Previews

Weekend Art Highlights: January 23–25

By GINNY VAN ALYEA 

January is flying by, with another round of openings taking place this coming weekend in multiple neighborhoods throughout the city and behind. 

Starting Thursday, January 23 and running into Saturday, January 25 a number of spaces open solo as well as group shows to invite the art-loving public in to see what's new.  

Our overview of highlights from this coming weekend is below, and our full calendar may be viewed here.

See you in the galleries!

 

William Conger

Opening Friday, January 24

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

New works by this established Chicago abstract painter are on view at the gallery, in addition to a show of new works by VA de Pintor.

 

Harold Mendez: The Years Now

Opening Friday, January 24

Logan Center

Los Angeles–based artist Harold Mendez brings together objects, images, and sounds—all with their own multiple and layered histories—culled from sites across the Americas and spanning from pre-Columbian times to the present. Transformed and reconfigured into poetic assemblages, they evoke the body’s connections to histories of violence and erasure on the one hand and renewal and remembrance on the other. Mendez’s exhibition presents a suite of new sculptures and premieres a new sound installation featuring a found recording in which a speaker contemplates a crisis of identity.

 

Return to the Everywhere

Opening Friday, January 24

Weinberg/Newton Gallery

Presented in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago, Chicago’s NPR news station, Return to the Everywhere is the second exhibition in the gallery’s new location in River West. The exhibition considers various modalities of communication in an attempt to grasp the broader implications of our current “post-truth” era.

 

NIU School of Art and Design Faculty Biennial Exhibition

Opening Thursday, January 23

Northern IL Univ. 

Presented every two years, this exhibition features recent artwork and scholarship by faculty and teaching staff from all divisions of the NIU School of Art and Design and highlights the artistry, research, and world-class instruction found at NIU.

 

Image:  Charles Moore, Fire Hose Aimed at Young Demonstrator, Birmingham, Alabama, May 3, 1963, gelatin silver print. Humana Foundation Endowment for American Art, 2007.031.001

Snite Salon

Thursday, January 23, 5:30–6:15pm

Snite Museum of Art at Univ. of Notre Dame

Snite Salons encourage close looking and thoughtful conversation with a different work each session. This month, in conjunction with campus Walk the Walk week celebrations, the conversation will focus on Charles Moore's photograph Fire Hose Aimed at Young Demonstrator, Birmingham, Alabama from the Birmingham Campaign on May 3 in 1963. This work will only be on view during this program.

 

2020 Wisconsin Artists Biennial

Opening Saturday, January 25

Museum of Wisconsin Art

Every two years the Museum of Wisconsin Art is privileged to showcase the most compelling, engaging, inventive, and unique art from a state rich in creative capital. The 2020 Wisconsin Artists Biennial is open to all contemporary artists from throughout the state, representing a wide spectrum of media and creative perspectives. 

 

Two notable museum shows are ending this weekend, so now is your last chance to catch them before they're gone:

Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again

thru January 26

The Art Institute of Chicago

 

Direct Messages: Art, Language & Power

thru January 26

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA)

 

 

Top of page key image: Sayward Schoonmaker from Weinberg Newton Gallery's Return to the Everywhere