*Pictured above:&nbsp;Simon Starling. &quot;Film still,&nbsp;Project for a Masquerade (Hiroshima)&quot;, 2010-11. Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Mask maker: Yasuo Miichi, Osaka. (On view at the Musuem of Contemporary Art beginning June 2014.)

&nbsp;

BY FRANCK MERCURIO

The artist as alchemist: This is the theme of the Museum of Contemporary Art&rsquo;s upcoming exhibition, Simon Starling: Metamorphology.&nbsp;Opening on&nbsp;June 7, the show is the first major museum survey of Starling&rsquo;s work in the United States. &nbsp;A companion show at the Arts Club of Chicago, Simon Starling: Pictures for an Exhibition,&nbsp;will open almost simultaneously on&nbsp;June 6.

Like the alchemists of ancient legend, Starling is known for his ability to &ldquo;magically transform&rdquo; materials, functions, and even meanings in his pieces.

&ldquo;The strong material inflection of Simon&rsquo;s work, for me, is quite closely allied with the idea of alchemy,&rdquo; says Dieter Roelstraete, the curator of the MCA show. &ldquo;I would stress in his work a materialist grounding and a sympathy, in a way, with alchemy as a creative model.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Simon Starling, Flaga 1972-2000 (A Fiat produced in Turin, Italy, in 1974 and customised using parts manufactured and fitted in Poland, following a journey of 1290 km from Turin to Cieszyn), 2002. Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Installation view, Galleria Franco Noero, Turin, 2002." data-rich-file-id="283" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/283/original/mcastarling2.jpg" />Perhaps this idea is best represented in&nbsp;Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No 2)&nbsp;(2005)&nbsp;a work that cemented Starling&rsquo;s international reputation by winning him the 2005 Turner Prize. For this piece, Starling took an existing wood shed, converted it into a boat, navigated the boat across the Rhine, and then reassembled the boat back into a shed, finally displaying the original structure inside a Basel museum. Grounded in Marcel Duchamp&rsquo;s concept of the &ldquo;readymade,&rdquo;&nbsp;Shedboatshed&nbsp;is part sculpture and part performance piece, with the object&rsquo;s cyclical journey lying at the heart of the work.

&ldquo;He&rsquo;s very interested in cycles of production and consumption,&rdquo; says Roelstraete of Starling, &ldquo;and in the way that modern materials can travel around the globe, and how the world economy is powered by all these cycles.&rdquo;

Duchamp transformed ordinary objects into works of art 100 years ago with&nbsp;Bicycle Wheel&nbsp;(1913) and&nbsp;Fountain&nbsp;(1917). But in Starling&rsquo;s pieces the metamorphosis is more ritualistic and often grander in scale. The MCA exhibition will contain several monumental installations including&nbsp;The Long Ton&nbsp;(2009), featuring blocks of Chinese and Italian marble,&nbsp;Flaga 1972-2000&nbsp;(2002) featuring a Fiat automobile, and&nbsp;Bird in Space, 2004 (2004), composed of a huge (and heavy) steel plate fabricated in Romania.&nbsp;

The latter work is a riff on Constantin Brancusi&rsquo;s series of iconic sculptures that he began in 1923. The original&nbsp;Bird in Space&nbsp;is tied to Chicago&rsquo;s history as an early venue for modern art and was first exhibited here at the Arts Club of Chicago in the 1920s.&nbsp;

&ldquo;That type of work&nbsp;[Starling&#39;s version of&nbsp;Bird in Space] is not well represented in the American museum landscape,&rdquo; says Roelstraete of Starling&rsquo;s pieces. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s work that has an investigative quality, that is quite research driven, and that interrogates history and art history in particular.&rdquo;

Starling&rsquo;s interest in art history is further reflected in a site-specific piece that he is creating for the Arts Club of Chicago.

&ldquo;We engaged Simon to think about the Arts Club, and he came up with the topic himself to dive into our history,&rdquo; says Executive Director, Janine Mileaf.

Starling&rsquo;s starting points for the new artwork are two installation photographs of the 1927 Arts Club exhibition, Sculptures and Drawings by Constantin Brancusi,&nbsp;taken by the commercial firm of Kaufmann &amp; Fabry. Starling identified all the objects in the photos, found their current locations, and re-photographed each sculpture using two vintage 8&rdquo; x 10&rdquo; Deardorff cameras (the same type used by Kaufmann &amp; Fabry in the 1920s). The resulting installation is less about the final photographs and more about the tracking of the sculptures and the recording of their journeys over the past 87 years.

&ldquo;The travel, and the journey, and the tracking-down is a part of the work, so [Starling] ends up with a lot of incredible stories,&rdquo; says Mileaf. &ldquo;Those stories become part of the exhibition as well.&rdquo;

The Arts Club exhibition will feature 30 photographs taken by Starling, as well as archival materials, the two Deardorff cameras, and multiple stories relating to the provenance of the Brancusi pieces that, according to the show&rsquo;s press release, &ldquo;intersect with the diamond trade, Nazi appropriation of cultural goods, prohibition, and other incidents that point toward interconnections between art, economics, society, and history.&rdquo;&nbsp;

A single catalog will cover both Starling exhibitions, which are meant as complimentary shows, not rivals. &ldquo;As a visitor there, you get a broader view here,&rdquo; says Roelstraete, &ldquo;and as a visitor here, you get a deeper view there.&rdquo;

Simon Starling: Metamorphology&nbsp;at the <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/museum-of-contemporary-art-chicago-mca">Museum of Contemporary Art</a> runs from&nbsp;June 7 to November 2, 2014.

Simon Starling: Pictures for an Exhibition&nbsp;at the <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/the-arts-club-of-chicago">Arts Club of Chicago</a> runs from&nbsp;June 6 to September 26, 2014. 
&nbsp;

Twice as Nice: Simon Starling at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Arts Club of Chicago

Well, after the winter we all had, aren&rsquo;t we thrilled to be looking ahead to the summer? So much of the past few months seemed to just be about muddling through. Now, as we move into an energetic May, enjoy the warmth of sunny June and July, and end up in hot and sleepy August, we will see our city and neighborhoods bloom. This summer will be like one big stretch after such a long and binding hibernation.&nbsp;

This new&nbsp;issue of Chicago Gallery News offers a great deal of inspiration for expanding beyond our usual horizons and discovering art in places one might not expect. We are excited about new arrivals like the <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/on-the-cover-the-new-ed-paschke-art-center">Ed Paschke Art Center</a> opening in June, and we can&#39;t wait for more chances to be outside viewing art and enjoying our city.&nbsp;Hitting the old trails is never truly &quot;old,&quot; since so many galleries and museums change their exhibitions regularly all year, but with new and blooming things on our mind, and just in time for the warmer weather, we have gathered a list of local art fairs and festivals taking place in Chicago, the suburbs, and even in Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. When you are traveling this summer to see family or if you&rsquo;re in need of a spur-of-the-moment road trip with friends, check out the <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/midwestern-summer-art-festivals-and-fairs">list of what you&rsquo;ll find</a> for a weekend in Madison or Michigan City, or an afternoon in Winnetka or Lake Forest.&nbsp;

There are even ways for those still learning to walk to enjoy art. Mary DeYoe investigates the many <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/family-friendly-art-in-the-city-this-summer">fun ways that families can enjoy area museums and parks</a>. Morning stroller walks at the Art Institute and summer evenings spent together on the MCA terrace are best this time of year and may just help you raise a future artist or patron.&nbsp;

Kevin Nance gives us a revealing peek inside <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/artists-at-work-studios-as-laboratories">eight artist studios</a>. Seeing each of these artists in their unique creative environment helps us understand what happens on the way to the gallery - we are invited in to see how the artistic process influences art as well as our appreciation of it. Nance also interviews a couple deeply involved in the process of building an art collection:<a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/collector-profile-janis-kanter-and-tom-mccormick"> Janis Kanter and Tom McCormick</a> share their perspectives on buying and enjoying art as a couple, and they speak about the power of &lsquo;have to have it&rsquo; when it comes to that special piece.

A variation on &lsquo;have to have it&rsquo; is &lsquo;have to do it.&rsquo; Laura Miller spoke with a veteran painter who knew from a very young age that she just had to be an artist. <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/artist-insights-vera-klement">Vera Klement</a>, now 84 years old, has built a remarkable career by taking on one project one at a time.&nbsp;

Summer will once again pass by too quickly, but we will enjoy its offerings while we can. Whether you&rsquo;re off on a gallery walk, attending the <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/a-mysterious-partnership-magritte-at-the-art-institute">Magritte show at the Art Institute</a>, joining a collector group, partying at <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/chicago-artists-coalition-takes-a-bite-out-of-40">CAC&#39;s Starving Artist</a> benefit&nbsp;or simply&nbsp;noticing the sculptures in Millennium Park, embrace the season and the art.

May-August Issue Letter from the Publisher: Summer is Fleeting

BY FRANCK MERCURIO

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="René Magritte. &quot;Time Transfixed,&quot; 1938. The Art Institute of Chicago, Joseph Winterbotham Collection. © 2014 C. Herscovici, London / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York." data-rich-file-id="228" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/228/original/time-transfixed.jpg" />One party makes art. The other buys it. That&rsquo;s the standard relationship between artist and collector: a business transaction between producer and consumer. But a new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926&ndash;1938, re-examines this arrangement and presents a more collaborative relationship between Belgian Surrealist artist Ren&eacute; Magritte (1898&ndash;1967) and British art patron Edward James (1907&ndash;1984).&nbsp;

To be clear, the exhibition doesn&rsquo;t focus exclusively on Magritte&rsquo;s and James&rsquo; unusual association. Their creative partnership is just one story within a larger narrative that covers Magritte&rsquo;s formative years, a time when Magritte matured as an artist and became widely known as a Surrealist.&nbsp;

Co-organized by the Museum of Modern Art and the Menil Collection, the exhibition features over 100 paintings, collages, drawings, and objects, along with a selection of photographs, periodicals, and commercial work from this period in Magritte&rsquo;s career.

Writing in the exhibition catalog, Art Institute of Chicago curator, Stephanie D&rsquo;Alessandro describes Edward James as an &ldquo;eccentric poet, arts patron, and collector of Surrealist art.&rdquo; He first became acquainted with Magritte in 1936 at the International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries in London. By 1937, James had commissioned the artist to create three large-scale paintings for his London townhouse.

&ldquo;The project represented the promise of an artistic and professional turning point for Magritte,&rdquo; writes D&rsquo;Alessandro. &ldquo;It was the first major commission he had ever received.&rdquo;

The commission evolved into a collaboration between Magritte and James; Magritte created the artwork while James arranged a site-specific display space for the paintings in the ballroom of his townhouse. At the heart of the installation were three Magritte paintings: Le Mod&egrave;le Rouge (or The Red Model), La Jeunesse illustr&eacute; (or Youth Illustrated), and Au seuil de la libert&eacute; (or On the Threshold of Liberty). The third of these three paintings now resides in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago.

All three works were seamlessly integrated into the d&eacute;cor of the ballroom and presented in a dramatic fashion. The canvasses were set into the walls and displayed as a kind of triptych behind two-way mirrors. With the flip of a switch, the space behind the mirrors was lit, and the paintings were instantly revealed to the viewer. In true Surrealist fashion, the reflected image of the viewer vanished, mysteriously replaced with Magritte&rsquo;s pictures.

&ldquo;Mirrors became windows,&rdquo; writes D&rsquo;Alessandro, &ldquo;but those windows offered views onto a place that was familiar, strange, sensational, and disequiliberating.&rdquo;

Magritte was not the only artist that James collaborated with. He also partnered with Salvador Dali to create such iconic objects as Lobster Telephone (1936) and Mae West Lips Sofa (1937) for the same London townhouse.

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="René Magritte. &quot;On the Threshold of Liberty,&quot; 1937. The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Mary and Leigh Block. © 2014 C. Herscovici, London / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York." data-rich-file-id="230" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/230/original/on-the-threshold-of-liberty.jpg" />

According to D&rsquo;Alessandro, &ldquo;The London residence was, from the outside, indistinguishable from other homes in the neighborhood. Once inside, however, it was like no other, merging antique and modern furnishings with art in a style known as &lsquo;fantasy&rsquo; or &lsquo;fantastic modern.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Magritte&rsquo;s paintings stayed in James&rsquo; personal possession until 1964 when his art collection was transferred to the Edward James Foundation. In 1972 the Foundation auctioned off much of the collection&mdash;including the Magritte paintings&mdash;presumably to help finance West Dean College, one of the Foundation&rsquo;s initiatives.

On the Threshold of Liberty eventually made its way into the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago. The other two paintings are now in the collections of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. The current exhibition at the Art Institute reunites all three works.

In addition to the James&rsquo; ballroom triptych, the exhibition will also present new scientific research on an iconic Magritte painting:&nbsp;Time Transfixed. The work&mdash;originally owned by James and now residing at the Art Institute&mdash;was recently X-rayed and photographed using infrared technology. The photos revealed a completely different image hiding under the surface: a figure of a reclining man, perhaps a study or a variation of Magritte&rsquo;s Spring Eternal.

&ldquo;This is what we love to find in conservation,&rdquo; says Allison Langley, Associate Conservator of Paintings at the Art Institute. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing more exciting than finding another painting underneath such an iconic image.&rdquo;

Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926&ndash;1938. June 24&ndash;October 13, 2014. For more information, visit the Art Institute of Chicago&rsquo;s website: <a href="http://www.artic.edu">www.artic.edu</a>

Image pictured at top of this page:&nbsp;Ren&eacute; Magritte. The False Mirror, 1929. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. &copy; 2014 C. Herscovici, London / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The art of René Magritte at the Art Institute of Chicago

A Mysterious Partnership: Magritte at the Art Institute

By KEVIN NANCE

*This profile was published in the May-August 2014 issue of Chicago Gallery News

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Tom McCormick and Janis Kanter at home in Hyde Park. Painting: Mary Abbott, &quot;Imrie,&quot; 1953 o.c., 71 x 74&quot;" data-rich-file-id="213" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/213/original/tomjanisvert.jpg" />If the secret of a happy marriage is compromise, Thomas McCormick and Janis Kanter are one of the happiest couples on Chicago&rsquo;s art-collecting scene. Despite their significantly differing tastes&mdash;he leans toward mid-20th-century abstract painting, mostly by deceased artists; she favors contemporary work by living artists in various media, photography in particular&mdash;McCormick and Kanter have blended their interests and, along the way, created one of the city&rsquo;s most eclectic yet surprisingly harmonious private collections.

Over their 22-year marriage, this Chicago art-world power couple&mdash;he owns the Thomas McCormick Gallery in the West Loop, while she chairs the board of directors at the Hyde Park Art Center&mdash;have learned how to negotiate with each other on their joint acquisitions. Sometimes it&rsquo;s a matter of one bending a bit in the other&rsquo;s direction. Other times it&rsquo;s a matter of one spouse recognizing that the other&rsquo;s enthusiasm for a particular work of art is so primal, so unshakable that resistance is futile.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I would say the decision-making is heavily weighted to one side of the couple,&rdquo; McCormick says with a smile, pointing his chin in Kanter&rsquo;s direction during an interview at their sprawling historic home, a 1904 Holabird and Roche mansion in Hyde Park that they bought and refurbished five years ago. &ldquo;One of the first expensive pieces we bought together was at the Chicago art fair at Navy Pier a while back,&rdquo; McCormick recalls. &ldquo;I step out into the corridor and here comes Janis walking towards me. She&rsquo;s got that look, and I know I&rsquo;m in trouble.&rdquo;&nbsp;

His wife doesn&rsquo;t deny it. &ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; she says with a twinkle in her eye, &ldquo;it doesn&rsquo;t get very far.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Or it goes in my man-cave upstairs,&rdquo; he offers. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all me, straight down the line. She walks by there on tiptoe.&rdquo;

&ldquo;On occasion I walk in and go, &lsquo;I could really do something in here,&rsquo;&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;And then I think, &lsquo;I need to be out of here.&rsquo;&rdquo;

In all seriousness, McCormick&rsquo;s willingness to accede to his wife&rsquo;s judgment has grown over the years, in part because his experience has taught him that her more experimental tastes and instincts (&ldquo;I definitely like things that are weirder,&rdquo; she says) are more on target than might be initially apparent. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little bull-headed,&rdquo; he admits. &ldquo;But Janis helps me see things that I would turn a blind eye to otherwise. I would be much more inward-looking, much more of an old fart about all this stuff if I weren&rsquo;t married to her. More often than not, what happens is that we&rsquo;ll get something that I&rsquo;m not crazy about, and then six months or a year later, I really love it. It grows on me.&rdquo;

One of the earliest examples of this was the piece Kanter fell in love with at Navy Pier all those years ago: a photo-collage by the Scottish artist David Mach of a Chicago River scene, which now hangs in their entrance hall with a small collection of Asian ceramics beneath a chandelier of Murano glass. McCormick&rsquo;s initial hesitation about the Mach piece was that it was so large, and as his wife says, &ldquo;Wall space is at a premium in this house.&rdquo;&nbsp;

That&rsquo;s true despite the fact that the house is a rangy 8,000 square feet. &ldquo;Some people with eclectic collections display them salon-style, but Tom and Janis don&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; says Kate Lorenz, executive director at the Hyde Park Art Center and a longtime friend of the couple. &ldquo;They hang things with space around them, so everything kind of breathes.&rdquo;

___

Husband and wife came by their respective collecting knowledge and practices via distinctly different routes. McCormick, who studied printmaking at the University of Kansas, is a largely self-taught collector who began acquiring (and sometimes reselling) antiques, especially furniture, oriental rugs, paintings, prints, textiles and ceramics, as an undergraduate. &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s not nailed down, I&rsquo;ve probably bought and sold it,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I never did cars, but you never know.&rdquo; By 1992, when McCormick moved from Kansas City to Chicago and married Kanter, he had narrowed his business model to dealing in paintings, but continued to collect most of the other genres he had loved as a teenager.&nbsp;

She, on the other hand, had grown up surrounded by art as one of three children in a collecting family. Her parents, Chicago tax attorney Burton Kanter and his wife Naomi, began with little money (&ldquo;They used to frame pieces of wallpaper,&rdquo; their daughter recalls fondly) but, as their fortunes improved, collected work by local artists and, eventually, blue-chip pieces by some of the biggest names in the international art world. Eventually the senior Kanters amassed a collection of about 1,200 artworks.

But Burton Kanter in particular never lost interest in contemporary and local artists, often developing relationships with them that proved mutually beneficial. &ldquo;He was a patron,&rdquo; his daughter says. &ldquo;Artists would come to my dad and say, &lsquo;Hey, Burt, I really want to do this body of work for the next year. Is there a chance that you could support me for this amount of money, and you&rsquo;ll get the first six pieces of your choice?&rdquo; &nbsp;

After their father&rsquo;s death in 2001 at the age of 71, Kanter and her two brothers inherited the family collection, which they have since culled down to about 500 pieces. About a third of the McCormick-Kanter collection, displayed in their homes in Hyde Park and Sawyer, Mich.,&nbsp;

is from the Kanter family legacy, and includes pieces by Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann and Andy Warhol, including ten works from Warhol&rsquo;s &ldquo;Myths&rdquo; series.&nbsp;

Another third features works by artists represented by the McCormick Gallery, including mid-century abstract expressionists such as the 92-year-old New York painter Mary Abbott, as well as Chicago artists such as Dawoud Bey, Roger Brown, Tony Fitzpatrick, Richard Hunt, Judy Ledgerwood, Laura Letinsky, Wesley Kimler and others.

The final third includes works jointly acquired by McCormick and Kanter, with the latter&rsquo;s taste&mdash;her special emphasis on large-scale photography, including a series of commissioned portraits of their daughters, Tatum and Reese&mdash;a bit more apparent. Several of these works were acquired at art fairs or through the Hyde Park Art Center, often as a result of Kanter&rsquo;s passionate and sometimes rather sudden attachments to them. &ldquo;She tends to be pretty sure about things very quickly,&rdquo; Lorenz says. &ldquo;Just the other day, a show was going up in one of our galleries and she was breezing through. By the time she got to the end of the hall, she had essentially bought something. We hadn&rsquo;t even put the price list down, but something shook her, and she was ready to add it to her collection.&rdquo;

McCormick is a more deliberative buyer and more attentive to the price of an artwork than his wife. But he is not without his own all but uncontrollable enthusiasms, including a passion for elegant Mexican serapes (McCormick has 40 of them in his man-cave, displayed on a rack system with hand-cranked dowels that he designed himself) and various artworks featuring dragons.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a dragon guy,&rdquo; he says helplessly, then recounts what happened one year at the Armory Show in New York, when he spotted a ceramic sculpture featuring the mythical creatures by the mid-career Chinese artist Li Lihong. McCormick had lusted after the piece since seeing it on the cover of Art + Auction magazine two weeks earlier; now, beholding it in the gleaming porcelain flesh, he could barely contain himself.&nbsp;

Within minutes he was on the phone to his wife, who calmly told him: &ldquo;Tom, just get it.&rdquo;

___

It&rsquo;s difficult to quantify the McCormick-Kanter collection, which consists of a core group of about 150 paintings, prints and photographs divided between their two homes, plus hundreds of other objects, including collections of textiles, antique oriental rugs, Italian art glass, Asian (especially Japanese and Chinese) ceramics, salt-and-pepper shakers, Mexican and Arts &amp; Crafts pottery, art furniture and a wide variety of sculpture. The remarkable thing about the works on display in Hyde Park is that despite the fact that they are arrayed in fairly close proximity and often grouped together in juxtaposed fashion, they cohere far more than they clash.

&ldquo;Janis has an eye for design, and the house itself is such a platform,&rdquo; Lorenz says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an amazing house that they&rsquo;ve refreshed and put a new palette on, and it holds art wonderfully. When you walk in and see an Andy Warhol next to a young photographer next to a ceramic pot, it all makes sense, because it&rsquo;s all held together by the house.&rdquo;

It&rsquo;s held together, too, by a couple who have assembled their collection the way they&rsquo;ve nurtured their marriage: by knowing when to bend and blend, when to stand firm, and when to tell each other to just get it.

*Publisher&#39;s update to the print edition:&nbsp;Artworks from the Kanter family collection are owned by Art Enterprises, Ltd.

Kevin Nance is a Chicago-based freelance writer and photographer. <a href="https://twitter.com/KevinNance1">Twitter @KevinNance1</a>

Collector Profile: Janis Kanter and Tom McCormick

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY KEVIN NANCE

If a man&rsquo;s home is his castle, an artist&rsquo;s studio is his or her laboratory&mdash;a place of experimentation, trial-and-error, research and development. Cooking metaphors come to mind: throwing things at the wall to see what (literally!) sticks; the shrouded mystery of sausage-making. Far from the pristine galleries where their finished pieces are displayed, some artists labor in smudged, messy spaces crammed with works-in-progress, materials and tools arrayed in minimally organized chaos; others are more compartmentalized and precise.&nbsp;

Here&rsquo;s a glimpse into eight such environments, occupied by leading Chicago artists Nick Cave, William Conger, Dzine (a k a Carlos Rolon), Tony Fitzpatrick, Wesley Kimler, Sarah Krepp, Riva Lehrer and Joyce Owens.&nbsp;

Fascinatingly, the level of neatness (or its opposite) of his or her workspace is typically reflected in the artist&rsquo;s creative process and, to a remarkable degree, the work itself. There&rsquo;s also often a correlation between the scale of the studio and that of the work created there. Kimler&rsquo;s vast paintings are produced in a cavernous West Side warehouse, for example, while Fitzpatrick&rsquo;s small drawing-collages are cooked up at his kitchen table in Ukrainian Village. Some of these artists, including Cave and Dzine&mdash;who both work in large industrial buildings on the South Side&mdash;employ substantial teams of assistants and fabricators, while others (including Conger, Krepp, Lehrer and Owens, all on the North Side or Evanston) largely go solo. &nbsp;

We hope our readers enjoy this first installment of &ldquo;Artists at Work,&rdquo; which we plan to augment and expand over time here online. Below are eight images of the artists in their studios.

<img alt="" data-caption="William Conger" data-rich-file-id="218" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/218/original/william-conger.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Tony Fitzpatrick" data-rich-file-id="219" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/219/original/tony-fitzpatrick.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Riva Lehrer" data-rich-file-id="220" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/220/original/riva-lehrer.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Dzine (Carlos Rolon)" data-rich-file-id="221" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/221/original/dzine.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Joyce Owens" data-rich-file-id="222" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/222/original/joyce-owens.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Sarah Krepp" data-rich-file-id="223" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/223/original/sarah-krepp.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Wesley Kimler" data-rich-file-id="224" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/224/original/wesley-kimler.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Nick Cave" data-rich-file-id="225" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/225/original/nick-cave.jpg" />

Artists at Work: Studios as Laboratories

BY MARY DEYOE

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Family Day at the MCA" data-rich-file-id="226" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/226/original/mca4.jpg" />Chicago summers are, quite arguably, why we endure Chicago winters. With the lake, street fairs, farmers markets, concerts and just plain warm weather, there is always a reason to be out enjoying the city and the sun. Summer is also a great time to take outings with your family to explore the phenomenal art the city has to offer. From stroller tours to hands-on art making Chicago&rsquo;s museums offer wonderful programs and events designed to entertain and inspire the entire family.

&ldquo;The word &lsquo;family,&rsquo; to us, doesn&rsquo;t just mean &lsquo;kid,&rsquo; said Liz Baill, Media Relations Coordinator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). &ldquo;&lsquo;Family&rsquo; is kids, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters. So we like to think of family as simply &lsquo;person,&rsquo; and we design many of our events to be engaging for people at these various stages in their lives.&rdquo;&nbsp;

On May 10, the MCA is hosting the next of their Family Days, which occur throughout the year. The theme of the event is &ldquo;dream,&rdquo; and it will include art-making inspired by authentic works of art in the museum. Local artists will help guide guests through the museum and through the activities. &ldquo;It is creative, quality time.&rdquo;

The Art Institute of Chicago offers similar events for the entire family. In addition to a wide selection of workshops developed specifically for parents and children of certain ages, the museum&rsquo;s Bank of America Family Festival (June 7) and 19th Annual Kaleidoscope event (July 19) offer art-making and tours for families with kids of all ages &ndash; Kaleidoscope is even popular with teens, and includes events and activities run by some of the museum&rsquo;s cultural arts partners from outstanding organizations around the city.

But what about parents with infants? Even these parents and caregivers have some great options. The Museum of Contemporary Art, the <a href="http://www.artic.edu/join-and-give/members/member-programs">Art Institute</a>, and the Chicago History Museum all offer stroller tours. While the content is geared towards adults, the environment is welcoming to small children.&nbsp;

Chicago History Museum <a href="http://chicagohistory.org/planavisit/upcomingevents/tours">tours</a> are led by Josh Eisenberg, a public historian and stay-at-home dad. On the tours you&rsquo;ll explore Chicago&rsquo;s parks, with a focus on their history and significant architecture and sculpture. Tours are offered throughout the summer and include visits to West Town&rsquo;s Union Park, Millennium Park and Lincoln Park.&nbsp;

At the MCA, <a href="http://www2.mcachicago.org/events/category/programs/talks/stroller-tours/">stroller tours</a> are a &ldquo;safe place,&rdquo; said Baill. These tours offer adults the opportunity to meet and talk with other adults about contemporary art. Guides design the tours to be accomondating to parents who may need to pause to tend to their children. In other words there is no need to worry if your baby starts to fuss&mdash;you are in understanding company.&nbsp;

If families want to have a less structured event or tour, there are a lot of ways to go at your own pace. Self-guided tours, scavenger hunts and audio tours are a great way to let your family explore at the pace that&rsquo;s right for them. The Family Room at the Art Institute&rsquo;s Ryan Education Center offers &ldquo;mini-tour&rdquo; maps that will lead your family throughout the building. The Education Center is also the site of changing exhibitions geared for children and teens, offering a unique perspective on the museum&rsquo;s collections.

This summer the MCA will offer maps of the museum designed by a local artist. Available at the front desk, the maps are interactive guides. Some of the galleries are shown empty, and guests are encouraged to draw and populate the spaces with art, people, or whatever their imagination desires. Without outlines or instructions it&rsquo;s a sort of &ldquo;uncoloring&rdquo; book.

And what about kicking back and relaxing? There are ways to do that too. The MCA&rsquo;s Tuesdays on the Terrace, a weekly summer favorite for many adults, is also a great family activity. Every Tuesday evening, the museum hosts a jazz concert on the back patio. Families can set up picnics on the lawn, alongside Sol LeWitt&rsquo;s grass installation, and listen to music and socialize. The event is free, and food is available for purchase at Puck&rsquo;s Caf&eacute; just inside the museum. These events are attended by guests of all ages, making for a very welcoming and relaxed environment. Sit in the grass and enjoy the music, sculpture and the city in its best time of year.&nbsp;

Other exciting events include the MCA&rsquo;s Word Play event (July 26) recommended for those from nine&nbsp;to 90 years old, and the Chicago History Museum&rsquo;s monthly trolley tours. Geared towards families with children in kindergarten through sixth grade, the tours visit unique sites around the city, each exploring a different theme, such as sports or Chicago&rsquo;s waterways.&nbsp;

So, whether you are caring for an infant or bringing the entire extended family out for the day, there are numerous ways to enjoy Chicago&rsquo;s magnificent art. At the end of the day, what all of these events and programs create is a space to be engaged and inspired and to bring the family closer together.

For complete information about all of these events and more, please visit the Museum websites.

Family Friendly Art in the City This Summer

Artist Insights: Vera Klement

Summer in Chicago means many things - sailing, enjoy the beach and lakefront, music festivals, street fairs, fireworks and more. While we welcome many tourists and visitors all summer long, Chicagoans also make their own plans to get out of town. CGN offers many opportunities to enjoy art on your travels -whether you are staying close to home, exploring a new neighborhood, or taking a road trip to Wisconsin, Michigan or Indiana.

Happy travels!&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>CHICAGO</h3>

<h4>June 7-8&nbsp;</h4>

&bull; Hyde Park

67th Annual 57th Street Art Fair &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

57th Street in Hyde Park, Between Kenwood and Woodlawn

Saturday, 11-6; Sunday, 10-5.&nbsp;Admission is free. 250+ Exhibitors.

<a href="http://www.57thstreetartfair.org">www.57thstreetartfair.org</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>June 14-15</h4>

&bull; Old Town

65th Annual Old Town Art Fair&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Old Town Triangle: 1763 N. North Park Ave.

Saturday and Sunday 10-6. $7 admission.&nbsp;250 Exhibitors &nbsp;&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.oldtownartfair.com">www.oldtownartfair.com</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>June 21-22</h4>

&bull; Downtown

Gold Coast Art Fair

Grant Park&rsquo;s Butler Field, corner of Monroe and Lake Shore Drive. Saturday and Sunday 10-6. 350 artists&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.amdurproductions.com">www.amdurproductions.com</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>July 11-13</h4>

&bull; Downtown

23rd Annual Chicago Tribune North Michigan Avenue Art Festival&nbsp;

Downtown, Pioneer Court

435 N. Michigan Ave. in front of the Tribune Tower.&nbsp;Friday and Saturday 10-6; Sunday 10-5. 200 Artists

<a href="http://www.artfestival.com">www.artfestival.com</a>

&nbsp;

<h3>SUBURBS</h3>

<h4>May 10-11, June 7-8, July 12-13, August 9-10&nbsp;</h4>

&bull; Grayslake&nbsp;

Zurko Grayslake Antique Markets

Lake County Fairgrounds. 1060 E. Peterson Rd. Grayslake

Antique markets, flea markets and specialty shows take place throughout Wisconsin and Illinois, all year long.

<a href="http://www.zurkopromotions.com">www.zurkopromotions.com&nbsp;</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>May 17</h4>

&bull; Oak Park

What&rsquo;s Blooming on Harrison Street Art Festival

Harrison Street, between Highland and Taylor

Saturday 10-8.&nbsp;90 Artists&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.oakparkartsdistrict.com">www.oakparkartsdistrict.com</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>May 17-18</h4>

&bull; Riverside

Riverside Arts Weekend

Central Business District: E. Quincy St., inside Goethe Park

Saturday 10-5; Sunday 10-4. 70 artists in all media

A cultural weekend in this national historic landmark community. Art, well-known musicians, a fashion show, art projects for all ages.&nbsp;

<a href="http://RiversideArtsWeekend.org">RiversideArtsWeekend.org</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>June 21-22</h4>

&bull; Winnetka

Art in the Village Fine Art Fair

Downtown Winnetka - Lincoln &amp; Elm. Sponsored by North Shore Art League.

Saturday 10-6; Sunday, 10-5. 80+ Exhibitors &nbsp;&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.northshoreartleague.org">www.northshoreartleague.org</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>June 28-29</h4>

&bull; Evanston

35th Annual Evanston Fountain Square Art Festival

Sherman Ave. and Church St. &nbsp;

Saturday and Sunday 10-6.&nbsp;225 exhibitors

&nbsp;

<h4>July 3-6</h4>

&bull; Crystal Lake&nbsp;

35th Annual Lakeside Fest

401 Country Club Rd.

Thur 4&ndash;11, Fri and Sat 12&ndash;11, Su 12-10 (Fireworks at Dusk)&nbsp;

Live bands, food, carnival, family activities, beverage garden. All proceeds benefit Lakeside Legacy Foundation and support the arts, historic preservation and community events and programs.

<a href="http://www.lakesidelegacy.org">www.lakesidelegacy.org</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>August 31-September 1</h4>

&bull; Lake Forest

60th Annual Art Fair on the Square

Historic Market Square and Western Ave. next to train station&nbsp;

Sunday and Monday 10-5. 170 Exhibitors. Free admission, free parking.&nbsp;Sponsored by the Deer Path Art League.

<a href="http://www.deerpathartleague.org">www.deerpathartleague.org</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>MICHIGAN</h3>

<h4>July 12-13</h4>

&bull; St. Joseph, MI

Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff

along Lake Michigan

July 11 kick-off party 5-9. Saturday 10-6; Sunday 10-5.&nbsp;216 Artists

This juried fair overlooks Lake Michigan, giving you a visually enthralling vista filled with creative works of art. Run by the Krasl Art Center you will see artists in a setting they love in the heart of the art fair season.&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.krasl.org">www.krasl.org</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>INDIANA</h3>

<h4>August 16-17</h4>

&bull; Michigan City, IN

33rd Annual Lubeznik Center for the Arts Lakefront Art Festival

Washington Park. 115 Lake Shore Dr.

Saturday 10-6; Sunday, 10-5. 110 Exhibitors

<a href="http://www.lubeznikcenter.org">www.lubeznikcenter.org</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>WISCONSIN</h3>

<h4>June 20-22</h4>

&bull; Milwaukee, WI

Lakefront Festival of the Arts

Milwaukee Art Museum grounds.&nbsp;700 N. Museum Dr.

Friday 10-10; Saturday 10-7; Sunday 10-5. 170 Exhibitors

For 50 years, the Lakefront Festival of Arts has been bringing art to life on Milwaukee&rsquo;s lakefront. Started in 1963, this three-day fundraising event has evolved from a gathering of a handful of artists to a vibrant, exciting, and wide-ranging festival with something for everyone.

<a href="http://www.lfoa.mam.org">www.lfoa.mam.org</a>

&nbsp;

<h4>July 12-13</h4>

&bull; Madison, WI&nbsp;

Art Fair Off the Square

Presented by Wisconsin Alliance of Artists and Craftspeople. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. + on the Monona Terrace. Convention Center Esplanade.

Saturday 9-6; Sunday 10-5. 140 Wisconsin Artists

The two day art showcase includes food and unexpected, spontaneous happenings. Ceramics, art glass, painting, fiber, sculpture, jewelry, graphics, paper-making, photography, wood, and more.

<a href="http://www.artcraftwis.org/afos.html">www.artcraftwis.org/afos.html</a>

Midwestern Summer Art Festivals and Fairs

Next weekend&nbsp;antiques, art and jewelry&nbsp;will be abundant in the city when the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.chicagospringshow.com">Chicago International Art, Antique &amp; Jewelry Show</a>, presented by the esteemed Palm Beach Show Group, debuts at Navy Pier&rsquo;s Festival Hall, April 24-28, 2014.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="right" data-caption="SANTOS, London - Two extremely rare Chinese export porcelain ewers modelled as deer, decorated on the biscuit in translucent enamels from the famille verte (Wucai) palette in boldreversed colours, c. 1700, Kangxi reign, Qing dynasty. 8 5/8”. " data-rich-file-id="119" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/119/original/lgsantos-london.jpg" />The inaugural Chicago International Art, Antique &amp; Jewelry Show is the latest addition to the Palm Beach Show Group&rsquo;s national portfolio of ten fine art, antique and jewelry shows and will feature more than 100 of the finest and most prominent exhibitors showcasing their impressive collections of fine art, antique and estate jewelry, Asian antiquities, sculpture, textiles, American and European Silver, furniture, contemporary art and more.&nbsp;

Included on the exhibitor list (at press time) are Buccellati, M.S. Rau Antiques, Calderwood Gallery, The Silver Fund, Steven Neckman, Haynes Fine Art of Broadway, Rehs Galleries, Thomas French Fine Art &ndash; and from the Chicago area, N. Green and Sons, Douglas Rosin Decorative Arts and Antiques, Crescent Worth Art &amp; Antiques and Wellesley House. The Chicago Show is designed to meet the needs of galleries, antique seekers, art-buyers, interior designers and enthusiasts of all fine things.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="right" data-caption="M.S. Rau Antiques - Important Paul de Lamerie Silver Soup Tureen. Outstanding artistry makes this important tureen a masterpiece. Crafted for the 3rd Baron Lilford, the tureen is a tour-de-force of Rococo artistry. Hallmarked London, 1741. 162.2 oz, 10” W x 17” L x 10” H" data-rich-file-id="120" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/120/original/lgmsrau.jpg" />The Chicago International Art, Antique &amp; Jewelry Show will kick off with a private Opening Night Preview Party, hosted by The Women&rsquo;s Board of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), on Thursday, April 24, offering museum patrons, high profile private collectors and elite attendees a first glimpse of the rare treasures available for purchase. Guests will be greeted with complimentary champagne and hors d&rsquo;oeuvres while admiring remarkable collections from all corners of the globe.&nbsp;

The show will be open to the public Friday, April 25 through Monday, April 28. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Chicago International Art, Antique &amp; Jewelry Show

presented by the Palm Beach Show Group

Navy Pier Festival Hall, 600 E. Grand Ave. (60611)&nbsp;

Tel 561-822-5440

<a href="http://www.chicagospringshow.com">www.chicagospringshow.com</a>

 Chicago International Art, Antique & Jewelry Show

BY GINNY VAN ALYEA

On Saturday, April 5 there&#39;s a dynamic fundraiser party and benefit art auction taking place at TUSK in Logan Square. The event is in support of&nbsp;<a href="http://summerforum.org">Summer Forum for Inquiry + Exchange</a>,&nbsp;a new&nbsp;discussion-based residency program.

The cause is in the name of dialogue and creative thinking, and the supporters run the gamut from collectors, curators, up and coming thinkers, and of course artists. A variety of artists, in fact, not just the visual, are part of this residency. At a time when most of us are so on-the-go that we are too fried&nbsp;to daydream, unless we&#39;re stuck somewhere with a dead cellphone battery, Summer Forum has taken up the cause to let people think. And talk. It&#39;s all about old school approaches to being creative.

The&nbsp;auction&nbsp;includes great works by artists such as Heidi Norton, Carrie Schneider,&nbsp;Paul Cowan,&nbsp;Jenny Kendler, Andrew Holmquist, and Alex Chitty, among many others.&nbsp;There will also be a whole bunch of unique raffle items, including limited edition LPs by artists Jason Lazarus and Michael Rakowitz. Plus, the party is guaranteed to bring out a host of Chicago art world players looking to catch up while ogling fun, affordable art.

Pre-sale tickets are&nbsp;$25&nbsp;online&nbsp;and include unlimited food and drinks, and a raffle ticket. Tickets are also available&nbsp;at the door for $35.

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Aron Gent, Material Scrap #46, Epson Ultra Chrome Ink on paper, 20 x 24&quot; framed, 2014." data-rich-file-id="208" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/208/original/gent.jpg" />Online bidding has already started and&nbsp;closes at noon on Saturday, April 5. After that you&#39;ll have to bid in person on Saturday night.&nbsp;

I&#39;m interested in Summer Forum because of my talented and super smart friend, curator Karsten Lund. Karsten and I endured the antics and quirks of a few crazy art professors together in college (including one who wore three pairs of glasses at a time, and another who changed her name to sound like a flattering adjective), and today he&#39;s one of the smartest, artiest people I know in Chicago. Anything he loves to support is a great cause.&nbsp;

Lund&nbsp;sums up the program&#39;s goals well:&nbsp;

&quot;The goal of this unusual residency -- happening every two years -- is to bring together artists, writers, scholars, and other creative people to discuss and explore the complex issues of the present moment in a different geographical location for a week in the summer.&nbsp;This coming July&nbsp;(6th-13th), thirty-four residents will meet in Joshua Tree, California to discuss the theme, &lsquo;Networks of Belonging.&rsquo; We have also invited four amazing guests to give a talk about the theme, including design theorist Benjamin Bratton, novelist Gina Apostol, architecture scholar Felicity Scott, and philosopher and prison activist Lisa Guenther.&nbsp;The first session in 2012, in New Harmony, Indiana, the site of a 19th-century utopian community, was incredibly successful and the sequel&nbsp;should be just as fantastic.&quot;

&bull; Please visit <a href="http://summerforum.org">summerforum.org</a> for more information about the residency.&nbsp;

&bull; To see the items in the auction or to buy tickets to the event, <a href="http://summerforum.org/auction/">click here</a>.

&bull; To lend your support via Kickstarter, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/summerforum/summer-forum-for-inquiry-exchange-2014">click here</a>&nbsp;(3 weeks left to go to $10,000!)

Summer Forum 2014 Fundraiser and Art Auction&nbsp; 
Saturday, April 5, 2014,&nbsp;7-11 pm 
<a href="http://www.tuskchicago.com">TUSK</a> (Logan Square) 3205 W. Armitage Avenue

Buy Art and Support Inquiry + Exchange

BY GINNY VAN ALYEA

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Waterlillies and Shadows, 32&quot; x 40&quot;, Oil on Canvas, 2010" data-rich-file-id="206" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/206/original/index-04.jpg" />I met Gregg Driben at a fundraiser a couple of years ago, not long after he&nbsp;suddenly lost his partner, Irish-born&nbsp;artist Kieran McGonnell, in a devastating accident. Driben had&nbsp;recently moved to Chicago with McGonnell when tragedy struck, and when we spoke he was just trying to get a hold on how to move forward with life on his own in a new place.&nbsp;I listened to Gregg talk about Kieran&#39;s life and I saw how passionate he was about the artist&#39;s vibrant art work. &nbsp;

Now, three year&#39;s after McGonnell&#39;s death, Driben has gathered dozens of his partner&#39;s paintings and watercolors&nbsp;and&nbsp;partnered with <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/ugly-step-sister-gallery">Ugly Step Sister Gallery</a> in Pilsen to mount a three-month long exhibition of the artist&#39;s work. &nbsp;

The labor of love comes in two parts - the show will open first on <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/kieran-mcgonnell-round-trip-ticket-opening">Friday, April 11</a>, and then a subsequent&nbsp;reception will introduce the second half of the show on May&nbsp;9.&nbsp;All of this is taking place as Driben prepares to move out of the home he and McGonnell purchased together when they first moved to Chicago, just weeks before McGonnell was injured. Now Driben is seeing his vision for McGonnell&#39;s work take shape while he also moves into another chapter of his life that will be in San Francisco. &nbsp;

McGonnell&#39;s vivid art has been shown and collected in Dublin, New York and LA, but this extended show in Chicago will bring many works together for the first time in an effort to create a full picture of the artist&#39;s vision and passion. McGonnell did&nbsp;not work in a single style or medium, and he drew on a range of influences and subjects, from the war on terror, to transportation, the&nbsp;every day, and Celtic mythology and imagery.&nbsp;

The exhibition promises to be a celebration of McGonnell&#39;s life, his art and a keystone for his legacy, a sort of extended&nbsp;love letter from Driben.&nbsp;

For more information on the artist and to view images of his work, visit <a href="http://www.kieranmcgonnell.com">www.kieranmcgonnell.com</a>&nbsp;or on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kieran-McGonnell-Fine-Art/368452845215">Facebook</a>

Kieran McGonnell - An Artist's Work Comes to Light

By KEVIN NANCE

Every property of glass as an art medium&mdash;its translucence, its luminosity, its malleability, its ability to reflect, refract and distort&mdash;will be on full display in Chicago this week as the Glass Art Society holds its annual conference in the Windy City for the first time.

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Ignite Glass courtyard" data-rich-file-id="201" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/201/original/ignite-courtyard-2.jpg" />The 52-year-old Seattle-based group, which claims 2,100 members from 54 countries (including artists, collectors, curators and dealers), kicks off three days of workshops, seminars, demonstrations, exhibits and other events on Thursday through Saturday, March 20-22, at the Palmer House Hilton and other venues. About 1,200 people are scheduled to attend the conference, whose on-site registration fees range from $250 (for full-time students) to $395, plus membership fees of $40-$70.

Of particular interest to non-members of the Glass Art Society is a free pre-conference event on Wednesday, March 19, featuring glass-sculpting demonstrations, studio tours, exhibitions and other events at various conference venues (including Ignite Glass Studios and West Supply, both in the West Loop). &ldquo;It will be a day to introduce Chicagoans to glass art,&rdquo; says Glass Art Society executive director Pamela Koss.

That evening, a pre-conference fundraising event at Ignite ($200-$225) will feature special hors d&rsquo;oeuvres and drinks by Chef Thai Dang and Danielle Pizzutillo of Embeya and a dinner created by Chef Matthias Merges of Yusho, Billy Sunday and A10.

The conference will also offer live and silent auctions of glass art pieces by artists from around the world, most with a value of between $800 and $12,000. One piece will be a rare collaboration between leading glass artists in honor of this year&rsquo;s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Dan Dailey. The ceremony honoring Dailey, at the Palmer House on Thursday, will also feature a keynote address by Chicago artist Theaster Gates.

Several of the conference seminars will focus on entrepreneurship. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re working as a glass artist, you are your own business&mdash;or, rather, your skills are your business,&rdquo; Koss explains. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s part of the draw of being a glass artist: the fact that you are working on your own. In 2012, we celebrated 50 years of American studio glass, a movement started by people breaking out of corporate glass jobs, building their own studios in their garages and so on. The entrepreneurial aspect has always been important to this very independent group of artists, which is why we emphasize it in our conferences: business skills, marketing, everything you need to make sure you can sustain yourself in that way. The idea is to give people more operational tools to help them stay artists in uncertain economic times.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="right" data-caption="Ignite Glass hotshop studio" data-rich-file-id="202" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/202/original/ignite-hotshop-team-working.jpg" />

Why Chicago, and why now? &ldquo;Chicago was always a perfect fit for us with its design, art, food&mdash;a popular city for artists to come to&mdash;but what we didn&rsquo;t really have for our conference was enough infrastructure, especially for our lecture-demonstrations,&rdquo; Koss says. &ldquo;We needed a pretty large glass studio with enough space for our attendees to view the demonstrations. Now we have that at Ignite, which is fantastic.&rdquo;

Ignite, a complex with a glass-art gallery, a 3,000-square-foot glassblowing studio and a 6,000-square-foot event space at 401 N. Armour, opened in November 2012, just before that year&rsquo;s edition of SOFA Chicago, the annual sculpture, objects, functional art and design show at Navy Pier. Among the SOFA attendees that year were Koss and other members of the Glass Art Society, which led to a partnership that ultimately brought the GAS conference to Chicago.

&ldquo;Many of the artists coming into Chicago for SOFA, domestically and internationally, were glass artists, so it seemed like a natural for us to have a reception for them that year,&rdquo; recalls Trish Tullman, who co-owns Ignite with her husband, Glen. (Glen&rsquo;s brother, Howard Tullman, is a noted Chicago art collector.) &ldquo;Pam was there, and afterwards the Glass Art Society approached us about them coming to Chicago in 2014. It&rsquo;s all worked out according to plan, which is great.&rdquo;

For more information about Ignite Glass Studios, visit www.igniteglass.com. To learn more about the Glass Art Society and its Chicago conference, visit <a href="http://www.glassart.org">www.glassart.org</a>

&nbsp;

Kevin Nance is a Chicago-based freelance writer and photographer. Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/KevinNance1">@KevinNance1</a>

Glass Art Society holds its annual conference in the Windy City

<h3>&ldquo;PERSONAL PROPERTY VALUATION COURSE SERIES&rdquo;</h3>

In partnership with the American Society of Appraisers, <a href="https://grahamschool.uchicago.edu/">The University of Chicago Graham School</a> offers a four-course series designed to prepare you for professional appraisal work and the USPAP exam. These classes focus on valuation methods that are common to all appraisers.&nbsp;

About the Program 
As the only ASA approved location in the Midwest, The University of Chicago Graham School is able to provide quality courses to a wide variety of students. Through this series, you will gain the specialized knowledge and practical hands-on experience to competently produce appraisals for a variety of specific objectives such as insurance coverage, estate tax, damage claims, charitable contributions, sale, dissolution of marriage, and equitable distribution and liquidation.

Program Structure 
Personal Property Valuation 201 &ndash; 204 must be taken in sequence. Each of the four courses is offered over a four-day period, beginning on Wednesday and ending on Saturday afternoon. This allows our course sessions to be travel-friendly to our out-of-state students.

Program Requirements 
An exam is administered at the end of each course.&nbsp; You must receive a passing grade in each course in order to enroll in the next course in the sequence.

The first course in the new series begins Wednesday, January 29.&nbsp; Register by Tuesday, January 28 by visiting <a href="https://grahamschool.uchicago.edu/noncredit/certificates/american-society-appraisers/index">grahamschool.uchicago.edu/ASCHGN.</a>

American Society of Appraisers 

<img alt="" class="right" data-caption="Image of CGN publisher by Barry Blitt, 2013 © The North Shore Weekend" data-rich-file-id="144" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/144/original/vbv-barryblitt2013.jpg" />Happy new year! 2014 is upon us and I&rsquo;ve been anticipating the start to this year for quite awhile. In this winter issue we are looking forward to many new exhibitions in galleries and museums around the city, and things are taking shape to make this a year of fresh takes on the issues of our day.&nbsp;

Recently I read a Wall Street Journal interview with the collector and philanthropist Eli Broad. When discussing his many reasons for collecting art, Broad spent quite a bit of time talking about the ever changing market and the attention on the stratospheric prices a lot of works have achieved in the past few years, but he also pointed out that what really resonates with him are &ldquo;artists&rsquo; thoughts on the &lsquo;human condition.&rsquo;&rdquo; I liked this point of view because it brought home to me the reason why, despite the market ups and downs and the numbers game many people follow, we really ought to pay close attention to what artists are doing in their work and how they explain what moves them to create engaging art. What they see every day in the world and how they see it is different from how you and I do. We can read the newspaper and listen to pundits all day long, but how artists reveal their thoughts and perspectives on a range of current issues and conditions can enlighten us, enrage us, or simply make us stop and appreciate a moment. They draw from a deeper well of meaning and share their resources with the rest of us.&nbsp;

When collectors Eileen and Peter Broido spoke with Kevin Nance for this issue, their passion for collecting recalled familiar sentiments about connecting with artists and the energetic dealers who represent them. The couple has been collecting for decades, but for them the adventure never ends.&nbsp;

In the museum world, many starts get going in 2014. Nance interviewed Solveig &Oslash;vsteb&oslash;, the Renaissance Society&rsquo;s first new director in 40 years. The Norweigan &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; is young and eager to experiment at the Ren. Continuing the spirit of a new year and new beginnings, Franck Mercurio previews the reopening of Northwestern University&rsquo;s Block Museum this January. After closing last summer the museum freshened up its galleries and took the opportunity to mount two new exhibitions. Mercurio also highlights local artist William J. O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s first major survey exhibition opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art in January, which will introduce many to his work for the first time as well as surprise those familiar with his engaging, tactile sculptures.&nbsp;

And there is still more. Illustrator Edward Gorey&rsquo;s works will be celebrated at LUMA. Christoper Wool comes to the Art Institute. Two major conferences take place here this winter: the College Art Association returns in February, while the Glass Art Society arrives in March. The Chicago International Art, Antique &amp; Jewelry Show debuts in Navy Pier&rsquo;s Festival Hall at the end of April. There is so much to&nbsp;explore in Chicago this season. Art in every form from every period will fill up our year. Read the full winter news lineup <a href="http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news">here</a>.

Letter from the Publisher

BY MARY DEYOE

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Illustrations © The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust. All rights reserved." data-rich-file-id="84" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/84/original/99045-05maybewbn.jpg" />In February the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) will present two concurrent exhibitions of the work by writer and illustrator Edward Gorey (1925-2000), Elegant Enigmas: the Art of Edward Gorey and G is for Gorey - C is for Chicago: The Collection of Thomas Michalak. Well known for his illustrations colored by dark humor and wit, Gorey has worked for decades as an artist, creating book covers, magazine illustrations, and costume and set designs. While the exhibitions will display many of these examples, they will also draw heavily on Gorey&rsquo;s connection to his hometown, Chicago.

Even those unfamiliar with Edward Gorey the artist will recognize his idiosyncratic style. Tim Burton&rsquo;s dark tales, particularly Coraline, and the work of Daniel Handler - more famously known as Lemony Snicket, are direct inheritors of Gorey&rsquo;s dry wit and Edwardian-inspired designs. &ldquo;Snicket admits to being a &lsquo;complete rip off&rsquo; of Edward Gorey,&rdquo; said LUMA Senior Curator Jonathan Canning.&nbsp;

It is easy to see why Gorey&rsquo;s work stays relevant and beloved. &ldquo;[His] detailed drawing style draws in the eye and engages the viewer,&rdquo; said Canning. His perfectly balanced compositions [also] have a cinematic quality to them. He was very influenced by film, theater, and ballet.&rdquo; This love for these art forms was shared by Gorey and his college roommate, the poet Frank O&rsquo;Hara. Gorey and O&rsquo;Hara, who both attended Harvard on the GI Bill, were known on campus for &ldquo;throwing the best parties&rdquo; according to poet Donald Hall, and to essentially turning their dorm room into a literary salon.

But before attending Harvard and before serving in WWII, Gorey was a student at Chicago&rsquo;s Francis Parker school and for a short while attended the School of the Art Institute. G is for Gorey - C is for Chicago: The Collection of Thomas Michalak will present several items from his days as a student in Chicago, including yearbooks from Francis Parker. The Thomas Michalak Collection was recently given to Loyola University Chicago Libraries. Thomas Michalak (BS &rsquo;63) is a retired Harvard librarian and a member of the board of directors of the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts. He has been collecting Gorey materials for over 35 years.&nbsp;

The companion exhibition to G is for Gorey &ndash; C is for Chicago is Elegant Enigmas: the Art of Edward Gorey, and it was organized by the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust and&nbsp;the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The exhibition has been traveling throughout the country and will continue on when it leaves Chicago in June.&nbsp;

One of the key points in the exhibitions is that &ldquo;Gorey was a very hardworking commercial artist right up to the end of his life,&rdquo; said Canning. He illustrated magazines&mdash;including numerous covers for TV Guide&mdash;and had a long-time relationship with Anchor books, which was a division of Doubleday. Gorey served as the art editor, creating the overall uniform style including the lettering, typography and design layouts. Gorey is also well known for his opening animated credits of the PBS television series&nbsp;Mystery!&nbsp;

Despite Gorey&rsquo;s interest and work in popular culture, &ldquo;We do not find that his work was at all influenced by it,&rdquo; said Canning. Gorey maintained his own unique and idiosyncratic style. Children are common characters, and as in many original fairy tales, they do not always fair so well. It seems danger is often lurking around the corner. In one illustration, a small boy wearing a coat with a sailor collar peers over his shoulder. His expression is wary. Two bears more than twice his size are following close behind. There is a tenderness to it and yet it is, as Gorey described much of his own work, &ldquo;mildly unsettling.&rdquo; Perhaps this is another reason we continue to return to his mysterious images. There is always more to the story than what appears on the surface.

<img alt="" class="right" data-caption="Illustrations © The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust. All rights reserved." data-rich-file-id="85" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/85/original/b-rev.jpg" />On February 22 LUMA is hosting the Edward Gorey Birthday Bash to benefit Loyola University Chicago Libraries and LUMA. This is one of many programs and events LUMA is planning in conjunction with the Loyola University Libraries (some of the events will take place on the Rogers Park campus). Events include lectures, performances and readings of Gorey&rsquo;s most beloved stories including (among many) the macabre Gashlycrumb Tinnies &ndash; a abecedarian book that tells the story of the untimely death of 26 children all of whom represent a different letter of the alphabet &ndash; and the cautionary tale of the Wuggly Ump (What is a Wuggly Ump? You&rsquo;ll have to see for yourself). In addition to these events, with what one can only imagine is a hint of irony, LUMA is also co-sponsoring a blood drive with the Law School.&nbsp;

Edward Gorey&rsquo;s engaging storytelling and remarkably grand characters, many of whom we see draped in fur and wearing top hats &ndash; a nod to the Edwardian details he loved, would be enough to draw visitors to the exhibition, but the personal effects from the Michalak collection &ndash; including letters from the artist to friends &ndash; offers us a much fuller look at the life of the artist, his inspiration, his lifelong dedication to the arts and the creation of his particular world full of dark-humor, wit, and playfulness.

The exhibitions are on view February 15-June 15, 2014 and are co-presented by Loyola University Chicago Libraries and LUMA with cooperation from the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust. Details can be found at <a href="http://www.luc.edu/gorey">luc.edu/gorey</a>

Edward Gorey's Dark and Witty World

BY LAURA MILLER

Juan Angel Ch&aacute;vez is a passionate and active member of Chicago&rsquo;s art community.&nbsp; The artist was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, and currently lives and works in Chicago where he teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). He has exhibited his work internationally and has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards from notable organizations including the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and 3Arts, just to name a few. &nbsp;&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Juan Angel Chávez, &quot;NEPTUNO&quot;, 2011, interactive sculpture. Top image: LA ESPERANZA, street installation, 2005" data-rich-file-id="82" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/82/original/7juan.jpg" />

Tell me about where you&rsquo;re from and your transition to Chicago.

I&rsquo;m originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, and I moved to Chicago when I was 13 years old. At first I suffered from severe culture shock. I was in 7th grade, and I didn&rsquo;t speak English.&nbsp; I came from a place where the emphasis was on farming and ranching, and my school&rsquo;s agricultural curriculum focused on breeding cattle and growing apples. At first, Chicago was suffocating, and I wanted to run back to splicing fruit trees and vaccinating cattle.

After a year of living in Uptown/Andersonville, I adapted and gained confidence as I explored the city. When some of my neighbors started to get involved with the Latin Kings, at my mom&rsquo;s first opportunity she enrolled me in art classes. She encouraged me to apply my talents through a constructive form, and I owe a lot to her and the teachers she roped into her art class conspiracy.

The real assimilation into Chicago culture happened when I discovered skateboarding, because it gave me space and freedom. It made me think of the urban space as a landscape and not confinement. I&rsquo;ve grown with the city and now feel like I&rsquo;m a part of Chicago. I go back to Chihuahua quite often, and I love going there, but after a few months, I&rsquo;m ready to feel the energy of the city again.

Please discuss your visual arts studies and how you&rsquo;ve honed your practice and technique over the years.

My art studies are a bit complex. I think my mother had a lot to do with that because, aside from enrolling me in art classes, she had my high school teachers register me for SAIC&rsquo;s early college programs as well. I attended SAIC for my undergrad on a scholarship, but my career was short lived when I was asked to leave the school. I had an issue with writing in English, and my scholarship was revoked.

I decided to get involved in as many positive and creative endeavors as possible. I started working with the National Museum of Mexican Art, and I got involved with community public art. I took skateboarding more seriously and began to hang out with DJs, graphic designers, graffiti writers, and rave promoters. I&rsquo;m partly SAIC schooled and partly street schooled.&nbsp;

How and when did you first start exhibiting?

In 2001 I was very involved in public art. I was painting murals and mosaics in schools, and I didn&rsquo;t really see the value of exhibiting my work. I started putting up relief sculptures on boarded up buildings all over the city to try and change the idea of advertising space with something more whimsical. I didn&rsquo;t have a goal with that series - it was just fun! Shortly after, I was nominated for the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation&rsquo;s Individual Artist Award, and I won it. That really changed my perspective and marked the direction of my work.

<img alt="" data-caption="Juan Angel Chávez, SPEAKER PROJECT, Interactive sculpture, 2007" data-rich-file-id="160" height="454" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/160/original/juan3.jpg" width="670" />

Your mixed media art has many components. I particularly enjoy the carpentry elements in your large wooden pieces. Talk about the significance of the materials you use &ndash; what are you drawn to working with, and why?

I view the use of materials and objects as contemporary artifacts ingrained in the quest for survival, exploration and establishment. Carpentry to me is not just construction; it represents components of methods or processes that signify shelter and navigation in the establishment for survival. It is really interesting for me to see materials that reveal an essence of history in their texture and shape.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Juan Angel Chávez, SPEAKER PROJECT, Interactive sculpture, 2007" data-rich-file-id="159" height="444" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/159/original/juan4.jpg" width="666" />

Tell me about your studio practice.

My two kids take a lot of my time, so I work out of my home studio at night. At first it was hard to adapt to working at home, but I&rsquo;ve made some interesting changes and this new process has made me think in more detail about my projects. I make everything small scale now and that helps with materials, budget, labor, space &ndash; plus I don&rsquo;t get stuck with storage issues. &nbsp;

Chicago&rsquo;s public art is one of my favorite things about this city. You have work on view at various CTA stations as a part of the city&rsquo;s public art initiative. How do you feel about having work displayed at these locations?&nbsp;

I&rsquo;m a big fan of the public art in Chicago as well, and I&rsquo;m honored to be a part of the city&rsquo;s collection. The work I&rsquo;ve done for the CTA has immortalized my art in the city - I love that!&nbsp; I would love the opportunity to make another public art piece, and I still think about making more public art, but I don&rsquo;t know how my new ideas would apply. New work would be very different than VIDA SIMPLE at the pink line, for example.

<img alt="" data-caption="Juan Angel Chávez, ﻿GIANT, street installation, 1999" data-rich-file-id="161" height="605" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/161/original/juan1.jpg" width="426" />

You are one of many commissioned artists involved in the Hyde Park Art Center&rsquo;s&nbsp;Not Just Another Pretty Face program.&nbsp;(This year&rsquo;s show runs thru March 30, 2014.) Would you share comments on the program?&nbsp;

I&rsquo;ve done NJAPF three times; it&rsquo;s been lots of fun and great works have come out of it. Cultivating relationships between artists and patrons is an excellent idea. HPAC is not afraid to try new things and neither are their NJAPF patrons. It&rsquo;s very liberating to try and reinvent the wheel when considering portraits.

Are you in the middle of any big projects?&nbsp;

I&rsquo;m gearing up for larger projects this spring and summer, but this winter I&rsquo;m trying to focus on the creation of smaller works with a new direction. I&rsquo;ve always done very large projects that have an immediate result, but I want to try and focus on pieces that take longer to make.&nbsp;

How do you see Chicago&rsquo;s art community?

Chicago is a very vibrant city, and I love being a part of its art community. Emerging artists are making really inspiring and amazing work, and the creative energy in this city is more intense because of that; it keeps me on my toes.

<img alt="" data-caption="Juan Angel Chávez, NO SHOES NO SHIRT NO SERVICE, Found materials installation, 2013" data-rich-file-id="162" height="454" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/162/original/juan11.jpg" width="680" />

<a class="btn" href="http://www.juanangelchavez.com/">www.juanangelchavez.com</a>

Artist Insights: Juan Angel Chávez

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="87" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/87/original/img-2560.jpg" />

BY MARY DEYOE

When you walk into Ann Nathan&rsquo;s gallery you feel like you&rsquo;re floating. The gallery sits about a half story above street level, and when you stand at one of the enormous picture windows looking out at those passing by, you are in another world. I imagine that is just as Nathan intended it.&nbsp;

For more than 30 years in Chicago, Ann Nathan has run a gallery. She began in 1980 in a 200-square foot space she rented from the ceramicist Ruth Duckworth. &ldquo;The space was tiny. We showed jewelry and ceramics, and we used every inch of space. The pedestals opened up and doubled as storage space,&rdquo; Nathan recalls. For several years the gallery existed there before a couple of moves, then survived a fire and relocated and rebuilt in her current space on Superior Street. &ldquo;Although many galleries have since opened further south and west, I think this area will always survive because of its location.&rdquo; The galleries are close to the L and blocks from Michigan Avenue.&rdquo;

When talking about how she has thrived for so many years, Nathan admits she has always had a simple approach. &ldquo;I am open to showing what works.&rdquo; This is, though, limited to figurative art and realism. &ldquo;When we started everyone was showing abstract work, but I was never interested in doing what everyone was doing.&rdquo; This perspective has freed Nathan to show a diverse range of artists and styles. The work, by artists from around the world, ranges from the dreamy paintings by Christina Haglid to the bold and dynamic sculptures by the long-time Chicago artist Michael Gross. &ldquo;Michael&rsquo;s work is unique and strange,&rdquo; Nathan said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s sculptural, functional furniture.&rdquo; This is another trend you&rsquo;ll find at Nathan&rsquo;s gallery. The furniture pieces are always functional. In fact, when we met, Nathan and I sat and talked on two beautifully carved wooden stools.

In regards to how the gallery and art landscape has changed in Chicago, Nathan seems unfazed. &ldquo;Chicago is a welcoming place, but every space is different.&rdquo; Nathan believes you have to pick work you like and show what you like to show.&nbsp;

Nathan and her gallery staff are certainly welcoming to visitors, a trait that has undoubtedly helped in the gallery&rsquo;s success throughout the decades. While you explore the work in the gallery and move from a gigantic charcoal portrait by Mary Borgman to playful, smiling nude sculptures by Esther Shimazu, you feel transported, at least for a little while, to a place far away from Superior Street.

An Interview with Art Dealer Ann Nathan

By KEVIN NANCE

When Peter and Eileen Broido moved from the west suburbs to a highrise condo overlooking downtown Chicago in 2004, it wasn&rsquo;t the spectacular view of the Chicago River and the Loop that was the primary selling point.&nbsp;

&ldquo;It was the wall space,&rdquo; Peter Broido says. &ldquo;That and the size of the freight elevator.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Peter and Eileen Broido: “The fun for us is finding art, putting our money where our mouth is.” Artwork pictured: Lari Pittman, &lt;i&gt;Ephemeral and Needy,&lt;/i&gt; 1990, 82 x 66&quot;. Photo: Kevin Nance " data-rich-file-id="81" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/81/original/peter-and-eileen-broido.jpg" />He smiles when he says it, but he isn&rsquo;t kidding. The Broidos needed plenty of room to display their impressive collection of contemporary art, which currently consists of nearly 180 paintings, sculptures and mixed-media pieces on view. (An additional 50 artworks reside at their adult children&rsquo;s homes on the East Coast, with about 30 more pieces in storage.) And the freight elevator was of real concern. Early on, a recently acquired 10-foot-wide panoramic photograph by Gerard Maynard missed fitting into the elevator by a couple of inches. The building management suggested that the piece could be hoisted by crane to the Broidos&rsquo; balcony more than 30 floors above the riverbank, but in the Windy City this seemed like too much of a risk; in the end, they donated the photograph to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Another acquisition, a large painting by Chicago artist Judy Ledgerwood, made it into the elevator but couldn&rsquo;t be brought through the apartment door because the corridor outside was too narrow; the painting&rsquo;s frame had to be broken down and reassembled inside the apartment.

Such are the adventures of one of the city&rsquo;s most prolific art-collecting couples, who have spent the past 40 years in daily dialogue with art. They&rsquo;ve feathered their 2,600-square-foot nest with works by Chicago artists (Ledgerwood, Jim Nutt, Karl Wirsum, Curtis Mann, Tom Friedman, John Pittman and Stephanie Brooks, among others) and others from elsewhere in the United States (John Baldessari, Jane Hammond, Jenny Holzer, Byron Kim, Chris Martin, Bruce Nauman,&nbsp;Jon Pestoni, Raymond Pettibon, Lari Pittman, Zak Prekop, Richard Tuttle, Kehinde Wiley, etc.). Most recently they&rsquo;ve begun branching out to Europe, with emphasis on works by German artists such as Frank Nietzsche.&nbsp;

Abstract painting dominates the collection, which also includes a smattering of mixed-media work, notably a large painted collage on a sculpted metal and canvas substructure by the Argentine-American artist Fabian Marcaccio. A group of works on paper&mdash;including works by Nutt and Tuttle&mdash;take refuge in a bathroom, where they&rsquo;re shielded from the natural light that otherwise suffuses the apartment.

Most of the pieces were acquired soon after their creation and early in the artists&rsquo; careers; the Broidos collect only what they like, not what they think might appreciate in monetary value. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t do it as an investment,&rdquo; Peter Broido says. &ldquo;The fun for us is finding art, putting our money where our mouth is, and seeing what happens. And it&rsquo;s been OK.&rdquo;&nbsp;

The Broidos rarely sell their holdings (though they do sometimes trade one piece for another), instead choosing to donate to museums. Beneficiaries of their largesse include the Museum of Contemporary Art (where the Broidos are longtime supporters and members of MCA&rsquo;s Merge, a collecting group), the Akron Art Museum and the Elmhurst Art Museum, which displayed several Broido-donated works this fall as part of Inventory, an exhibition of EAM&rsquo;s collection.&nbsp;

&ldquo;What strikes me about Peter and Eileen&rsquo;s collecting is that they&rsquo;re focused on emerging artists,&rdquo; says Staci Boris, EAM&rsquo;s chief curator. &ldquo;They like to seek out new artists, not people who have a track record or are well known. They enjoy the discovery aspect of it, the process of figuring out who is interesting and who has a future. They&rsquo;re unique in their vision, and they don&rsquo;t follow trends.&rdquo;

Along the way, the Broidos have become fixtures on the Chicago art scene, mixing with artists, curators, gallerists and other collectors with an ease born of an engagement sustained over four decades. As Eileen Broido puts it with a smile, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re kind of part of the woodwork in Chicago.&rdquo;

The Broidos&rsquo; collecting journey began soon after they moved to the Chicago area in 1969. (Originally from Manhattan&mdash;where he spent much of his undergraduate years at Columbia University visiting art galleries at a time when you could pick up a Jasper Johns painting for $500&mdash;Peter Broido was a surgeon at Central DuPage Hospital for many years; his wife was a nurse.) Although they lived 30 miles west of the Loop, the young couple came into the city most weekends. &ldquo;We spent a lot of time on the Eisenhower Expressway,&rdquo; he recalls with a smile. One day they were walking down Michigan Avenue and turned east on Ontario, where they were met with a scene that reminded them of Disney&rsquo;s Fantasia: a row of people coming out of an art gallery carrying small paintings.

&ldquo;It was like those walking buckets from&nbsp;The Sorcerer&rsquo;s Apprentice,&rdquo; Peter Broido recalls. &ldquo;The Phyllis Kind Gallery had had a show of Roger Brown paintings, and people were taking their pieces home with them.&rdquo;&nbsp;

The Broidos were enchanted. They didn&rsquo;t buy a Brown then&mdash;though they would do so a half-dozen times in the years to come&mdash;but they met Kind, who introduced them to the Hairy Who painters, including Wirsum, Nutt and Gladys Nilsson, along with other Imagists including Brown and Ed Paschke. &ldquo;That was fun,&rdquo; recalls Eileen Broido, who was so enthused that she went back to college, studying art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and, later, the University of Chicago.&nbsp;

In the next two decades, the Broidos amassed one of the city&rsquo;s largest and most significant collections of Imagist painting, focusing on works that combined figurative and abstract elements. Over the years, however, they began to feel that the Imagists were stuck in a bit of a rut. The turning point came with a Paschke retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1989-90. &ldquo;We looked at it and said, &lsquo;Ed Paschke is repainting Ed Paschke,&rsquo;&rdquo; Peter Broido recalls. &ldquo;We started looking critically at what we were buying, and basically all of those artists were painting the same things. They hadn&rsquo;t really moved on. And we decided it was time for us to move on, too.&rdquo;

Although the Broidos continued to buy some work by Chicago-based artists, often from Chicago galleries (they maintain relationships with the Rhona Hoffman, Kavi Gupta and Shane Campbell galleries to this day), they began to make an increasing percentage of their acquisitions in New York, forging relationships with dealers in Chelsea and, in later years, on the Lower East Side. And while their earlier purchases had featured the figure, more and more the Broidos concentrated on purely abstract works.

&ldquo;Abstraction just seemed to wear better,&rdquo; Peter Broido says. &ldquo;If you go back and look at abstract art from the &rsquo;40s, the &rsquo;50s, it still looks pretty fresh. Hans Hofmann, my God! Those are just fabulous paintings. They still sing.&rdquo; On the other hand, his wife says, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just hard to find anything incredibly new with the figure.&rdquo;

In the 1990s, photography and conceptual art came to the forefront of the art world, but the Broidos largely stuck with painting. Conceptual art they found &ldquo;a little boring,&rdquo; Eileen Broido says. And photography? &ldquo;The problem with photography is in some ways the same thing that&rsquo;s true with figurative art,&rdquo; her husband says. &ldquo;What are you going to do with it that&rsquo;s different today? You need to make your mark in some way, and another sunset isn&rsquo;t going to do it.&rdquo;

As the Broidos developed their taste in art&mdash;they rarely disagree; &ldquo;After 45 years of marriage, we&rsquo;re pretty much the same person,&rdquo; Peter Broido says&mdash;they also established patterns in the manner of their collecting. They often visit art fairs&mdash;they&rsquo;re regulars at Art Basel Miami and NADA, and say they have enjoyed the first two years of Expo Chicago at Navy Pier&mdash;but almost never buy at the fairs. &ldquo;What I find art fairs most useful for is making connections with dealers I&rsquo;ve never met before and seeing work that we haven&rsquo;t seen,&rdquo; Peter Broido says. &ldquo;I probably will never buy anything out of a fair, because we don&rsquo;t like making snap decisions.&rdquo;&nbsp;

For similar reasons, the Broidos tend to avoid making studio visits with artists with whom they have no prior relationship, because of what they experience as an implicit pressure to buy. &ldquo;I like talking to artists, because I think they&rsquo;re terrific people,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But I really don&rsquo;t want to go to their studios, because you feel pressured. It isn&rsquo;t even overt. It&rsquo;s subtle, but I just don&rsquo;t want to be in that position. If we went out on a tour with 100 people, I&rsquo;d be thrilled to go to artists&rsquo; studios, but I don&rsquo;t want to be there one-on-one.&rdquo;

&ldquo;We do sometimes go after we&rsquo;ve purchased a piece,&rdquo; his wife adds. &ldquo;We were just in Berlin and went to Frank Nietzsche&rsquo;s studio. His dealer said, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re here, Frank&rsquo;s here, why don&rsquo;t you stop by and say hi?&rsquo; We did, and it was interesting to meet him. But there was no pressure, because we had already bought a piece from him.&rdquo;

The gregarious Broidos especially enjoy discovering new artists by talking with gallerists&mdash;which explains their increasing preference for smaller and emerging galleries on New York&rsquo;s Lower East Side. &ldquo;Nowadays if you go into the galleries in Chelsea, and if the dealers are there, they&rsquo;re certainly not out where you can see them,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;On the Lower East Side, the owners are there. They&rsquo;re young and energetic and enthusiastic and intelligent, and they really enjoy telling you about their art, which is the way it used to be when I was younger. It&rsquo;s fun to see that.&rdquo;

And so for the Broidos, the fun continues. The day after their interview with Chicago Gallery News, they were off to Miami for another round of art-fair visits, combing the aisles in search of new artists to collect. Fortunately for them, they still have a few square feet of open wall space.

Collector profile: Eileen and Peter Broido

BY FRANCK MERCURIO

William J. O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s first big solo museum exhibition at the Renaissance Society in 2011 helped cement his reputation as a skilled ceramicist. Standing out from the 100 ceramic works were O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s &ldquo;busts&rdquo;&mdash;highly expressive, human-like heads that carry a wide range of cultural references from 19th century face jugs to rubber Halloween masks. These pieces read as engaging psychological portraits, but they also showcase O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s accomplishments in the medium of clay.

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="William J. O’Brien, &lt;i&gt;Untitled&lt;/i&gt;, 2007. Collection of Dana Hirt. © William J. O’Brien. Photo: Tom Van Eynde, courtesy of the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York." data-rich-file-id="77" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/77/original/90e1cwob284.jpg" />So, it may be surprising to learn that the 38-year-old, Chicago-based artist is well versed in a variety of media&mdash;besides ceramics&mdash;including assemblage, painting, drawing, and metal sculpture. Examples of each genre are presented in O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s first comprehensive museum exhibition, William J. O&rsquo;Brien, opening January 25 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

&ldquo;The work in the studio was nothing like the stuff I saw in the [Renaissance Society] show. He had all these other incredible bodies of work,&rdquo; says MCA curator Naomi Beckwith who organized the O&rsquo;Brien exhibition. &ldquo;What I wanted to do was to bring the breadth of his works out to the public.&rdquo;&nbsp;

O&rsquo;Brien first exhibited at the MCA in 2005 as part of the museum&rsquo;s 12 x 12 series (now called BMO Harris Chicago Works). He was also included in the MCA&rsquo;s group exhibition Phantom Limb: Approaches to Painting Today in 2012.&nbsp;&ldquo;Bill is clearly someone, institutionally, who we&rsquo;ve been watching for some time,&rdquo; says Beckwith.

O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s current exhibition is the latest installment in the MCA&rsquo;s &ldquo;ascendant artist&rdquo; series&mdash;which has featured such notables as Rashid Johnson, Amalia Pica, and Paul Sietsema. As the word &ldquo;ascendant&rdquo; implies, these exhibitions present artists who are not quite at mid-career, but are on the brink of fame. Says Beckwith, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re catching people on their way up.&rdquo;

O&rsquo;Brien is the first Chicago-based artist to be showcased in the MCA&rsquo;s ascendant artist series. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really great to feature someone located here [in Chicago], someone who&rsquo;s already showing in New York,&rdquo; says Beckwith. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to come home and look at the talent that&rsquo;s right under our noses.

In addition to being represented by the Shane Campbell Gallery in Chicago, O&rsquo;Brien is also represented by the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York and the Almine Rech&nbsp;Gallery in Paris.

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="William J. O’Brien, &quot;Untitled&quot;, 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. © William J. O’Brien. Photo: Robert Chase Heishman" data-rich-file-id="78" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/78/original/ec339002.jpg" />The physicality O&rsquo;Brien brings to his art is a constant that runs through each genre he tackles.&nbsp;&ldquo;He has such a bodily investment in the work that he produces,&rdquo; says Beckwith, &ldquo;You can see him really working across the page in the drawings. You can see him wrapping, molding, reshaping, breaking and sticking things together in the assemblage work.&rdquo;

Representative of the physicality of O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s process is the layering of textures in his work. His ceramic busts are heavily textured, often featuring knobs of clay protruding from glazed surfaces, giving a kind of bumpy, nubby appearance. Some of O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s &ldquo;paintings&rdquo; are assemblages constructed of layers of detritus&mdash;packing materials, old clothes, sticks&mdash;all covered in a unifying pigment. His metal sculptures are created by welding a series of planar elements together, giving the impression of texture through layering. Even O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s drawings are multilayered.&nbsp;A counter-balance to the &ldquo;masculine physicality&rdquo; of O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s pieces is his interest in color, pattern, and na&iuml;ve forms&mdash;qualities that are often associated with feminist artists, outsider artists, and/or artists of color.

<img alt="" class="right" data-caption="William J. O’Brien, &quot;Untitled&quot;, 2008. Collection of Larry and Marilyn Fields. © William J. O’Brien. Photo: Tom Van Eynde, courtesy of the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. " data-rich-file-id="80" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/80/original/3de77wob380.jpg" />&ldquo;There is almost a kind of feminist gesture there,&rdquo; says Beckwith, &ldquo;where you see his work moving from the decorative, associated with women&rsquo;s work, to something that feels like abstraction. You see his work veering from quilting and textile to assemblage.&rdquo;&nbsp;

This push-and-pull between masculine and feminine, art and craft, high and low is evident throughout all of O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s works. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s thinking about those things that have been dropped out of art history,&rdquo; says Beckwith, &ldquo;while using those things that have been valued by art history.&rdquo;

In September 2011 a fire almost completely destroyed O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s studio and the studios of three other artists in an Avondale warehouse. Many of his works were lost. Luckily, enough works survived in the galleries and in the hands of collectors that the current MCA show could still be mounted. New pieces have filled the gaps, including a large-scale, site specific installation that Beckwith describes as &ldquo;totemic objects&rdquo; exploring the idea of &ldquo;monuments to feelings.&rdquo;

When speaking of O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s likely reception at the MCA, Beckwith stated, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been teaching at the School of the Art Institute for a while. It&rsquo;s going to be amazing to have his students here [at the MCA] alongside his colleagues. Clearly, he has a collection base and group of supporters here in the city. It&rsquo;s nice to have what feels like a big family hug around William at this time.&rdquo;

Accompanying the MCA&nbsp;exhibition will be a monograph, William J. O&rsquo;Brien, co-written by Beckwith and Trevor Smith of the Peabody Essex Museum, which will include a creative writing piece by local critic Jason Foumberg. The monograph will include a checklist of the 140 objects to be displayed in the MCA exhibition.

For more information about William J. O&rsquo;Brien (both the exhibition and the monograph), visit <a href="http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/">www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/</a>

William J. O’Brien at the MCA

BY FRANCK MERCURIO

Last August, the staff of the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern&nbsp;University were confronted with a near disaster. A pipe connected to the museum&rsquo;s sprinkler system burst. Luckily, the collections were not damaged; but the museum needed to close its gallery spaces&mdash;for all of fall quarter&mdash;while repairs were made.

Instead of viewing the closure as a set-back, the Block saw an opportunity to upgrade its facilities and focus its energies on developing a robust series of programs and exhibitions for winter quarter. &ldquo;It really gave us a chance to do what we needed on a system wide level to bring us to a state-of-the-art space,&rdquo; said Susy Bielak, the Block&rsquo;s Associate Director of Engagement. &ldquo;It also gave us time to launch with a program in January that we&rsquo;re really quite exhilarated about.&rdquo;

The museum&rsquo;s under-utilized entry-foyer has been transformed into the Spot Lounge, a more inviting&mdash;and activated&mdash;space. Comfortable seating, study areas, and WiFi now attract students, professors, and university staff to this new social hub.&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Andy Warhol, &quot;Unidentified Woman wearing pearls&quot;, 1984, internal dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid). Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 2008.1.17. © 2013 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York" data-rich-file-id="75" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/75/original/warhol-2008-1-17.jpg" />&nbsp;<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Edward Steichen, &quot;Actress Clara Bow for Vanity Fair&quot;, 1928, vintage gelatin silver print. Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of the Hollander Family in Honor of Morton and Mimi Schapiro. 2012.10.16. Steichen / Condé Nast Archive. Steichen/ Vanity Fair; © Condé Nast. " data-rich-file-id="74" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/74/original/steichen-2012-10-16.jpg" />

The Block&rsquo;s renovated gallery spaces will be celebrated officially on Saturday, January 18, with the unveiling of two new temporary&nbsp;exhibitions and a slate of public programs.

Steichen/Warhol: Picturing Fame features&nbsp;photographs by Edward Steichen (1879-1973) alongside Polaroids by Andy Warhol. It is the first exhibition to compare the works of the two artists side-by-side and to fully explore the influence of Steichen&rsquo;s photography on Warhol&rsquo;s portraits.

&ldquo;The exhibition posits an unlikely comparison between Steichen&rsquo;s early glamour photography and Warhol&rsquo;s late career portraits,&rdquo; says the Block&rsquo;s Special Projects Curator, Elliot Reichert, who organized the exhibition.

Beginning in the late 1920s, Steichen became famous for photographing Hollywood&rsquo;s elite and defining the conventions of glamour photography during Hollywood&rsquo;s golden era.&nbsp;

Steichen/Warhol presents vintage Steichen prints from the Block&rsquo;s permanent collection (recently donated by Richard and Jackie Hollander), including portraits of film stars such as&nbsp;Greta Garbo and Clara Bow.

These images had a profound effect on Warhol, influencing his silk-screen style portrait paintings of the 1970s and 80s. Warhol began his process by snapping Polaroids of celebrities and wealthy collectors, consciously employing some of the same photographic conventions established by Steichen 50 years earlier.

&ldquo;Warhol never really intended these [Polaroids] as art objects to be exhibited,&rdquo; says Reichert, &ldquo;They are pieces of his process that have been reintroduced as objects worthy of study.&rdquo;

The exhibition presents a range of Warhol Polaroids recently acquired from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, bringing a fascinating new perspective on the artist&rsquo;s creative process. Combined with 49 Steichen images, the total number of works in the exhibition is 140.

Opening in tandem with Steichen/Warhol is The Left Front: Radical Art in the &ldquo;Red Decade,&rdquo; 1929&ndash;1940, curated by Northwestern University PhD candidates John Murphy and Jill Bugajski. The show examines Depression-era artists who questioned the capitalist system in the face of economic catastrophe and practiced art as a form of social and political activism.

<img alt="" class="left" data-caption="Mitchell Siporin, &quot;Workers Family&quot;, from the portfolio A Gift to Biro Bidjan, 1937, woodcut. Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 1997.30.15." data-rich-file-id="76" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/76/original/siporin-workers-family.jpg" />&ldquo;Artists were becoming activists, taking it to the streets, beyond the galleries and museums,&rdquo; says Murphy, &ldquo;and asking &lsquo;What kind of art earns the name revolutionary?&rsquo; They saw themselves as soldiers in a class struggle using art as a weapon.&rdquo;

Examples in the show include over 100 prints, paintings, posters, rare books and ephemera assembled from the Block&rsquo;s permanent&nbsp;collections, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Terra Foundation, the Smart Museum, and the&nbsp;Hull-House Museum.

In the 1930s, printmaking was seen as a way of distributing art to the masses. Lithographs, etchings, and woodcuts&mdash;by the likes of Carl Hoeckner, Rockwell Kent and Stuart Davis&mdash;figure prominently in the exhibition.

&ldquo;These artists were making political gestures,&rdquo; says Bugajski, &ldquo;but also trying to shift the social fabric by moving art away from institutions and the upper crust and bringing it to the people as a force for change.&rdquo;

The Block will open&nbsp;The Left Front&nbsp;with a series of events and programs meant to engage&nbsp;Chicago in the question of &ldquo;What is revolutionary art?&rdquo; On Saturday, January 18, the museum will host what Bielak calls a &ldquo;multi-fold opening&rdquo; including performances by NU students and a presentation on &ldquo;Fashion and Revolution&rdquo; by Tom Mitchell, professor of&nbsp;English and Art History at the University&nbsp;of Chicago. For a full roster of upcoming programs addressing &ldquo;revolutionary art,&rdquo; visit the Block&rsquo;s website at <a href="http://www.block.northwestern.edu">block.northwestern.edu</a>

Northwestern’s Block Museum Reopens

BY KEVIN NANCE

<img alt="" data-caption="Øvstebø is right at home in her new role as executive director of The Renaissance Society. Photo by Kevin Nance" data-rich-file-id="73" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/73/original/solveig.jpg" />

When Solveig &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; first received a phone call from The Renaissance Society in Chicago about the possibility of her becoming the institution&rsquo;s new executive director&mdash;replacing Susanne Ghez, who was retiring after 40 years in the position&mdash;the timing could hardly have been worse.&nbsp;

For one thing, &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; had recently accepted a new term as director of Norway&rsquo;s Bergen Kunsthall, which she had led for nearly a decade and which was expanding with additional gallery space and a new office for her. For another, she was three days away from giving birth to her daughter, Ella. As she recalls now with comic understatement, &ldquo;It was not a time when I was looking for a new job.&rdquo;&nbsp;

But the Ren, as the renowned art space on the University of Chicago campus is known, was persistent. Six weeks after the first call, a second one came. &ldquo;We had a very short list of people we wanted for the job, and Solveig was on the top of that list,&rdquo; says Canice Prendergast, the member of the Ren&rsquo;s search committee who took the lead in communicating with &Oslash;vsteb&oslash;. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a very difficult job to fill, because we need to have one of the best curators of avant-garde art in the world who also happens to be very good at running an institution like ours. It&rsquo;s rare to find someone with both qualities; the group of people who do is very, very small. The new director also has very big shoes to fill, since Susanne essentially created the Renaissance Society and turned it into a world-class institution. But given Solveig&rsquo;s track record, we thought she was the ideal person to fill those shoes.&rdquo;

This time around, &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; found herself intrigued. She knew of the Renaissance Society&rsquo;s high regard on the international art scene, having hosted some of the same artists whose work had been shown at the Ren. The two organizations&rsquo; structure and practice were similar; they were both non-collecting institutions focused on temporary exhibitions of cutting-edge art. Most important, the Ren&rsquo;s search committee emphasized that she could concentrate on presenting art exhibitions largely free from the complicating factors&mdash;audience and sponsor expectations, commercial and market forces, political considerations&mdash;that plague her peers around the world.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Sometimes those factors can become so important for an institution that there&rsquo;s not enough space left for what&rsquo;s really interesting to me, which is the art production and the communication with the artists,&rdquo; she says in an interview at her office, where she took over from Ghez last fall. &ldquo;They convinced me that this is a place where art comes first.&rdquo;

In her new job, &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; says she plans to increase the Ren&rsquo;s profile locally by expanding its outreach efforts, which could include a satellite gallery to supplement the institution&rsquo;s smallish 3,200-square-foot exhibition space in Hyde Park. (She has no plans, however, to support a move away from the University of Chicago campus in search of larger permanent quarters. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not on my to-do list,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;and I have a big to-do list.&rdquo;) She also wants to publish exhibition catalogs and other publications on a larger scale and within the timeframe of the exhibition in question (as opposed to the current practice of publishing some catalogs after-the-fact).&nbsp;

In addition to her duties overseeing the Ren&rsquo;s administrative operations and strategy, &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; is also its chief curator. Her first outings in Chicago begin this month with a show of new work by the German artist Nora Schultz (January 12-February 23), followed by an exhibition by the Canadian artist Christina Mackie (April 27-June 29). These will be the earliest demonstrations of &Oslash;vsteb&oslash;&rsquo;s vision of the curatorial role as closely tied to artistic production in the early stages of the creative process. Last year, for example, she spent four days in Schultz&rsquo;s empty studio in Berlin in conversation with the artist, acting as a sounding board and filter for her ideas. &nbsp;

&ldquo;This institution is not just a passive space where we show artworks that have been seen elsewhere,&rdquo; &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; explains. &ldquo;Instead of picking artworks that have been shown in museums or biennials or galleries, I am asking the artists to present works that they are producing with us, that are completely new, that maybe are based on ideas that the artist hasn&rsquo;t been able to try out yet. This is a place where they can experiment with new ideas, and so in dialogue with us, new works can come about.&rdquo;

Although it was not a factor in her decision to accept the new job, there was an additional circumstance that made &Oslash;vsteb&oslash;&rsquo;s move to Chicago seem, in hindsight, somehow inevitable: She was born here. In 1972, her parents moved to the Windy City, where her father, a professor of theology, served a two-year stint as pastor of the Norwegian Memorial Church, also known as the Minnekirken, a Norwegian-speaking Lutheran congregation in Logan Square. The family went back to Norway when their new daughter was 18 months old, never to return.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a strange thing,&rdquo; muses &Oslash;vsteb&oslash;, 40. &ldquo;My daughter is now the same age I was when we lived in Chicago the first time, and I am now the age my mother was when we were here. And because I was born here, I am a U.S. citizen, but never had an American passport. I thought it would be hard to get one, but I went to the embassy and brought my birth certificate, and they gave me my passport, just like that.&rdquo; She smiles. &ldquo;And here I am.&rdquo;

Solveig Øvstebø at the Renaissance Society

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

The Fall Gallery Season is Here!

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

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

50 Years: A Milestone Arrives Quietly at Richard Gray Gallery

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