still one of the finest looking skyscrapers in the world, then in the same breath, give you the troubled public housing towers of the old Cabrini Green or Robert Taylor. The city historically holds out opportunities and then keeps them away from black people. Here Martin Luther King was hit in the head with a brick in 1966. And yet this is the same city that raised up Barack Obama, Quincy Jones, Curtis Mayfield, John H. Johnson, and sent Carol Mosley Braun to the U.S. Senate. It elected an openly gay married black woman, Lori Lightfoot, as mayor—judging her solely on the merits of her performance as mayor, not her sexuality. It’ll build a landmark quality building in one generation, then tear it down in the next. That roiling stew of conflict, contradictions, and inequalities is reflected in the city’s built environment. As a photographer and a writer who wants to use architecture as a medium to something about all that, it’s an endless well of inspiration.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418807/eixxo8v9ijyubhu0t67n.jpg"><figcaption>Liberty Baptist Church, at 4849 S. King Dr. &nbsp;© Lee Bey.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How did you initially get into photography and journalism?LB: I didn’t develop an interest in photography – other than appreciating a fine photo now and again – until I was about 32 or 33, and I bought a used 35mm Argus C-3 for $25 because I liked its 1950s design. I wanted to take pictures of my young daughters, who were then about 3 and 5. And when my youngest daughter came a couple of years later, I photographed her too. But I was around buildings all day as Sun-Times architecture critic, so I’d shoot buildings, just because I was there. Then I started to like it. And something was born. I got interested in journalism when my high school English teacher, Mr. Doyle, told me I was a good writer. The story is in the book. When he said it, that was transformative. I thought “Yes, journalism. Hell yes.” And the march began.CGN: Are you currently working on any other projects?LB: I’m fascinated by the architecture of churches and houses of worship—that comes across a bit in Southern Exposure—so I’m beginning to document more of them. I’m also looking at buildings that didn’t make it into Southern Exposure simply because I ran out of time. In my perfect world, I’d like to do a significantly expanded second edition of the book, doubling the number of images and stories.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418808/hozxgtvsrip8babne2h4.jpg"><figcaption>D’Angelo Law Library, University of Chicago, 1120 E. 60th St, Eero Saarinen, 1959. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Is there anything else you would like to tell me about yourself or your art?LB: In the moment we are in with the pandemic and the civil unrest, art and artists become even more important. Sometimes it’s art as a balm – the inclination of ‘Let me go to this museum or gallery or pick up this book because I need to see beauty now.’ Art can also be a way to make sense of our times. To give voice — or provide an alternate voice — to what we are feeling now. And art can also exhort. Mayor Lightfoot hadn’t even taken her oath of office yet when I turned in my last chapter of Southern Exposure to my publisher, but I tell the mayor directly in the book that now is the time for her administration to stand up for the South Side and the West Side. That Chicago can no longer call itself a world-class city if it continues to let these parts of the city just drift.&nbsp;The mayor and her wife Amy both have of the book. And the mayor also has about a dozen big framed images from Southern Exposure hanging in the reception lobby of her office. So anyone who comes there to meet with her has to face the architecture of South Side. I take all that as a good sign.&nbsp;You can purchase Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side through the <a href="https://lee-bey.squarespace.com">Northwestern University Press</a>.&nbsp;</body></html>

Lee Bey: Illuminating The South Side's Overlooked Beauty

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418797/eytkqn9kjwugonrudfmc.jpg"><figcaption>Suzanne Lovell’s design for the St Regis Institution in Manhattan. Billy Cunningham photography. Pictured on left: artwork by Kara Walker &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIContemporary design professionals usually waste no time deflating that old adage that your art should match your drapes. Chicago-based, internationally known designer Suzanne Lovell is no exception. In fact, she is uniquely capable of helping clients not only find the art for their homes but to advise them on contemporary artists and elements of the market. Her own firm, which she founded in 1985, now has a division devoted to fine art, run by colleague Kristin Murphy Romanski. Lovell wrote the book, literally, on living with art and design: Artistic Interiors: Designing with Fine Art Collections, was published almost a decade ago, in 2011. Its main theme is how central art is in her own design work as well as in life at home. In a time when all of us are spending a great deal of time at home, and nowhere else, this has never been more apparent. So, what is Lovell doing to continue to bring art to her clients as well as to stay abreast of the contemporary art world? We had the chance to ask her recently.&nbsp;CGN: What comes first, the design or the art?Suzanne Lovell: Architecture comes first. Then, the moments of pause are the moments for art to create magic.&nbsp;We start with a conversation about what the client owns or would like to acquire, and we create the architectural language and experience of space to best enhance their experience with their artwork. That’s why we merge in the collecting of art very early in the process, because we are either taking their art, and including it in their environment in appropriate ways, or helping them think about the art that’s going to be in the magic of their home. Once they realize that we are doing that expression of them, they want it echoed in another part of their home.&nbsp;Design and furniture support those spaces and their function. Sofas are an afterthought.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418798/hbhot8etalljgzscjqar.jpg"><figcaption>A North Shore residence designed by Lovell. Tony Soluri Photography</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418799/wncs6a0dfx1vtgmkgm0b.jpg"><figcaption>Hanging in Lovell's studio: Marina Abramovic’s The Kitchen VII -Homage to St. Therese. Mark La Rosa Photography</figcaption></figure>CGN: Do you have an example where you designed a room that best showcases the art? What is the relationship between the art and the space?SL: There’s no question we adjust the architecture to accommodate the piece of art first. We always highlight the key opportunities for art as we start conversations about collecting with context and placement. In the case of the Manhattan installation in the St. Regis Institution, we preserved the Beaux-Arts architecture, because that was the right thing to do. We ended up expanding the width of the mill work panels of art to showcase a Kara Walker piece. As an architect/designer, you are referencing and respecting the history [of the building], but you are also putting into the history the contemporary story and message.&nbsp;CGN: What sets your art advisory business apart, especially up against the stereotype of decorating with art?SL: Definitely our approach toward research, our intellectual formation of why certain collections come together for certain clients, and our constant exploration/travel to view art all over the world. We feel responsible to the art community that supports our efforts to educate our clients as on every piece of art we suggest they might like to collect, and why. It is definitely NOT about decorating.Kristin’s helped us reach a certain level in the art world in terms of understanding art. That’s a very difficult world to be very welcomed into, particularly when you’re a decorator and architect. We strove really hard for that not to be the reference. While we feel responsible to our clients, the galleries realize we have placement and we have intelligence, and so they want to help us collect the pieces of the great artists that they represent.&nbsp;CGN: Can you share some tips for successfully mixing contemporary art in with a range of tastes and styles?SL: I’m absolutely a firm believer that you collect what you strongly believe in. I don’t like the statement “buy the art you love.” It is not like that. Rather, “What are the expressions of “you” in the artwork that you are collecting.” In other words, collect what you feel strongly about as it will always find a place in your definition of home.CGN: Globally, the concept of ‘home’ has drastically changed. How would you define the experience today?&nbsp;SL: We are very conscious of the fact that people all need and want a more relaxed, easy and happy environment, because they are there all the time. Space is important and each individual in the family needs to be considered as the function is now required to be for 24 hours a day. More natural materials that share the hand of craft is certainly coming into our work. We enjoy the maker and his or her story as it engages with the world of art in an honest extension of creativity.CGN: How does that translate into your work and the materials you use?&nbsp;SL: The home will always be for me, as Louis Kahn said, “The room is not only the beginning of architecture; it is an extension of self...a choosing conscious individual.”CGN: What art currently hangs in your studio?&nbsp;SL: We have art by Jimmy Robert and Greg Stone, and, from my personal collection there’s also Marina Abramovic’s The Kitchen VII -Homage to St. Therese.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418799/yujbn57uwoddxrg0nxgp.jpg"><figcaption>An example of how Lovell integrates artwork into an important&nbsp;collection is a pair of early 20th C. dioramas with Jeff Koon’s ceramic Puppy (1998) resting upon one of a pair of sideboards designed by Suzanne Lovell Inc. and hand-built by Frank Pollaro.</figcaption></figure>CGN: How has your business changed since the pandemic? What are you working on now? &nbsp;SL: We have of course gone to a remote existence as a team. That has been quite an adjustment as we all know that creation is a physical endeavor. It is something that you just can’t get over the machine. Being in the office is super important, and yet we are staggering our returns to the office to inspire the wonderful work we are engaged in currently.&nbsp; At the same time, we’ve challenged ourselves to create a three-dimensional space to help clients visualize the space.We are busy in Naples, in New York, in Glencoe and in South Carolina with clients that we refer to as patrons as our engagement with them is often for multiple homes.&nbsp; Managing their art works and the moving and installation thereof, not to mention the cataloging, is very integral to the service we provide.CGN: Can you tell me about some of your most recent fine art acquisition/art restoration projects?SL: We installed a phenomenal Cecily Brown triptych for a client in one home and a wonderful Renoir in another of their residences. Another one of our most enthusiastic moments was a trip Kristin and I made with a client whom has become a strong collector of Joseph Walsh’s work. We went to Cork, Ireland to visit Walsh, who is bringing together makers in Ireland and raising them up. His furniture is known to be “beautiful enough for a blind man to see.”&nbsp;I also think the most exciting placement we have ever made, is certainly the large Kara Walker that we installed in Manhattan.CGN: How do you and your team approach a project? What do you look for/what kind of conversations do you have when visualizing a space?SL: We talk about how they wish to use this particular piece of property. We discuss imagery that connects to those definitions. We make an effort to understand what their dream is of this location. I like to say it is about them, and my responsibility is to create the most perfect version of that dream, professionally. As a team with the patron, we spend a lot of time at the beginning of every project selecting the architectural materials that are the backbone of the residence’s definition. Wood and stone, walls and floor, the surrounds are the core issue of any design. This is the palette to which one adds.&nbsp;</body></html>

Suzanne Lovell: Bringing Art History Home 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418797/vik7nje5nwlzqdbx0t1b.jpg"><figcaption>Navy Pier, Chicago Photo Courtesy of Choose Chicago. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEATony Karman has been the man of September since he went out on his own in 2012 to found the international art fair <a href="https://www.expochicago.com">EXPO CHICAGO</a> and moved the exposition it from its traditional place on the spring calendar to the start of the fall cultural season. His bold move aimed to take advantage of Chicago’s lakeside setting during one of its more temperate months and to align the fair with the major gallery and museum openings of the year, unifying the various events to usher in the beginning of the international fall art season and appeal to travelers seeking a global cultural hub.&nbsp;This past spring, six months away from opening the 9th edition of EXPO CHICAGO on Navy Pier, it became apparent to Karman that plans for this fall would not move forward. I spoke with Karman in August to find out what he and his fair team have been working on and observing in the art world during a time they otherwise would have been pulling all-nighters to prepare for tens of thousands of fair visitors.&nbsp;Update: EXPO CHICAGO announced <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2020/9/expo-chicago-announces-new-fall-2020-programming">new virtual and in-person programming</a> for fall 2020 on September 9.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418798/pfyxh7us4fswyvi7red5.jpg"><figcaption>Tony Karman</figcaption></figure>CGN: First, please share the latest updates on EXPO CHICAGO – the path to deciding to move this fall’s fair to spring 2021. &nbsp;Tony Karman: The path was abundantly clear back in April that we could not move forward for a fair this September, and we reviewed options with Navy Pier to choose the April 2021 dates. I am proud of our statement that we made in partnership with our exhibitors and that we were able to take the lead in announcing the date shift early on, as it was clear that moving ahead with our old dates was not possible. Making that decision was actually a very easy one, as it was most responsible thing to do for our exhibitors and for the safety of our patrons. We remain in constant contact with our Selection Committee, our dealers, our partners from around the world, and we are consistently monitoring global issues so we can adjust again if we have to. &nbsp;CGN: What has EXPO been focusing on recently?&nbsp;TK: Adjusting to, and preparing for, April 2021 has kept us very busy as we have shifted many procedures while consistently communicating with galleries and developing new initiatives for the local cultural community and our broader international partners.&nbsp; We developed our bi-weekly Online Dispatch, maintained THE SEEN online, created dine&amp;, a virtual culinary and talks program, and we are planning to launch a series of both virtual and in person events this September and October.&nbsp;CGN: What have you observed from other fairs around the world as they have had to pivot too?TK: There is no question that all fairs, like galleries, have moved quickly to supplement their online platforms with viewing rooms and digital initiatives. We were in discussions with a developer for an online viewing room and we stepped up our plans to launch an online initiative, as that is now a basic component for any fair to be able to offer.&nbsp; The challenges of this time provide a unique opportunity to rethink much of what we have developed in the past and has forced us to look to expanding the company outside of producing one art exposition a year. I would anticipate that many others are doing the same.&nbsp;CGN: How critical do you think the lurch to online marketplace and viewing rooms will be long term?&nbsp; &nbsp;TK: Extremely critical. Although, nothing can replace seeing and experiencing artwork in person along with the “magical” interaction and exploration that can only happen when people gather, there is no question that virtual experiences that are offered by fairs and galleries will only increase in importance. Online sales for galleries have continued to grow and I don’t see that trend slowing anytime soon. Our plan is to stay on top of the curve and continue to invest and innovate in this area for the future.&nbsp;CGN: What could the fall season in Chicago mean without an art fair – the negatives as well as the possibilities?&nbsp;TK: Sadly, we were poised to have even another breakout year in 2020 with several new galleries planning to participate and programming to be announced. However, we cannot dwell on what could have been but continue to move forward and focus our attention on servicing the local and global arts community whenever we can take place in 2021. ‘September in Chicago’ was our tagline, and I am grateful that over that last nine years, we contributed to the opening of the season. However, for decades the April/May calendar slot was Chicago’s, and if that is where we land, I think we will contribute as much or more to the spring openings. &nbsp; &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418799/dhuutf41fjhnejwriszw.jpg"><figcaption>EXPO CHICAGO, Vernissage 2019</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What are your expectations for the fair landscape in 2021, and for the art market post (or amidst) the pandemic? &nbsp;TK: My expectations for 2021 are a bit guarded as we have seen the constant uncertainty throw out all notions of a global art fair calendar out the window. Everyone is adjusting and resetting their priorities, and given that the playing field has leveled a bit, I feel strongly that we are in a great place to emerge even stronger than before. We are nimble as a company, we benefit greatly from the support of the local cultural and hospitality community, Chicago is home to world renowned institutions, artists and galleries, and our city’s geographic location is a distinct advantage for us to welcome the U.S. and the world when appropriate.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What about more recent cultural and societal conversations as they relate to the art community? &nbsp;TK: Artists and the arts have always been at the forefront of driving societal change, provoking us to both “see” and to reflect on the numerous issues that we face. There is no question that we live in a most profound era, and I feel that the artwork of this time will continue to be driver of change, and that the cultural community will be even more critical to helping us as a city and nation to rebuild. &nbsp;CGN: I know you’re an optimist. How do you think Chicago can be even more relevant in the new commercial and cultural landscape we are all encountering and for art fairs of the future? &nbsp;TK: That I am. As I said earlier, challenges also offer great opportunities. For the exposition we must be resilient while staying active in our programming and be nimble to adjust to the shifting calendars. In regard to the broader city, we should be very proud that there remains an intense focus on Chicago’s artists, galleries and institutions. The collective of this attention should serve us all well as we work together to rebuild the ecosystem and once again welcome the world.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

EXPO CHICAGO’s Tony Karman on Fall Without a Fair

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418356/lejc9vv9xieri2aooifq.jpg"><figcaption>Pictured from left: Eric Fischl, The Chair, the Bed, Getting Ready; sculpture by Cuban collective The Merger; two photographs by Katy Grannan; Julian Schnabel, Winnie Fung &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEAWhen an art world colleague mentioned one day that a favorite client of his had an extensive, private collection of art not often shared with the public, I was intrigued. I never tire of profiling collectors and how they assemble personal outlets for creative passion. It’s truly one of the highlights of being the publisher of CGN. The difference right now is that due to COVID-19, I would not be able to see this collection in person. Like so much else these days, this collection would have to be experienced virtually – emailed images digested from my laptop. While that sounded discouraging at first, it allowed for a more lingering, ultimately still first hand look at one man’s devotion to a top notch collection displayed over five locations, including two residences in Chicago, a suburban office on the North Shore, and two homes in California.&nbsp;The collection contains approximately 120 works of art, and currently nothing is hidden away in storage. It spans mediums, from figurative paintings to multimedia works, as well as from collage to sculpture, but the collector, who opted to remain anonymous for this interview, says that most of the art may be classified as post-1980 work by American and European contemporary artists. Adding to the range and eclecticism of the collection are antiquities, fossils, Chinese cloisonné, medieval reliquaries, textile garments, and original comic book art. And while I was unable to see the collection first-hand, it may be viewed by private appointment.The collector’s interest in art was piqued in college, and over time, he discovered he wanted to be surrounded by art. As he found his personal focus, he has approached art collecting as a life-long education in creativity and deliberate engagement.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418357/b1noe8zot6y3nctaz2qq.jpg"><figcaption>Wall artworks left to right: Jan De Maesschalck, Homesickness; Elliott Hundley, Still Life with Sculpture; a Ming Dynasty cloisonné basin with mythical beasts. &nbsp;Items on table include sketchbooks by Joanne Greenbaum and a Kate Gilmore's video, Anything…</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Initially what helped you learn about art? &nbsp;Collector: Like many humanities majors at liberal arts colleges, I took a few art history classes, one of which was a fine arts course titled Twentieth Century Painting, which the students jokingly named “Spots and Dots.” Although this was during the late 1970’s, the art I surveyed in the course seemed to end abruptly at 1960’s minimalism. I wondered what important art had been produced in the intervening decade, so I asked a friend, an art history major, what she knew. Her response was memorable: “Not much…Some guy crucified himself on a Volkswagen.”My interest in art generally, and more specifically contemporary art, began with that college course, despite where its coverage ended. After graduation I took a job in banking in Los Angeles.&nbsp; On the weekends I would go to museums and galleries, just looking and learning.CGN: When did you get started enjoying art and then collecting it?&nbsp;Collector: My interest in collecting art really began when I happened to see the photos of Henry Geldzahler’s New York apartment in the September 1982 issue of Architectural Digest.&nbsp; Several qualities about that apartment appealed to me. For one, the art was displayed informally. Until then I had thought art was only displayed in ornate frames and in fancy, decorated homes, but here was art almost haphazardly arranged, with pieces placed on floors and in bookshelves. Second, there was a lot of art in the small apartment. He had artwork everywhere – on walls, atop tables, and in every corner. Finally, he had two artworks by young, then-unknown artists that really knocked me out: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Geldzahler had just acquired the paintings at the P.S. 1 Queens exhibition New York/New Wave. I thought, if art this novel and exciting is being created now, then I want to start a collection. Basquiat and Haring were already priced out of my reach, so I started looking at local LA artists.&nbsp; Shortly thereafter I acquired my first painting, a small work by artist Jeffrey Vallance. I got a cash advance against my credit card to buy it. The painting is still displayed in my Chicago condo.CGN: You own a wide range of art, from large-scale work by internationally known blue-chip names to smaller-sized pieces, many by Chicago-based artists, among others. How do you manage the installation of such a blend of work? &nbsp;Collector: I don’t think about how a work will be displayed when I purchase it, and this indifference has led to some interesting issues. I purchased a Paul McCarthy work, Bavarian Deer, a few years back. I knew it was big, because part of its impact is its scale – the artwork is a small 1960’s postcard image of a deer, blown up to monumental proportions. It wasn’t until the work arrived in Chicago though, that I realized it wouldn’t fit in my building’s elevator. My art installer, Dennis Callahan, arranged with the building to ‘ride the elevator,’ placing the work on top of the elevator cab and riding with it. Then we decided to hang the work in front of a window, which was the only space for it in the condo.&nbsp; Installed it looks amazing: a nostalgic image of innocence, enlarged to nearly billboard-size.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418358/cjgidyvhdkwmal3whani.jpg"><figcaption>Left: Jared Joslin, Panther and Zebra. Top right: Tony Fitzpatrick, Chicago Harlequin; Bottom right: Tony Fitzpatrick, Woman on the Beach</figcaption></figure>CGN: Do you look for conversations between the works?Collector: I sometimes arrange works thematically. For example, in my office I have two drawing collages by Tony Fitzpatrick, purchased from the artist. While I was visiting with Fitzpatrick, he mentioned a Chicago artist in his own collection, Jared Joslin. So I purchased one of Joslin’s works, Panther and the Zebra, and it is installed next to the two Fitzpatrick pieces. &nbsp;CGN: How would you describe the focus of your collection now?&nbsp; What’s it like to live among this mix of art that so many only see in a museum?Collector: The focus of my collection now is 1980’s American Contemporary.&nbsp; Initially I approached collecting the way most consultants advise: buy what you like. For me, though, this was unfocused, because I found that I liked a lot of art. So I needed to narrow my range, and when I looked at my collection I decided that the works that meant the most to me were those made by American artists prominent when I first became interested in art in the early 1980’s: Julian Schnabel, Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, Robert Graham, Robert Therrien, Jim Dine, and others.&nbsp;Art of the 1980’s has a vibrancy, and that energy spilled over into music, fashion and performance. I think the influence is ongoing.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418359/gher1q1ju8aojidmgpiz.jpg"><figcaption>From left to right: Paul McCarthy, Bavarian Deer; Liz Deschenes, Blue Wool; On floor: Ursula von Rydingsvard, Lucretia; Math Bass, Scottie Dog &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: You’re still an active collector today. How do you learn about and discover art now?&nbsp;While my 1980’s focus continues, I have added a handful of works each year from current artists, purchased from galleries. Most recently, I’ve acquired two Jan-Ole Schiemann paintings from Nino Mier (LA) and Kasmin (NY), a Jenna Gribbon work from Fredricks &amp; Freiser (NY) and a Paul Sietsema work from Matthew Marks (LA).CGN: Where do you primarily buy art – through galleries, auctions or art fairs?Collector: For works from the 1980’s, I am primarily purchasing at auction.&nbsp; More current works I purchase through galleries, and occasionally at art fairs.&nbsp; I go to very few fairs, only Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and EXPO CHICAGO.CGN: Your focus, once you decided on one, is very personal.&nbsp;Collector: I love living with these works, and spending time with them. 20 years ago, the comedian Steve Martin displayed his art collection in Las Vegas, and he wrote and narrated the audio tour guide. A point that he made was that an artwork succeeds when you can stare at it for hours and find meaning, but you know in the end you’ll never fully understand it. He said it better, and funnier, but that’s the gist, and I agree with him.One issue I am conscious of is that private ownership of art deprives the general public of viewing those works.&nbsp; But I don’t think it applies to the works in my collection. I tested my hunch a few years ago by offering to have my estate leave my collection to a well-known modern art museum, which shall go unnamed. The museum agreed to accept the collection, but only if they were free to sell any or all of the works.&nbsp;Thus, the market has spoken: my art works are very meaningful to me, but they are not necessarily rare, and their private ownership does not deprive patrons of the ability to view works that might be deemed enormously important.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418360/xsvdhaztu85cm7zlcrij.jpg"><figcaption>Jim Dine, Alone at Night, each panel signed, titled and dated 1991 on the reverse, oil on 2 joined canvases, in artist’s frame, 86 1/8 by 147 3/4 in.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What do you think about art for investment?Collector: When it comes to art, one needs to be agnostic as to intrinsic value and investment potential. I don’t think about art as an investment, except to the extent that I do insure the collection and try to keep track of its value for that purpose. Over the past 40 years of collecting art, I’ve certainly purchased works that have increased in value, and conversely some of the works I’ve purchased probably have very little resale value.&nbsp;I guess the way I look at the value of art can be summed up by a story about a recent acquisition. Many years back, I asked an artist – who happened to live next door to me in LA at the time – the price of one of his works, a favorite of mine. The price he named was more than I could afford then. Recently, I finally acquired that work from that same artist through a NY gallery for 30 times the price the artist stated so long ago. It doesn’t bother me that I had to pay so much more for it now, I’m just happy to have it in my collection. I ended up sending the artist an email congratulating him for holding the work so long, and in the process earning a ten percent annual compounded return for 38 years!<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418360/nhjjyl5oivnap0kafijn.jpg"><figcaption>Robert Longo, Untitled (Two Women)</figcaption></figure>CGN: What would you tell a visitor about your collection, as well as about collecting in general?Collector: Since my collection is so varied, I would speak about each work individually rather than the collection as a whole. In fact, rather than speaking I would hand the visitor an information page I’ve prepared for each of the works. It includes information that would typically be shown in an auction catalog, for instance: date created, media, and provenance. I have tried to include, in a condensed version, thoughts and ideas on the artists, and sometimes specifics about the actual artwork in the collection, on a page that the visitor can read while looking at the work itself. I re-read these notes myself from time to time.As far as collecting in general, I would suggest buying what you like; but, again, at least in my case, it helps to have a focus. You might build a collection around a certain time period, a genre, or different stages in a single artist’s life and work. I would also advise finding out as much as you can about the artists in your collection, including auction notes, criticism, films, and interviews. For example, to fully understand a Schnabel plate painting I think it’s crucial to watch Michael Blackwood’s important 1982 documentary A New Spirit in Painting. Likewise, my Eric Fischl painting The Chair, The Bed, Getting Ready had much greater resonance for me after reading his autobiography Bad Boy. I would also recommend three great books on how to view and understand modern art: Robert Hughes’ The Shock of the New, Leo Steinberg’s classic Other Criteria, and Calvin Tomkins’ amazing book The Bride and the Bachelors, which I keep coming back to, and have now read several times. Also, go to galleries and speak with the representatives.&nbsp;I never understood Nan Goldin’s photographs until her work was explained to me by Mike Davis at Matthew Marks. Once decoded, I fell in love with these photographs, and recently added Goldin’s 1991 photo Guy at Wigstock to my collection.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418361/c2c3dqdf7qwwaqdq8mg3.jpg"><figcaption>Nan Goldin, Guy at Wigstock</figcaption></figure>CGN: What kind of conversations have started about the art in your collection?Collector: Almost everyone that visits the collection tells me which work is their personal favorite. Some tell me which is their least favorite! Now, when I have visitors, I do ask them which is their favorite, but I also ask them: Why? What do you like about your favorite work in the collection? What are the qualities of the work that make it your favorite, or least favorite? I enjoy this discussion and have learned from it too. And I do ask people to take their time while visiting the collection. There is a terrific article written by art historian Jennifer Roberts titled The Power of Patience. In it, she argues, convincingly to my mind, that collectively we have lost the ability to focus in a slow, engaged way – what she calls ‘immersive attention.’ Its only at this slow-paced, immersive engagement with the work that I believe art truly reveals itself.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

A Collector's Personal Focus: Discovering the Value of Engagement

<html><head></head><body>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418339/fbsw91z0ffsyqc9cxpuj.jpg"><figcaption>Yvette Mayorga, Portrait of the Artist’s Parents (After Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter Francois Boucher, c. 1760) 2020, acrylic piping on canvas, 48” x 60,” diptych &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ALISON REILLYTreating paint like frosting on a cake, artist Yvette Mayorga pipes saccharine landscapes onto canvases. Littered with pink cars, empty Cheeto bags, smiley faces, and references to ICE and Homeland Security, her paintings tell a truth that may be hard to stomach: the American dream is making us sick. Mayorga has been working with these motifs for several years, but the ongoing pandemic confirms what she has hinted at all along—that the promise of a better life in the United States may come with a number of severe consequences. Mayorga’s paintings, featuring fluorescent colors and soft textures juxtaposed with military figurines and blurred faces, are jarring portraits of America in 2020.&nbsp;Over the past few months Mayorga has been preparing for a number of exhibitions including LatinXAmerican at Depaul Art Museum, which opens in January 2021 and ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21 at Museo Del Barrio in New York. She was recently selected as a finalist for the 2020 Artadia Chicago Awards.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418340/vpbefdfwagadtbenlwuu.jpg"><figcaption>Yvette Mayorga in her studio. Photo by William Camargo</figcaption></figure>CGN: First, how have you been doing these past several months, and where are you working from?Yvette Mayorga: It’s been difficult to see my community and family members be put at a higher risk due to COVID-19. I had the privilege of shutting down my studio at MANA and being able to work from home for most of quarantine, but of course many essential workers didn’t have that choice and continue to be put at risk. Once the guidelines were lifted a bit in July, I returned to my studio while practicing social distancing and safety guidelines. It’s definitely been a lot of ups and downs and check ins with friends and family to make sure everyone is holding up and remembering we are strong as a community.CGN: How has your practice changed since March when the stay-at-home orders were put into effect?YM: Quarantine has affirmed what some of us have already known—that there is still work to be done in rewriting Art History due to COVID-19’s disproportionate effect on people of color and immigrant communities. I plan to continue to share the untold stories in my work with frosting through my feminist perspective.CGN: What is a typical day in your studio like?&nbsp;YM: A typical day in my studio includes an iced coffee, playing some Buscabulla, and beginning by catching up on some art admin emails/inventory/contracts for the first hour, then I do any research/source image printing related to the work I’m working on, and then I begin mixing my colors for piping. Some days my order of doing things changes, but usually it’s in that order, because it makes me get emails out of the way so I can focus on my favorite part, which is the creating.CGN: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist?YM: It’s something that my intuition has always told me to follow, although during high school I did consider different creative career paths, such as fashion design or interior design, but I was always pulled towards painting. I definitely think growing up with siblings who were great at drawing and were always being creative around our house made me think there was a possibility in art. It also helped that my high school art teacher gave me advice and tools to think about art as a career, because I didn’t know anyone who was an artist—and that’s really integral to seeing yourself in a field—if you don’t know anyone doing your dream job, it takes more of a risk to follow it.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418341/ddjbbqos0kmwsybl915i.jpg"><figcaption>American Urn, (After Madame Victoire vases at Château de Versailles,) 2019, acrylic piping on canvas, 48”x 60” &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: I read that you initially used baking frosting in many of your paintings and sculptures but have since changed to acrylic to ensure the longevity of your work. How have other aspects of your practice changed over the past several years (conceptually or physically)?YM: I used to source frosting from bakeries who had buckets of leftover frosting that was going to be discarded. I really enjoyed seeing all the different colors and decorations mixed in the tubs that gave me small glimpses of maybe who those cakes were being made for that weekend. Most of my “Monuments” series are made with real frosting, and, of course, frosting decomposes after a certain amount of time, so I went back to paint but with a more sculptural approach, where I used traditional baking tools to do the painting. That was more exciting to me than traditional painting—I think it’s the sculpturally-inclined part of me that loves to see texture and relief on any substrate.&nbsp;Conceptually my work continues to naturally evolve as one research topic leads me to another and another and so on. The content is all pertaining to one grand idea, but the idea is so complex and has so many layers I still am barely touching it—that, to me, is exciting.&nbsp;CGN: How did you decide to incorporate confections, cake decorating, and pastillage into your work?YM: I first wanted to address the decadence attributed to the American dream and consumerism, while referencing my mother’s labor – in the ‘70s she worked decorating cakes at Marshall Field’s. I began using real frosting to reference both themes, and now I am also incorporating references to the Rococo style—everything is tied to ideas of labor, gender, architecture, and colonialism under the big umbrella of American idealism that is placed on immigrants.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418342/beomtzzfbxurmc7vckvc.jpg"><figcaption>Vase of the Century</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Tell me about your experience growing up in Moline, Illinois? How has that informed your work?&nbsp;YM: My experience growing up in Moline was mostly great. It’s a small city where everyone you go to kindergarten with you also go to high school with. I grew up surrounded by my family and a tight knit community. I also felt like I partially grew up in Zacatecas and Jalisco, Mexico where my family and I would travel to every summer until I was about 18 years old to visit my grandmothers. I think the experience of being in two countries as a child really gave me a transnational perspective that allowed me to understand my parents’ stories of growing up in Mexico and to shape my understanding of my identity. I am grateful for my parents to have given my siblings and me that experience, because it has made me who I am today.CGN: What impact has Chicago had on your formation as an artist? What is your relationship to the city?YM: Chicago was where we would visit my aunt as a child and also a place filled with memories of my parents’ time here in the seventies, as it was one of the first cities they immigrated to. There is a lot of my familial labor history embedded in the South Side of Chicago that reminds me of what it must’ve been like for my parents to begin their life here. As an artist, it’s where my community is.CGN: I was looking at your Instagram and saw an adorable little puppy. Can you tell me about your dog?YM: Roco (Rococo) is our new family member, she is a Victorian Bulldog. My partner and I decided it was time for a happy addition during quarantine, and she’s really brought us light during difficult times.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418342/amv2ny6qgmckyf0m9wtd.jpg"><figcaption>High Maintenance, 2019, Installation, 41’ x 25’ x 10’ Tube Factory, Indanapolis, IN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418343/tajxbnk7aylh070xhriq.jpg"><figcaption>Monochromatic Dreams, installation</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418344/cnusmofqjcu25kz8cdwn.jpg"><figcaption>Detail of shoes in installation</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;This interview is featured in the fall 2020 issue of CGN. To receive a print copy, <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">please subscribe</a> for $20/year!&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418345/rpgttrqhgn5epcd0lyb6.png"></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Yvette Mayorga: Artistic Confections Add New Layers to Art History

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417634/ztcr9ndhyabqf1a5ei6v.png"><figcaption>May's Heroes for Heroes design by David Lee Csicsko</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEADavid Lee Csicsko, an internationally recognized and celebrated designer and artist currently living and working in Chicago, has engaged in a wide variety of projects at nearly every scale during his 30 year career; from small privately commissioned prints to to his more recent explorations of the possibilities inherent in working with stained glass and mosaics at large scales. These monumental projects have included work for hospitals, universities, elementary schools, churches, and various private homes. He was even one of the artists who designed the Obama White House for Christmas in 2012.&nbsp;This weekend his artistic touch is about to be all over another special event, the first-ever virtual Scottish Highland Games to benefit the oldest nonprofit in Illinois, the <a href="https://www.chicagoscots.org">Chicago Scots</a>. And for the past few unusual months, he's been making his distinctively colorful, graphic portraits available to the public in the name of a good cause through the sale of specially editioned, and hotly anticipated, history-themed t-shirts, masks, and more.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417635/ryeurs0dv0r1owqu9naq.jpg"></figure>Csicsko has been working with the Chicago Scots since the spring to support staff and residents of the organization's Caledonia Senior Living in suburban North Riverside, a noble effort considering how severely senior care facilities have been impacted by the ongoing pandemic.&nbsp;In March in the early weeks of lockdown, while working on a design for the Chicago Scots to celebrate Tartan Day, which was coming up on April 6, Csicsko asked friend and Chicago Scots president Gus Noble, what/whom he thought Csicsko should feature in the design. Noble suggested featuring Scottish King Robert the Bruce (remember Bravehart?), since 2020 marked the 700th anniversary of Robert's signing of the Declaration of Arbroath (asserting Scottish independence from the English on April 6, 1320). When Csicsko asked how things were going at Caledonia Senior Living because of the virus, Noble responded that the campus was in an advanced state of lockdown, but that residents and staff were holding up very well due to the work of Caledonia's incredible staff. "They are heroes," Noble said. To recognize that heroism in the face of COVID-19’s challenges, Chicago Scots had begun to raise much needed funds to buy PPE, as well as to give each member of the team hero pay, meals, treats, and groceries to save trips to the store – anything to support these frontline workers and to encourage them for the lives they were protecting, especially when many of the elderly residents were cut off from visiting family members.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417636/qzzvyzhg3kigil6ndbv2.jpg"></figure>Csicsko has designed popular t-shirts and products for Chicago's Fine Art and Classical radio WFMT's fundraisers in the past, so Csicsko and Noble decided to team up to expand the ways in which funds could be raised for Caledonia's staff, they decided to call it “Heroes for Heroes”, incorporating the Tartan Day design for t-shirts, face masks, mugs and other items featuring Robert the Bruce to support Caledonia's heroes. The campaign expanded to do limited releases each month and to add new designs as well as celebrate the 175th Anniversary of the Chicago Scots this year. Now Chicago Scots features a different Scottish Hero each month. April’s hero was the Bruce, May’s was Mary Queen of Scots and, like his Red Red Rose that’s “newly sprung in June,” June's hero was the bard Robert Burns. July's hero was Neil Armstrong (in keeping with the society's mission that all they welcome everyone who is Scottish by birth, by heritage or simply by inclination, as Armstrong was American with Scottish heritage.) August is yet to be revealed.&nbsp;Noble says they have some terrific Scottish heroes waiting in the wings to make their appearance in the months ahead, and fans of Csicsko's work as well as the Chicago Scots have indeed been collecting the eagerly awaited new releases each month as well as guessing which ones will be next.&nbsp;Csicsko says he likes to work in a&nbsp;series, "I love when I can dig in and explore the subjects, from composer portraits,&nbsp;architect&nbsp;portraits, people in science and now important historical figures from Scotland. I love doing visual research, and adding accessible&nbsp;symbols to help tell more of the story."&nbsp;To begin he says he first does a quick pencil sketch and then draws on the computer. For him, "It's very satisfying&nbsp;to take a historic figure and make them become relevant&nbsp;to today's audience. With all the Scottish Heroes, it's fun to add a tartan when ever&nbsp;possible. I mean, why not?"<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417637/cjwog72rgtroay4anjpt.png"><figcaption>Csicsko in his studio</figcaption></figure>Csicsko's designs are helping to make tartan go beyond its standard association with Christmas time and tourists. Csicsko's aesthetic and striking use of color and pattern is distinctive, and each project he engages in is entirely unique. Through his work, Csicsko celebrates the diversity and richness of the human imagination, and expresses the joys of life through his dynamic use of color, bold graphics and playful patterns. Lending his talents to this latest project is just one more way, among many, he supports a greater need in a way that spreads joy and color through art.The&nbsp;COVID-19 challenges are significant but Csicsko has stayed busy, and he is thinking of others as well as new ventures. On Facebook&nbsp;he is currently making new free, shareable coloring pages. As of July he had over 150 original new pages.And he's also designing a line of smart looking masks.In addition to his fine art, David's projects include creating the mosaics at the Belmont 'L' station, designing the Obama White House for Christmas, illustrating the much loved children's book 'The Skin You Live In'. &nbsp;His designs for the fun, reusable shopping bags for Mariano's have become collected and spotted around&nbsp;the world. &nbsp;He has had exhibits&nbsp;LUMA Loyola's Museum of Art, and the&nbsp;Alliance Française de Chicago. His output ranges from the Chapel stained glass windows at the Robert and Anne Lurie Chicago Children's Hospital, to windows for colleges&nbsp;and churches. Mr Csicsko has as&nbsp;volunteer created graphics for the Dame Myra Hess Memorial&nbsp;Concerts and Groceryland a Charity Food Source for the needy.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417638/p2eixhgghfjaugj8isot.jpg"></figure>To purchase an item to support Caledonia House <a href="https://chicagoscots.itemorder.com/sale">click here</a> (deadline: July 31 for July's Hero)To learn about Chicago Scots click <a href="https://www.chicagoscots.org">here</a>To learn about David Lee Csicsko click <a href="https://csicsko.com">here</a> or follow him on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/david.csicsko">Facebook</a><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417638/lvnh2yljmf9qkkdjgnsg.png"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417639/ptptk1ug3odzbvq9bv61.png"></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Artist David Lee Csicsko Lends Graphic Talents to Benefit Healthcare Heroes

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417668/waotohsf9xnhvlja4mea.jpg"><figcaption>Homo-entanglement, installation view, by Miller &amp; Shellabarger, February 28 until the gallery had to close to the public due to COVID-19.</figcaption></figure>Name of gallery: <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/western-exhibitions">Western Exhibitions</a>Number of years in business: 16How did you begin your career?I was an artist working a stultifying day job, working for the admissions office of an art school. I’d be on the road 5 days of week (at least!) from fall into the early spring, and when I’d get home I had no desire to coop myself up in the studio. I needed to be around people, especially other artists, leading me to meet up with them in their studios or in bars, discussing their work and the art issues of the day.&nbsp; This day job also led me to pack as much as I could into a day off. When I lived in New York, a day off might be a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and I’d spend the entire day in a different gallery district, going to see everything.&nbsp; What inspired you to open a gallery?Looking back at both the gallery hopping and studio visiting, I can see now I was developing my eye and my empathy for artists’ needs, while at the same time growing less and less interested in my own artistic practice. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Chicago had a robust apartment gallery scene and I watched my artist friends exhaust their opportunities at all these spaces without getting a sniff from commercial galleries, so eventually I thought I’d open a space to show their work, despite the fact that I ZERO experience with galleries.&nbsp;I never showed with a commercial space, never interned nor worked for one, I didn’t have an art history or arts administration degree, nor did I have a wealthy benefactor. But I did have an eye. And being an artist myself, I knew of their travails, needs and concerns. So when I was offered a raw space to open a bricks-and-mortar gallery (after putting on shows nomadically for two years) for $350 a month, I thought “I don’t have $350 extra a month, but there is no way to get a space for cheaper than this.” I took the leap in 2004.Is there a unifying element in your program or artist representation?Personal narratives, unique cosmologies and world views; LGBTQ artists and issues; Feminist art/fighting the patriarchy; pattern, decoration and surface concerns; works on paper (especially drawing); and artist books.How are you connecting with collectors and artists right now? Have you added to or increased your digital outreach?Shelter-in-place has been a sensitive time, and most people have had bigger concerns that buying art. That said, we do have rent and bills to pay and payroll to meet! So if collectors and curators do reach out to me (and thank God a few have), they will have my full attention. We updated our Artsy page, hoping to attract those eyeballs, and have amped up our content on Instagram, offering in-depth stories each day about individual art works in our Miller &amp; Shellabarger show. Upcoming shows will be featured too.Which exhibitions did you have to postpone or adjust due to COVID-19?We pushed back two shows:<a href="https://westernexhibitions.com/exhibition/visionaries-voices/">Visionaries + Voices at Western Exhibitions</a> was rescheduled for June 6–July 11, 2020, online and by appt. in the gallery.&nbsp;<a href="https://westernexhibitions.com/exhibition/downtown-nyc-1980s-selections-from-the-barry-blinderman-archive/">New York in the 80s: Selections from the Barry Blinderman Collection</a> has been pushed back to January 8, 2021.What percentage of your sales have previously been online vs in person (including art fairs)?&nbsp;50/50&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/western-exhibitions">Western Exhibitions&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

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