This fall, the <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/northern-illinois-university-niu-art-museum">NIU&nbsp;Art Museum</a> celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Center for Burma Studies. The museum, located on Northern Illinois University&#39;s campus in DeKalb, is hosting a suite of four exhibitions within their 5,000 square foot space. <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/kaleidoscope-of-burmese-art-celebrating-30-years-of-art-at-the-center-for-burma-studies">Kaleidoscope of Burmese Art</a>&nbsp;celebrates the rich collection of the Center, which is the only academic organization of its kind in&nbsp;the world. Curated by&nbsp;Catherine Raymond, director of the Center,&nbsp;the exhibitions&nbsp;bring together iconic objects from the NIU collection alongside work from contemporary Burmese artists.

Accompanying the exhibitions are a number of programs including <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/from-paper-to-skin-tattoos-in-burmese-cultures">a lecture about the tradition of tattoos in Burmese culture</a>, <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/lepeyet-and-palata-exploring-burmese-culinary-traditions">a sampling of Burmese cuisine</a>, and <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/the-art-of-cartography-in-ancient-burma">an investigation of map-making traditions in Ancient Burma</a>.

Below you&#39;ll find photos of a number of paintings, sculptures, and objects from&nbsp;Kaleidoscope of Burmese Art.&nbsp;The exhibition is on display until November 18, 2016.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1538" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1538/original/img-1126.jpg" />

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1539" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1539/original/img-1127.jpg" />

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1532" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1532/original/img-1132.jpg" />

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1537" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1537/original/img-1125.jpg" />

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1541" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1541/original/img-1129.jpg" />

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1540" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1540/original/img-1130.jpg" />

Photos: Arthur Kolat

This fall, the NIU Art Museum celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Center for Burma Studies.

Kaleidoscope of Burmese Art: Now on View at the NIU Art Museum

By MADELINE HAPPOLD

With the heated 2016 presidential election weeks away, artists are using their talents to&nbsp;turn&nbsp;the political&nbsp;personal. From creating unofficial voting stations to commenting on social justice issues, these exhibitions allow artists to&nbsp;share their voices, opinions, and hopes for the&nbsp;future.

<h3>Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting For All Who Legally Can&rsquo;t at Jane Addams Hull House Museum</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Courtesy of Sara Pooley/JAHHM " data-rich-file-id="1526" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1526/original/sara-20pooley-vox-pop-aram-han-sifuentes-204.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/jane-addams-hull-house-museum">The Jane Addams Hull House Museum</a> presents&nbsp;artist Aram Han Sifuentes&rsquo; rebellious&nbsp;project <a href="http://www.hullhousemuseum.org/vox-pop-the-disco-party/">Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting for all who legally can&rsquo;t</a>. Sifuentes, who has permission to&nbsp;be in the United States but cannot vote,&nbsp;wanted to create a unsanctioned voting process for the upcoming election to honor the voices of those who cannot participate in the election. Other non-legal voters can cast their own unsanctioned ballots at Unofficial Official Voting Stations located throughout the country and in parts of Mexico.

Sifuentes&rsquo; project explores questions about participation, citizenship, and exclusion in the United States. Ballots from other stations will be collected and returned to the Jane Addams Hull House to be counted, then repurposed and featured as an installation at the museum.

Official Unofficial Voting Station is on display through November 8.

&nbsp;

<h3>Power and Politics at Filter Photo</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Rebecca Sittler, &lt;i&gt;Resolute Reflection&lt;/i&gt;" data-rich-file-id="1514" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1514/original/power-and-politics.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/power-and-politics--3">Power and Politics</a> questions the idea that &quot;the personal is political&quot; and challenges those that influence the voting decisions&nbsp;of citizens. Juried by Barbara Tannenbaum, curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the exhibition features the work of 30 artists and coincides with the galleries&rsquo; other featured exhibit, On the Shelf.

The participating photographers explore current issues addressed by candidates while also highlighting those neglected by current political discourse. Tannenbaum notes, &quot;Whether working in documentary or other modes, they all continue the noble goal of social documentary photography: they urge viewers to analyze, understand, and act.&quot;

Power and Politics is&nbsp;open at<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/filter-photo"> Filter Photo</a> through October 22.

&nbsp;

<h3>Sapphire at Weinberg/Newton Gallery</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Anna Elise Johnson, &lt;i&gt; Blue Suit &lt;/i&gt;, 2016. " data-rich-file-id="1506" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1506/original/sapphire.jpg" />

Coinciding with the heated 2016 presidential election, <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/weinberg-newton-gallery">Weinberg/Newton Gallery</a> and Common Cause Illinois are partnering to showcase the group exhibition <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/sapphire">Sapphire</a>. The exhibition features collages, paintings, sculptures highlighting issues such as voting, money in politics, and media ethics.

Weinberg/Newton Gallery is an exhibition space dedicated to social justice issues and providing an environment for both artists and attendees to engage in contemporary political topics. &nbsp;Sapphire&nbsp;is open to the public&nbsp;October 7 through January 14, 2017.

&nbsp;

<h3>100 Years of Women in Government&nbsp;at the Dole</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Diana Zipeto, &lt;i&gt;Malala Yousafzai&lt;/i&gt;, acrylic on canvas. " data-rich-file-id="1528" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1528/original/malala.jpg" />

In 1916, the state of Montana elected Jeannette Rankin into the House of Representatives,&nbsp;making her&nbsp;the first woman sworn into Congress. This monumental achivement happened four years before the 19th amenendment was ratified, guaranteeing women the right to vote in the United States.&nbsp;Next month <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/lakeside-arts-park-at-the-dole">Lakeside Arts Park at the Dole</a> will celebrate Rankin&rsquo;s accomplishment and those of other women in political office&nbsp;over the past century.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/100-years-of-women-in-government">100 Years of Women in Government</a>&nbsp;highlights the past, present, and possible future of women in politics.

The exhibition&nbsp;is sponsored by Illinois State Representative Barbara Wheeler and is&nbsp;open to the public from November 4 through November 18.

&nbsp;

Top image:&nbsp;Danh Vō, Pao Soft, 2010. Courtesy Weinberg/Newton Gallery.

With the heated 2016 presidential election weeks away, artists are using their talents to turn the political personal.

Let's Talk Politics

By MADELNE HAPPOLD

With fall in full season, October comes with&nbsp;an air of mystery and eerie intrigue.&nbsp;Delve into all things dark and find beauty in the macabre with these featured exhibitions.&nbsp;

<h3>Double Diablerie&nbsp;at International Currents Gallery</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Ian Howard" data-rich-file-id="1523" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1523/original/unnamed.jpg" />

View art that dares to dance with the devil himself. The John David Mooney Foundation will be featuring Double Diablerie, an exhibition of large scale screen prints, lithographs, etchings, and four limited edition artist books plus two unbound editions. The exhibition is composed of works by Scottish artists Ian Howard and Arthur Watson and Japanese artists Sotaro Ide and Hisashi Kurachi.

Howard and Watson were inspired by the devil&rsquo;s influence in regional Scottish folklore, and found corresponding themes in the prints of Ide and Kurachi. The exhibition connects Celtic Scotland and Nippon (ancient Japan) by examining the two cultures&rsquo; relationships with the devil through geography, including mountains named for the Devil, groves of trees with spiritual significance, incantations, scapegoat rituals and ghostly manifestations. The show melds the distant landscapes of Japan and Scotland into one cohesive space inspired by the devil.

The exhibition will run through&nbsp;October 20, 2016 at the <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/john-david-mooney-foundation-international-currents-gallery">International Currents Gallery</a>.

&nbsp;

<h3>Dia de los Muertos: A celebration of lives lived&nbsp;at The Rangefinder Gallery at Tamarkin Camera</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Photo by Joe Patronite" data-rich-file-id="1505" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1505/original/dia-muertos-car-tus-10-1plt.jpg" />

Three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Joe Patronite honors the traditional Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos with his photography series entitled Dia de los Muertos - a celebration of lives lived. Wandering the streets of Tucson, Arizona on the morning of the All Souls Procession, Patronite draws upon his street photography experience as a photojournalist to capture what he coins &ldquo;images which reflect quirkiness in society, mixed with spontaneity and some humor.&rdquo;

Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, focuses on celebrating and honoring past loved ones who have since departed. The ongoing photography project offers a historical view of Mexican/Latin culture and the holiday&rsquo;s theme of remembrance. Patronite captures the lavishness of the holiday and the processions, juxtaposed with the solemn reverence of its attendees.

The project will be on display at <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/the-rangefinder-gallery-at-tamarkin-camera">The Rangefinder Gallery</a> with an opening reception on Friday, October 9.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>Dangerous Lullabies II&nbsp;at Lakeside Arts Park at the Dole</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Randal Stringer, &lt;i&gt; Heroin Balloon&lt;/i&gt;, 2016, mixed media on canvas" data-rich-file-id="1522" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1522/original/heroin-20balloon-20-20stringer-20-20larger-20file.jpg" />

These lullabies don&rsquo;t offer the relief of sleep, but instead draw viewers towards the dark. Opening for its second year, Dangerous Lullabies II features artwork that explores the allure of that deemed frightening. Paintings, sculptures, and fine art selected by artists from across the country highlight the disturbing beauty and curious attraction to the dark and unsettling.

The historic Dole Mansion in Crystal Lake, IL&nbsp;will provide an eerie backdrop for the exhibition, as the mansion is rumored to be haunted by the previous owner Eliza Ringling, widow of famous circus magnate Al Ringling. The show is curated by J + K Isacson in partnership with the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park and features artists: Eli Powell, Randall Stringer, Fred Larucci, Carolyn Bouso, Vince Natale, and more.

Dangerous Lullabies II is on view at <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/lakeside-arts-park-at-the-dole">Lakeside Legacy Arts Park at the Dole</a>&nbsp;from October 7-26, 2016.

Top image: Photo by Joe Patronite, Courtesy Rangefinder Gallery at Tamarkin Camera

Delve into all things dark and find beauty in the macabre with these featured October exhibitions. 

Beauty in the Macabre: Featured October Exhibitions

By ALISON REILLY

The fifth edition of EXPO Chicago took place this past weekend at Navy Pier, and we&rsquo;re already looking forward to the next iteration in 2017. Alongside the major gallery exhibitors were a number of non-profit organizations, institutions, publications, and emerging galleries. Here are highlights from some of CGN&rsquo;s favorite booths.

<h3>Black Athena Collective at Threewalls (Chicago)</h3>

Embracing their transitory state, Threewalls partnered with the Black Athena Collective to showcase the group&rsquo;s research on migration, mobility and architecture in the Red Sea region (Eritrea to Egypt). Founded by Heba Y. Amin and Dawit L. Petros, the experimental collective presented photographs, videos, and a large wooden structure. Most notable was an accordion style artist book documenting their archival research thus far. In a time of political turmoil over border control and the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Amin and Petros poetically pose the question, &ldquo;Can our art practice and methodology allow us to achieve more complex and definitive ways of thinking and interacting with land?&rdquo;

<img alt="" data-caption="Black Athena Collective, “Nowhere is a Place”, 2016, Art Book, Archival Digital print on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Paper, 301.4” x 9.4” (Book detail)" data-rich-file-id="1508" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1508/original/bac-expo1.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Tony Orrico at Marso (Mexico City)</h3>

At first glance, Tony Orrico&rsquo;s work Prepare the plane appears to be an exercise in geometric abstraction. A textured piece of white paper with rows of indentations covers the outside wall of Marso&rsquo;s booth. The composition, however, is an artifact from Orrico&rsquo;s ongoing performance series in which he systematically chews the entire sheet of paper. When first performing the piece in 2012, Orrico believed it would be a two-hour process; instead it took eight and a half. On display at EXPO was the gnawed paper from his 2015 performance at Defibrillator in Chicago. Orrico, who was once a member of the Trisha Brown Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts, has a special condition in which his jaw dislocates without his control. Through physical therapy and his own techniques, Orrico has learned to control it but his orifice continues to play a major role in his artistic practice.

<img alt="" data-caption="Tony Orrico, Detail from &lt;i&gt;Prepare the plane&lt;/i&gt; (DfbrL8r, Chicago, IL) 2015, 2012, Dental occlusions on paper, performance (8.5 hours), 96” x 96”" data-rich-file-id="1515" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1515/original/tony-orrico-prepare-the-plane.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Margo Wolowiec at Jessica Silverman Gallery &nbsp;(San Francisco)</h3>

Jessica Silverman Gallery&rsquo;s well-curated booth at EXPO Chicago featured an impressive roster of emerging and established female artists including Judy Chicago, Tammy Rae Carland, and Margo Wolowiec (see top image). Hung side-by-side, Wolowiec&rsquo;s two abstracted canvases reference the historical relationship between weaving and computing. Wolowiec searches for images using hashtags like #landscape, #blackandwhite, and in this case: #floodwater. After collecting a number of images, she collages them together and uses a dye sublimation process to transfer the images onto polyester and linen thread, which are then woven onto the canvas. The result is a mesmerizing image full of slight irregularities that continuously capture the viewer&rsquo;s attention.

<img alt="" data-caption="Margo Wolowiec, &lt;i&gt;Floodwater I&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;Floodwater II&lt;/i&gt;, 2016, Courtesy Jessica Silverman Gallery" data-rich-file-id="1511" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1511/original/jessicasilvermman-wolowiec-floodwater-i-26-ii-2c-2016.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Laura Letinsky and John Paul Morabito at Document (Chicago)</h3>

Laura Letinsky and John Paul Morabito, an artistic duo who have been collaborating since 2013, also explore the complex relationship between weaving and photography. The Chicago based gallery and printmaking studio Document installed a heavy tapestry from their series Telephone Game. Letinsky supplies the digital photographic collages while Morabito weaves and abstracts the images into the final composition. Trying to discover the origin of the initial images, which were taken by Letinsky while traveling throughout India, proves to be a futile task. The rough handling of the materials results in a textured and uneven canvas with stray threads dangling from the top and bottom of the piece.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Laura Letinsky and John Paul Morabito, &lt;i&gt;vereVereAslipFlowers&amp;haneemoon(payforthelie)&lt;/i&gt;, 2016, Cotton and wool, 41&quot; x 71&quot;" data-rich-file-id="1509" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1509/original/laura-letinsky-and-john-paul-morabito-verevereaslipflowers-26haneemoon-payforthelie-2c-2016.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Matthew Craven at ASHES/ASHES (Los Angeles)</h3>

Matthew Craven&rsquo;s collage compositions are a nod to the recent past, a time when students and scholars learned about the world&rsquo;s treasures through the printed page. The artist sources his images from discarded school textbooks and collages them onto vintage paper, giving the appearance of forgotten archival materials. Craven insists that there are no social or political overtones to his work: he organizes the archaeological objects loosely according to aesthetic similarity. Buried within Craven&rsquo;s two-dimensional cabinet of curiosities are his own hand-drawn objects. At EXPO, Los Angeles based gallery ASHES/ASHES presented six of Craven&rsquo;s collages in a grid alongside a large-scale geometric ink drawing.

<img alt="" data-caption="Matthew Craven, &lt;i&gt;TimeLINE (outlines)&lt;/i&gt;, 2016, ink and found images on found paper, 28” x 22&quot;" data-rich-file-id="1507" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1507/original/matthewcraven-timeline1j.jpg" />

&nbsp;

Top image: Jessica Silverman Gallery, Installation view, &nbsp;EXPO Chicago, September 22-25, 2016.&nbsp;Courtsey of Jessica Silverman Gallery

CGN shares highlights from EXPO Chicago 2016

Digital Collage, Meditations on Migration & Gnawed Paper: Highlights from EXPO Chicago 2016

Each week there is an open studio tour or gallery walk to take advantage of in Chicago as well as the surrounding suburbs.

Many area arts districts and artist groups have banded together to open their doors to the art-going public.&nbsp;Refer to the following list and pick a date this season to get around to a new art center or neighborhood. Go meet the artists at work and discover something wonderful!

Please also<a href="mailto:info@chicagogallerynews.com?subject=New%20Art%20Tour&amp;body=I'd%20like%20to%20let%20you%20know%20about%20a%20new%20art%20walk%20or%20tour%20taking%20place."> let us know</a> about your own favorite walks and tours.&nbsp;

- See you in the galleries!

Updated September 2016.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>1ST FRIDAY</h3>

<a href="http://www.lakesideartspark.org/events/1st-friday-art-show/">Lakeside Legacy Arts Park</a> 
5-8pm &bull;&nbsp;Free/donations 
401 Contry Club Rd., 
Crystal Lake, IL 
lakesidelegacy.org

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/flat-iron-arts-building--3">Flat Iron First Fridays</a> 
Wicker Park/Bucktown 
6-10pm &bull;&nbsp;Free 
1579 N. Milkwaukee 
wickerparkbucktown.com

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/district/river-north">River North First Fridays</a> 
6-8/9pm &bull;&nbsp;Free 
Near Franklin/Superior 
&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>2ND FRIDAY</h3>

<a href="http://www.chicagoartsdistrict.org/">Chicago Arts District</a> 
&nbsp;6&ndash;10pm &bull; Free 
S. Halsted + 18th St. (Pilsen East) 
For details call 312-738-8000

<a href="http://www.fineartsbuildingstudios.com/single-post/2015/12/2/Second-Fridays-OPEN-STUDIOS">Fine Arts Building Open Studios</a> 
5&ndash;9pm &bull; Free 
410 S. Michigan

&nbsp;

<h3>3RD FRIDAY</h3>

<a href="http://bridgeportart.com/3rd-fridays/">Bridgeport Art Center /&nbsp;Artists of Eastbank / Open Studios</a> 
7-10pm &bull; Free 
1200 W. 35th St. 
For details call 773-843-9000

<a href="http://bronzevillenights.com/">Bronzeville Trolley Tour</a> 
6pm&nbsp;&bull; Contact <a href="http://www.galleryguichard.com/">Gallery Guichard </a>for details 
773-791-7003

<a href="http://oakparkartsdistrict.com/street-events/third-fridays/">Oak Park Arts District (OPAD)</a> 
6&ndash;10pm &bull; Free 
Harrison St., Oak Park

<a href="http://www.zhoubartcenter.com/3rd-fridays.html">Zhou B Art Center/Bridgeport Art Walk</a> 
7&ndash;10pm &bull; Free 
1029 W. 35th St.&nbsp; 
For details call 773-523-0200

&nbsp;

<h3>2ND SATURDAY</h3>

<a href="http://www.lostartistschicago.com/">The Lost Artists Show at&nbsp;The Art Colony Studio Building</a> 
5-10pm &bull; Free 
2630 W. Fletcher 
For details call 773-368-9700

&nbsp;

<h3>FREE SATURDAY GALLERY TOURS</h3>

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/art-services/free-cgn-saturday-gallery-tours">Free CGN Saturday Morning Gallery Tour</a> 
River North: 11am-12:30pm 
Starbucks: 750 N. Franklin 
Organized by Chicago Gallery News, these tours run weekly, year-round, except major holiday weekends. 
For details and participating galleries <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/art-services/free-cgn-saturday-gallery-tours">click here</a> or call 312-649-0064

&nbsp;

<h3>OUTSIDE CHICAGO</h3>

<a href="http://www.historicthirdward.org/events/gallerynight.php">Gallery Night and Day</a> 
Milwaukee, WI in the Historic Third Ward 
Takes place quarterly 
Free Gallery Night Xpress shuttles&nbsp; 
October 21-22; F 5-9 and Sa 10-4 
For details call 414-273-1173

Gallery Walks and Tours

By FRANCK MERCURIO

Walking through Sabina Ott&rsquo;s grotto-like installation, because the mountains were so high, I ran into the artist herself as she applied finishing touches of white paint to the work&rsquo;s polystyrene and spray foam walls.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not quite done yet,&rdquo; she said matter-of-factly.

Ott had borrowed a security guard&rsquo;s stool, using it as an improvised ladder while she touched-up the edges of a video monitor embedded into one of the installation&rsquo;s walls. The Thursday afternoon crowd of art collectors and journalists had just begun to filter through EXPO Chicago&rsquo;s maze of booths. Some people ventured into Ott&rsquo;s installation as the artist continued to work.

&ldquo;I think I hear my gallerist,&rdquo; said Ott, as Jefferson Godard of Aspect/Ratio appeared from around the corner.

&ldquo;Sabina, let&rsquo;s take a walk and see some art!&rdquo; said Godard.

But Ott was having none of it&mdash;at least not for the time being&mdash;as she worried over the details of her latest immersive environment. Her perfectionism is understandable. Because the mountains were so high provides the artist with a huge potential audience for her work. The installation is poised to greet thousands of EXPO visitors&mdash;including gallery owners, curators, and collectors&mdash;as they enter the building from Navy Pier&rsquo;s outdoor promenade.

Ott&rsquo;s EXPO installation is a follow-up (and smaller cousin) to an earlier piece, titled&nbsp;who cares for the sky?, a mammoth installation exhibited this past winter and spring at the Hyde Park Art Center [pictured above]. That particular installation put Ott on Chicago&rsquo;s cultural map. Now, EXPO promises to deliver an even larger, international audience for the artist&rsquo;s work.

Ott&#39;s installation is&nbsp;one of several by Chicago artists displayed inside EXPO&mdash;and each work presents its respective artist with the possibility of garnering attention far beyond Chicago itself.

The installation receiving the most attention&mdash;by far&mdash;on Thursday evening at Vernissage was Leonard Suryajaya&rsquo;s Bunda located inside the Chicago Artists Coalition booth. Suryajaya was born in Indonesia, and his work addresses aspects of his southeast Asian heritage. Educated in the United States at Cal State and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the young artist is currently a resident in the BOLT program for 2015/2016&mdash;his installation proposal&nbsp;for EXPO&nbsp;was selected among his fellow residents by Yesomi Umolu, the exhibitions curator at the University of Chicago&rsquo;s Logan Center for the Arts.

<img alt="" data-caption="Leonard Suryajaya, &lt;i&gt;Mandarin&lt;/i&gt; (detail), 2016" data-rich-file-id="1501" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1501/original/leonardsuryajaya.jpg" />

Like Ott, Suryajaya created an immersive environment for EXPO, inviting viewers to occupy and participate in an imagined world. But where Ott&rsquo;s installation is somewhat cool and ethereal, Suryajaya&rsquo;s work explodes in a riot of color, pattern, and large-format photographic images featuring the artist&rsquo;s female relatives, including his mother. A hilarious, tongue-in cheek video serves as a focal point among the installation&rsquo;s array of disparate elements.

Suryajaya&rsquo;s installation could easily have strayed into chaotic territory, but under the expert guidance of his curator, Umolu, the artist&rsquo;s ideas and intentions shine through in a clear and exhilarating way.

Other installations at EXPO explore heavier topics centered around notions of social justice&mdash;and injustice. Not far from Suryajaya&rsquo;s installation, the Human Rights Watch booth presents 34,000 Pillows, an installation by the Chicago-based collaborative D&iacute;az Lewis. In this work, Alejandro D&iacute;az&nbsp;and Cara Lewis explore the federal government&rsquo;s mandated &ldquo;bed quota&rdquo; which requires that 34,000 immigrants be housed&mdash;per day&mdash;in 250 detention facilities throughout the United States. In an effort to humanize these statistics, the couple is working with a group of volunteers to fabricate 34,000 pillows made from used clothing. The collaborative is selling each pillow for $159, the amount of tax-payer money spent per bed per day on detainees&mdash;amounting to a staggering $2 billion per year.

D&iacute;az Lewis&rsquo; team is fabricating the pillows in a public studio located at the Chicago Cultural Center. (You can visit it through November 12.) Here, visitors can participate in the creation of pillows by either donating clothing or helping to stuff pillows. On Thursday, 150 pillows filled the Human Rights Watch booth&mdash;and more than 30 were sold to EXPO visitors that evening. Funds raised from their sale will go directly to local and national immigrants rights groups combatting the injustices of the detainment centers.

<img alt="" data-caption="Díaz Lewis, &lt;i&gt;34,000 Pillows&lt;/i&gt;, 2016 -ongoing" data-rich-file-id="1502" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1502/original/diazlewis.jpg" />

One gallery in particular stands out in terms of art that carries activist messages. Entering into Monique Meloche&rsquo;s booth, visitors are greeted by Cheryl Pope&rsquo;s WHEN I GET OUT, Voice of Incarcerated Youth (2015), an eight-by-six-foot carpet woven with the words &ldquo;When I get out, I&rsquo;m going to start by beating someone up.&rdquo; This provocative piece&mdash;sized to the dimensions of a typical youth jail cell&mdash;immediately sets the tone of the booth, one that is curated more like a museum exhibition rather than a gallery showroom.

Just beyond Pope&rsquo;s carpet, Ebony G. Patterson&rsquo;s 17 (&hellip;when they grow up&hellip;) (2016), serves as an arresting focal point for the booth. Standing nearly six feet in height, a portrait of an anonymous African American adolescent is adorned with beads, appliques, fabric, glitter, feathered butterflies, and even a toy car. The piece speaks of the innocence of youth, while simultaneously projecting an image of a memorial altar to the dead. It&rsquo;s a powerful anchor for this space featuring works by Carlos Rolon/Dzine, Joel Ross, Amy Sherald, and Nate Young&mdash;all of which are skillfully curated to create a cohesive installation.

<img alt="" data-caption="Installation view, Monique Melouche, EXPO CHICAGO, 2016" data-rich-file-id="1503" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1503/original/moniquemelouche.jpg" />

The evening of Vernissage wrapped up with a performance piece by Cheryl Pope. Red, white, and blue balloons were dropped from the ceiling (political convention style) in front of the entrance to the exposition hall. Guests spontaneously popped the balloons, which had fallen to the floor&mdash;making noises that sounded eerily of gunfire&mdash;and released messages printed on bits of black paper. Each &ldquo;message&rdquo; was stamped with a quote from a prisoner overheard by the artist on a visit to Illinois&rsquo; Stateville Prison. The performance piece was both exuberant and sobering&mdash;and it accomplished what all successful works of art do: it engaged emotions and intellect, making the EXPO visitors both feel and think. It was a powerful moment in the career of this young Chicago artist.

For more information about EXPO CHICAGO visit <a href="http://expochicago.com/">expochicago.com</a>

Top image:&nbsp;Sabina Ott,&nbsp;who cares for the sky,&nbsp;2016, installation view at Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago

Highlights from local artists at EXPO Chicago 2016

Local Artists Create Immersive Environments at EXPO Chicago

September is a busy time in Chicago&#39;s art community, with new shows opening in all the galleries, museum exhibitions happening around the city and suburbs, and of course the season&#39;s art fair frenzy - EXPO first in late September and then SOFA in November. Also happening at the same time as EXPO, in the West Loop at the Chicago Artists Coalition, is&nbsp;The Annual,&nbsp;a&nbsp;yearly sales exhibition celebrating cutting-edge Chicago-based artists.

Arranged by a guest curator, The Annual creates an accessible forum for emerging collectors to discover affordable new work and engage directly with its creators. This year The Annual will run for two weeks on either end of EXPO Chicago, opening Friday, September 16 and closing on Thursday, September 29.

SHOWROOM is curated by Edra Soto, and this year&#39;s Annual is the strongest to-date. From The Annual&#39;s website: &quot;SHOWROOM,&nbsp;is an installation unto itself, bringing together work influenced by fundamental aspects of interior architecture and&nbsp;design&nbsp;objects, and placing them on custom made furniture by Dock 6 Collective.&nbsp;SHOWROOM&nbsp;aims to draw new connections between our understanding of the relationship between art and design, and to make us question our assumptions.&nbsp;SHOWROOM&nbsp;exists within that delicate balance of the expressive world and the pragmatically crafted architecture that holds it.&quot;&nbsp;

Stop in to see the works on view by many of Chicago&#39;s rising stars. Highlights include works by Alberto Aguilar, Mariano Chavez, Maria Gaspar, Anna Kunz, Leonard Suryajaya, Ann Toebbe, and Stacia Yeapanis.

Works may be viewed online and bid on at <a href="https://paddle8.com/auction/cac/">paddle8.com</a>&nbsp;to support CAC.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Stacia Yeapanis, &lt;i&gt;Endless Column (Meditation Practice)&lt;/i&gt;, 2012-2016" data-rich-file-id="1492" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1492/original/122198-1474037487-122198-1473638919-staciafullshot-xl.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Ann Toebbe, &lt;i&gt;E &amp; L&lt;/i&gt;, 2010" data-rich-file-id="1490" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1490/original/img-9224.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Multiple works installed together in SHOWROOM" data-rich-file-id="1489" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1489/original/img-9221.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Leonard Suryajaya, Tree from the installation &lt;i&gt;Don't Hold on to Your Bones&lt;/i&gt;, 2016" data-rich-file-id="1488" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1488/original/img-9223.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Mariano Chavez, &lt;i&gt;Snake Shed Mask 065&lt;/i&gt;, 2016" data-rich-file-id="1487" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1487/original/img-9220.jpg" />

More details available <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/showroom">here</a>.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

The Annual, a fundraising exhibition of emerging art, takes place every year at the Chicago Artists Coalition.

SHOWROOM: The Annual at Chicago Artists Coalition 

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

The Art Institute of Chicago is known around the world as a top-tier museum, with a vast, deep collection of works, from major Impressionist paintings to decorative arts, to Modern and Contemporary works. But the blockbusters aside, it is also&nbsp;renowned for its collections of master drawings, both publicly and privately held. The Art Institute of Chicago has been collecting these works for over a century and has substantial world-class holdings&mdash;particularly with regard to drawings of the French and Italian schools.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1483" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1483/original/img-8930.jpg" />

The stunning&nbsp;exhibition now on view is the final exhibition curated by long-time Prints Department head Suzanne McCullagh, who recently retired. Together with her team of experts, she&nbsp;highlights a selection of master drawings from the 17th to mid-20th century that have been purchased by the museum over the past 25 years but have not yet had occasion to be shown.

<img alt="" data-caption="Gustave Caillebott, Study for &lt;i&gt;Paris Street; Rainy Day&lt;/i&gt;, 1877" data-rich-file-id="1480" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1480/original/img-8918.jpg" />

Though many works are in some ways familiar to us, whether they are by internationally reknown artists or they resemble other works that have been shown at the museum, seeing them together for the first time is enlightening. Surprises include a modest but stunning early beach landscape by Edgar Degas,&nbsp;a preparatory drawing&nbsp;for an Art Institute star painting&nbsp;Paris Street; Rainy Day&nbsp;by Gustave Caillebotte, as well as a sketch book that visitors may digitally page through. Finally, the survey culminates with images from the first half of the 20th century, among them the momentous pastel&nbsp;January&nbsp;by Grant Wood, creator of another Art Institute icon,&nbsp;American Gothic.

The works are a delight to behold and contemplate and are representative of all the surprises the Art Institute continues to share with the public.&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/art-institute-of-chicago">On view through January 29, 2017&nbsp;</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Thomas Gainsborough, &lt;i&gt;A Sunlit Path through a Wood&lt;/i&gt;" data-rich-file-id="1479" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1479/original/img-8924.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Edgar Degas, &lt;i&gt;Beach at Low Tide (Mouth of the River)&lt;/i&gt;" data-rich-file-id="1478" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1478/original/img-8922.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Odilion Redon, &lt;i&gt;False Glory&lt;/i&gt;" data-rich-file-id="1477" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1477/original/img-8915.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Georges Lemmen, &lt;i&gt;Bourgeoise Interior&lt;/i&gt;" data-rich-file-id="1475" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1475/original/img-8914.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Grant Wood, &lt;i&gt;January&lt;/i&gt;, 1938" data-rich-file-id="1476" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1476/original/img-8916.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Caillebotte's Sketchbook, June 1883-September 1887, contains 30 drawings in graphite, watercolor, and brush and gray wash, on 40 sheets of cream wove paper" data-rich-file-id="1481" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1481/original/img-8920.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Visitors may page through a digital version of Caillebotte's Sketchbook to see each page" data-rich-file-id="1484" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1484/original/img-8927.jpg" />

Master Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago

A Look Back: Master Drawings Unveiled: 25 Years of Major Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago

By MADELINE HAPPOLD

Running in tangent with EXPO Chicago, Art After Hours is a citywide open gallery night inviting the public and EXPO Chicago visitors to view city art spaces during extended hours. The event features galleries, alternative spaces, and performance venues from across the city and surrounding suburbs. Coinciding with various evening exhibition openings, Art After Hours acts as an exciting kick-off to the fall art season.

Art After Hours will take place Friday, September 23 from 6-9pm. Below are highlights from a few&nbsp;of the many art spaces participating in the event.

&nbsp;

<h3>Woman Made Gallery</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Adele Supreme. Photo: Woman Made Gallery" data-rich-file-id="1474" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1474/original/woman-made-gallery-adele.jpg" />

Woman Made Gallery works to promote female-identifying women in the arts by offering a space for exhibitions, open studio space, and other programs. The galley is featuring artist-in-residence Adele Supreme, who will be creating original work in the studio space. Supreme specializes in large scale erotic artwork expressing female sexuality by reclaiming images of sexual oppression.

Woman Made Gallery will hold public open studios from September 22 through September 30, 2016.

&nbsp;

<h3>Volume Gallery</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Thaddeus Wolfe, &lt;i&gt; Fluorescent Light Structure No. 2 &lt;/i&gt;, 2016, neon, bronze, brass. Photo: Volume Gallery" data-rich-file-id="1494" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1494/original/volume-website-tw-13-1140x912.jpg" />

Volume Gallery will be displaying Dead Frame, the third solo exhibition by Thaddeus Wolfe. In his new exhibition, Wolfe builds off his previous Assemblage series, continuing his craft of glassblowing and concentrating on the interaction of light through a glass medium. The phrase &ldquo;dead frame&rdquo; refers to the unseen structure on which neon tubes are mounted, a term derived from the neon sign industry. Wolfe has incorporated these neon structures into his newest works.

Dead Frame is on display from September 17 through November 5, 2016.

&nbsp;

<h3>Catherine Edelman Gallery</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Clarissa Bonet, &lt;i&gt;Mixed Use&lt;/i&gt;, 2016 © Clarissa Bonet" data-rich-file-id="1496" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1496/original/clarissa-bonet.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/catherine-edelman-gallery">Catherine Edelman Gallery</a> will be featuring the first solo exhibition of Chicago-based photographer Clarissa Bonet entitled City Space + Stray Lights. City Space explores the nature of urban environments and the city&#39;s emotional and psychological impact on the body. In Stray Light, Bonet captures city landscapes by carefully constructing images of illuminated building windows at night-time to create a new, urban cosmos. Both inspired by urban landscape, the two photography exhibitions are presented in tangent with one another.

City Space + Stray Light is open from September 9 through October 29, 2016.

&nbsp;

<h3>Wabash Arts Corridor</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="ASVP, &lt;i&gt; Make Your Own Luck&lt;/i&gt;. Photo: Philip Dembinski" data-rich-file-id="1485" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1485/original/wabash-arts-corridor.jpg" />

<h3>Wabash Arts Corridor</h3>

Enjoy a free tour of the internationally renowned Wabash Arts Corridor, guided by curator Neysa Page-Lieberman. Located in Chicago&rsquo;s South Loop, the public arts hub features over 50 large-scale street art murals and installations, one of the largest concentrations in any city-center nationwide. The Wabash Arts Corridor was produced in partnership with Columbia College and the City of Chicago&rsquo;s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The tour will last one hour, but attendees are welcome to stay for an additional art walk of the various Columbia College Chicago galleries.

The Wabash Arts Corridor tour will meet in the lobby of 623 S. Wabash Ave. at 6pm on Friday, September 23.

<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3>Ed Paschke Art Center</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco), &lt;i&gt;Uomo Mangiato Tigre (Man Eating Tiger)&lt;/i&gt;. Photo: Ed Paschke Art Center" data-rich-file-id="1495" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1495/original/ed-pischke-lupe-fiasco.jpg" />

The Ed Paschke Art Center will feature the opening of &ldquo;Beta,&rdquo; the inaugural solo exhibition of artist Wasalu Jaco, or more popularly known as hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco. The show will feature a new work of acrylic on canvas painting, complete with a stamp of Jaco&rsquo;s signature mori skull symbol. Wasalu Jaco is a three time Grammy Award nominated musician, visual artist, and entrepreneur from Chicago&rsquo;s West Side. He had his first body of work featured at the SoHo House of Chicago in 2015 and used his own painting as cover art for his latest studio album &ldquo;Tetsuo &amp; Youth.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Beta&rdquo; will open September 23 and be on display until November 30, 2016.

&nbsp;

For more information on Art After Hours or EXPO Chicago, visit:&nbsp;<a href="http://expochicago.com/">expochicago.com</a>

Top image: Clarissa Bonet, Mixed Use, 2016&nbsp;&copy; Clarissa Bonet

Running in tangent with EXPO Chicago, Art After Hours is a citywide open gallery night inviting the public to view Chicago art spaces during extended hours.

Art After Hours 2016

By ALISON REILLY

Every two years, the Hyde Park Art Center surveys the pulse of contemporary art produced by students graduating from Chicago&rsquo;s top MFA programs. The result is an expansive exhibition that finds its way into every inch of the first floor of the Art Center. The show features an impressive roster of 22 artists from Columbia College Chicago (CCC), Northwestern University (NU), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the University of Chicago (UC), and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Here are a few highlights:

&nbsp;

<h3>Angela Lopez (NU 2015)</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Angela Lopez, &lt;i&gt;Dip Hands In&lt;/i&gt;, 2015, watercolor on paper" data-rich-file-id="1466" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1466/original/hpac-angelalopez.jpg" />

Lining the wall of the main hallway on the first floor of the Hyde Park Art Center are 50 watercolor paintings by Angela Lopez, which form a singular work titled Dip Hands In. The conceit is simple: in each composition Lopez freeze-frames a pair of hands as they immerse into an unknown black liquid. But the quality of the line and the texture of paint create a powerful portrait of severed hands as they transform under the pressure of repeated stains.

&nbsp;

<h3>Gulsah Mursaloglu (SAIC 2015)</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Gulsah Mursaloglu, &lt;i&gt;Ubiquitous Notes for a Fellow Traveler&lt;/i&gt;, 2016, toothpaste, sunflower seeds, brass bells, and mixed media, dimensions variable. Photo: Jared Powell" data-rich-file-id="1467" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1467/original/hpac-gulsahmursaloglu.jpg" />

In Gulsah Mursaloglu&rsquo;s installation titled Ubiquitous Notes for a Fellow Traveler, three turquoise columns reach up to the ceiling of the main gallery. From a distance, the columns appear to be made of oversized turquoise beads fed onto a vertical rod. However, the installation lays bare the device: ice cube trays stacked underneath a wooden table were used as molds for casting toothpaste. The material resists any sense of permanence and will slowly turn from bright turquoise to a faded green throughout the course of the exhibition. Despite their fragility, the turquoise lines ground the installation, designating a space for Mursaloglu within the crowded gallery. Other parts of Mursaloglu&rsquo;s installation highlight the slow passage of time. Barnacle-like structures made from precisely placed sunflower seeds emerge from the corners of the shelf to suggest the continuation of growth. The artist restricts herself to everyday materials: toothpaste, graphite, sunflower seeds, red yarn, and water placed in cups of varying heights. With her found media, Mursaloglu imbeds the process of creation within the presentation of the work.

&nbsp;

<h3>Jeff Prokash (SAIC 2015)</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Installation view of &lt;i&gt;Ground Floor: A Biennial Exhibition of New Art From Chicago&lt;/i&gt;, 2016. Photo: Tom Van Endye " data-rich-file-id="1471" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1471/original/hpac-prokash2.jpg" />

Jeff Prokash, a meticulous and measured sculptor, presents an impressive installation of his ongoing series Objects for a Production in Eleven Acts. Various objects, including concrete slumps, foam rectangles and moving blankets, are carefully placed on five metal industrial shelves. In other iterations, Prokash has worked on a horizontal plane, laying the objects out for careful inspection. At the Hyde Park Art Center, the sculptor works vertically, forcing viewers to crane their heads to see what&rsquo;s on the highest shelf. Prokash&rsquo;s collection of found and made objects provokes questions of conservation methods, storage practices, and public accessibility while drawing upon the various histories of his sourced objects. For instance in Stasi Files, a series of photographs in an adjacent hallway, Prokash visited Berlin to document the archives of the former German Democratic Republic&rsquo;s State Security Service.

&nbsp;

<h3>Orkideh Torabi (SAIC 2016)</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Orkideh Torabi, &lt;i&gt;Pire Frazaneh&lt;/i&gt;, 2016, fabric dye on stretched cotton, 24&quot; x 18&quot;" data-rich-file-id="1472" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1472/original/pir-e-farzaneh.jpg" />

Hung in a large grid, Orkideh Torabi&rsquo;s series of cartoonish characters offer slight smiles, over-the-shoulder eyebrow raises and muted stares. For Torabi, the portraits, many of which are set against tiled backdrops, aim to mock Iranian men who dominate her country&rsquo;s patriarchy. But within this context, the anonymous set form a troupe of outlaws, a band of jokers unwittingly as ridiculous as a commedia dell&rsquo;arte performance. Torabi&rsquo;s staining technique and loose handling produces soft washes of color with a faded, yet striking color palette.

&nbsp;

<h3>Yael Ben-Simon (SAIC 2015)</h3>

<img alt="" data-caption="Yael Ben-Simon, &lt;i&gt;I can change&lt;/i&gt;, 2015, acrylic, oil and spray paint on canvas, 60&quot; x 47&quot;" data-rich-file-id="1473" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1473/original/yaelbensimon.jpg" />

Yael Ben-Simon&rsquo;s acrylic and oil paintings simultaneously conjure digital and physical worlds. In I can change, seemingly digital fabric fragments billow across the two-dimensional canvas. Beneath the bright pink and black patterns are yet more layers: an off white tattered sheet appears to stretch across a textured, multicolored background. The composition alludes to a world beyond the canvas; the painting itself seems to be a small part of a larger whole.&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Ground Floor: A Biennial Exhibition of New Art from Chicago is on display at the Hyde Park Art Center until November 6, 2016. For more information visit:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.hydeparkart.org/">hydeparkart.org</a>

Top image: Gulsah Mursaloglu,&nbsp;Ubiquitous Notes for a Fellow Traveler, 2016, toothpaste, sunflower seeds, brass bells, and mixed media, dimensions variable.&nbsp;Photo: Jared Powell

Every two years, the Hyde Park Art Center surveys the pulse of contemporary art produced by students graduating from Chicago’s top MFA programs. 

Ground Floor at the Hyde Park Art Center

The fall art season kicks off Friday, September 9. Openings take place across the city in gallery centers and institutions, with the exhibitions on view for the next several weeks. The fall kick-off is perhaps the most well known focal point of the city&#39;s visual arts calendar, as it offers a chance to get back into the galleries, to meet artists, mingle with friends and to experience what is new. &nbsp;This season the galleries are unveiling their top artists and most thoughtful shows with a wide range of offerings.

There are also some stellar shows taking place in area museums, and many cultural venues and institutions are partnering with international art fair EXPO Chicago for this year&#39;s <a href="http://expochicago.com/expo-art-week">EXPO Art Week</a>, which begins September 19 and runs through the fair (Sept 22-25.)&nbsp;

All eyes are on Chicago right now, and there is so much exciting art to see and enjoy, so many perspectives to view and so many artists to celebrate.&nbsp;

See you around town!&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>Gallery Show Highlights </h3>

<h4>full openings and exhibitions list <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar?what-type-of-event">here</a></h4>

&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/theaster-gates-heavy-sketches">Theaster Gates: Heavy Sketches</a>&nbsp;at Richard Gray Gallery

Friday, Sep 30 - Nov 20, 2016

A solo exhibition of new bronze and mixed material sculptures by&nbsp;Theaster Gates.

<img alt="" data-caption="Theaster Gates" data-rich-file-id="1441" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1441/original/gates.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/mcarthur-binion-seasons">McArthur Binion: Seasons</a> at Kavi Gupta Gallery&nbsp;

Saturday, Sep 17 - Nov 22, 2016

To be seasoned is to be experienced&mdash;seeing the benefits of knowledge gained&nbsp;over times distill in one&rsquo;s work. For McArthur Binion, committed to the&nbsp;tension of colors both art-historical and racial, the seasons and decades&nbsp;have infused his practice.&nbsp;In Seasons, these stubborn crosshatches, which served to blur and distort both&nbsp;their weave and the photocopied numbers and names behind them&nbsp;(gleaned from Binion&rsquo;s personal address book of 1970s New York), have&nbsp;given way to the grid.

<img alt="" data-caption="MacArthur Binion" data-rich-file-id="1436" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1436/original/binion.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/roger-brown-andy-warhol-pop-artists-subversive-politics">Roger Brown &amp; Andy Warhol: Pop Artists, Subversive Politics</a> at Kavi Gupta Gallery

Friday, Sep 23 - Nov 22, 2016

Juxtaposing Brown and Warhol provides opportunities for&nbsp;rethinking the scope of pop art, which takes cues from a diverse array of&nbsp;aesthetic traditions and conceptual techniques.

<img alt="" data-caption="Roger Brown" data-rich-file-id="1443" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1443/original/guptabrown.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/tetsuya-noda-a-retrospective">Tetsuya Noda: A Retrospective</a> at Andrew Bae Gallery

Throughout the 50&nbsp;years of his art career and 500 works he produced under a single title&nbsp;Diary,&nbsp;Tetsuya Noda&nbsp;never lost his affinity for novel inspiration.

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 29, 2016

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1435" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1435/original/bae.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/rhona-hoffman-40-years-part-1">Rhona Hoffman 40 Years, Part 1</a> at Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Friday, Sep 16 - Oct 22, 2016. Opening reception: Friday, September 16, 5-7:30pm

This group exhibition is the first&nbsp;in a series of three&nbsp;exhibitions celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Rhona Hoffman Gallery.

<img alt="" data-caption="Barbar Kruger at Rhona Hoffman" data-rich-file-id="1454" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1454/original/rh40kruger.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/selections-from-the-steve-and-karen-berkowitz-collection">Selections from the Steve and Karen Berkowitz Collection</a> at Carl Hammer Gallery&nbsp;

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 29, 2016

A range of works from the personal collection of the founder of Marwen and his wife.

<img alt="" data-caption="Ed Paschke" data-rich-file-id="1444" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1444/original/hammer.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/city-space-stray-light-clarissa-bonet">City Space + Stray Light: Clarissa Bonet</a> at Catherine Edelman Gallery

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 29, 2016

The concept of place, and our relationship to it, is at the heart of Clarissa Bonet&rsquo;s work.&nbsp;Born and raised in Tampa, Florida, after moving to Chicago in&nbsp;2010, she was stunned by the isolation she felt among the throngs of people rushing along the sidewalks. This body of work examines individuality in a large city.

<img alt="" data-caption="Clarissa Bonet" data-rich-file-id="1437" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1437/original/bonet.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/christa-donner-our-new-system">Christa Donner: Our New System</a> at Gallery 400&nbsp;

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 22, 2016

Chicago-based artist Christa Donner expands her virtuosic body of drawings concerning the complexities of the human body to explore collectivities and spaces for new forms of human sociality. Donner&rsquo;s practice has grown out of visual research and inquiry originating in interviews and dialogic workshops with individuals and communities.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1442" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1442/original/gallery400.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/stone-1-000-000-bc-ad-1940">STONE! 1,000,000 BC - AD 1940</a> at Douglas Dawson Gallery

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 15, 2016

Prehistoric stone tools and weapons from Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and the Americas are on view at this unique space across from the Art Institute.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1439" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1439/original/dawson.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/jamie-adams-porch-and-a-vista">Jamie Adams: Porch and a Vista</a> at Zolla/Lieberman (one of multiple shows opening at the gallery)

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 1, 2016

New figurative paintings of the&nbsp;artist&#39;s view of pop society.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1433" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1433/original/adams.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/james-mesple-gem-myths">James Mespl&eacute;: Gem Myths</a> at Printworks

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 15, 2016

The artist&#39;s final show at Printworks. &nbsp;Known for intensive research into the themes that shape his vibrant exhibitions, this show focuses on gem stones and related mythology.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="James Mesple" data-rich-file-id="1447" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1447/original/mesple.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/michiko-itatani-starry-night-encounter">Michiko Itatani: Starry Night Encounter</a> at Linda Warren Projects

Friday, Sep 9 - Oct 22, 2016

A solo exhibition by one of Chicago&rsquo;s most prolific and esteemed painters,&nbsp;Michiko Itatani. Presenting a wide selection of new work, chosen from several epic series or &ldquo;chapters.&quot;

<img alt="" data-caption="Michiko Itatani" data-rich-file-id="1451" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1451/original/warren.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/unbroken-art-after-injury--2">Unbroken: Art After Injury</a> at Bridgeport Art Center&nbsp;

Opening September 9,&nbsp;6:30&ndash;9:30PM. Opening tickets are $30 in advance, $35 at the door

This exhibit is a glimpse of the accomplishments, pain, happiness, loss, and beauty of artists with spinal cord injury and paralysis. The show celebrates Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Bridgeport Art Center" data-rich-file-id="1438" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1438/original/bridgeport.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/rndd-annual-fall-gallery-walk">River North Design District Gallery Night Walk</a>

Friday, September 9 5-9pm

Creative neighbors of the River North Gallery District open their showrooms to the public and feature contemporary art in design settings. Special events include a Champagne kick-off and live art.

<img alt="" data-caption="RNDD" data-rich-file-id="1449" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1449/original/rndd.jpg" />

<h3>Museums</h3>

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/birth-death-breath-an-inflatable-opera-by-diane-christiansen-and-jeanne-dunning">Birth Death Breath: An Inflatable Opera by Diane Christiansen and Jeanne Dunning</a> at Elmhurst Art Museum

Thursday, Sep 22 - Nov 27, 2016

Elmhurst Art Museum presents the world premiere of&nbsp;Birth Death Breath, an opera &quot;performed&quot; by inflatable Christmas lawn decorations in various stages of inflation and deflation.

<img alt="" data-caption="Elmhurst Art Musuem" data-rich-file-id="1440" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1440/original/elmhurst.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/master-drawings-unveiled-25-years-of-major-acquisitions">Master Drawings Unveiled: 25 Years of Major Acquisitions</a>&nbsp;at the Art Institute of Chicago&nbsp;

Thru &nbsp;Jan 29, 2017

Chicago is renowned for its collections of master drawings both publicly and privately held. The Art Institute of Chicago has been collecting these works for over a century and has substantial world-class holdings&mdash;particularly with regard to drawings of the French and Italian schools. This exhibition highlights a selection of master drawings from the 17th to mid-20th century that have been purchased by the museum over the past 25 years but have not yet had occasion to be shown. It is also the final show curated by recently retired department head Suzanne McCullagh&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Grant Wood. &lt;i&gt;January&lt;/i&gt;, 1938. Regenstein Acquisition Fund and Regenstein Foundation. " data-rich-file-id="1434" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1434/original/aicmaster.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/every-building-in-baghdad-the-rifat-chadirji-archives-at-the-arab-image-foundation">Every Building in Baghdad: the Rifat Chadirji Archives at the Arab Image Foundation</a>, on view at the Graham Foundation&nbsp;

Thursday, Sep 15 - Dec 31, 2016

This exhibition examines the work of Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji through the collection of his original photographs and building documents held at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut.

&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/urth-ben-rivers">Urth: Ben Rivers</a>&nbsp;at the Renaissance Society&nbsp;

Saturday, Sep 10 - Nov 6, 2016

Urth, Rivers&rsquo;s first solo presentation in the United States, presents new and recent moving image works. The exhibition takes its title from the Old Norse word suggesting the twisted threads of fate.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1448" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1448/original/rivers.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/there-was-a-whole-collection-made-photography-from-lester-and-betty-guttman">There was a Whole Collection Made: Photography from Lester and Betty Guttman</a> at the Smart Museum of Art&nbsp;

Thursday, Sep 22 - Dec 30, 2016

Artists included in the show include William Henry Fox Talbot, David Octavius Hill, Hannah Hoch, Man Ray, Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, Brassai, Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus, Malick Sidibe, Chuck Close, Carrie Mae Weems, among many others.

<img alt="" data-caption="Smart Museum" data-rich-file-id="1450" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1450/original/smart.jpg" />

A round up of Chicago 2016 fall gallery shows and openings 

Early Fall Art Highlights

In conjunction with the 25th Anniversary of Ukraine&rsquo;s independence, the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA) celebrates with a new exhibition.&nbsp;Reality Check: Directions in Contemporary Art Since Ukrainian Independence&nbsp;is on view August 26-November 27, 2016.

The exhibition presents the work of eight contemporary artists affected by the country&rsquo;s 1991 independence. Reality Check examines the strictures imposed during the Soviet Union with installations, sculptures, and paintings by artists working in the United States, Canada, and Ukraine.&nbsp;For Ukrainian professional artists, the collapse of the Soviet Union created an opportunity to learn and engage with current artistic developments occurring in the west, as well as delve into those of the past from which they had been excluded.

<img alt="" data-caption="Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak Bear T(hugs), 2015 Felted bear, 5 painted wooden nesting dolls 10 x 14 x 6 in." data-rich-file-id="1412" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1412/original/bears-web.jpg" />

The exhibition is curated by Adrienne Kochm, one of North America&rsquo;s foremost scholars of contemporary art of Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora,&nbsp;and includes artists: Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, Anna Bogatin, Yhelena &amp; Michael Hall, Roman Hrab, Natalka Husar, Yulia Pinkusevich, and Valya.&nbsp;

<a href="http://uima-chicago.org">uima-chicago.org</a>

<img alt="" data-caption="Valya, BABA, Merino wool fleece, felt, silk gauze; 109” x 79”" data-rich-file-id="1380" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1380/original/uima-ed.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Anna Bogatin Aurora, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 48 x 48 in. Courtesy of Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia PA" data-rich-file-id="1413" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1413/original/uimablue.jpg" />

Top image: Natalka Husar, Why They Behave Like Russians, 2005, Oil on book cover, 8.5 x 12 in.

In conjunction with the 25th Anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, UIMA presents Reality Check.

Artists Mark an Anniversary – Reality Check: Directions in Contemporary Art Since Ukrainian Independence at UIMA

By KEVIN NANCE 
 
On October 3 it will have been a year since the Stony Island Arts Bank, one of the most remarkable new cultural projects on Chicago&rsquo;s South Side in memory, opened its doors to the public. As the Arts Bank&mdash;the brainchild of the multimedia artist Theaster Gates&mdash;prepares to celebrate its first anniversary, the hybrid visual arts gallery, music venue and African-American heritage institution can pride itself on a solid start to a long life of service to its neighborhood and beyond. 
 
The handsome granite Arts Bank building, designed by the prominent architect William Gibbons Uffendell and constructed in 1923 at 6760 S. Stony Island Ave., was once a stately savings-and-loan institution serving the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. But by the time Gates acquired the building in 2012, just weeks before it likely would have been demolished by the city, the bank was in shambles.&nbsp; 
 
Abandoned for nearly 30 years, the 17,000-square-foot structure had suffered decades of rain pouring in through holes in the ceiling; in the basement-level vault, where rows of metal safe-deposit boxes still gleamed, storm water stood chest-high. Nearly a third of the ornate coffered plasterwork on the ceiling of the first-floor great hall had crashed to the floor below.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Rusted safe-deposit boxes" data-rich-file-id="1411" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1411/original/stony-island-6-dxo.jpg" />

&ldquo;People who live in this neighborhood walked past this building for 30 years, and saw it literally falling apart at their feet and above their heads,&rdquo; says Amy Schachman, director of strategic operations at the Rebuild Foundation, the nonprofit group that oversees the Arts Bank and other Gates projects. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a legacy of neglect but also a legacy of possibility.&rdquo; 
 
To keep that legacy clearly visible to visitors, Gates and his team of architects chose not to restore the building to its original pristine state, but rather to leave much of the damaged surfaces&mdash;including the coffered ceiling, interior columns and inner walls of the first floor&mdash;essentially untouched. Intermixed with those areas are several newly designed and constructed spaces, such as the high-ceilinged second-floor room that now houses the 16,000-volume Johnson Publishing Library, complete with a shelving system built in part with reclaimed railroad ties from the nearby tracks that give the neighborhood its name. 
 
&ldquo;By showing what was lost and what was salvageable, by keeping this mixture of old and new, we made an intentional decision to say, &lsquo;Something can be this far gone and you can bring it back,&rsquo;&rdquo; Schachman says. &ldquo;You can make it beautiful, and you can make it an amenity for the people who live in the neighborhood as well as those who come from farther away. If you can take a building this big, and this far gone, and bring it back, that&rsquo;s a pretty strong testament to the work that we&rsquo;re able to do across this neighborhood and that Theaster is doing throughout the South Side.&rdquo; 
 
Although the renovation is still not complete and may never be&mdash;&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; Schachman repeats, noting that the building is in a &ldquo;constant state of reinvention&rdquo; in response to Gates&rsquo;s elastic vision, the capacity of the 12-person staff and the needs of the neighborhood&mdash;the Arts Bank has now settled into something like a comfortable routine. Open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from noon until 7 p.m., the Arts Bank offers a regular schedule of activities that include live music on Thursday afternoons and, on Fridays, House Tea, during which DJs spin music from the Frankie Knuckles collection of vinyl house music recordings housed on the third floor as visitors are treated to home-brewed tea.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="A second-floor reading room features a collection of books on black culture and history recently donated by the DuSable High School Library. Photo: Kevin Nance" data-rich-file-id="1377" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1377/original/stony-island-4.jpg" /> 
 
Patrons can view an ongoing rotation of outside exhibitions &ndash; such as a recent show of photographs by Ghanaian street photographer and portraitist James Barnor &ndash; as well as shows drawn from the various in-house collections, including over 60,000 glass lantern slides of art and architectural history, inherited from the University of Chicago; the Edward J. Williams collection of &ldquo;negrobilia,&rdquo; often mass-produced objects and artifacts with sometimes stereotypical images of African-Americans; and a collection of older books on black culture and history, recently decommissioned and donated to the Arts Bank by the DuSable High School library.

<img alt="" data-caption="Slides in the archive" data-rich-file-id="1410" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1410/original/stony-island-5-dxo.jpg" />

The Arts Bank features regular orientation sessions exploring the Johnson Publishing Library, which includes, among other things, bound editions of Ebony and Jet magazines. As Schachman puts it, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re always having people come in to look up the 1972 Ebony because their uncle&rsquo;s picture was in it.&rdquo; 
 
What&rsquo;s it like to work at the Arts Bank every day? &ldquo;Wonderful,&rdquo; says Demecina Beehn, outreach and engagement manager. &ldquo;To be surrounded by such beauty and such amazing collections, to be able to meet the enthusiastic people who come in every day&mdash;it&rsquo;s just breathtaking.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="1409" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1409/original/stony-island-dxo.jpg" /> 
Special activities to commemorate the Bank&rsquo;s first anniversary are in the works. These were not firmed up at press time, but Schachman promises &ldquo;a lot of music and a lot of late nights.&rdquo; She adds, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to sum up concisely what we&rsquo;re all about&mdash;hybridity is key,&rdquo; Schachman explains. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s not a single answer that captures everything we&rsquo;re trying to do. So when people ask that question when they&rsquo;re right outside, we just say, &lsquo;Come in. Figure out for yourself what&rsquo;s interesting to you.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Top image:&nbsp;The first-floor main hall of the Stony Island Arts Bank features a mix of partially restored as well as newly designed spaces such as the Johnson Publishing Library (above). Photo: Kevin Nance

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October 3, 2016 marks one year since the Stony Island Arts Bank, one of the most remarkable new cultural projects on Chicago’s South Side, opened.

Stony Island Arts Bank: One Year Later

By ALISON REILLY

One year ago, Emanuel Aguilar and Julia Fischbach opened the doors of their gallery, PATRON. The two had previously worked together as directors at Kavi Gupta Gallery. Since opening in fall 2015 they have doubled the number of artists they represent while presenting impressive shows by Alex Chitty, Daniel G. Baird, and Myra Green, to name a few. I recently sat down with Emanuel and Julia at their space in River West. 
 
CGN: Tell me about your background. How did you get&nbsp;started in the art world? 
 
Julia Fischbach:&nbsp;I&rsquo;m from Chicago. I grew up here, and then I went away to a school in central Kentucky called Asbury University. Soon after I graduated, I came back to Chicago and I met an artist who had started working with Kavi. I started going to the openings and things like that. After a series of conversations I was hired by Kavi when I was 23. I was there for just over 17 years.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: What about you Emanuel? 
 
Emanuel Aguilar:&nbsp;I grew up in the city as well. I went to Columbia College and double majored in art history and marketing. But when I was very young, seventeen, I met a gallerist, Jean Albano in River North, through family and friends. I worked for her for about eight years, through college. When I left school I launched a magazine called Jettison Quarterly with some of my fellow graduates. One of the other founders of the magazine, Peter Skvara, worked with Julia and Kavi, and so I formed a relationship with the gallery. At one point our offices were in the same building. Kavi offered me a job and I took it. I was there for a few years, and then it led to this. 
 
CGN: Was the idea of opening up your own space something that you had been thinking about for awhile?&nbsp; 
 
EA: It&rsquo;s an industry where you eventually reach the point where, either you do it on your own, or you leave. Especially in a city like Chicago, there are only so many opportunities. To continue up the ladder you need to think about how or if you want to continue. It wasn&rsquo;t something we planned for until after we left and thought about what we wanted to do. We had options to leave the city and work for other spaces.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: Are you happy with the decision to stay in Chicago? 
 
EA: Yeah, it&rsquo;s difficult. Chicago is a very difficult place. I think that&rsquo;s something we both learned at Kavi&rsquo;s. Anything you can imagine in the art world globally, we were exposed to. When you have that kind access to the industry at large you have to reflect on&mdash;in order to stay sane&mdash;what aspects of the job are fulfilling. You come out of it really exhausted and you think to yourself, &lsquo;Why do I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life? What is it about this that makes me want to wake up?&rsquo;&nbsp; 
 
But Chicago has a lot of opportunities. There&rsquo;s definitely a void to fill. It has a lot of challenges because the community and the collector base is small. The collector base often isn&rsquo;t as risky; they sometimes wait for the rest of the world to approve something and then they follow through. You have to reach out to the rest of the world. But we&rsquo;re happy because the reception has been great. 
 
CGN: Julia, what about you? Are you happy with the decision?&nbsp; 
 
JF: Yes, for sure. When we left there was no plan for anything because we had different opportunities coming our way. I needed time to completely regroup. We had people who wanted us to go to the West Coast, East Coast, the whole thing, but I was like, &lsquo;You know we have both been here, we love the city.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s easy to leave sometimes, but I felt like more and more of the world&rsquo;s eyes were turning towards Chicago. In my heart I felt like I needed to stay.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: But I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ve both been traveling a lot. 
 
EA: When we were at the other gallery we were on the road so much, flying out almost every other week. I almost felt like a stranger, because I was never here. At one point I was talking to a friend about my apartment and I mentioned that I had slept like five nights out of the last three months in my own bed. Sometimes you disconnect with your own community. Being in Chicago now has helped me to reconnect with what is going on here and to be a part of it. But eventually travel happens. The way that the art world functions these days you have to be on the road.

CGN: You&rsquo;ve said you want to foster connection between South America and Chicago. Have you been traveling to South America this year or do you have plans in the future to do so?

JF: We&#39;re starting the conversations and then doing research. I don&#39;t want the program to feel like &lsquo;These are South American artists! And artists from the States!&rsquo; so we want to make sure that there&#39;s a lot of crossover as far as conversations that can be blended beautifully. We are starting to work with artists from South America who live in Chicago or have lived here for a time.&nbsp;

CGN: Last year, you had a booth at EXPO, but I didn&rsquo;t see you on the exhibitor list for this fall. Are you planning on participating in other ways? 
 
JF: Yes, EXPO asked us to do a project. We will have a piece up by Samuel Levi Jones. It&rsquo;s an earlier work from 2012 called 48 Portraits Underexposed that informed where his work is today. We&rsquo;ll also be focused on Harold Mendez&rsquo;s exhibition opening here. He lived in Chicago at one point, he&rsquo;s down in Houston now. It&rsquo;s going to be very different and fresh. It&rsquo;s really amazing work.

<img alt="" data-caption="Harold Mendez, &lt;i&gt;At night we walk in circles&lt;/i&gt;, 2016 Cotton, graphite, spray enamel, watercolor, toner, litho crayon on ball grained aluminum lithographic plate mounted on dibond, 72&quot; x 60&quot;" data-rich-file-id="1381" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1381/original/hm-at-night-we-walk-in-circles-.jpg" />

CGN: You started with four artists when you opened a year ago, and now you represent eight. How did you get there? 
 
EA: It&rsquo;s a process to build relationships with artists. Not only do we have to believe in the practice and in the work, but we also have to develop good relationships with these artists as people, because we work very intimately with them. We are gallerists who like being in the studio often, collaborating with the artists and working side by side. It&rsquo;s forming a relationship that functions as a productive partnership for both sides to realize whatever it is that the artist&rsquo;s aspirations are. It took some time to get to know who&rsquo;s right for that and whether we can also do something for those artists. There are a lot of artists we like but for whom we&rsquo;re just not the right space. 
 
CGN: The mold making process for Daniel G. Baird&rsquo;s&nbsp;recent exhibition at PATRON seemed very intensive. He travels into caves across the United States and makes molds of the surfaces. Is Baird&rsquo;s project one that you were involved with specifically? 
 
EA: Yes, if you look at our artist roster, I&rsquo;d say 95% of everything the artists are doing we&rsquo;re involved with, at some point, even if it&rsquo;s just a discussion. Dan has very ambitious ideas and his exhibition was laying foundation for those ideas to grow even bigger and get more ambitious. Everything in his show happened through months and months of conversations. 
 
CGN: Tell me about your philosophy for the gallery. How does it relate to the name PATRON?&nbsp; 
 
JF: Even though we&rsquo;re a newer space we want to make sure that we are really accessible to people. We want the space to feel very open; our offices are almost in the middle of the space instead of hiding. Anybody who comes into the gallery is welcome to walk back into the showroom area. We&rsquo;re interested in helping someone who&rsquo;s never bought a piece of art in their life and has no idea how to go about that, as well as working with those who&rsquo;ve been doing it for forty years. Everyone is a different case.&nbsp; 
 
There are many, many ways to be a supporter. The original definition of patron&mdash;usually you think it&rsquo;s someone who has money and is giving to something&mdash;is actually a much more beautiful, generalized term. It&rsquo;s a supporter, a protector. That is our job. We do that everyday when we cross a threshold. We chose the name very carefully. It&rsquo;s at the foundation of who we are as a space.

CGN: What was the most challenging part of opening up a space this year?

JF: Even though we&#39;ve been in the industry for a long time we&#39;re starting from scratch. It&rsquo;s been very thrilling. It&#39;s a completely different thing when your problems are your problems. We&#39;ve had so many experiences in our lives that it&#39;s allowed us to say &lsquo;It&#39;s okay.&rsquo; You make a decision and you move forward.

EA: It&rsquo;s a challenge to redefine your identity and your life. Both&nbsp;locally and&nbsp;internationally people saw us under a certain umbrella&mdash;we belonged to this other place. We&rsquo;ve had to restructure the way that the world sees us and&nbsp;reconfigure our networks into the fact that we&#39;re no longer there and we&#39;re here. But it&#39;s been really good.

For more information visit <a href="http://patrongallery.com/">patrongallery.com</a>

Top image: Samuel Levi Jones, 48 Portraits (Underexposed), 2012, inkjet print on paper, 48-28&quot; x 22&quot; each or 8.5&#39; x 23&#39; overall, Edition of 1&nbsp;with 1 AP, SLJ025

One year ago, Emanuel Aguilar and Julia Fischbach opened the doors of their gallery, PATRON.

PATRON: Committed to Chicago

By FRANCK MERCURIO

 
Lawrence &amp; Clark is an unassuming storefront gallery that functions as a public venue for graphic designer Jason Pickleman&rsquo;s private art collection. Over the past 30 years, Pickleman has assembled an eclectic collection of more than 1,000 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by the likes of Sterling Ruby, Michael DeLucia, Jin Lee, Judy Ledgerwood, Tom Friedman, and his current favorite, Puppies Puppies (Drew Olivo). On a recent visit to the gallery, I spoke with Pickleman about his collection and his deep roots in Chicago&rsquo;s art community. 
 
Pickleman&rsquo;s approach to collecting: 
 
I buy almost everything at first sight. I see it; it piques my interest; I buy it immediately. Very seldom do I hem, haw, think, research. I do almost no research when it comes to collecting&mdash;purely instinctive, always impulsive&mdash;much to my wife&rsquo;s chagrin! 
 
Purchasing a sculpture by Jenny Buffington: 
 
Jenny Buffington had a one-woman show at Heaven Gallery. So I picked up [this sculpture], and I bought it not knowing anything about the artist. Never seen her work before. I was there for a party. [The piece] was available. One glass of whiskey later, I walked home with it! That happens a lot. 
 
Ground up vs. museum down: 
 
I guess my collecting started from the ground up, as opposed to from the museum down. It has been brought on by my relationship with the Chicago cultural community, by being engaged with arts groups, artists, architects, entrepreneurs, and designers &ndash; by going to openings and doing studio visits. I go to places like Heaven, LVL3, and the Chicago Artists Coalition. 
 
&ldquo;Emerging&rdquo; is a dirty word: 
 
You know, I don&rsquo;t like the term &ldquo;emerging.&rdquo; Actually, I take offense to the word. Because, I mean, everybody&rsquo;s emerging as something else. 
 
When you go into a more established gallery, a more commercial gallery, there&rsquo;s a certain pedigree that shapes one&rsquo;s responses to the work. When I go into a &ldquo;scruffier&rdquo; gallery, I find the lack of pedigree to be freeing. I can have a more personally authentic experience with an art object when I don&rsquo;t know the artist&rsquo;s name, their reputation, or their exhibition history. 
 
Encountering Rothko at age 10: 
 
I remember a trip to New York when I was maybe nine or ten and seeing Rothkos at MoMA. That lodged in my brain, that level of atmospheric abstraction as a field of interest for an artist. It was mind-blowing for a ten-year-old. [The Rothko] wasn&rsquo;t a picture of something. It wasn&rsquo;t a place. It wasn&rsquo;t recognizable as anything. But at the same time, it was suggestive of a state of thinking, a state of emotion. I kind of sensed all that at a young age: that art could be this thing that was both specific and ambiguous, suggestive and abstract. And I think that my collection and my habits in collecting are absolutely informed by those contradictions. 
 
Art as memory device: 
 
[The works I collect] are mnemonic devices, memory devices for me. They are snapshots of where I was at certain point in my adult life. And my adult life&mdash;I&rsquo;m 51 now&mdash;has been 100 percent engaged with the Chicago art community. And I haven&rsquo;t left Chicago. I&rsquo;ve been able to find opportunities in Chicago&mdash;both personal and professional opportunities&mdash;and I&rsquo;ve watched multiple generations of artists come up. Many of them leave. Many of them disappear. And owning the work of so many has been one way for me to acknowledge their importance in my adult life. 
 
Opening Lawrence &amp; Clark: 
 
I think opening the gallery was one way for me to rationalize buying more work and as a way to treat the work more respectfully. Because I do&mdash;passionately&mdash;enjoy, love, and respect everything I buy. And often, collectors buy work and then it just disappears into this very private realm, and on one level, that does a disservice to the artist. So by having this gallery space, I open the possibility of not sequestering the work&hellip;that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m here every Saturday, with open hours.

<img alt="" data-caption="Pictured clockwise from top: Claire Valdez, Invader, Jenny Spota, Ivan Thorpe, Ken Fandell, William S. Burroughs" data-rich-file-id="1378" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1378/original/overall100-jasonpickleman.jpg" />

Collecting as part of living a creative life:&nbsp;

 
[The collection is an] end result of a professional life, lived in Chicago from 1987 to 2016. I mean, as a designer, I&rsquo;ve produced over 200 books for the most well known artists in the city of Chicago. I&rsquo;ve befriended artists who ended up having significant careers&mdash;Sterling Ruby, Tony Tasset, Judy Ledgerwood, Kerry James Marshall, I&ntilde;igo Manglano-Ovalle. These are people I have relationships with. I&rsquo;ve worked for major museums. I&rsquo;ve worked with very important curators and museum directors. My entire adult life has been centered around art making, art exhibiting, and art appreciation. Collecting is the end result of those relationships. I did not say, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to become a collector.&rdquo; Instead I said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to live a creative life in the city of Chicago.&rdquo; And owning all these rectangles and sculptures and neon, that&rsquo;s the residue.

Lawrence &amp; Clark, 4755 N. Clark. Open Saturdays 1&ndash;5pm and by appointment via text 773-459-0586

Top image:&nbsp;Pickleman in front of one half of Sol LeWitt&rsquo;s Wall Work No. 391 (1983-2016) at Lawrence &amp; Clark 
&nbsp;

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Lawrence & Clark is an unassuming storefront gallery that functions as a public venue for graphic designer Jason Pickleman’s private art collection.

Collector Jason Pickleman’s Creative Life

By FRANCK MERCURIO&nbsp; 
 
What happens when a 1957 Cadillac de Ville is encased in 16 tons of concrete? In short, it doesn&rsquo;t go anywhere. And that&rsquo;s the point of Concrete Traffic, a public sculpture created in 1970 by German artist Wolf Vostell. This important conceptual work&mdash;commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, during its early years&mdash;will be re-installed on the University of Chicago campus this September. 
&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Installation view of Wolf Vostell’s Concrete Traffic, January 1970. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Library and Archives. Photo © MCA Chicago." data-rich-file-id="1416" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1416/original/installation-view-2c-concrete-traffic-with-cars-historical-photographs-2c-mca-archives-.jpg" />

In an absurdist gesture, Vostell (1932&ndash;1998) took a vehicle that&rsquo;s designed to move and rendered it immobile. It is the type of 1960s conceptual art exemplified by Fluxus, a group of international artists that included (at one time or another) Vostell, Joseph Bueys, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, and Fluxus founder George Maciunas. 
 
Given its intentionally loose parameters, a succinct definition of Fluxus is difficult to pin-down, but the Tate Museum provides a coherent description of what united these artists and their disparate practices: &ldquo;[Fluxus] characterised itself as a shared attitude rather than a movement&hellip;it valued simplicity and anti-commercialism, with chance and accident playing a big part in the creation of works, and humour also being an important element.&rdquo; 
 
To this end, the artists of Fluxus created highly conceptual pieces, often ephemeral, that employed performances and other &ldquo;happenings&rdquo; involving the participation of viewers. The irony is that Vostell created monumental works using these same strategies. Concrete Traffic is a fixed statement, seemingly in direct contradiction to the constantly changing (i.e., &ldquo;in flux&rdquo;) ideals of Fluxus itself. 
&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="David Katzive, view of Wolf Vostell’s Concrete Traffic as it moves down I-90 to the University of Chicago, June 1970. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Photo © MCA Chicago." data-rich-file-id="1415" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1415/original/david-katzive-2c-concrete-traffic-on-i-90-mca-archives.jpg" />

The MCA&rsquo;s first director, Jan van der Marck, commissioned Vostell to create Concrete Traffic. No stranger to controversy, van der Marck (1929&ndash;2010) championed the work of several provocative artists during his tenure at the fledgling museum. He provided Dan Flavin with his first solo museum exhibition (Dan Flavin: Pink and Gold, 1967&ndash;1968) and displayed Barnett Newman&rsquo;s notorious Lace Curtain for Mayor Daley (1968). Van der Marck also gave Christo and Jeanne Claude their first major U.S. commission, Wrapped Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1968&ndash;1969). 
 
In true Fluxus fashion, the performative aspect of Concrete Traffic was as important as the object itself. On January 16, 1970, more than 100 people gathered in a parking lot at the corner of Ontario and St. Clair to witness the spectacle of Vostell&rsquo;s assistants pouring concrete into a wooden framework surrounding the Cadillac. A few days later, the mold was removed, revealing a car-shaped, concrete form with white walled tires peeking from underneath. The sculpture stayed &ldquo;parked&rdquo; in this space for nearly five months, accumulating masses of parking tickets. (Exactly who ended up paying for the tickets remains unclear.) 
 
A flatbed truck finally hauled Concrete Traffic to a more permanent site on the University of Chicago campus next to Midway Studios. The sculpture stayed in this spot for nearly 40 years until 2009 when it was moved into storage to make way for the new Logan Center for the Arts. 
 
In June 1970, when Concrete Traffic journeyed from&nbsp;Streeterville to Hyde Park, down the Dan Ryan expressway,&nbsp;the Chicago Tribune quoted van der Marck as saying,&nbsp;&ldquo;[the sculpture] gives us a glimpse of the fantastic traffic jam in which the world may someday come to a standstill.&rdquo; 
 
And, indeed, Vostell&rsquo;s sculpture served as an obvious commentary on the drawbacks of American car culture. The newly created interstate system&mdash;built largely of concrete&mdash;was meant to alleviate traffic congestion in inner cities and enable unobstructed travel between communities. Yet, as commuters became more dependent on cars, freeways became virtual parking lots during rush hours. 
 
Concrete Traffic can also be interpreted as a response to growing consumer frustration with the American car industry and its declining product quality in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This frustration was epitomized by Eddie Campos, a Californian who (in spectacular fashion) set fire to his brand new Lincoln Continental in front of a Ford automobile plant in 1971 after repeated repair attempts failed to fix his recently acquired &ldquo;lemon.&rdquo; 
 
Concrete Traffic anticipated the oil embargo of the 1970s in which the nation&rsquo;s cars literally came to a standstill, as drivers sat in long lines to purchase gasoline. The sculpture resonates with today&rsquo;s audiences, as voters and politicians debate how to repair the country&rsquo;s crumbling transportation infrastructure and get America moving again&mdash;literally and metaphorically. 
 
Deterioration was also an unfortunate hallmark of Concrete Traffic. Nearly 40 years of outdoor exposure took a toll on the sculpture. The University of Chicago&rsquo;s Neubauer Collegium funded an extensive conservation program to prepare the work for its re-installation. Chicago-based Methods and Materials conducted the conservation treatments in consultation with outside experts to repair and preserve the concrete, internal steel structures, and the automobile&rsquo;s undercarriage and tires. 
&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Digital rendering of Wolf Vostell’s Concrete Traffic, 1970, in its new location at the entrance to the University of Chicago campus north parking garage." data-rich-file-id="1414" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1414/original/concretetraffic-siting-mockup.jpg" />

After conservation work is complete, the sculpture will be installed inside the University of Chicago&rsquo;s main parking garage&nbsp;adjacent to the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art. The sculpture&rsquo;s new home is in keeping with Vostell&rsquo;s original intention to place Concrete Traffic within an automobile context, challenging drivers to contemplate the piece and question the continued reliance on cars. The covered site will also help protect the piece from damaging weather. 
 
Honoring the Fluxus tradition of happenings and audience&nbsp;involvement, the reinstallation of Concrete Traffic kicks-off&nbsp;with a public procession&mdash;appropriately, through city&nbsp;traffic&mdash;on Friday, September 30. The event begins at Methods and Materials, making stops at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Logan Center for the Arts before reaching its final destination on the University of Chicago campus.

The University of Chicago&nbsp;will continue to celebrate Concrete Traffic after its installation through a series of special programs and exhibitions.&nbsp; 
 
For details on how to participate in this neo-Fluxus happening,&nbsp;visit <a href="http://arts.uchicago.edu/concrete-happenings/programming">arts.uchicago.edu/concrete-happenings/programming</a>

Top image:&nbsp;David Katzive, installation view of Wolf Vostell&rsquo;s Concrete Traffic, January 1970. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Photo &copy; MCA Chicago. 
&nbsp;

Concrete Traffic by German artist Wolf Vostell is reinstalled on the University of Chicago campus.

Concrete Traffic Gets Moving Again

By ALISON REILLY 
 
In her exhibition last fall at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Ania Jaworska presented an impressive set of screen prints titled A Subjective Catalog of Columns. In one print, a flattened flame of concentric lines burns behind a cartoon capital filled with a wood grain pattern. Beneath the image, a line of text reads, &ldquo;Wooden Column on Fire (It Was Always Burning).&rdquo; Hung side-by-side within inches of each other, Jaworska&rsquo;s playful columnar designs reimagine the canonized history of architecture while offering many entry points for the casual viewer.

<img alt="" data-caption="Ania Jaworska, &lt;i&gt;Wooden Column on Fire (It Was Always Burning)&lt;/i&gt;, 2015. Screen print on folio paper. Courtesy of the Artist. © MCA Chicago" data-rich-file-id="1375" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1375/original/aniajaworska-column.jpg" />

In an adjacent gallery, Jaworska installed monochromatic black sculptures within a room of black walls and carpet, creating an island of architectural misfits. A HERE sign marks nowhere in particular. A set of stanchions and a corded rope form a circle only to guard an empty space. Throughout the exhibition, Jaworska questions the implicit power of signage and archetypal forms like an arch, a column or a step.&nbsp; 
 
&ldquo;A column is still a very powerful symbol,&rdquo; Jaworska said, &ldquo;that is not really questioned. It sends a powerful message and it does an excellent job.&rdquo; More recently, the Polish architect has been researching how universities, banks, law firms and other institutions interpret columns graphically in their logos. By cataloging these graphic designs, Jaworska hopes to more thoughtfully assess how they function in contemporary life.&nbsp; 
 
This fall Jaworska will present a new body of work&mdash;functional furniture&mdash;at Volume Gallery in the West Loop. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m building up my interest in simple forms,&rdquo; Jaworska noted, &ldquo;very bold forms that bring references that are not necessarily specific to anything else.&rdquo; Producing functional objects is not entirely new for the designer who was commissioned in 2013 to create the now iconic mesh metal bookshelf for the Graham Foundation. However, she considers that project &ldquo;more as an installation in space. I&rsquo;ve thought about furniture before but this [at Volume Gallery] is a new experience. &rdquo;&nbsp; 
 
Jaworska grew up in Stary Sacz, a small town in southern Poland along the border with Slovakia. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an old town, 750 years old,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It used to be a prominent town, but it never really grew so it stayed very small. There are gothic and baroque churches, a market square and it&rsquo;s all still cobblestones, so people are very much aware of their heritage in the town. They keep as much of the original old town as possible, which influenced my understanding of what architecture is, because I was surrounded by really beautiful buildings&mdash;not many, but some.&rdquo; 
 
At that time in the eighties, Poland was coming to terms with what it meant to be post-communist state. &ldquo;If you wanted to build your own house in my town you had to do it on your own,&rdquo; Jaworska said. Her parents, with the support of friendly neighbors, built their house from start to finish, which she compared to a barn raising&mdash;a community coming together to help a neighbor construct a necessary structure. Jaworska, who attended the Cracow University of Technology and Cranbrook Academy of Art, connects these early memories to her decision to study architecture. &ldquo;I always knew I wanted to study something related to art, and the more I thought about it architecture seemed to be the best approach.&rdquo; 
 
As a designer, Jaworska benefitted from the traditional architectural approach at Cracow focused on drafting, drawing, and planning, coupled with the hands-on, material based studies at Cranbook. &ldquo;I explored two different sides of architecture,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;At Cranbrook I was mostly building so I had the experience of how to actually make things, which of course as an architect you know it&mdash;in theory. But I think that really changed my practice. I had two years of studio time. There are no classes and no grades. It&rsquo;s really you and your own ideas.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Ania Jaworska, &lt;i&gt;Study for Coffee Table&lt;/i&gt;, forthcoming exhibition at Volume Gallery" data-rich-file-id="1376" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1376/original/aniajaworska-coffee-table-image.jpg" />

While it&rsquo;s common for young architects to experiment with proposals as a means of developing their practice, Jaworska continues to employ this method in her work. &ldquo;I use proposals deliberately as a way to express ideas and communicate what I would like to do,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The proposals also exist as works that are already done and finished. They can be experienced as they are but also can promise works of a larger scale.&rdquo; Monument for Them, an oversized kneeling &ldquo;Hi&rdquo; sign that was installed at the MCA, functioned as a unique sculpture but also represents Jaworska&rsquo;s desire to engage viewers within public spaces.&nbsp; 
 
&ldquo;My interest in language came directly from signage,&rdquo; Jaworska said. &ldquo;I started with &lsquo;Hi&rsquo; in my explorations because I realized that signage really is about saying what we as a group of people or specific company or institution represent in the most direct way. It sends a message.&nbsp;You can&rsquo;t get any more direct than &lsquo;Hi!&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp;

Ania Jaworska&rsquo;s upcoming exhibition opens&nbsp;November 12 at Volume Gallery.&nbsp;

Top image:&nbsp;Installation view, BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works: ANIA JAWORSKA, MCA Chicago, August 25, 2015-January 31, 2016. Photo: Travis Roozee. &copy; MCA Chicago

CGN interviews architect and designer Ania Jaworska.

Ania Jaworska: Relocating the Canon

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

 
EXPO CHICAGO may seem like a fixture on the art world calendar now, but a few short years ago there was a serious possibility that the city who led &nbsp;the art fair craze from the beginning in the &lsquo;80s would be left without an international contemporary fair of its own. We spoke with Tony Karman, President, Director of EXPO, about the fifth edition of EXPO Chicago and the rapid changes that have been a part of the evolving show as well as the surrounding art community. 
 
<img alt="" data-caption="Tony Karman, photo by Audia" data-rich-file-id="1407" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1407/original/tony-karman-photo-by-audia.jpg" />

CGN: You&rsquo;ve made it to five. Tell me where you were back in 2012 and where you are now in 2016.&nbsp; 
 
Tony Karman: I have been saying that it feels like we are going to Kindergarten but we are actually quite mature. Five years is an incredible milestone. I didn&rsquo;t have any great foresight to understand where I hoped to be, but I&rsquo;m awfully proud of where we are. I think that from the beginning, in 2012, we made a huge mark, and we&rsquo;ve built upon that mark, not only being true to the tradition of a great art fair in Chicago, but more important, making sure that this was, and is, and will be, a great international art fair that has programming of merit, has galleries of merit, and represents an incredible list of artists. We move to the fifth year with great optimism.&nbsp; 
 
<img alt="" data-caption="Visitors to EXPO 2015" data-rich-file-id="1408" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1408/original/expoinsta.jpg" />

CGN: You&rsquo;ve managed not only to&nbsp;survive, but to build. 
 
TK: That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m most proud of. From the beginning we&rsquo;ve had an extraordinary list of dealers. Maintaining this in a world of too many art fairs, despite great swings in the economy, there&rsquo;s no question that we&rsquo;ve continued to not only provide a great international fair but grow with a list of powerful international art dealers. That&nbsp;is a testament to our city, our curators, our institutions, our collectors, our &nbsp;galleries &ndash; to our artists.&nbsp;In 2012 there wasn&rsquo;t the IN/SITU&nbsp;program or /Dialogues series; there wasn&rsquo;t THE SEEN. All those elements are maturing to be of service to the fair, as well as, hopefully, the whole ecosystem of the Chicago arts community. &nbsp;I don&rsquo;t think that there&rsquo;s any laurel to rest on. We&rsquo;re only as good as our last fair, and all of us here feel that urgency to continue to push and create new programming. It&rsquo;s all built on the dealers&rsquo; backs, they&rsquo;re the ones taking the greater risk here.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: Did people sign on at the start, figuring it was a gamble? Now, five years in, maybe they think, &ldquo;This is a fair that I need to be a part of.&rdquo; 
 
TK: I think you just hit it. We are at that place. Year one &ndash; there was no question that we came out of the box with an extraordinary list of dealers. I wouldn&rsquo;t say they necessarily sold that much, but they believed in the city, they believed in the mission of the fair, and they believed in the intent enough to want to come back to a year two. In year two they actually sold. Then the machine starts to work in everyone&rsquo;s favor because collectors hear, &ldquo;Something&rsquo;s happening in Chicago again. We gotta go next year.&rdquo; By year three you had even more people wanting to attend and support, and more sales taking place. In year four I think the programming and the cumulative good word meant that they did well.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="EXPO 2015 at Navy Pier" data-rich-file-id="1406" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1406/original/expo2015.jpg" />

CGN: Did some people count you out before you got started? 
 
TK: No question. I will say healthy skepticism was there, but not enough to deter the great dealers to attend, but the cultural and civic leaders in Chicago to jump in and support us. I think that&rsquo;s a testament to our city. I&rsquo;ve said this often, because it&rsquo;s critical: I don&rsquo;t know of any city in the world that would have rallied in that way and in that first year, I would say that we maybe had 95% or 98% of everyone&rsquo;s support, with that other 2% going, &ldquo;Well let&rsquo;s just see what it looks like.&rdquo; People questioned, &lsquo;Can Chicago sustain a great international fair?&rsquo; &lsquo;Is this the fair that one would want to participate in?&rsquo; After 2012 doubts were erased about what we were and what we wanted to be, so it allowed for even greater support to flow in &ndash; support to me is when everyone wants to be an ambassador to tell the world to be here. 
 
CGN: Where does art rank in Chicago&rsquo;s international reputation? Among architecture, food, design, sports,&nbsp;art is not at the top of that list yet.&nbsp; 
 
TK: I think you&rsquo;re fair in that observation. This sounds horribly one-sided but I see the fair playing a large role in telling the art world to convene here at the very least once a year. I wish they would convene 365 days of the year.

That&rsquo;s not possible, but I think the fair has reestablished the city and regalvanized the galleries, the artists and the institutions around this weekend in a way that we can export what is happening here in a pretty profound way. There&rsquo;s still room to grow, even in the 360 days out of the year that the fair isn&rsquo;t taking place. So many people don&rsquo;t recognize yet how many great artists are now living here and staying here, the number of galleries showing amazing work. Collectively we all have a responsibility to make sure nobody forgets that, &lsquo;Damn! There&rsquo;s a lotta good happening here.&rsquo; 
 
CGN: How do you sum up EXPO now for someone who doesn&rsquo;t know what an international art fair is?&nbsp; 
 
TK: To some extent, sadly, I have to reference another experience [like Art Basel Miami Beach] for those who don&rsquo;t realize we had that legacy once. I&rsquo;m going to start to change my tune a little bit and say we are that legacy again. There are 20 and 30 year olds who know what Art Basel Miami Beach is &ndash; I mean that is an extraordinary thing &ndash; but from 1979 until really the early 2000s, Chicago was the only place the international art world came to in North and South America. That&rsquo;s hard to imagine now, since there are so many fairs taking place around the world, but it basically started here. Now that we&rsquo;ve established EXPO, there&rsquo;s never a minute that we&rsquo;re not pushing to make another person more aware of what the fair is or what the scene is in Chicago. 
 
CGN: Are you headed for 10 next?&nbsp; 
 
TK: I&rsquo;m pleased we&rsquo;ve made it to five, and now I know we&rsquo;re continuing in the right direction. This fair has established a place where, I think even after year five, it&rsquo;s undeniable that it deserves to exist and has a future. I can&rsquo;t guarantee that; there are so many factors that can come into play, but I feel that it&rsquo;s not overconfident for me to say that the fair has its own energy.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: What makes Chicago so special for EXPO, as well as for emerging&nbsp;galleries in the fair and in the city?&nbsp; 
 
TK: I think Chicago overall, but especially the emerging art world players, deserve greater recognition. There&rsquo;s no question &ndash; I say this to collectors or&nbsp;curators who have been kind enough to&nbsp;be great supporters of the fair &ndash;they&rsquo;re&nbsp;really coming for them, after all. The collection of galleries at Navy Pier is important, as is the programming we put together, but the reason why a dealer is doing our fair or a collector or curator comes here is to see what&rsquo;s new and experience all that Chicago has to offer. I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s been a time in my 35 years in Chicago that the curatorial teams of all of the institutions have ever been this strong. Or the artists graduating from our amazing schools have not only been this strong, but are finding a way to actually work here. Artists are figuring out that they can still be represented on the coasts or in Europe but have a great studio space here. That&rsquo;s something that we need to foster together, that this is a place where one can be a maker and still be represented and be tied into the international art world and not have to leave. The more that happens, the more the gallery scene becomes richer the more, more, more. I really do believe that this city&rsquo;s never been this strong, and that is why I keep saying the world wants to come here. 
 
 
EXPO Chicago 
At Navy Pier, September 22-25, 2016 
<a href="http://expochicago.com">expochicago.com</a>

Top image:&nbsp;Tony Karman. Photo by Paul Audia.

CGN interviews EXPO President & Director Tony Karman about the fifth edition of EXPO Chicago.

EXPO Chicago: Five Years and Counting

By GINNY VAN ALYEA 
 
Professor Lisa Wainwright is actually an East Coast transplant, someone who unexpectedly found her way to Chicago and stayed &ndash; an opposite path from so many in the art world who get their start here only to flee to the coasts. Living the life of a native Chicagoan today, she first came to the city 27 years ago via the University of Illinois, Champaign, where she befriended a group of people connected to the Art Institute of Chicago. A highly respected art historian, she is now Dean of Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the School of the Art Institute (SAIC). Most of all she is a fountain of knowledge on the ins and outs of the local art scene, with her finger on the pulse of the global creative community. 
 
CGN: Tell me how you first came to Chicago.&nbsp; 
 
Lisa Wainwright: The individual who started the Art History program at the School of the Art Institute, Sir Robert Loescher, he was knighted by the king of Spain &ndash; he was a Hispanist. A formidable teacher in Art History &ndash; the school is known for its art historians &ndash; Loescher and I met when I was a graduate student in Champaign, and immediately bonded around my work on Robert Rauschenberg, because he was a huge Rauschenberg fan. Loescher was one of the early historians to think about queer theory, and at the time I was working on gay iconography, including tube socks. A side note &ndash; Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson&rsquo;s gift to the Art Institute includes an untitled, gorgeous Rauschenberg, and it has a parachute, and other typical Rauschenberg paraphernalia, but it has a tube sock, basically a gay fetish item. So, Bob and I bonded over this, and the next thing I knew, I went from studying tube socks to a full-time job in Chicago. I&rsquo;m from the East Coast, from Miami and then outside of Annapolis, Maryland, so I never imagined I would be in Chicago, never! But I dig it, I think it&rsquo;s a great city, and the art scene is pretty interesting.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: We always talk about stemming the tide the other way, in particular how to keep more of our art talent from leaving Chicago.&nbsp; 
 
LW: I think it&rsquo;s something about being a historian of modern and contemporary art and working in one of the top art schools in the country,&nbsp;connected to one of the most amazing&nbsp;museums in the world. I&rsquo;m not bookish, you know, and I love being around living artists and students who are attempting to move through the practice. As an art historian surrounded by working artists,&nbsp;why would I leave? So I never left. 
 
CGN: I don&rsquo;t blame you.&nbsp; 
 
LW: In all that time I&rsquo;ve moved up through AIC. I was a tenure track faculty, then I got tenure, then somebody said, &lsquo;Oh, you should try administration, we have these elected faculty positions &ndash; run for this. I said, &lsquo;What the hell? I&rsquo;ll run.&rsquo; Then I became the Graduate Dean, and when Carol Becker left, I became the Dean Dean.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: Are you still teaching? 
 
LW: I don&rsquo;t teach that much. I taught this pretty interesting class, recently, called Chicago Collections with Shane Campbell. It was the second time I taught it. We took graduate students into private homes in Chicago and looked at the amazing wealth of works in private collections. We talked to the collectors about their choices and their installation strategies and the market. Shane knows the ins and outs of what&rsquo;s going on in the gallery world, so that was super fun.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: So that was one recent course.&nbsp; 
 
LW: I teach every other year or so. I just wrapped up SAIC&rsquo;s first MOOC [Massive Open Online Course]. It&rsquo;s gone live (<a href="http://kadenze.com">kadenze.com</a>) and it&rsquo;s called Touring Modernism: From the French Avant Garde to American Pop and Beyond. It&rsquo;s 200 years of art history &ndash; Western art history. I&rsquo;ve spent the last year writing the script, and filming. I went to LA to film &ndash; when in my life will I ever be able to say that again? Never. I used the Art Institute as the primary collection, and several AIC curators appear in the videos. They&rsquo;re going to keep rolling it out. This round it goes through, I think, September or October, and then they&rsquo;re going to launch it again. And it&rsquo;s free. It&rsquo;s online. Anyone can take it. 
 
CGN: What do the students do? Do they just sit there and watch videos?&nbsp;Is there course work?&nbsp; 
 
LW: There are quizzes; there are some assignments. The big project at the end, if you take it for credit, uses this system so that you basically design a gallery and then you drop images in and curate a show virtually. 
 
CGN: Playing paper dolls. It&rsquo;s like a game. 
 
LW: I mean, curators do that, you know. 
I&rsquo;m excited to see what they do at the end with the course, but that&rsquo;s been a lot of work &ndash; oh my God! I used to teach the big freshman survey, from cave paintings to Anselm Kiefer; I taught the second half, so 19th and 20th century essentially. 
 
CGN: It&rsquo;s been a long time since I took Art History.&nbsp; 
 
LW: Right, but you remember. You&rsquo;re going through hundreds and hundreds of slides. I had all of those notes and I dusted that off with my usual feminist bent &ndash; I&rsquo;m pretty much an angry feminist when it comes to the history of art. Too many images of objectified women, and not enough women artists. 
 
CGN: It&rsquo;s getting better. There&rsquo;s still work to do.&nbsp; 
 
LW: Boy, is there still work to do. 
 
CGN: Do you think that more women artists are being recognized today, or not? The numbers are a little better. 
 
LW: Yeah, it&rsquo;s kind of like the Linda Nochlin problem. Nochlin wrote that famous essay in the 70s, Why Are There No Great Women Artists? And it&rsquo;s because the artists weren&rsquo;t allowed into the art schools mostly. In the 19th century, the Royal Academy had three women, and then they weren&rsquo;t allowed to draw from the nude, and it was Realism in the History of Painting, so you&rsquo;re kinda screwed.&nbsp; 
 
I think, yes, things have changed, post-1970, and we&rsquo;re even discovering more female artists from the 60s and 50s, but still, in comparison, I mean when you talk about the 19th century and early 20th century, it&rsquo;s a boy&rsquo;s game.&nbsp; 
 
CGN: What&rsquo;s the difference today?&nbsp; 
 
LW: It&rsquo;s interesting because SAIC is, I want to say, 65% or 67% women. That&rsquo;s a lot of women. 
 
We&rsquo;ve definitely gotten more global, too. You can&rsquo;t teach a contemporary art course today and only talk about western art history; that would be highly problematic, so you&rsquo;ve got to talk about Asia and Africa and South America as well. 
 
CGN: You travel a lot.&nbsp; 
 
LW: I do travel a lot. I just got back from Italy, where I saw the Christo site. It&rsquo;s stunning in photos, but to be there, you don&rsquo;t have the same vista and you don&rsquo;t have the same perspective, and it was like a big pier. It undulates, but I mean it also was 90 degrees. With 100,000 people. It was Italian craziness at its best, and you know, the thing about Christo, it&rsquo;s an event, and you don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s gonna happen and there were all these people &ndash; it very much reminded me of the Seurat painting of Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Jatte because it was the masses of all classes and shapes and sizes and they were lounging on this vivid golden drape on the blue water and that was kinda beautiful. But Christo is smart, he know&rsquo;s that media is the lens. It looks great in photographs, it looks great on television. It&rsquo;s a spectacle. You get everybody asking, &ldquo;Is this art?&rdquo; I love that question. 
 
CGN: You see the world, and then what do you see when you return home to Chicago?&nbsp; 
 
LW: I think Chicago is completely in the running of major cities and major art experiences. I mean there is a smaller number of galleries compared to some art centers, but from Shane Campbell, to Rhona Hoffman to the old standards like Zolla/Lieberman and Carl Hammer, and then all the Julius Caesars and alternative spaces, there is some really exceptional energy here. This summer, for instance, I went from Kerry James Marshall at the MCA down to the Terracotta Warriors at the Field in a day, and I thought, &lsquo;Yeah, this is all Chicago,&rsquo; from the high art to the general interest in all kinds of expressions that the Imagists enjoyed so much. I can&rsquo;t even get to everything, so what does that mean?&nbsp; 
 
CGN: What else sets Chicago apart for you?&nbsp; 
 
LW: I think Chicago is one of the most important cities for public sculpture. There&rsquo;s no city that has the Picasso that we have. I don&rsquo;t think there is another public Picasso in the United States.&nbsp; 
 
The collection throughout the city is great. From Oldenberg&rsquo;s [baseball] bat to Anish Kapoor&rsquo;s Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, even the 19th century and early 20th century sculpture in the city is terrific. It&rsquo;s a great walking city for architecture as well for sculpture.&nbsp;I always bicycle by the Richard Serra [Reading Cones] &ndash; it&rsquo;s out there, very lonely and minimalist power punk that it is. You can see the [Buckingham] fountain if you look through the slit, if you catch it right, which is cool. 
 
CGN: There&rsquo;s a lot of overlap between art and design and architecture in Chicago; all those things exist here in a unique way.&nbsp; 
 
LW: From the Logan Center to the Block Museum, and the Smart and the Renaissance Society, I think there are a lot of amazing artists and intellectuals in Chicago who work within art and design. This is a rich, rich, rich city. 
&nbsp;

CGN interviews Lisa Wainwright, a fountain of knowledge on the ins and outs of the local art scene, with her finger on the pulse of the global creative community. 

SAIC’s Lisa Wainwright: A Native Transplant

By&nbsp;GINNY VAN ALYEA

The internet has been on my mind lately, or more to the point, I cannot seem to get it out of my head. I know I am not alone; many of us have come to unconsciously inhabit an intangible, mobile place that&nbsp;dramatically determines how we see and interact with the physical world. Having both feet on the ground but a head in the &lsquo;cloud&rsquo; has altered the speeds at which we seek and digest information, and it has shifted our ability to make decisions about that information.&nbsp; 
 
I make fewer guesses than I used to; why guess when you can ask Alexa or Siri? I also experience fewer chance encounters and conversations. In an effort to try to always do and find out more, I&rsquo;m often reading a screen on&nbsp;the go &ndash; on the bus, in the crosswalk,&nbsp;up the elevator. I should remember to look out the window at the wind, or up the street to see the changing daylight.&nbsp; 
 
There are those who, maybe unconsciously, believe there&rsquo;s always something better out there, from everyday shopping, to collecting art, even in romantic relationships. This internet-enabled always-searching but never-deciding mentality can be stressful, not to mention debilitating.&nbsp; 
 
We also never get a break. Going offline for a little while is much harder than it sounds. It&rsquo;s not only disconnecting from information, but also from our networks of friends. For anyone who encounters art, it&rsquo;s tempting &ndash; practically second nature to anyone under 25 &ndash; to want to share what you see with others. But sharing doesn&rsquo;t mean what it used to; it&rsquo;s also become a means of soliciting praise and validation. What we see is registered immediately and then broadcast perhaps before we&rsquo;ve taken the time to think about it. Our friends respond with likes and comments, but not so much in a dialogue. How can we be present in one place when we&rsquo;re drawn to be everywhere at once?&nbsp; 
 
This fall edition of CGN is <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2016/8/preview-cgn-s-fall-issue">packed with things we hope you will share</a> in person: openings, show schedules, events, news, profiles, and of course images. Several art world players here are very skilled at doing real things that largely depend on personal interaction: Tony Karman has built a world class art fair. Jason Pickleman has amassed 1,000 works of art. Lisa Wainwright teaches her artistic worldview to SAIC students. PATRON is working with new artists after a year in business.

This season, try some form of self-imposed digital freedom, whether it&rsquo;s turning your phone off in one studio or for an entire art fair. See art up close and in person. Think about what it says to you, at least for a minute before you share it with someone else.&nbsp;

This fall edition of CGN is packed with things we hope you will share in person: openings, show schedules, events, news, profiles, and of course images. 

Publisher’s Letter: Going Offline and In Person

August can be a slow month in the art world, gallerists go on vacation or wrap up group shows, museums are filled with tourists but save their blockbusters for later in the year, and art fairs take a brief break. &nbsp;Well, that doesn&#39;t mean that things are quiet at all. This month in particular there&#39;s been quite a bit of buzz on a variety of topics. Highlights are listed below.&nbsp;

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<h4>&nbsp;</h4>

<h4>&bull; The Bizarre Peter Doig Trial Involving a Chicago Art Dealer</h4>

Yes, this really happened - a Chicago dealer and a former corrections officer from Canada&nbsp;tried to say a Scottish&nbsp;artist&#39;s work was actually his, even though he said, over and over and over, that it wasn&#39;t... Read the details here from the <a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/kapos-judge-says-painting-isnt-a-doig-and-no-ones-happy/">Chicago Sun Times</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/peter-doig-trial-verdict-618932">Artnet.com</a>

<img alt="" data-caption="The painting that was in question, Bartlow Gallery Ltd. via AP" data-rich-file-id="1420" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1420/original/cqllufgwiaa9d-l.jpg" />

<h4>&nbsp;</h4>

<h4>&bull; The Bizarre Case of an Art Switcheroo and Alec Baldwin</h4>

Alec Baldwin fell in love with a &#39;90s painting by Ross Bleckner, so famed dealer Mary Boone got him what he wanted&nbsp;- or as it turns out, not quite. Read the NYTimes story <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/arts/paint-and-switch-did-alec-baldwin-pay-190000-for-the-wrong-picture.html?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=0">here</a>.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Alec Baldwin Credit Matthew Eisman/Getty Images" data-rich-file-id="1419" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1419/original/14painting4-blog427.jpg" />

<h4>&nbsp;</h4>

<h4>&bull; Leslie Hindman has Real Estate Fever</h4>

Haven&#39;t you heard that the West Loop is on fire? Everyone, from meat packers to fish markets to parking lot owners, is selling space for big bucks as developers take whatever they can find to build highrise condos and rentals. Hindman may get to build a new state of the art facility if the sale&nbsp;nets a high result. Read the Crain&#39;s story <a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/realestate/20160823/CRED03/160829967">here</a>.

<img alt="" data-caption="Leslie Hindman Auctioneers at Lake and Ada Streets in the West Loop" data-rich-file-id="1422" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1422/original/proxy-1.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h4>&nbsp;</h4>

<h4>&bull; Cleveland Gets a Triennial</h4>

Art will be hot in Cleveland in 2018 when&nbsp;&ldquo;An American City,&rdquo; will take place July 7 through Sept. 30, 2018.&nbsp;Over 50 international artists are expected to participate, under the dual leadership of Chicago&nbsp;artist Michelle Grabner and Jens Hoffmann of New York&#39;s&nbsp;Jewish Museum&nbsp;and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Read the NYTimes story <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/arts/design/cleveland-gets-an-art-triennial.html">here</a>.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption=" Claes Oldenburg, Coosje Van Bruggen 1991 'Free Stamp'" data-rich-file-id="1421" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1421/original/3826601457-f4f35c0eeb-b.jpg" />

&nbsp;

CGN follows more art world news on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ChiGalleryNews">@ChiGalleryNews</a>

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Top image, from Left: art by Ross Bleckner, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Peter Doig<span style="border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; line-height: 20px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,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); background-color: rgb(189, 8, 28); background-size: 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 0.85; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer; border: none; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; top: 2023px; left: 27px; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">SaveSave

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News snippets in August from around the art world

August Art World News

By FRANCK MERCURIO 
 
Earlier this year, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) announced that Kavi Gupta Gallery will represent the estate of artist Roger Brown (1941&ndash;1997) on behalf of the School. The announcement was received with some surprise given that Brown&mdash;a Chicago Imagist who died nearly 20 years ago&mdash;seems outside the typical profile of Gupta&rsquo;s &ldquo;of the moment&rdquo; contemporary artists. But with a presence in both Chicago and Berlin, the gallery is poised to expand Brown&rsquo;s reputation internationally and encourage new interpretations of his work.&nbsp; 
 
&ldquo;We really want to put [Brown&rsquo;s art] out there in new and relevant ways and increase awareness by curators, critics, artists, and the public,&rdquo; said Lisa Stone, curator and director of the Roger Brown Study Collection. &ldquo;We hope his works find their way into the world and into important collections.&rdquo;&nbsp; 
 
The Study Collection is owned by SAIC and located in Brown&rsquo;s former Chicago townhouse and studio. Brown willed the building to the School upon his death in 1997, along with his personal collections and much of his artwork. The residence now serves as a museum, archive, and study center for scholars and SAIC students.&nbsp; 
 
As the estate&rsquo;s new representative, Kavi Gupta Gallery will manage Brown&rsquo;s creative output: his paintings, sculptures, and other works of art, which were previously housed at the Study Collection. The gallery&rsquo;s practical responsibilities include the proper storage of these works and the facilitating of loans to outside institutions. Kavi Gupta is also tasked with selling some of Brown&rsquo;s works, in consultation with the Study Collection. 
 
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no &lsquo;fire sale&rsquo; or anything like that,&rdquo; assured Stone. &ldquo;The Study Collection and the Roger Brown New Buffalo, Michigan, property are supported by&mdash;but not dependent on&mdash;proceeds from the estate. So there isn&rsquo;t pressure to sell.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;The gallery&rsquo;s staff have strategies about sales and representation,&rdquo; continued Stone. &ldquo;We respect their work; they are very savvy in terms of estate management.&rdquo; 
 
Kavi Gupta Gallery is also partnering with the Study Collection to conceive new ways of presenting and interpreting Brown&rsquo;s pieces. Case in point: a major fall exhibition at the gallery&rsquo;s Elizabeth Street space will pair works by Brown with those of Andy Warhol. When it opens September 23, Roger Brown &amp; Andy Warhol: Pop Artists, Subversive Politics will place Brown within the Pop art movement.

<img alt="" data-caption="Roger Brown, &lt;i&gt;Gulf War&lt;/i&gt;, 1991, Oil on canvas, Two 36” x 24” canvas panels. © The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brown family. Courtesy of Kavi Gupta. Photo: James Connolly " data-rich-file-id="1382" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/1382/original/rogerbrown-kavigupta-gulf-war.jpg" />

&ldquo;This exhibition will, for the first time, draw together works by artists&nbsp;Roger Brown and Andy Warhol,&rdquo; wrote Rachel Gonzalez, spokesperson for Kavi Gupta Gallery, in an email to the author. &ldquo;While these two artists were contemporaries and dealt with much of the same visual language and subject matter, their geographical distance precluded their work from being viewed as related during their lifetimes, which this exhibition seeks to rectify.&rdquo; 
 
Geography wasn&rsquo;t the only barrier separating Warhol&rsquo;s and Brown&rsquo;s works during their careers. There was also a general neglect of contemporary American art that wasn&rsquo;t &ldquo;of New York&rdquo; by critics and art historians during the decades after the war. Important art movements in Chicago and California were routinely ignored or marginalized. In turn, the Chicago Imagists fiercely rejected New York art trends, further distancing themselves from the Pop artists. 
 
 
Yet despite their independent ways,&nbsp;the Imagists keenly followed developments in New York. In a 1981 video interview conducted by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Brown acknowledged an attraction to Pop art and revealed the impact of the movement on his own work: 
 
The Pop artists interested me tremendously, as I think they did most of my friends. I consider them an influence on what I did. 
 
But Brown went on to articulate the dissimilarities between the two schools&rsquo; perspectives: 
 
The thing that I see that&rsquo;s different&hellip; is the kind of attitude they [the Pop artists] had to what they were doing. I think they chose things as sources and then presented them in a very refined, traditional representational manner&hellip; and I think our approach was not to use those things as sources, so much, but to try and parallel the kind of energy that existed in them as art&hellip;instead of painting pictures of them and cropping them in certain ways so that they look very aesthetic, I think our intention was to say &lsquo;These things are beautiful in themselves. Can I make art that equals that?&rsquo; 
 
Despite these differences in intent, commonalities existed. Brown and Warhol both drew from popular culture and explored a number of similar themes in their work. Gonzalez cites &ldquo;religion, queer desire, politics, violence, and advertising&rdquo; as some of the topics each tackled. Both artists commented on the political and social issues of their day; Brown addressed these subjects in a more overt manner through the use of a satirical, narrative painting style. Warhol, generally, took a more subtle approach, often reproducing and manipulating a single image&mdash;such as his (infamous) electric chair or portrait of Mao&mdash;to emphasize his point. There was also a kind of queer sensibility shared between these two gay male artists, one in which coded visual elements often conveyed meaning to a knowledgeable audience. 
 
Given the strong, traditional definitions that still separate the Imagists from the Pop artists, the exhibition at Kavi Gupta is guaranteed to generate controversy&mdash;not everyone will accept Brown as a Pop artist. But the exhibition promises to push descriptive boundaries and &ldquo;subvert&rdquo; (to borrow the gallery&rsquo;s language) long held notions of what separates and connects the work of these two iconic artists.

Roger Brown &amp; Andy Warhol: Pop Artists, Subversive Politics&nbsp;opens on September 23 at 219 Elizabeth St., Chicago&nbsp;and runs through November 22.&nbsp;For more information, visit <a href="http://kavigupta.com">kavigupta.com</a>

Top image: &nbsp;Roger Brown, Aha! Heterosexuals Fuck Too, 1991, Oil on canvas, 72&rdquo; x 72&rdquo;&nbsp;&copy; The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brown family. Courtesy of Kavi Gupta. Photo:&nbsp;James Connolly&nbsp;

Earlier this year, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) announced that Kavi Gupta Gallery will represent the estate of artist Roger Brown.

Roger Brown Goes Pop! at Kavi Gupta

On August 19, <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/richard-gray-gallery">Richard Gray Gallery</a> announced an exhibition of new work by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/theaster-gates-heavy-sketches">Heavy Sketches</a> opens September 30&nbsp;and will be on display through November 20. The exhibition features a series of&nbsp;bronze sculptures inspired by Ogoni, Dan, Baule, and Bamana ritual masks.&nbsp;While Gates is very active both locally and internationally, the gallery&nbsp;noted that the exhibition was the artist&rsquo;s first in Chicago since&nbsp;<a href="https://mcachicago.org/Exhibitions/2013/Theaster-Gates-13th-Ballad">13th Ballad</a>, which was on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2013.&nbsp;

During a call on August 23, Paul Gray confirmed that the gallery is&nbsp;now representing Theaster Gates. He noted that they have had a&nbsp;long friendship with the artist and are looking forward to presenting future exhibitions together.&nbsp;Gates previously curated an exhibition of work by artists from the Black Artists Retreat in 2014 that was held conjointly at Richard Gray Gallery and Valerie Carberry Gallery. The exhibition featured the work of Derrick Adams, Erika Allen, Elizabeth Axtman, Bethany Collins, Tony Lewis, Kelly Lloyd, Valerie Piraino, Mitchell Squire, Wilmer Wilson IV, and Nate Young with a essay contribution by Romi Crawford. Gates recently hosted the fourth annual Black Artists Retreat in Chicago&nbsp;on August 20-22.

Gates is currently represented by White Cube in London and Regen Project in Los Angeles. Previously, he was represented by Kavi Gupta in Chicago.&nbsp;Along with his forthcoming exhibition at Richard Gray Gallery, the artist is also organizing a series of performances at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. He recently joined the museum&#39;s board as a trustee, and the series will be his first contribution to the museum. The first performance titled &quot;The Runners&quot; will feature Gates&#39; own experimental music group,&nbsp;The Black Monks of Mississippi, alongside students from Howard University and will take place on September 21.

For more information about the upcoming exhibition at Richard Gray Gallery&nbsp;visit: <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/theaster-gates-heavy-sketches">Theaster Gates: Heavy Sketches</a>.&nbsp;

Top image: Theaster Gates, Untitled work in progress for upcoming exhibition&nbsp;Heavy Sketches&nbsp;at Richard Gray Gallery, September 20-November 30, 2016.&nbsp;

Richard Gray Gallery announced an exhibition of new work by artist Theaster Gates.

Theaster Gates to Exhibit at Richard Gray Gallery for the First Time

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The Jeffrey Breslow Gallery opened in the West Loop at 1015 W. Fulton Market on September 19, 2015. The gallery, dedicated to permanently showing the abstract sculptures of Jeffrey Breslow, rotates work by 2-D artists three to four times a year. Currently on display are realistic figurative sculptures made out of recycled newspaper by Japanese artist Chie Hitotsuyama. Previously the gallery has shown the collaborative works of Meg Frazier and Morgan Winter, cityscape paintings by Chicago painter Sam Rosenthal, and photographs by Chicago artist Laurel Feldman. Future exhibitions feature: Polish fairytale artist Lidia Wylangowska, Dominican artist Byram Bueno, and installation artist Lucy Slivinski.

Breslow is a lifelong Chicagoan, born and raised in Albany Park. He began his artistic journey in high school, building his own pottery wheel and kiln at the age of 15. His obsession with forms and their fabrication led to his discovery of creative dimensions beyond shaping and making designs. He received his BFA in Industrial Design from the University of Illinois, spending 41 years as a renowned toy designer and former president and CEO of Chicago&rsquo;s Big Monster Toys. Breslow left the toy design world in 2008 to devote himself to his passion for sculpture.

He first began making bronze figurative work but decided that it was not creative enough for him, as it emphasized execution. At a transitional point, Breslow recalls: &ldquo;I was out for an early morning run along Lake Michigan, and I could see in the distance the water touch the sky. A particularly colorful burst of clouds stopped me in my tracks. Watching the birth of a new day was glorious. When I turned around there was a fallen tree next to some stones, which I wouldn&rsquo;t have run by if I hadn&rsquo;t stopped for the sunrise. It was an epiphany for me. Next, I began to create abstract sculptures with small stones affixed to the ends of the branches. I was open and ready for a new direction, and there it was.&rdquo;

An avid hiker, Breslow is constantly curious, adventuring in the woods and wilderness. His abstract sculptures kindle a conversation between human creativity and the natural world, while his artistic intention is to inspire smiles and invite contemplation. His creative combinations of stones and boulders with shaped steel ultimately balance his love of nature with joy in design, creating a playful and inviting energy in his work.

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In 2015, Breslow showed 26 steel and stone sculptures at the first ever indoor and outdoor exhibit at Willis Tower. This fall, Breslow is a featured artist at the outdoor West Loop Arts Festival; he is participating in ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan and in SOFA at Navy Pier. In 2017 he will have an exhibition in the sculpture garden of The American University in Washington, D.C.

Top image: Jeffrey Breslow, Street Talk II; Steel, stones, granite boulder, 168&rdquo; x 96 &ldquo;x 48&rdquo;, 4,000 lbs, 2012

The Jeffrey Breslow Gallery, which opened on year ago, features the work of sculptor Jeffrey Breslow along with a rotating selection of sculpture from 2-D artists.