<h2>Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pledges to return Parthenon sculptures to Greece</h2>

Comments come after Unesco calls for &ldquo;mutually acceptable&rdquo; solution to 200-year-old issue. The Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn says he will work to return the Parthenon sculptures to Greece if elected as British prime minster. Corbyn says the antiquities were &ldquo;made in and belong to Greece&rdquo; and that, on entering Downing Street, he would begin &ldquo;constructive talks&rdquo; with the Greek government to secure their repatriation.

By Anny Shaw, The Art Newspaper

<a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/labour-leader-jeremy-corbyn-pledges-to-return-parthenon-marbles-to-greece">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2822" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2822/original/ct-ctfl-20180517-martantiques-022-20180530.jpg" />

<h2>Art and antiques show preview party benefits Northwestern Memorial Hospital</h2>

Nearly 400 guests attended the opening-night party for the second annual Chicago Antiques + Art + Design Show on May 17 at the Chicago Merchandise Mart. The event, produced by Dolphin Promotions, was hosted by the Woman&#39;s Board of&nbsp;Northwestern Memorial Hospital&nbsp;and raised over $200,000 to benefit the programs and care initiatives supported by the board, including a recent commitment to fund a study of collaborative mental health care.

By Candace Jordan,&nbsp; Chicago Tribune

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-life-candid-candace-0603-story.html">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2821" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2821/original/ar-180519840.jpg" />

<h2>Art Institute uses data to give visitors what they want</h2>

If you saw &ldquo;Degas: At the Track, on the Stage&rdquo; at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015 or early 2016, you were part of an experiment. The show, a microcosm of the impressionist artist&#39;s work, used a sophisticated attendance model to test the effect of smaller exhibits on attendance. Measuring Wi-Fi usage throughout the museum revealed that visitors spent more time in the room containing the Degas exhibit than they would have had that room not contained a special exhibit.

By&nbsp;Lisa&nbsp;Bertagnoli, Crain&#39;s Chicago Business

<a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20180518/ISSUE01/180519840/art-institute-of-chicago-uses-data-to-make-exhibit-choices">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2820" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2820/original/double-2brainbow.jpg" />

<h2>&#39;Happy Place&#39; Art Exhibit Aims to Spread Positivity in Chicago</h2>

An art exhibition celebrating the joy of being happy is heading to Chicago after a successful run in Los Angeles.&nbsp;The exhibit, known as &ldquo;Happy Place,&rdquo; is a fully immersive space that features a slew of scenes designed to increase positivity and happiness. The world&rsquo;s largest confetti dome, and a pair of stiletto shoes made of candy are just two of the attractions that are being made available to Chicagoans beginning on June 28.&nbsp;

By&nbsp;James Neveau, NBC Chicago

<a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/happy-place-art-exhibit-coming-to-chicago-484202651.html">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2818" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2818/original/dsouza-cezanne-install1.jpg" />

<h2>C&eacute;zanne:&nbsp;An old-school approach to the famed artist&rsquo;s portraiture.</h2>

C&eacute;zanne Portraits, at the National Gallery in Washington, is indeed, as the curators claim proudly, &ldquo;the first major museum exhibition&rdquo; devoted to the portraits of Paul C&eacute;zanne, an artist more famous for his shimmering landscapes, still lifes, and bathers. The genre was a modest but persistent presence in the French postimpressionist&rsquo;s career&mdash;fewer than two hundred of the thousand or so canvases he produced in a lifetime (about sixty of which are assembled here).&nbsp;

By Aruna D&rsquo;Souza, 4Columns

<a href="http://www.4columns.org/d-souza-aruna/cezanne">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2817" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2817/original/landleebul.jpg" />

<h2>Fire at London&rsquo;s Hayward Gallery as Rotting Fish Artwork Explodes</h2>

Majestic Splendor&nbsp;is composed of sequin-covered rotting fish. When it was shown in 1997 at New York&rsquo;s MoMA, it had to be removed as the smell made visitors feel sick. For the Hayward show, the fish were placed in potassium permanganate. Although it is not flammable, the chemical does increase the flammability of other combustible materials. On receiving advice, the gallery decided to withdraw the artwork, but it spontaneously combusted mid-removal.&nbsp;

Via Frieze Editorial

<a href="https://frieze.com/article/fire-londons-hayward-gallery-rotting-fish-artwork-explodes">Read More</a>

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News from Around the Art World: June 4, 2018

EXPO CHICAGO announces 135 participating galleries for its seventh edition of the art fair

EXPO CHICAGO Announces Participating Galleries for Seventh Edition 

<h3>Below is CGN&#39;s summary of recent art-world news and changes. </h3>

<h3>To send us your news <a href="mailto:info@chicagogallerynews.com?subject=Art%20News">email us</a>.&nbsp;</h3>

<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3>&bull; Anniversaries</h3>

The Randolph Street Market kicked off its summer outdoor season last weekend, and it also marked its 15th anniversary. Located at Plumbers Hall at 1341 W. Randolph, when the market first opened in 2003 the West Loop was not the hot spot it is today. Co-founded by Sally Schwartz and former partner Kathleen Finley, the market,&nbsp;formerly known as Chicago Antique Market, now features more than&nbsp;300 vendors in the summer&nbsp;months. To read CGN&#39;s 2017 interview with Schwartz <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/4/in-search-of-the-eclectic">click here</a>.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="The Richard H. Driehaus Museum in 2014" data-rich-file-id="2804" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2804/original/rdm.jpg" />

The&nbsp;Richard H. Driehaus Museum turns 10 years old this June.&nbsp;In celebration of its milestone tenth anniversary&nbsp;The&nbsp;Museum will reduce regular priced adult admission to $10, from $20, for the weekend of June 8. In addition to the reduced admission, a day of festivities has been planned for Saturday, June 9.&nbsp;The complete schedule of events is available at&nbsp;<a href="http://DriehausMuseum.org/Programs">DriehausMuseum.org/Programs</a>

&nbsp;

<h3>&bull; Art World Moves and&nbsp;Updates</h3>

<a href="http://moniquemeloche.com">Monique Meloche Gallery</a>, which was previously located at 2154&nbsp;W. Division has moved to 451 North Paulina in West Town. The gallery&#39;s&nbsp;inaugural exhibition&nbsp;Jeff Sonhouse:&nbsp;Entrapment&nbsp;opens&nbsp;Saturday, June 9.

Nan Goggin has been named dean of the&nbsp;<a href="https://herron.iupui.edu/index.html">Herron School of Art and Design</a>&nbsp;at IUPUI in Indianapolis effective July 1, subject to approval by the IU Board of Trustees. Goggin previously served as the director of the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois.

<img alt="" data-caption="Self portrait by artist Dabin Ahn" data-rich-file-id="2802" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2802/original/ahn.jpg" />

<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/andrew-bae-gallery">Andrew Bae Gallery </a>announced representation of artist&nbsp;Dabin Ahn, who&nbsp;graduated from&nbsp;SAIC in 201. Ahn will have his first solo show at the gallery&nbsp;on July 13. He is also returning to SAIC to enter the&nbsp;MFA program this fall.&nbsp; 
Ahn, born in Korea,&nbsp;is the first new artist the gallery has added to its roster in 13 years.&nbsp;

New Mexico-based visual artist&nbsp;Holly&nbsp;Roberts, known for her technique of combining digital images with paint, will now be represented by <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/schneider-gallery">Schneider Gallery</a> in River North. Much of Roberts&rsquo; thought-provoking work draws from her roots in the Southwest, which holds strong Native American cultural influence.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h3>&bull; Announcements</h3>

General registration for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/filter-photo">2018 Filter Photo Festival&nbsp;</a>opens June 1.&nbsp;Register for&nbsp;workshops and&nbsp;portfolio reviews&nbsp;and take advantage of early bird pricing which is in effect until&nbsp;June 30th. The&nbsp;10th Annual Filter Photo Festival takes place September 27-30 in Chicago.&nbsp;

This May, a cast of&nbsp;M&aacute;ximo,&nbsp;the largest dinosaur ever discovered, is coming to <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/field-museum-of-natural-history">The&nbsp;Field Museum</a>.&nbsp;The name, Spanish for &ldquo;maximum&rdquo; or &ldquo;most,&rdquo; is a nod to the titanosaur&rsquo;s enormous size and Argentinian homeland. M&aacute;ximo is 122 feet from head to tail, longer than two accordion CTA buses end-to-end, and his head will peek over the museum&rsquo;s second floor balcony.

The participants in the upcoming fourth annual <a href="https://rivernorthdesigndistrict.com">River North Design District&nbsp;Fall Gallery Walk</a> have been announced. The popular walk is expanding this year to include 12 River North art galleries. Each participting design showroom will&nbsp;exhibit&nbsp;vignettes from Chicago&rsquo;s top designers as they showcase living settings with artwork by contemporary artists. Participants for this year&rsquo;s walk include:&nbsp;PROjECT.interiors featuring Eric Gushee, Hailey Lauren Designs featuring Keysook Geum of Andrew Bae Gallery, Nora Schneider Interior Design featuring Terry O&rsquo;Neill of Hilton | Asmus Contemporary, JOLIE ID featuring Arthur Meyerson of The Rangefinder Gallery at Tamarkin Camera, Stephen Young for Kaufman Segal Design featuring Rose Freymuth Frazier of Gallery Victor Armendariz, London Walder Interior Design and Devon Grace Interiors featuring Robin Denevan of Addington Gallery, Robin Thomas Design featuring Rene Romero Schuler of Zolla Lieberman Gallery, Adam Siegel of The Golden Triangle, Blutter Shiff Design Associates featuring Linc Thelen, Kadlec Architecture + Design featuring Dylan Martinez of Echt Gallery, MOOD Design + Build featuring Daniel Jacob of Echt Gallery, Stone | Kent featuring Xiaofei Yue of Galerie Waterton, Inspired Interiors featuring Wendy Franklin of Vale Craft Gallery, Mitchell Channon Design featuring David Yarrow of Hilton | Asmus Contemporary Gallery, Wike | LaFrey featuring Rick Beck of Ken Saunders Gallery, Mia Rao Design featuring Anna Pales of Gruen Gallery, Sarah Dippold Interior Design featuring Gregory Block of Zolla Lieberman Gallery and Steve + Filip Design featuring Mary Ann Papanek-Miller of Jean Albano Gallery. The walk takes place on Friday, September 7 in conjunction with the opening of the fall gallery season. A special family day takes place Saturday, September 8.&nbsp;The vignettes will be exhibited until October 9th.

The Chicago Print Crawl takes place June 24.&nbsp;The free self-guided tour of 20 printmaking production, publishing, exhibition and sales venues in neighborhoods throughout the city, from to Fata Morgana Press in Bridgeport to Galerie F in Logan Square to Free Range Gallery in Albany Park.&nbsp;An after party will take place at Spudnik Press Cooperative. <a href="https://www.spudnikpress.org/event/chicago-print-crawl/">Details</a>&nbsp;

EXPO CHICAGO announced its list of 135 participating galleries for its seventh edition, its most globlal to date. The fair&#39;s dates are also a little later than usual, September 27-30, 2018,&nbsp;due to the fall holidays. Read the CGN post <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2018/5/expo-chicago-announces-participating-galleries-for-seventh-edition">here</a>.

The Other Art Fair, presented by&nbsp;online art gallery&nbsp;Saatchi Art, is coming to Chicago September 28-30&nbsp;and is timed to coincide with EXPO Chicago. TOAF showcases work by 130 talented independent and emerging artists and&nbsp;will take place at Mana Contemporary. The fair also takes place in Bristol, England, Melbourne Australia, London, Los Angeles and Brooklyn.&nbsp;<a href="http://chicago.theotherartfair.com">Details</a>.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Top of page: a dinosaur bone from&nbsp;M&aacute;ximo,&nbsp;the largest dinosaur ever discovered. On view at the Field Museum.
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<span style="border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: 20px; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,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); 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&nbsp;

In the News: Updates from the CGN Art Community 

Each week CGN interviews a local art-industry professional to discuss the ins and outs of running a space&nbsp;in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Christopher Schneberger of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/perspective-group-photography-gallery-ltd">Perspective Gallery</a>.

&nbsp;

Age: 47

Current Position: Board Member at Perspective Gallery, Adjunct faculty in Photography at Columbia College and College of DuPage

Hometown: Chicago&nbsp;(born and raised in Miami, FL)

&nbsp;

5 favorites from the past week&nbsp;

Restaurant - Kimski in Bridgeport 
Shop - Chicago Drum Exchange 
Read &ndash; Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (audiobook) 
Neighborhood - Pilsen 
Music - New albums by Rocket Miner and RLYR

&nbsp;

CGN: Tell us about your background and your involvement with Perspective Gallery?

CS: I ran the photography program at the Evanston Art Center for thirteen years and had a number of students doing exhibition level work. Some of them decided to open a gallery and brought me in to consult about the idea. Before long we had decided to have a cooperative space with 20 area photographers, hosting exhibitions of members work and photographers at large. Our programming includes a lecture series of prominent photographers and curators, a curated invitational themed exhibition, a regional juried exhibition called Vicinity, a high school juried show, and a national juried exhibition (LENS) which brings in over 1000 submitted images each year for consideration.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Give us a day in the life!

CS: My life involves a lot of teaching. My career is really as an educator in photography, and I teach classes at Columbia College, the College of DuPage, and Dominican University. So I&rsquo;m up in the morning and driving off to a school, trying to remember which one I&rsquo;m going to! When I have time away from classes, I spend it doing work for the gallery which might entail managing one of the special exhibitions we have, or coordinating something within our membership like outings or installing exhibitions.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;As a founding member of the non-profit group, how would you sum up your experience working with Perspective Gallery?&nbsp;

CS: It has been very rewarding to build Perspective Gallery from a just an idea to an institution on the&nbsp;Chicagoland photography landscape. A very dedicated group of people has made this possible, and it is my great honor to work with them. Our group has committees, and everything is done on a volunteer basis, with each member contributing to the success of the organization. When we began, we just hoped we could survive for a year, or until our first lease was up. Now we are looking years ahead and striving to become a recognized center for photography.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Any major successes this year? What about challenges? &nbsp;

CS: At the gallery we had a terrific show that I co-curated with member Stephanie Taiber called &ldquo;Shadow Fixations,&rdquo; featuring artists who deconstructed the photographic materials and challenged the nature of the medium, and featured the work of Doug Fogelson, Julie Weber, Juan Fernandez, Elina Ruka, and Jaclyn Wright. In March we had our 9th annual LENS juried exhibition which was curated by Paula Tognarelli, director of the Griffin Museum of Photography.

We&rsquo;ve also had terrific lectures by Clarissa Bonet, Glenn Hansen, and Jeffrey Wolin. As for myself, I received the award for college-wide Outstanding Adjunct Faculty at College of DuPage, and was a visiting artist at Iowa State University.

Challenges? Finding time to make work while teaching up to six courses a semester!

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;What do you want to tell a young person considering this career path?

CS: Think about law school! Seriously though, it can be very enriching as a cultural pursuit, but there&rsquo;s not much money in curating and teaching.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the art world?

CS: Music. I play drums in a band called Moon, and we&rsquo;re releasing our third studio album on June 8th, with an album release show at Martyrs&rsquo; on Saturday, June 9th. I&rsquo;m also an avid music listener, and I go to shows around Chicago on a weekly basis.

&nbsp;

CGN: What should we expect to see next from Perspective Gallery in 2018?

CS: We&rsquo;re looking forward to a politically charged exhibition in August curated by Jane Fulton Alt called #metoo. Jane is a terrific photographer and serves on our advisory board. We&rsquo;ll also have more lectures. I have a show in September as well.

&nbsp;

Christopher Schneberger is a photographer and board member of Perspective Gallery. For more information about the photography group please visit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/perspective-group-photography-gallery-ltd">Perspective Gallery</a>.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;
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CGN Interview Series: Christopher Schneberger of Perspective Gallery

News from Around the Art World: May 29, 2018

Art events and spaces for children in Chicago this summer

Summer round-up: Family-friendly art spaces 

Each week CGN interviews a local art-industry professional to discuss the ins and outs of running a space&nbsp;in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Ellen Philips Katz Director&nbsp;of the Block Museum of Art, Lisa Graziose Corrin.

&nbsp;

Current Position: &nbsp;Ellen Philips Katz Director, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University

Hometown: I was born in Queens, New York and raised on Long Island, 52 miles east of Manhattan. My professional career has taken me to Izmir, Turkey, Baltimore, London, Seattle, Williamstown Massachusetts and now Chicagoland.

Previous Occupations:

Director, Williams College Museum of Art 
Deputy Director of Art/Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Seattle Art Museum 
Chief Curator, Serpentine Gallery, London 
Assistant Director/Curator of The Contemporary, Baltimore

&nbsp;

5 favorites from the past week&nbsp;

Restaurant:&nbsp;Piccolo Sogno, West Loop and North Pond, Lincoln Park

Shop:&nbsp;Turley Road, Andersonville

Book:&nbsp;Outliers and American Vanguard Art, a catalog of a 2018 exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art traveling to LACMA and the High Museum.

Neighborhood:&nbsp;Evanston! My husband and I chose to live in Evanston because we felt it was important to be part of the community that the Block serves. We admire Evanston&rsquo;s activist spirit; the City nurtures and supports its organizations and businesses and residents are unafraid to speak their mind. When we take walks in our neighborhood, the peace poles, signs of solidarity with our immigrant population, and commitment to diversity all remind us that we made the right choice of where to pitch our tent.

Music:&nbsp;Anything at the Lyric (we are season ticket holders) by David Lang, my favorite contemporary composer, or jazz pianist Keith Jarrett.

&nbsp;

Tell us a little bit about your background and how your position at the Block Museum of Art came to be?

Northwestern&rsquo;s legacy in the arts is extraordinary and it has been meaningful to me to be one of its champions. In 2012, when I came to the museum, the Block was ready to become an even stronger bridge between the campus and the community. I relished the opportunity to create a new model for an academic art museum within a research university, a model that is focused on collaboration, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, rigorous research, and innovative exhibitions and programs.&nbsp;

Northwestern is on the move! It is an exciting time to be at a future-focused institution that believes the experience of art should be part of the education of every student. It is a privilege too, to be doing this work in the greater context of Chicago, one of our nation&rsquo;s great cultural capitals, along with brilliant colleagues at the helms of so many dynamic institutions throughout the city.

&nbsp;

What&#39;s the first thing you do each morning when you get to the museum?&nbsp;

As I enter the museum I say hello to Aaron Chapman, our Assistant Manager of Visitor Services and Visitors Services Associate, Rocio Olasimbo and have a chat.&nbsp; Our front-line staff are our greatest ambassadors and the anecdotes they share with me about our visitor&rsquo;s responses ensure I don&rsquo;t forget what we are here to do.

&nbsp;

Do you have a favorite exhibition or collection from the past?

I am a great fan of the Ornithology Galleries at the Field Museum of Natural History, but my favorite collection in Chicago is most likely that of the Chicago Botanic Gardens.&nbsp; People don&rsquo;t think of this extraordinarily diverse collection on 385 acres as a cultural collection but it is.&nbsp; The research and conservation science that is going on in this living museum is world class&hellip;.&nbsp; Not to mention the pure joy of listening to the carillon bells now that the weather is warm.

I grew up inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.&nbsp; To this day when I walk through the front door of that museum I behave as though it is my own home.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s how comfortable I feel there. I am a great believer in getting lost inside museums so that you have unexpected encounters with works of art. I remember going to the Met and seeing a small study of Monet&rsquo;s Women in the Garden, which is now in the Musee d&rsquo;Orsay, and seeing the shadow on the back of a train on a woman&rsquo;s dress and the hundreds of shades of green and grey that composed this picture.&nbsp; I realized Monet was not painting women&rsquo;s dresses at all, he was painting the effects of light. It was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes and everything I looked at around me after that changed. &nbsp;I saw how art could be a window onto other ways of perceiving and understanding the world.&nbsp; At that moment I thought &ldquo;Wow I want to be looking through those windows for the rest of my life.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

Any major successes this year? Any challenges?

2018 has been an extraordinary year for the Block Museum so far with over 20,000 visitors in just three months for the groundbreaking exhibition Paint the Eyes Softer: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt.&nbsp; The exhibition became a true case study exemplifying our role of as an innovation hub and campus catalyst.&nbsp; In the creation of the exhibition we convened student research and faculty expertise from across the University&mdash;including contributions from classics, art history, sound arts, materials science, computer science, medicine, archaeology, and art history&mdash;all to investigate the mummy of a 5-year old girl buried nearly 2000 years ago.&nbsp; The exhibition included the first museum use of Apple&rsquo;s augmented reality toolkit, an experiment at the Argonne National Laboratory, a student sound design competition, and a class co-taught in Classics and Material Science, to name just a few of the related projects.&nbsp; The fact that our resulting exhibition was covered by Time Magazine, BBC, PBS NewsHour, and made the front page of the Chicago Tribune &ndash; is just icing on the cake, evidence of the power and endless possibilities that can come out of interdisciplinary collaboration.

2018 also saw the release of our new Strategic Plan &ndash; The Block Museum as a Frame of Mind.&nbsp; I see this plan as the Block team&rsquo;s great success, representing almost a year&rsquo;s worth of conversation, planning and stakeholder interviews. The plan lays out ambitious actions for impact over the next five years. I think our greatest challenge is keeping up with the rising tide of participation in the Block&rsquo;s program from faculty, students, and the broader community. We are living in a time when our visitors are seeking a way to understand the complexities of our contemporary world. We have a responsibility to connect to connect art to their lives so that the important contributions of artists across time and cultures resonate and are valued.

&nbsp;

What do you want to tell a young person considering this career path?

I am a first generation college graduate so a career as a museum director was atypical in my family.&nbsp; Of course being an art history major was great preparation but is not on its own what prepares one for being a museum director.&nbsp; Leadership is a process&mdash;learning from the twists and turns in the road, from my mistakes and, especially from the feedback of those with whom I work, have all been critical.&nbsp;

The museum field needs more diversity at the top.&nbsp; If museums are going to speak to everyone &ndash; then leadership positions need to be held by individuals with a greater range of backgrounds. I talk often to my students about cultivating the belief that change is possible. On my desk is this quote:&hellip;&rdquo;It had long since some to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them, they went out and happened to things.&rdquo; --Leonardo da Vinci

&nbsp;

What are your&nbsp;interests outside of the art world?

I have an unwieldy cookbook collection and am fascinated by global food culture. I am also a voracious reader of history and a compulsive viewer of television political commentary. My husband Peter and I have embraced Chicago&rsquo;s extraordinary cultural offerings. We are season ticket holders for the Lyric, regular theater-goers, support the Chicago Humanities Festival, and are members of The Chicago Botanical Gardens, the Field Museum, the Art Institute and the MCA. Kayaking is also a passion for both of us and we are eagerly anticipating another summer season out on the water.

&nbsp;

What do you look for in an artwork? What speaks to you?

As a curator of contemporary art, I have occasionally had the experience in a studio in which an artist&rsquo;s work struck a chord deep within me. I got disoriented and thrown off balance. &nbsp;The hair on the back of my neck stood up.&nbsp; I knew I was in the presence of something significant.&nbsp; If that experience lingers the second time I see the work, I am likely to want to do an exhibition or to write about it in order to explore that response and to understand what in the work provoked it.

&nbsp;

What&rsquo;s coming up next at the Block Museum of Art?

In Fall of 2018 we are thrilled to be partnering with the Terra Foundation and with institutions around the city on Art Design Chicago, our city-wide celebration of Chicago as America&rsquo;s crossroads of creativity and commerce.&nbsp; Our exhibition Up is Down: Mid-century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl studio is the first to examine the pioneering work of the Morton and Millie Goldsholl and their Chicago advertising firm, Goldsholl Design Associates, which brought &nbsp;Bauhaus design to a broad American audience, and created some of the nation&rsquo;s most iconic brand images including the Motorola logo and the 7Up &ldquo;See the Light&rdquo; campaign. In January 2018 we will present Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time, an exhibition about art and cultural exchange along the trans-Saharan trade routes connecting Africa, the Middle East and Europe during the medieval period. Loans are coming from some of the world&rsquo;s greatest museums and the exhibition is traveling to the Smithsonian&rsquo;s National Museum of African Art. This is quite an achievement for the small but mighty Block Museum of Art.

&nbsp;

Lisa Graziose Corrin is the Ellen Philips Katz Director of the Block Museum of Art. For more information about the museum&nbsp;please visit: <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/block-museum-of-art">Block Museum of Art</a>.

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Photo Copyright: Joe Mazza,&nbsp;Brave Lux

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An Interview with Lisa Graziose Corrin, Director of the Block Mueseum of Art

<h2>Artist Robert Indiana Dies At 89: The Story Behind &#39;LOVE&#39;</h2>

Fifty years after his&nbsp;LOVE&nbsp;painting made Robert Indiana a sensation, the artist has died at age 89. Indiana&#39;s two-row rendering of the word, with its tilted &quot;O,&quot; became one of the most recognizable works of modern art in the world.

The famous design emerged from deep influences in Indiana&#39;s life, from his early exposure to religion to his father&#39;s career.

By Bill Chappell, NPR

<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/22/613295340/artist-robert-indiana-dies-at-89-the-story-behind-love">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2777" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2777/original/merlin-138245391-9d3b59e8-5ea7-41b0-8774-4f9027c8e025-jumbo.jpg" />

<h2>Painting That Hung in a Chicago Convention Center Brings Unexpected Windfall</h2>

A lone painting by a celebrated contemporary artist turned into a windfall on Wednesday night for a small municipal agency in Chicago.

The painting,&nbsp;Kerry James Marshall&rsquo;s&nbsp;&ldquo;Past Times,&rdquo; sold for $21.1 million at Sotheby&rsquo;s in New York, nearly 900 times the $25,000 that the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority spent on it in 1997, and a record for the artist. In a statement, Lori Healey, the authority&rsquo;s chief executive, said the M.P.E.A. was &ldquo;thrilled&rdquo; by the auction results, adding that the price tag ended up &ldquo;far exceeding anyone&rsquo;s expectations.&rdquo;

By&nbsp;Sopan Deb, The New York Times

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/arts/design/marshall-sothebys-auction.html">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2778" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2778/original/larger.jpg" />

<h2>1960s Chicago Gave Birth to a Colorful, Frenetic Art Style That Is Still Gathering Steam</h2>

The&nbsp;Chicago Imagists&nbsp;of the 1960s and &rsquo;70s created colorful, energetic paintings and sculptures that often riffed on vernacular sources (comic books, pinball machines) and the eccentricities of American culture.&nbsp;Barbara Rossi&rsquo;s colorful, corporeal shapes piled atop each other like jumbles of internal organs.&nbsp;Jim Nutt&nbsp;drew and painted grotesque figures that evoked brightly lit freak shows.&nbsp;Gladys Nilsson&nbsp;rendered overlapping bodies, simultaneously in their own worlds and parts of a larger, chaotic mass.&nbsp;Suellen Rocca&nbsp;created busy, symbol-laden canvases.

By&nbsp;Alina Cohen, Artsy Editorial

<a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-1960s-chicago-birth-colorful-frenetic-art-style-gathering-steam">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2779" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2779/original/19693-94155-957-molly-z.jpg" />

<h2>A Mighty Mural: Oxbow launches artist-in-residence program to spice up downtown</h2>

The corner of Farwell and Galloway is about to get prettified in a big, bold way. Chicago-based artist Molly Z will begin work on a 3,200 square foot mural on the side of the Eau Claire Printing Building on June 3 as part of The Oxbow Hotel&rsquo;s first artist in residence program. The public is welcome to participate in the process during several events hosted throughout the residency &ndash; in addition to watching the image come to life over the roughly two-week project.&nbsp;

By Lauren Fisher, Volume One

<a href="http://volumeone.org/news/1/posts/2018/05/21/19693_a_mighty_mural">Read More</a>

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News from Around the Art World: May 22, 2018

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418589/jxtusrjkebxcy9rhqqdh.jpg"><figcaption>1709-1711 W Chicago Ave.</figcaption></figure>By FRANCK MERCURIOIn his poem, Carl Sandburg summed up Chicago’s rough-and-tumble reputation as a city concerned with only one thing: making a buck.Proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.But turn-of-the-19th-century Chicagoans were also involved in the commerce of art. Wealthy industrialists purchased art and encouraged artists to settle in the city, especially after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition had ended. Philanthropists Anne and Lambert Tree even financed the construction of Tree Studios—still thriving at Ohio and State Streets—providing artists with live/work spaces on the Near North Side. Soon after, artists, writers, and musicians congregated in the neighborhood surrounding the Water Tower, then known as Towertown.As North Michigan Avenue developed into the commercial district we know today, the Bohemian types moved on, but artistic enterprises remained. Katharine Kuh opened her eponymous gallery inside North Michigan Avenue’s Diana Court Building, which ran successfully from 1935 until 1943, despite the economic challenges of the Great Depression.&nbsp;Writing in the Encyclopedia of Chicago, MCA Curator Lynne Warren elaborates on the city’s first gallery district: “North Michigan Avenue and its immediate environs were the prime location for commercial art galleries from the 1940s until the 1980s. Pioneering spaces included Madeline Tourtelot’s Gallery Studio, Benjamin Galleries, and the Frank J. Oehlschlaeger Studio.”Today, a few gallerists still call North Michigan Avenue home, most notably Richard Gray (though they opened Gray Warehouse, an expansive West Side outpost, in 2017). But, as time passes, neighborhoods inevitably change. When River North became revitalized in the 1970s, the heart of Chicago’s gallery scene shifted from Michigan Avenue to the intersection of Superior and Franklin, which became the new hotspot for art. Today the neighborhood supports a concentration of approximately 20 galleries, including veterans Carl Hammer and Zolla/Lieberman, one-year-old Gallery Victor Armendariz, and now a pop-up from Aron Packer Projects.As gentrification of River North increased, a new generation of gallerists went in search of less expensive space; many found home in the West Loop, just south of Randolph Street’s restaurant row. Now, as development in that area rapidly increases, several galleries are moving on, seeking larger spaces, less expensive rents, and new audiences in West Town.“Fifteen years ago, the West Loop was all meat packing,” said Anastasia Tinari, director of Rhona Hoffman Gallery. “Now there are cranes on either side of our [former] building; it felt prohibitive. But people already come to this neighborhood [West Town]; and with Rhona having just moved here, her gallery serves as an anchor, along with the galleries upstairs.”Hoffman Gallery recently joined Western Exhibitions, DOCUMENT, Volume Gallery, and Paris London Hong Kong in a large commercial building at 1709 W. Chicago Avenue, making the intersection of Ashland and Chicago the new art nexus of the neighborhood.&nbsp;A new restaurant coming to the same building will also draw regular crowds; Funkenhausen, touted as a big beer hall with traditional German dishes, is a project of the building’s landlord, Daniel Boyd, and chef Marc Steuer (El Che and Carraige House).&nbsp;West Town isn’t new to the Chicago arts scene. A loose confederation of experimental galleries, called Uncomfortable Spaces, was located in the neighborhood in the 1990s. Corbett vs. Dempsey has also been a dynamic presence here since 2004. But recent events have made West Town a magnet for even more galleries.“The West Loop is getting too dense,” said Scott Speh, owner and director of Western Exhibitions. “The landlord of our old space offered this building [1709]; it seemed like the best solution after looking for a year or more. We [the gallery owners] all live nearby and wanted to be on the western fringes of the West Loop.”<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2757/original/rhona.jpg" alt=""></figure>Hoffman has been in the gallery business for over 40 years, and in that time she has run six different spaces. Her philosophy is practical, keeping the needs of the customer in mind. “If you want to see galleries in Chicago, you have to spend a day getting everywhere,” she says, “So you need to have some kind of a center.”Just up the street at 864 N. Ashland, Jefferson Godard relocated his gallery, Aspect/Ratio, from the West Loop in 2017. Aspect/Ratio had been operating at 119 N. Peoria, directly across the street from Hoffman’s previous space, for several years. Known for cutting-edge video installations, Godard’s 3rd floor West Loop gallery had no street visibility. The new space has large windows looking onto Ashland Avenue and a 1,000-square-foot floor plan, nearly five times the size of the old gallery.&nbsp;“We decided to move to a better, more prominent location,” said Godard. “West Town/Ukrainian Village offered us a great space and community.”The community is growing as other gallerists relocate near the intersection of Chicago and Ashland Avenues, including Mongerson Gallery, Mickey Pomfrey (of Courtney Blades Gallery) and Monique Meloche Gallery.Architect Dirk Denison is designing Meloche’s new space in an expanded location in West Town. The gallery opens June 9 with a solo exhibition of Jeff Sonhouse’s works.“We’ve been looking for a couple of years to move, and we’ve always liked being on the west side in Wicker Park/Bucktown,” said Meloche. “So it was natural to keep looking in the same general area. My gallery has always been a destination, but we are happy to soon be within walking distance of some of our colleagues.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2756/original/5-install-handeye.jpg" alt=""></figure>“Like everything else, things change,” said Speh of Western Exhibitions. “Whenever I see articles about changing gallery districts, and bemoaning that, well this is historical. Every 10 to 15 years, things shift.”With ample street parking and multiple public transportation options, West Town has become a convenient and appealing art outpost. And with new restaurants and amenities continuing to move to the neighborhood, Chicago’s newest gallery district is becoming a destination to spend an afternoon or evening enjoying a meal and viewing art.&nbsp;West Town AREA Galleries:&nbsp;West Town’s general boundaries are considered Bloomingdale to Kinzie; the Chicago River to Kedzie. Neighborhoods within West Town also include: East Village, Humboldt Park, Kinzie Industrial Corridor, Noble Square, Smith Park, Ukrainian Village, and Wicker Park and nearby River West.For the purpose of identifying this new gallery center, we consider the West Town-ish arts boundaries to be between Augusta and Lake and the River to WesternThe list below is current as of May 2018.&nbsp;Aspect/Ratio:&nbsp;864 N. AshlandChicago Artists Coalition:&nbsp;2130 W. FultonChicago Truborn: 1741 W. Chicago&nbsp;Corbett vs. Dempsey: 1120 N. AshlandCourtneyBlades:&nbsp;1635 W. GrandDOCUMENT: 1709 W. ChicagoRichard Gray Warehouse: 2044 W. CarrollRhona Hoffman Gallery: 1711 W. ChicagoIntuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art: 756 N. MilwaukeeJohalla Projects: 1821 W. HubbardTHE MISSION: 1431 W. ChicagoMongerson Gallery:&nbsp;2251 W. Grandmonique meloche:&nbsp;451 N. PaulinaParis London Hong Kong:&nbsp;1709 W. ChicagoPATRON Gallery:&nbsp;673 N. MilwaukeeMatthew Rachman Gallery:&nbsp;1659 W. ChicagoRegards:&nbsp;2216 w. ChicagoRoots &amp; Culture:&nbsp;1034 N. MilwaukeeSpudnik Press:&nbsp;1821 W. HubbardLinc Thelen Galleries:&nbsp;1620 W. CARROLLUkrainian Institute of Modern Art&nbsp;(UIMA): 2320 W. ChicagoVolume:&nbsp;1709 W. ChicagoWestern Exhibitions: 1709 W. Chicago&nbsp;Top image: The&nbsp;1709–1711 W. Chicago Ave. building once housed a factory. Today it is home to several galleries that have moved from the West Loop.</body></html>

A New Westward Migration: Galleries Move in Search of Space and Community

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

Richard Gray has died at age 89. He passed away yesterday at home in Chicago.

Gray&nbsp;founded<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/richard-gray-gallery--2">&nbsp;The Richard Gray Gallery</a> on November 4, 1963, at 155 E. Ontario. Today the gallery, which includes a location in the John Hancock Center downtown and a West Side Warehouse venue, as well as a Madison Avenue space in New York,&nbsp;will continue under the leadership&nbsp;of Gray&#39;s son Paul, and partners Andrew Fabricant and Valerie Carberry.&nbsp;

As of 2012 the&nbsp;gallery&rsquo;s sales were just under $100 million, and&nbsp;clients included&nbsp;more than 10 percent of the Forbes 400 list, including nine members from the Chicago area, as well as&nbsp;collectors and museum curators from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America.

The gallery started out modestly in the early 1960s.&nbsp;With&nbsp;a&nbsp;young family at home&nbsp;at the time, Gray had&nbsp;been looking for a new career after working for his father&#39;s construction business for several years. Gray&#39;s wife Mary Kay Lackritz&nbsp;grew up in a family of art collectors, and Gray, who was trained as an architect, was inspired to follow his own passion for art and open a gallery that would allow him to make a personal passion into a profession.

Eventually the gallery occupied&nbsp;620 N. Michigan Ave. for nearly 30 years, before moving in 1995 to the 25th floor of&nbsp;875 N. Michigan in the John Hancock Center, and today the 38th floor.&nbsp;Gray Warehouse opened in April 2017 at&nbsp;2044 W. Carroll in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor in West Town.&nbsp;

According to Natalie van Straaten, founding publisher of Chicago Gallery News and former Executive Director&nbsp;of the Chicago Art Dealers Association (CADA), &quot;Richard Gray was not only recognized and respected&nbsp;in the international art world, but he also helped transform the Chicago art gallery world with vision, guidance and generosity.&nbsp;He was a mentor and model of integrity&nbsp;for other dealers; his encouragement of establishing the CADA, as well as the first international art exposition in Chicag, helped put our city on the map.&nbsp;His gallery&rsquo;s exhibitions of extraordinary artists brought greatness to the city (including Jaume Plensa to the Crown Fountain) and his philanthropy went well beyond the visual arts and the cultural life of Chicago.&quot;

Gray helped found the CADA in 1967 and was one of its early presidents (1967&ndash;1975). He was elected president of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) in 1998, notably the first dealer based outside of New York to hold the position. He served on the board of the Art Institute of Chicago, where&nbsp;an extensive collection of prints and drawings collected by Gray and his wife Mary are shown. He was also a passionate supporter of the Chicago Symphony Orchestr, The Chicago Humanities Festival, and the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. A&nbsp;center for artistic and scholarly collaboration, the&nbsp;Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, opened on the campus of the University of Chicago&nbsp;in 2013.&nbsp;

In a 2013 interview with CGN Gray recalled,&nbsp;&ldquo;Maybe because of my architecture background, I had a particular interest in draftsmanship, prints and drawings.&nbsp;When I opened the gallery, I had the idea that I&rsquo;d be handling that kind of thing, and that&rsquo;s what happened. I started out by representing established and emerging artists primarily working on paper.&rdquo;

Gray&#39;s reach continued to expand, and he&nbsp;went on to sell art&nbsp;in a range of mediums by such well known artists as&nbsp;Jules Olitski, Morris Louis, Louise Nevelson, Hans Hofmann, Fernand L&eacute;ger and Jim Dine.&nbsp;The gallery roster continued to grow over the decades to feature David&nbsp;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 significantly represented&nbsp;aboriginal and African art.

&ldquo;My standards were about trusting my own eye, my own sense of aesthetics,&rdquo; Gray recalled. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t the particular style or period that interested me; it was the individual work of art.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&ldquo;They were the best gallery in Chicago, as far as I was concerned,&rdquo; said artist Jim Dine in 2013, still one of the Grays&rsquo; most-shown artists. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;&nbsp;

van Straaten said, &quot;[Richard] will be missed, but what a great legacy he left for Chicago.&quot;

&nbsp;

To read CGN&#39;s 2013 interview with Paul Gray on the occasion of the gallery&#39;s 50th anniversary, <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2013/9/50-years-a-milestone-arrives-quietly-at-richard-gray-gallery">click here</a>.
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Chicago dealer and art pioneer Richard Gray has died at age 89.

Chicago Art Dealer and Pioneer Richard Gray Has Died at 89

Each week CGN interviews a local art-industry professional to discuss the ins and outs of running a space&nbsp;in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Executive Director and Chief Curator, Solveig &Oslash;vsteb&oslash;&nbsp;of the Renaissance Society.

&nbsp;

Age: 45&nbsp;

Current Position: Executive Director and Chief Curator, the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago

Hometown: Bergen, Norway

Previous Occupation: Executive Director, Bergen Kunsthall (2003-2013)

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5 favorites from the past week:

Restaurant: S.K.Y. in Pilsen

Shop: Seminary Co-op Bookstores

Read: Constance De Jong, Modern Love

Neighborhood: Hyde Park, of course!

Music: Sigrid,&nbsp;an up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Norway

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Tell us about your background and the journey that led you to become Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Renaissance Society?

I joined Bergen Kunsthall as curator in my late 20s as I was finishing up my MA, and a few years later I was appointed director. During my time there I made exhibitions with some incredible artists including&nbsp;Rosa Barba, Danh Vo, Christopher Williams, Nairy Baghramian, Runa Islam, and Sergej Jensen. In the summer of&nbsp;2012 I was invited to apply for this job at the Ren, which of course I couldn&#39;t pass up, and the&nbsp;just about a year later my family and I undertook a very&nbsp;big move across the Atlantic!

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Give us a day in the life!

My daughters are 4 and almost 6, so getting us all ready and out of the house in the morning is often a bit of a circus.

At the office, my days usually consist of meetings with staff and other stakeholders, making plans with artists for upcoming exhibitions, fundraising,&nbsp;writing and editing texts, and of course&nbsp;lots and lots of emails! In the evenings I am frequently out at&nbsp;events with our supporters or seeing exhibitions&nbsp;at other institutions, but if it&#39;s a home night I might hang out with the girls at the playground before dinner.

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What major successes have you had this year? What about challenges?

What has been really exciting in the last year is seeing a number of artworks we have commissioned going&nbsp;out into the world. New projects&nbsp;by Kevin Beasley, Sadie Benning, and Mathias Poledna were acquired by major international museums (Tate Modern, MoMA, and the Art Institute of Chicago, respectively), and Jennifer Packer&#39;s beautiful show&nbsp;Tenderheaded&nbsp;is currently on view at the Rose Museum of Art at Brandeis University near Boston. The Ren is a small and nimble institution that does a&nbsp;lot, so one of my biggest challenges is simply&nbsp;managing my time and a very varied workload.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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How would you sum up your experience with the Renaissance Society thus far?

My experience at the Ren so far has been truly amazing. I feel that one of the greatest things about being a curator is just continually learning from artists, being alongside them&nbsp;from initial idea to final presentation. I also learn a ton from my brilliant team of colleagues.&nbsp;I faced a&nbsp;steep learning curve when I arrived in Chicago in terms of negotiating a new and very different cultural and professional field, but I have been humbled by, and am so grateful for, the community of support I have found around the Ren, from the generosity of funders to the enthusiasm of artists to work with us.

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What do you want to tell a young person considering this career path?

Look at art, read about art, talk to artists. Stay informed, but avoid chasing trends. And treat people well.

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Favorite&nbsp;pursuit outside of the art world?

I love swimming in Lake Michigan (in the&nbsp;summer) and doing anything outdoors.

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What&rsquo;s coming up next at the Renaissance Society?

Our current exhibition, <a href="http://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/530/richard-rezac-address/">Richard Rezac: Address</a>, runs through&nbsp;June 17 and really shouldn&#39;t be missed! I&#39;m also particularly&nbsp;excited about solo shows next season with Shadi Habib Allah in the fall&nbsp;and Liz Magor in the spring.

&nbsp;

Solveig &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; is Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Renaissance Society. For more information about the space please visit: <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/the-renaissance-society">The Renaissance Society</a>.

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An Interview with a Curator: Solveig Øvstebø

<h2>Chicago Architecture Biennial appoints Sepake Angiama and Paulo Tavares as 2019 co-curators</h2>

The&nbsp;Chicago Architecture Biennial&nbsp;has selected two co-curators for its 2019 program, educator and curator Sepake Angiama,&nbsp;and architect and urbanist&nbsp;Paulo Tavares. Along with&nbsp;creative director Yesomi&nbsp;Umolu, Angiama and Tavares will round out the curatorial team of the Biennials&rsquo; third installment, launching in September 2019 and running through January 2020.

By Elizabeth Blasius, The Architects Newspaper

<a href="https://archpaper.com/2018/05/chicago-architecture-biennial-announces-appointment-sepake-angiama-paulo-tavares-2019-co-curators/">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2770" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2770/original/sold-1792500-world-auction-record-frank-frazetta-death-dealer-6-pa-617x1024.jpg" />

<h2>Records Trampled&nbsp;At Heritage&rsquo;s Comics &amp; Comic Art Auction</h2>

CHICAGO &mdash; Artist Frank Frazetta&rsquo;s painting &ldquo;Death Dealer 6,&rdquo; 1990, set a world auction record for the artist when it sold for $1,792,500, nearly three times its estimate, at Heritage Auctions May 10-12.

Via Antiques and the Arts&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/records-trampled-at-heritages-comics-comic-art-auction/">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="Pedestrians stop to view a &quot;Chicago Gun Share Program&quot; exhibit made up of mock AR-15 rifles at Daley Plaza on May 14, 2018. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)" data-rich-file-id="2771" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2771/original/ct-1526325632-k85xr58u0t-snap-image.jpg" />

<h2>No, it&#39;s not a bike rack: Art installation on Daley Plaza is a line of mock AR-15s</h2>

Glance at it quickly and you might think it&rsquo;s a bike rack. But look closer and you&rsquo;ll see that the art installation at Daley Plaza includes a line of mock AR-15 military-style rifles.

Purposely set up in one of the busiest pedestrian spots in the Loop, the short-term exhibit &ldquo;Chicago Gun Share Program,&rdquo; resembles a&nbsp;Divvy&nbsp;bike-share docking station and invites visitors to consider how easy it is for people get their hands on weapons, said Norm Bilow, of the Chicago-based advertising agency Escape Pod. The agency, along with the Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence, created the exhibit that went up last week and will remain in the Loop until Wednesday.

By Elvia Malagon, The Chicago Tribune&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-daley-center-gun-exhibit-20180514-story.html">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="Third-year tutor and artist Brian Griffiths with Martin Gross, who graduated from the Schools last year Cat Garcia" data-rich-file-id="2772" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2772/original/301-fo-bl-ra-schools-cat-garcia-notcut.jpg" />

<h2>How the Royal Academy Schools shook off their fusty image</h2>

Once seen as a bastion of tradition ignored by young artists, the institution&#39;s postgraduate fine art course has become the most desirable in London

By Ben Luke, The Art Newspaper

<a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/feature/shaking-off-the-fusty-image">Read More</a>

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Top Image: Courtesy of&nbsp;Chicago Architecture Biennial

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News from Around the Art World: May 14, 2018

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417960/cpq67r27pjzdhqase2h4.png"></figure>&nbsp;By RILEY YAXLEYTrace, Ai Weiwei’s monumental work, comprises nearly one million individual LEGO® bricks depicting 176 men and women who are prisoners of conscience, and exploring the theme of incarceration of citizens by governments. It is being exhibited for the first time in Chicago.This is the second time that the artwork will be on view to the public since its original exhibition at Alcatraz, the former federal penitentiary in San Francisco, in 2014. Trace was one of seven pieces that made up @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, which drew nearly one million visitors. In 2017, Trace made its institutional debut at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and was acquired for their permanent collection. The site-specific installation of Ai Weiwei: Trace in Chicago is organized by the Hirshhorn and continues Alphawood Exhibitions’ history of socially engaged, and politically charged, shows following 2016’s Art AIDS America and 2017’s Then They Came For Me.Trace’s creation was influenced by Ai Weiwei’s own experience with imprisonment by the Chinese government. In 2011, he was incarcerated, interrogated, and beaten by the police in Beijing and was held for 81 days before he was released and officially charged. Weiwei was charged with tax evasion and had his passport confiscated. He was unable to travel abroad until 2015 and fabricated Trace remotely from his studio in Beijing in partnership with the FOR-SITE Foundation. Each portrait features an individual, selected by Amnesty International and through Ai Weiwei’s research, whom the artist considers activists, prisoners of conscience, and advocates of free speech.<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2769/original/untitled.jpg" alt=""></figure>The opening of Ai Weiwei: Trace in Chicago was preceded by A Conversation with Ai Weiwei at the Auditorium Theater of Roosevelt University. The talk featured Ai Weiwei in conversation with Melissa Chiu, Director of the Hirshhorn Museum.Trace will be on view at a new gallery space in Lincoln Park, located at 659 W. Wrightwood Ave. from May 9 to June 30. The new exhibition space is designed to be a meditative, thought-provoking environment. In order to maintain this experience, admission is limited and by online reservation only. Free timed tickets are available, and can be reserved at <a href="http://www.alphawoodex.org/">http://www.alphawoodex.org/</a></body></html>

'Ai Weiwei: Trace in Chicago' brings the Famed Contemporary Artist to a New Exhibition Space

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418589/fwjxrbr19y5n7d2uoueo.jpg"><figcaption>Brian Westphal and Michael Mcvickar’s open living room is filled with paintings hung salon style, complemented by contemporary furniture and design</figcaption></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEADuring one of Chicago’s very snowy days this winter, I made my way down a quiet North Side block blanketed in white and pulled up to an industrial looking building that, from the outside, I wasn’t quite sure was the right address. I knew only that I was supposed to visit collectors at their Ravenswood residence. I peeked into a side window and saw someone at a desk jump up to meet me at the door, and a moment later Brian Westphal and Michael McVickar invited me out of the snow and into their art-filled home.&nbsp;After shedding my down-filled layers and meeting the couple’s cats, we first enjoyed some gourmet coffee prepared in a hidden, designer prep space just off of the kitchen. The story of how Brian and Mike’s home came to be was on my mind as soon as I walked in. While the walls are filled with dozens of contemporary paintings and other works of art, the character of the open, ground floor space is also largely defined by its industrial bones, since the building once housed a motor oil company. &nbsp;The couple gutted and rehabbed their previous home, a worker’s cottage in Roscoe Village. According to Mike, “It was a beautiful little house, but it was on a smaller than normal city lot. We basically still had this list of things that would be nice to have.”&nbsp;One day, when Mike was looking through The Chicago Reader real estate section, he noticed an ad for a small factory building for sale in Ravenswood. The listing, he recalls, had bells and whistles that both he and Brian wished their existing house had.“So,” Mike remembers, “I said let’s just go check it out. We called our realtor and came over for a look. Basically it was just a brick box.” The building was two stories, with the first floor totally open and without a kitchen. It had also been neglected. Open windows had let in water, which led to moldy floors. The walls that did exist didn’t go to the ceiling. Because the previous owners had left Chicago and not kept a close eye on things, the space had also been broken into. Graffiti tags were spray painted on the concrete pillars on the first floor.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2752/original/img-6645.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Westphal and mcvickar seated at home in front of Laurie Hogin’s painting, Fabulous Exotics</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Mike adds, “It was kind of a hard living space. We walked out, and I said, ‘No way in hell are we buying this place and leaving our really nice, finished little house.”&nbsp;Brian remembers it differently, “He didn’t say that.”“Yes I did,” counters Mike. “Brian was the one who said it was perfect and that we could do so much with it.”Eventually, of course, they did buy the building. Brian saw promise in the larger lot size and the yard. Even though there was nothing there yet, he says, “It was just grass, but it was clearly a cool space.”&nbsp;Mike admits, “Had we not previously been through a whole house construction project, I would have run out the door. But we did understand that we could probably get it to look like we wanted.”Though the project did seem daunting, a previous owner had originally purchased the property intending to live there. They cleaned up the environmental issues, such as a tow truck in the yard and old storage tanks, which were still present once the factory had closed. By the time Brian and Mike came along, the building had a new roof, as well as a new heating system and windows. They were able to move in and live in the space for a while as they began the work of putting in the first floor kitchen, as well as bathrooms and rooms upstairs. They maintained the original open floor plan and kept concrete ceilings, but they covered up some of the exposed brick in order to hang art and simplify the look of the space.&nbsp;Brian and Mike began buying art together long before embarking on their home renovation. As Mike recalls, “It was a natural evolution. First we had posters, and then Brian started buying some finer framed things.”Brian tells Mike, “You actually said, ‘I don’t want to hang a bunch of posters on the wall.’ And since we had had a good friend of ours stay with us, and he had been collecting art –”&nbsp;“Yes,” finishes Mike, “He was the first person we knew who had art. That opened the door for us to see that real people do actually buy these things.”Those regular encounters through their friend got Mike and Brian to think that they could also learn about and buy art that they loved. For Brian, he admits that they began to understand they valued their friend’s art because it made them ask questions. They were constantly curious about what it was and what made it stand out to them.&nbsp;The next step to discovering art on their own meant visiting galleries. Though they acknowledge that galleries seemed intimidating at first, mostly due to their own inexperience, as well as what they recall as sticker shock, they slowly got to know a few established dealers, such as River North veteran Ann Nathan, and little by little they overcame what Mike considers initial hurdles. Victor Armendariz, who worked with Nathan for many years, told the couple when they were starting to buy that once they got into it, they wouldn’t be able to stop, something that they now know to be absolutely true.&nbsp;“There was a piece by Jeffrey Kamberos,” says Brian, “that we had seen at least a year before we bought it, and it just so happened that it never sold. We kept talking about the piece, and after a year, we thought, ‘We obviously want this painting,’ so we finally bought it and, as Victor warned, it’s been downhill ever since.”Standing in Mike and Brian’s living room, I sensed many pairs of eyes on me. Looking around I noticed many different faces and bodies in the art on view.&nbsp; Much of the work that the couple collects is figurative, which explains their early interactions with dealers like Nathan and Armendariz, as well as William Lieberman, who each represent many figurative artists.As Mike explains, “We were definitely drawn to figurative work.” Brian adds that they didn’t set out with an exclusive collecting focus, but rather it revealed itself as a dominant draw over time. Eventually the pair decided that narrowing their collecting focus would help further develop their taste.&nbsp;Eventually both Brian and Mike had to acknowledge that they had gone beyond casual art buying. “It took me a while to say I am a collector,” admits Brian. For Mike, the label came almost out of a necessity to define their role in the art world, “Well, people will ask, ‘Are you an artist or a collector?’ So, you kind of end up owning the term collector, because we are not artists,” he says.&nbsp;Like other collectors in Chicago I have had the pleasure of interviewing, Brian shares a familiar sentiment about a life with art, “We buy what we love and we love to live with it, so that’s why we do it.” For Mike as well, he says they are not really trying to amass a collection of anything. He emphasizes, “I mean, it really just happens.”Brian and Mike continue to spend plenty of time visiting galleries and art fairs, but they also acknowledge the ease, as well as the pitfalls, of having so much art available online. For Brian, “These days its much easier with everything being online, since you can easily see and find lots of work. On the other hand you don’t have to go out as much. It’s become like anything else – it’s sort of an Amazon.com world.”&nbsp;They do still go to galleries, though they confess not as much as they used to. It’s a little awkward to admit, but Brian says, “We used to go a lot more.”Despite the lure of the comforts of home, the social aspect of the art community cannot be obliterated by the Amazonification of everything. Mike explains, “We like seeing the gallerists and artists, we like running into other collectors. It’s the people who really draw us out.”<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2753/original/royalty-2c-2008-2c-oil-on-panel-2c-32-x-36-2c-photo-by-tom-van-eynde-copy.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Maria Tomasula, Royalty, 2008, oil on panel, 32” x 36”</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Now the couple says they average at least one purchase a year, their most recent being a porcelain, multimedia piece by Rodrigo Lara Zendejas. Mike interjects, “We had a party here, and we had just gotten this piece that day. William [Lieberman] and Brian [Gillham] from the gallery [Zolla/Lieberman] had told us they were going to come up sometime to help us hang it, but they came to the party and put it up right then. It was a fun example of how so many things come together in the art world.”When explaining what it is about figurative work that appeals to each of them, Mike says, “It comes down to the fact that I just don’t get abstract art. I can understand some of it, but I just find it kind of esoteric that you have to go in and you have to learn. It’s not a bad thing to have to learn the artist’s perspective of course, but I want to look at something and be able to form a narrative on my own.”Brian gets to the point: “We don’t ultimately care whether there is a meaning behind these pieces. People come over and ask me, ‘What’s this about?’ Well, we don’t know. I usually say it’s whatever you want it to be. But for us there’s resonance to seeing people, rather than the abstract.”To Mike, art is primarily visual, and it should be personally appealing, “It can be beautiful to you or not. Maybe sometimes it gets more beautiful the more you look.” He sees the attraction like a relationship, one that in order to last must go deeper than a first impression. For Mike and Brian, art must also defy its surroundings. As Mike puts it, “I just can’t stand hearing people say something like, “Where am I going to put that? Will it fit over the sofa? That’s not why you buy a piece of art.”Talking more about why exactly you do buy a piece of art, Brian and Mike went back and forth about how their own collecting journey might look to a younger generation that has been adamant about seeking experiences over things. Reflects Brian, “To me these paintings are not things, they are not objects you are going to use for a while and either dispose of, or just upgrade, later. These are things you want to live with, so in a way they are experiential because every time you walk into the room you know you are affected by what they do to you in this space.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2755/original/chapin-aleah-laugh-copy.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Aleah Chapin, LAUGH, oil on canvas, 40” x 48”, 2011</figcaption></figure>Mike is enthusiastic about the uniqueness art brings to his day-to-day routine. “I love that I’m the only one in the world that has that painting by that artist,” he says, pointing to a striking scene of a cluster of older, nude women embracing each other and laughing, like they’re sharing secrets while posing for a candid photo in school days. He explains, “That’s an interesting piece – it’s a very inviting and realistic portrayal of these aging women together. One of them is the artist’s mother, and the others are her family friends. It was kind of a woman-power thing, years ago before all the stuff people have been addressing now. The artist, Aleah Chapin, is an amazing person. To me it’s the whole package.”&nbsp;Brian and Mike first saw Chapin’s work at the New York Academy of Arts several years ago. After wandering through the various spaces and seeing work by first and second year students in various stages of progress, they noticed a painting that a young artist who was getting her MFA, Chapin, was working on. Some time later, Brian saw another piece of Chapin’s become available through Flowers Gallery in London. The couple decided to buy it, since it had been on their minds all that time. A few months later she was announced as a finalist for the 2012 BP Portrait Award in London, and eventually she was named the winner for the piece that Brian and Mike had seen back at NYAA. “The prices for her art went through the roof, if you could even get them,” says Brian. “We loved the piece we bought, number one, and we wanted it for that reason, but it’s fun to think we did a good job identifying it early on. I’m delighted that we have this in our house.”&nbsp;For Mike, he says he loves the back-story about the painting’s subjects as well as the tale of how they found it, but ultimately he just likes how it looks. “It’s great to have that history behind the painting, but I don’t need that to appreciate this. That’s what I think I miss in abstract art – I feel like I can’t appreciate it unless I always know everything about the artist and all the elements of the work. For me hopefully any one of these works [at home] stands on their own. You can love or hate it, but you don’t necessarily need to know the details to really appreciate it.”Brian agrees, “There’s enough art out there for everybody. You can pick your own style and decide what you like. For us, this is what we love.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2754/original/img-4491.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>The Happy Garage, by Chris Uphues</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

An interview with Chicago collectors Brian Westphal and Michael McVickar

Building a Home for Art: Reviving an Industrial Space in Ravenswood

<h2>Santiago Calatrava chosen to design public art sculpture at River&nbsp;Point</h2>

Santiago Calatrava&rsquo;s 2,000-foot-tall Chicago Spire never did get built, thanks to a recession that had nothing to do with his spectacular design. But, Calatrava will leave his mark on Chicago, nevertheless.

The Spanish architect, structural engineer, sculptor, painter and all-around Renaissance man has been chosen to create an outdoor sculpture that will be installed at developers&rsquo; expense in the park at River Point, the 52-story office tower at Lake and Canal that includes a 1.5-acre public park over rail lines.

By Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun Times

<a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/calatrava-chosen-public-art-sculpture-at-river-point-chicago-river/">Read More</a>

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<h2>Art Institute of Chicago Name Ellenor Alcorn&nbsp;Chair and Curator of&nbsp;European Decorative Arts</h2>

The Art Institute of Chicago has appointed&nbsp;Ellenor Alcorn&nbsp;as the new chair and curator of the department of European Decorative Arts. Alcorn most recently served as a curator in the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She will join the museum in September.

Via Art Forum

<a href="https://www.artforum.com/news/art-institute-of-chicago-names-ellenor-alcorn-chair-and-curator-of-european-decorative-arts-75310">Read More</a>

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<h2>The art of diversity: how power is shifting at the top of US museums</h2>

Last month, former Nasa scientist&nbsp;Ellen Stofan&nbsp;walked into the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and unlocked the door to the director&rsquo;s office &ndash; which, for the first time, was her own. It was a breakthrough moment, as the museum has always had a male director since it first opened in 1976,&nbsp;until now.

By Nadja Sayej, The Guardian

<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/may/07/us-museums-diversity-women-power-shifting-washington-new-york">Read More</a>

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<h2>Art, revolution and the &lsquo;Golden Age of the Cuban Poster&rsquo;</h2>

During a period of profound and rapid social and political changes, the Cuban poster boldly documented and embodied the spirit and ideals of the Cuban revolution. &lsquo;Thanks to those daring, inspired artists, an important part of the visual memory of Cubans is indelibly imprinted in their bold graphic designs,&rsquo; writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes in&nbsp;Mira Cuba: The Cuban Poster Art from 1959&nbsp;(2014). &lsquo;It had a dignity and an aesthetic standing that turned the utilitarian poster into a milestone of Cuban cultural history in the second half of the twentieth century.&rsquo;

Via Christie&#39;s

<a href="http://During a period of profound and rapid social and political changes, the Cuban poster boldly documented and embodied the spirit and ideals of the Cuban revolution. ‘Thanks to those daring, inspired artists, an important part of the visual memory of Cubans is indelibly imprinted in their bold graphic designs,’ writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes in Mira Cuba: The Cuban Poster Art from 1959 (2014). ‘It had a dignity and an aesthetic standing that turned the utilitarian poster into a milestone of Cuban cultural history in the second half of the twentieth century.’">Read More</a>

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<h2>Investing Canvas: Many Planners Add Art Valuation to a Portfolio Conversation</h2>

Art as investment for high-net-worth individuals is on its way to new heights, according to a 2017 report.

The global value of art held by ultrahigh-net-worth individuals is expected to rise to $2.6 trillion by 2026, up from $1.6 trillion in 2016, according to the report by consultants Deloitte Luxembourg &amp; ArtTactic, an art-market research firm based in London.

By&nbsp;Jane Hodges, The Wall Street Journal

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/investing-canvas-many-planners-add-art-valuation-to-a-portfolio-conversation-1525658820">Read More</a>

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News from Around the Art World: May 7, 2018

Art Design Chicago is a year-long comprehensive arts initiative spotlighting many aspects of Chicago&rsquo;s creative history, and it has inspired and facilitated many collaborative events and exhibitions around the city.&nbsp; ADC celebrates the unique and vital role Chicago plays as America&rsquo;s crossroads of art and design, creativity and commerce with a scope and ambition befitting Chicago&rsquo;s grit and can-do determination. More than 30 exhibitions and hundreds of public programs taking place in 2018 tell the stories of the artists and designers that defined and continue to propel Chicago&rsquo;s role as a hub of imagination and impact.

This summer several notable tours and celebrations taking place. View the full list at <a href="http://artdesignchicago.org">artdesignchicago.org</a>

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<h4>Bus Tour: Mexican Influence &ndash; Art in Pilsen</h4>

May 17 &ndash; Includes the National Museum of Mexican Art&rsquo;s exhibition Arte Dise&ntilde;o Xic&aacute;go and guided tours of Pilsen&rsquo;s murals and the studios of painters/muralists Hector Duarte and Marcos Raya.

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<h4><img alt="" data-caption="Gertrude Abercrombie at the Arts Club" data-rich-file-id="2758" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2758/original/artsclubabercrombie-copy.jpg" /></h4>

<h4>Opening Reception: A Home for Surrealism</h4>

June 7 &ndash; Attend the public opening of A Home for Surrealism: Fanstastic Painting in Midcentury Chicago at the Arts Club of Chicago

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<img alt="" data-caption="Charles White at the Art Institute of Chicago" data-rich-file-id="2759" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2759/original/harvest-talk-copy.jpg" />

<h4>Bus Tour: Charles White and&nbsp;African American Visual Legacies</h4>

June 16 &ndash; Featuring a viewing of Charles White: A Retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago&nbsp;

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<h4>Bus Tour, Sculpture in Chicago, Featuring Richard Hunt</h4>

July 12&nbsp; &ndash; This day-long suburban bus tour visits artist studios and Oakton Community College&rsquo;s Koehnline Museum of Art in Des Plaines to view Sculpting a Chicago Artist: Richard Hunt and his Teachers. Participants attend a reception with Richard Hunt.

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More info on current and upcoming events is at&nbsp;<a href="http://artdesignchicago.org">artdesignchicago.org</a>
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Programming highlights from Art Design Chicago summer 2018

Art Design Chicago: Highlighting Creativity

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418589/n4ateb2eqndfsiwgc0ho.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAThis past fall a creative synthesis of art and design arrived on the South Side of Chicago when Brooklyn-based artist Fabiola Jean-Louis brought her life-size paper gowns and carefully staged photographs to the DuSable Museum in Hyde Park. I met the artist herself in the spring, and we took a tour of the exhibition with Clinée Hedspeth, Director of Curatorial Services at the museum and the woman who brought Jean-Louis to the DuSable. We talked about how art and beauty can be used as vehicles for contemplating and understanding larger issues. After meeting Jean-Louis I not only looked at paper in a whole new light, but I understood the possibilities of recontextualizing multiple histories.&nbsp;Jean-Louis was born in Haiti, and she says her work is primarily informed by her Afro-Caribbean heritage, black culture and the dialogue of mysticism. By reinterpreting generally recognizable images of European (white) nobility and recreating the traditional trappings using deceptively simple materials such as paper, Jean-Louis sets up immersive scenarios though which viewers can reconnect to a violent and complicated past while reimagining a more beautiful and hopeful history. Viewers who encounter her work first see a stunning, familiar image, and then they detect the questions beneath the surface. This, for Jean-Louis, is how she seeks to rewrite history – not to change the past but to use history to challenge the present and therefore change society in the future.&nbsp;The DuSable is an institution devoted to the historic and artistic examination of the African American experience, an evolving mission that is carried out in endless ways. This latest exhibition represents a new direction for the museum. Following is an edited transcript of my conversation with both Jean-Louis and Hedspeth.&nbsp; –GV&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2745/original/conquistador.jpg" alt=""></figure>CGN: Clinée, when we first met you told me you discovered Fabiola’s art online at 2 o’clock in the morning. Her work was so personal to you, even through a screen, that you were compelled to contact here. Tell me how you came to collaborate on an exhibition at the DuSable Museum.Clinée Hedspeth: I wasn’t in curatorial here at the time. I was in education, but as a collector I was just in love with her work. So I sent her an email, and she responded. That was before we had a chief curator at the museum, so we kept talking, I looked at more of her work, and then all of the sudden I said, “You need to come here. Let me see what I can do.”&nbsp;Fabiola Jean-Louis: And then we started having conversations with the new curator at first, and then for about a year and a half, about a small group show with two other artists.CH: I had to climb the ladder where I could bring her in. [Laughter]&nbsp;FJL: There were changes happening at the museum and they were looking at the new face of the DuSable and what the new exhibitions would look like, and that took time. When Lee Bey came on board, together with Clinée he said, “We’re gonna make it happen.” And at that point it was like a race to get ready.<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2750/original/passing.jpg" alt=""></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2747/original/dsupu7lueaartju.jpg" alt=""></figure>CGN: Have you had an exhibition on this scale anywhere prior to now? You must have needed a lot of time to get everything ready.&nbsp;FJL: A lot of time. The first ever show that I had with Rewriting History was when it was still very young at the Harlem School of the Arts. That show consisted of two and a half sculptures and maybe four to six prints. By the time Clinée and I started working together I had added more pieces and improved my skill set with how I was making the dresses.&nbsp;So, I got to the point where I needed to remake dresses again. Here is a dress [points] with a totally different type of paper. It’s an archival paper. The original was a newsprint. This paper just had a better flow. Also the cut of the dress is different. I wanted something that is more true to what existed, as far as shape, and the original wasn’t. So for display purposes, I really wanted the actual sculpture to have the right cut and proportion, and it needed to be redone. I also had to spray a dye onto it versus using acrylic paint.The DuSable is my first museum show, and I’m so happy. I’ve always said that it was really important to show my work in a black museum. It also helps that DuSable is a Smithsonian affiliate, since another goal for me has been to get to the Smithsonian. This is a dream come true. This is like the granddaddy of all the granddaddies.CH: Fabiola doesn’t make work catered to the space, and that’s what I loved about her work. At first I didn’t know what was done to make a piece, but once the show was going to happen I had to ask, ‘What’s the checklist?’&nbsp;FJL: It actually takes me four to five months to get one shot, because of conceptualizing, and making the dress. I had to get to a point where I could pump out a dress in a week.&nbsp;CGN: The beauty of each piece is the tip of the iceberg. There’s also the historical context and the story behind it. Are there different stories connected to each piece, or are they each different chapters of a larger story?FJL: Different chapters of a larger story. I do my research and think about history, but I’m not an academic. It’s something that I have to go and find. Also, prior to doing Rewriting History, I was a pre-med student. My career was set to become a doctor, so I’m academic in that sense, but when it comes to the work for Rewriting History it really has to start from this very organic, raw place. Sometimes I don’t even read; it’s about what I know has happened already. I think about the black experience as being non-linear, and I try to tap into as many different aspects of that story as I can. For instance, being a black woman, being Afro-Caribbean – I don’t identify as African American – personally it’s me working from those different places. I also look at the space of the black experience being African American. What does that look like and how does that relate to me? It ends up being part of a larger story, but it’s different chapters. It doesn’t mean that the stories aren’t related in some way. They’re all relative. It’s ultimately about the same thing – injustice, trauma, and violence against black bodies.<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2749/original/madame-beauvoirs-painting-flyer-t580.jpg" alt=""></figure>CGN: When you think about the horrors of so many aspects of history for African Americans, Afro-caribbeans, black people, are you using beauty to get attention or communicate? Is there an element where beauty is a sort of mask? How do you use beauty to connect to something so atrocious?FJL: I like that word, actually. I haven’t used that word mask, and it’s making me think. I think that here beauty can be seen as a mask used to uncover something deeper, for sure.&nbsp;CGN: We do that all the time.&nbsp;FJL: That’s right, because I use beauty as a vehicle to carry my viewers through this journey and take them to a place that’s uncomfortable at some point. But mask, I think, is also very true to that. It’s also being used to uncover something that’s very ugly. It definitely speaks to my response to how I see our society being desensitized to injustice and again, violence against black bodies.&nbsp;Early on in the series when I was creating, I knew for sure that I wasn’t interested in showing the blood and the gore. Us being murdered. Even when I do presentations, I don’t include pictures that are during slavery or even in the ‘50s when black men and women are hanging. It’s so important, to me, to preserve us in some way. And I feel like every time we see us being shot and blood and all that it’s just like there’s no respect.&nbsp;CGN: Well sometimes it ends up being distracting. People just want to look at the blood and gore without thinking about how it got there.FJL: Exactly, without connecting to the actual thing or incident. So I knew early on that I wasn’t going to do that. I took my time to think about how I was going to present it, and beauty became a very clear means, because at the same time I wanted to create work that would be welcoming to different people, and not just the Black Diaspora, but anyone interested in talking about race. I want them to feel welcomed into this space to talk about it. That’s&nbsp;not to say that there’s [something] apologetic in the work at all or that I’m going to hold back from what I feel is important to the story.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2746/original/dntom7au8aettxq.jpg" alt=""></figure>CGN: When talking about history you said you reference historical situations you know are true, but&nbsp;you’re not relying on academic texts or timelines. The title of the exhibition is Rewriting History.&nbsp;What do you think about being revisionist? It sounds to me like you’re not trying to rewrite the past. You’re actually just trying to understand it from now going forward.&nbsp;FJL: Right. The rewriting part is not literal. It’s not for me to do, because I can’t anyway.&nbsp;CGN: You’re not rewriting it because you’re showing what happened.&nbsp;FJL: It’s more of a What if? What if I could? What if we were always celebrated? The series just shows black female bodies, black women. That’s what I’m most comfortable showing. It’s not that I don’t want to include black men in the work, but as a photographer, as an artist, I’m more comfortable working with the black female body. We’ve been disrespected, so this for me asks a question, while also remembering what actually happened.I’m a firm believer in the saying that in order to know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been. You have to know where you are. It’s not about forgetting the past. It is about rethinking how we see beauty, how we celebrate the black female body, and rethinking what freedom actually looks like. Is freedom always this big grand thing, or is freedom the simplicity of just sitting for a portrait? The leisure of having the time to be painted or photographed. We take the simplicity of freedom for granted. So the series is about going deeper into what freedom actually looks like, and what freedom is.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2748/original/fabiola-461x600.jpg" alt=""></figure>CGN: There’s another level of just considering a woman’s lifestyle – the trappings of beauty, all of the stuff that has to be out adorning, rather than just within, the body.&nbsp;FJL: We can talk about leisure and the freedom to be painted, but we also acknowledge how even those women were imprisoned, in a way. Fashion was a means to do that. They had to wear these tight corsets.CGN: You mean beauty is pain.&nbsp;FJL: The corset for me takes this on. It’s something really beautiful and aesthetic, but when we think about what it actually stands for, it’s not. It’s confining. It’s choking. The corset represents, for the black women in my works, society, racism and all the limitations that we’ve had. It’s always a dance between how fashion and the celebration of beauty and taking and owning space relates to the things that we take for granted: like fashion, a painting, or who gets to wear what.&nbsp;CGN: Tell me about your artistic process. The sculptures are each related to the photographs, and&nbsp;you said it can take months to set up a single shoot.FJL: I don’t look at other photographers as inspiration for my work. I always look at paintings. My library has just books and museum catalogues that show actual garments, if they have it, and paintings – Boucher, Fragonard, Rembrandt, artists like that. Rewriting History is me showing a contemporary way of what I think a painting looks like. I’m not a painter, even though the pieces in my photographs I’ve painted.&nbsp;I try to get a digital photograph to look like a painting. The first part of the process is looking at those master painters and doing research. Sometimes, the work is a response to what’s happening currently. Other times it’s intuition – a conversation I’m having with my ancestors.Then through that space I think about the concept I want to bring to life. When I figure that out I decide on the style and design. I’m always looking at 16th–19th Century Fashion for reference.CGN: That’s a pretty big time-span.FJL: [Laughter] Well, I think about the style that’s most appealing to me, and sometimes the dresses are going to be replicas of what was in a painting. Early on the dresses were a mixture of different periods. Now, I’m more interested in replicas. I don’t sketch anything. I just can’t operate in that space. It’s too limiting for me.&nbsp;CGN: I would not have guessed that.&nbsp;FJL: I have five notebooks for sketching that I convince myself that I’m going to use, but I just can’t do it.&nbsp;CGN: So, it’s really as you go?FJL: That’s what’s so free about it. I can add on, and it’s all about emotion. At the same time I’m also thinking about the set. I have to think about the design and how I’m going to bring the lighting in and tell the story.&nbsp;CGN: Does every piece end up as part of a photograph?FJL: Usually, yes,but not every single piece. For the DuSable they have two dress that have not been worn yet, and so there are no photographs of these pieces. It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be. I have to work backwards because I had the design and the dress already, but I want to add them into the photographs.&nbsp;CGN: Your photographs have a painterly quality, as you said. Here you photographed your daughter wearing your sculpture and props, and then you&nbsp;digitally apply a veneer that makes it not quite real.FJL: It’s become my style of photography. I just love everything that’s painterly. That in itself takes hours to do. After the photograph is done, it takes me about four days of editing to just paint and Photoshop to get it to look that way. And there’s another reason why it needs to be like a painting – that’s where we are often missing. If I go to a museum, I’m not going to see the black body in a master painting celebrated in that way. If the black body is in that painting, someone is often either enslaved, or they just disappear into the backdrop.&nbsp;CGN: Or they’re in an exotic culture.&nbsp;FJL: And fetishized in some way. So it starts there with a painting; the goal was always to have them in a museum.CGN: You want to put them where they are not.&nbsp;FJL: So I’m not very interested in a photograph really. Even though I use the camera as a tool, like a painter uses a brush, my goal is not to get something that literally looks like a photograph. I’m more interested in something that seems otherworldly.&nbsp;CGN: What materials do you use?&nbsp;FJL: I use acrylic paints. I use dyes, coffee [and] natural stain. I use handmade Japanese paper, or just a simple French craft paper. Sometimes I make my own paper. It depends on what I’m working on and the scale of it. Now my work has progressed to include furniture, jewelry and shoes. So, it’s a madness.&nbsp;CGN: You are at the beginning of your career. Where do you think you will go next?&nbsp;FJL: Rewriting History is inspired by my history and my identity. It’s about analyzing myself and who I am as a black woman, as an artist, as a mother. I’m grateful for the series because it inspired a lot of work that’s going to be an extension of Rewriting History. The work is continuous and still developing. It’s never-ending.&nbsp;&nbsp;Rewriting History is on view through May 23 at the <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/dusable-museum">DuSable Museum of African American History</a>.&nbsp;Note: After the interview was conducted Clinée Hedspeth moved on from curatorial work with the DuSable Museum in April 2018 to independent art consulting and appraising. She continues to represent Fabiola Jean-Louis’s projects.</body></html>

Artist Fabiola Jean-Louis at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago

Fabiola Jean-Louis: Rewriting History Through Beauty

Each week CGN interviews a local art-industry professional to discuss the ins and outs of running a space&nbsp;in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with art dealer Teresa Hofheimer of <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/hofheimer-gallery">Hofheimer Gallery</a>.

&nbsp;

Age: 64

Current Position: Gallery Owner

Hometown: Anderson, South Carolina

Previous Occupations: Executive Assistant, Figure Drawing/PaintingInstructor, Plein Air Painting Instructor

&nbsp;

5 favorites from the past week&nbsp;

Restaurant: Herb Restaurant - great Thai food

Shop: Women and Children Book Store in Andersonville

Read: Two books -&nbsp;Paris in the Present Tense&nbsp;by&nbsp;Mark Helprin and The Italian Teacher&nbsp;by&nbsp;Tom Rachman

Neighborhood: Andersonville

Music: John Coltrane

&nbsp;

How did you become an art dealer?&nbsp;

TH: I had been thinking about opening a fine arts gallery for a long time and when the space I&rsquo;m currently in became available, I took the plunge.&nbsp;I am a painter and I cannot remember a time when I was not making art or in&nbsp;the&nbsp;pursuit of&nbsp;seeing other artists work.&nbsp;I know first-hand how many talented artists there are in Chicago and there are only so many galleries.&nbsp;Art needs to be viewed and experienced in real time.&nbsp;The gallery&rsquo;s&nbsp;focus&nbsp;will be contemporary painting and sculpture, primarily showcasing Chicago artists.&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Give us a day in the life!

TH: I usually arrive around 11 in the morning, make a cup of coffee and start answering emails.&nbsp; I have been spending a great deal of time on the computer and I don&rsquo;t see that letting up anytime soon.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m looking at a lot of work online and I have been trying to schedule one or two studio visits a week.&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Hofheimer Gallery has been in business for almost two months now, but we know it has taken a lot to get things going. How would you sum up your experience setting up shop?&nbsp; 

TH: Most days I feel like I&rsquo;m running around with my hair on fire.&nbsp; In three months I&rsquo;ve had to set up the business end of owning a gallery, contacting and visiting artists studios, scheduling solo and groups shows, curating and hanging the exhibitions, then hold an opening reception with the artists!&nbsp;I have exhibitions scheduled through February 2019.

&nbsp;

Is there a particular favorite memory in the process of opening the gallery?

TH: My favorite was when I hung the gallery&rsquo;s first exhibition, which was a solo show of Chicago artist, Betty Cleeland&rsquo;s&nbsp;paintings.&nbsp;Her work transformed the space and made it very real for me.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

What do you want to tell a young person considering this business?

TH: At this point, I don&rsquo;t think I would try to tell them anything.&nbsp;Instead I would&nbsp;ask them, &quot;what are you waiting for?&quot;&nbsp;There is never going to be a perfect time.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Who inspires you?

TH: I have always been inspired by artists who are in it for the long haul.&nbsp; There is something to be said for people who have chosen the arts not only as a profession but as&nbsp;a way of life.&nbsp; To continue decade after decade, to pursue a vision, hone their skills and persist&nbsp;against all odds.&nbsp; That inspires me!

&nbsp;

Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the art world?

TH: I am a voracious reader and see every performance of Hubbard Street Dance Company.

&nbsp;

What&rsquo;s coming up next at Hofheimer Gallery?

TH: This summer will be group shows, in September Judith Roston Freilich will have a solo exhibition, and November will be an outstanding group of Chicago artists working in gouache.

&nbsp;

Teresa Hofheimer&nbsp;is&nbsp;the owner of Hofheimer Gallery. For more information about the gallery please visit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/hofheimer-gallery">Hofheimer Gallery</a>.

&nbsp;

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An Interview with an Art Dealer: Teresa Hofheimer

Art Shay, a Chicago-based photographer whose iconic images are known around the world, died Saturday, April 28 in Deerfield at age 96.&nbsp;

Shay&#39;s photography career spanned 70 years, during which he risked his life capturing tragic images of fighting during&nbsp;WWII, and he created images of the Civil Rights movement that revealed to the world people&#39;s struggles and triumphs.&nbsp;

Shay memorialized&nbsp;celebrities and famous figures&nbsp;like Elizabeth Taylor, Simone de Beauvoir, John F. Kennedy, and Nelson Algren, among&nbsp;others, and he got inside Hugh Hefner&#39;s Playboy mansion to capture socializing bunnies and their guests. He worked for LIFE, Time,&nbsp;Sports Illustrated and many other publications. And Shay&nbsp;was on the ground during the tumultous Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968, reportedly geting maced in the process.

Shay was prolific during his long life and career, and he was admired around the world, but especially in Chicago where he made his home. In 2015 the Musuem of Contemporary Photography gave Shay the Silver Camera award in honor of his important work.&nbsp;

A show of his photographs opens this Friday, May 4 as part of <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/art-shay-writers-and-freedom-fighters">Writers and Freedom Fighters</a>&nbsp;at Gallery Victor Armendariz in River North. Shay was previously represented by friend and long-time dealer Ann Nathan.&nbsp;

Click below to read obituaries from other area news outlets:

<a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/art-shay-legendary-photographer-dies-at-96/">Chicago Sun Times</a>

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-art-shay-tribute-kogan-sidewalks-0431-story.html">Chicago Tribune</a>

&nbsp;

Top image: Richard and Art Shay, MoCP Silver Camera Award, photography by Jessica Tampas

<img alt="" data-caption="Art Shay, Simone de Beauvoir, silver gelatin print, 14 x 11" data-rich-file-id="2737" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2737/original/simonedebeauvior1950artshay.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Art Shay, MLK at Chicago Freedom Rally, archival pigment print, 13 x 19 inches" data-rich-file-id="2735" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2735/original/asy64mlking1966web.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Art Shay, I Am A Man, Memphis, 1968 archival pigment print, 28.5 x 21.5 inches" data-rich-file-id="2733" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2733/original/asy048-artshay.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Art Shay" data-rich-file-id="2734" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2734/original/asy199activistsinfrontof-2bhilton.jpg" />

Photographer Art Shay Dies

<h2>A 48,000% return on a painting may be Illinois&#39; best investment</h2>

(Bloomberg) &mdash; Art may not save the world, but it could help a municipal authority in Illinois.

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority voted Tuesday to sell a painting by Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall, estimated at $8 million to $12 million, at a Sotheby&#39;s auction next month. The MPEA purchased the monumental canvas &ldquo;Past Times&rdquo; for $25,000 in 1997, a potential increase of as much as 48,000 percent.

Illinois can use all the help it can get. On Wednesday, the state sold $500 million of federally tax-exempt bonds. Moody&#39;s Investors Service and S&amp;P Global Ratings rank Illinois one level above junk, the worst rating of any state.

Via Crain&#39;s Chicago Business

<a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20180425/NEWS02/180429912/painting-may-return-48000-return-on-mpeas-investment">Read More</a>

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&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2740" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2740/original/02-05-18-9e-lg.jpg" />

<h2>From the Archives: A Look at Leon Golub&rsquo;s Early Work, in 1955</h2>

An enthusiastic appreciation of younger talents developed in the Windy City. Leon Golub is a highly educated painter. He has two B.A.&rsquo;s (one in art history) and an M.F.A. He now teaches at Wright Junior College and Northwestern University. In an effort to evaluate his own painting and the art of his time, he has made critical revisions of some established evaluations of contemporary art and, in this regard, his writing is more socio-psychological than that of most artists.

Via the Editors of ARTnews

<a href="http://www.artnews.com/2018/04/27/archives-look-leon-golubs-early-work-1955/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2739" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2739/original/screen-shot-2018-04-30-at-4-38-37-pm.jpg" />

<h2>&lsquo;It Is an Unusual and Radical Act&rsquo;: Why the Baltimore Museum Is Selling Blue-Chip Art to Buy Work by Underrepresented Artists</h2>

Lots of museum leaders talk about wanting to diversify their collections. Christopher Bedford, the director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, is actually doing it&mdash;though not everyone may agree with his tactics.

Next month, the museum is&nbsp;due to sell off&nbsp;seven works from its collection by&nbsp;Andy Warhol,&nbsp;Robert Rauschenberg, and other 20th-century titans. The proceeds from the sale of these works by white men&mdash;a sum that could exceed $12 million&mdash;will be used to create a &ldquo;war chest&rdquo; to fund future acquisitions of cutting-edge contemporary art, specifically by women and artists of color.

By Julia Halperin, artnet

<a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/baltimore-museum-deaccession-1274996">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2741" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2741/original/301w-hm-fakes-french-museum.jpg" />

<h2>French museum discovers more than half its collection is fake</h2>

A museum in southern France has handed more than half the works in its collection over to police investigators after experts said they are fakes. The Mus&eacute;e Terrus in the village of Elne, near Perpignan, which is dedicated to the local painter &Eacute;tienne Terrus, who was friends with Henri Matisse and the sculptor Aristide Maillol, reopened after renovation on 27 April. But around 80 of the 140 works owned by the municipal museum are now believed to be falsely attributed to Terrus or outright forgeries...

By&nbsp;Hannah&nbsp;McGivern, The Art Newspaper

<a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/french-museum-discovers-more-than-half-of-its-collection-is-fake">Read More</a>

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News from Around the Art World: April 30, 2018

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

The artist Alex Katz is well known around the world for his colorful, stylized portraits and bold natural landscapes. Prolific for decades, he marked his 90th birthday in 2017 and is still making art. His latest exhibition, Grass and Trees, opened April 12 at Richard Gray Gallery, featuring work that goes in a new direction, proving that we as humans never have to stop observing or creating.&nbsp;

Critic John Yau, in an essay on Katz&rsquo;s new work says, &ldquo;The list of artists who break through to a new way of making art after turning eighty is not very long. Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, and Willem de Kooning are among the few in this category.&rdquo; He points out that in this new series of work is, &ldquo;The feeling of not quite knowing where you are or where you are going, which is rather unsettling when you consider the artist&rsquo;s age.&rdquo;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2760" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2760/original/katz-2c-grass-5-2c-2017-0417018-a.jpg" />

When I visited the gallery on a cold spring morning, I entered the quiet, empty warehouse space and came face to face with a large scale vertical painting of a set of sun&ndash; dappled steps buffetted by thick green foliage. It&rsquo;s not clear whether the steps are going down, or up, since the destination is unseen. The lines are curved and the steps themselves are a bit fuzzy, perhaps from the perspective of someone who has spent 90 years on earth. Everything looks a bit broader and softer; the light is fresh and clear.&nbsp;

Yau emphasizes that the Grass paintings are &ldquo;Unlike anything Katz has ever done before,&rdquo; though he notes their art historical ties through &ldquo;a dialog with Franz Kline&rsquo;s black-and-white abstractions, but solely on Katz&rsquo;s terms. Katz&rsquo;s paint is thinner and the strokes are looser, more at ease with themselves. This is plein-air painting taken to a new level.&rdquo;

<img alt="" data-caption="Alex Katz, Road 2" data-rich-file-id="2731" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2731/original/katz-2c-road-2-2c-2017-1017020-a.jpg" />

In 2015, when he turned 88, Katz told artnet, &ldquo;Most painters, when they get older, they get worse. And the real good ones get better. This is, like, my stab at saying &lsquo;I got better.&rsquo;&rdquo; Indeed he&rsquo;s like the rare musician who, instead of going on a greatest hits tour or taking a standing gig in Las Vegas, continues to write new and relevant music that audiences of all ages enjoy.&nbsp;

In addition to the first painting that greets visitors in the gallery, Road 1, another similar work is hung at the other end of the space, as well as several large scale Grass pieces. On a frigid April day &ndash; snowing, in Chicago, on opening day of baseball season &ndash; the expanses of intense sunny yellow and verdant green are like a caffeine boost after a late night. I feel as if I am standing under a light lamp, absorbing much needed nutrients after too much time in the dark.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="alex katz, three trees 2, 2016, oil on linen, 48 x 84 inches" data-rich-file-id="2732" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2732/original/katz-2c-three-trees-2-2c-2016-1017015-a.jpg" />

Standing close to Grass 5, which at a remarkable 108 x 216 inches is the largest work in the show, I view sections of the linen surface one at a time, noticing the many layers of oil paint in various shades and combinations: green on yellow, green on green, yellow on green, and dark green on lighter green. Marks from Katz&rsquo;s paintbrush bristles are individually visible, creating an effect of blades of grass. I imagin I am shrunk down to the size of a chickadee or suddenly on the lawn of a giant. If that were the case I might feel lost, but standing in the gallery I feel immersed in Katz&rsquo;s powerfully saturated and contrasting colors, moved by brushstrokes that give a feeling of blowing in the breeze.&nbsp;

Commenting on the surface coverage of the works, Yau notes, &ldquo;Katz does not paint even a sliver of sky; there is a feeling of being hemmed in, but it is never oppressive.&rdquo; His focus on the ground makes you look carefully at your surroundings rather than what might be above and beyond. In the case of the Road pieces, I look at what is in front of me, as if truly walking an unfamiliar path. For Yau, art history once again informs these compositions: &ldquo;Katz&rsquo;s Road 1 and Road 2 (both 2017) are in dialog with Paul C&eacute;zanne&rsquo;s La route tournante en sous-bois (Bend in the forest road) (1902&ndash;06). Whereas the road in C&eacute;zanne&rsquo;s painting bends before disappearing, overtaken by the forest, Katz&rsquo;s road goes straight back, narrowing as it rises up the picture plane, until it comes to a halt.&rdquo;

The week that Grass and Trees opened, Katz attended the opening at Richard Gray, and he participated in a talk at the Art Institute with Anne Goldstein, as well as a Q&amp;A at the gallery with Yau and Northwestern University&rsquo;s Ivy Wilson. At 90 Katz continues to push the limits of his own art, as well as participate in an important dialogue about the evolving role of art in our society.&nbsp;

Every year when spring finally comes in the Midwest, everyone knows to enjoy it while it lasts. Katz&rsquo;s career has been long and illustrious. We are fortunate that he has continued to make art that sheds new light on the people and spaces around all of us.

&nbsp;

Alex Katz: Grass and Trees

On view thru June 2

Richard Gray Gallery, Gray Warehouse

2044 W. Carroll, Chicago (60612)

<a href="http://richardgraygallery.com">richardgraygallery.com</a>

&nbsp;

Top image: Grass and Trees installed at Gray Warehouse on Chicago&rsquo;s west side &nbsp;
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Alex Katz at Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago

Seeing the Trees for the Art: Alex Katz Finds New Inspiration at 90

Art Encounter, a non-profit art education organization, is celebrating 40 years this year. Devoted to the mission of educating, empowering, and connecting people of diverse ages and backgrounds through interactive experiences with visual art, the nonprofit also offers art programs to bring greater understanding and connection to underserved youth and seniors at risk of social isolation.&nbsp;

The group is well known for their in-depth and behind-the-scenes art tours, including local day trips to galleries and private collections as well as international trips to see the world&rsquo;s best art. Recent destinations have included Cuba, Venice, New Orleans, Toronto, Detroit, and Brazil.

On May 6, 2018&nbsp;a special 40th anniversary gala, &ldquo;Art Impacts,&rdquo; honors&nbsp;William Lieberman, whose gallery,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/zolla-lieberman-gallery">Zolla/Lieberman</a>, pioneered River North as an art center when his mother Roberta Lieberman co-founded the gallery in 1976. &nbsp;The event is also a tribute to Art Encounter founder Joanna Pinsky&#39;s 40 years of leadership.

Proceeds from the event will help increase the depth and breadth of Art Encounter&rsquo;s future community outreach programming. One of the highlights of this year&rsquo;s Gala will be the art auction of master works by 35 prestigious artists, many of them represented by Zolla/Lieberman, including Phyllis Bramson, William Conger, John Fraser, Josh Garber, Vera Klement, David Kroll, Michael Nakoneczny, Ren&eacute;&nbsp;Romero Schuler, Buzz Spector, Jay Strommen, Maria Tomasula, Glenn Wexler, and others. The event also calls attention to the large number of women artists represented by the gallery.

Art Encounter was founded by three artists who believed that &ldquo;there are many ways to see&rdquo;, and that meaningful and collaborative encounters with art have many benefits. Program offerings, which annually serve over 3,500 people and reach people of all ages and backgrounds, engage with public school children and nursing home residents, residents of Englewood as well as Evanston, young parents and active retirees.

The Art Impacts Gala takes place Sunday, May 6 from 2-5pm at the Woman&#39;s Club of Evanston,&nbsp;1700 Chicago Avenue (Evanston). Tickets are&nbsp;$125.

You can bid in the auction online in advance via <a href="https://paddle8.com/auction/art-encounter/">Paddle8</a>.

Visit&nbsp;<a href="http://artencounter.org">artencounter.org</a>&nbsp;for details.

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Art Encounter founder Joanna Pinsky, and Pagoda Red's Betsy Nathan" data-rich-file-id="2725" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2725/original/2.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Art Encounter participants" data-rich-file-id="2727" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2727/original/4.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Phyllis Bramson, The Good Keeper of All Living Things, 2017, collage/mixed media/oil on canvas, 70&quot; × 60&quot;" data-rich-file-id="2743" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2743/original/bramson.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Vera Klement, Vessel and Horizon, 1984 Oil on canvas 60” x 36”" data-rich-file-id="2742" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2742/original/klement.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Honoree William Lieberman" data-rich-file-id="2744" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2744/original/william-laughing.jpg" />

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Art Encounter celebrates 40 years with a gala on May 6 honoring William Lieberman of Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

Art Encounter Celebrates Four Decades Behind the Scenes

BY ALISON REILLY

At first glance, Richard Rezac&rsquo;s sculptures might be described as cool, crisp, or sleek. But his careful craftsmanship and delicate choice of color imbue the objects with a warm familiarity, and their contrasting surfaces often activate tactile memories.

Earlier this month&nbsp;Rezac&rsquo;s exhibition, titled Address, opened at the Renaissance Society. Though the work in the show spans the last 20 years, for executive director and chief curator Solveig &Oslash;vsteb&oslash;,&nbsp;the exhibition is not a retrospective. &ldquo;We wanted it to be a new commission,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;a comprehensive new installation related specifically to the space of the Renaissance Society.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&Oslash;vsteb&oslash;&rsquo;s colleague, Janine Mileaf, director of the Arts Club of Chicago, had a similar idea. She commissioned Rezac to create a new sculpture for the Arts Club&rsquo;s outdoor space. Inspired by the urban location of the Arts Club, the organization&rsquo;s connection to sculptor Constantin Brancusi, and his own interest in Shaker fence building, Rezac built Glen Elder.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We decided that it would be a nice collaboration to do these exhibitions at the same time,&rdquo; &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; said, &ldquo;to emphasize both institutions&rsquo; respect for his work and his role in the Chicago art landscape.&rdquo; Her deep admiration for Rezac and his rigorous studio practice is evident. &ldquo;He is one of the strongest sculptors working in the U.S. today,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Over the span of 40 years he has been true to his project and worked quietly in his very own vein. There are very few artists who show this kind of uninterrupted concentration.&rdquo;

&Oslash;vsteb&oslash;, like many others, is drawn to Rezac&rsquo;s work not only because of its formal beauty and distinct quality, but also because of the way he builds his sculptures. &ldquo;He makes them all by hand through a very determined process in which meticulous geometry and math are combined with a deep feeling for color and shape,&rdquo; she noted.

Rezac was kind enough to answer a number of questions about his childhood, his education, and his current art practice. Following is an edited transcript of our recent conversation.&nbsp;

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<img alt="" data-caption="The Arts Club of Chicago hosts Rezac’s site-specific installation Glen Elder this summer. The piece is the most recent work in the Club’s Garden Project series. On View through July 2018" data-rich-file-id="2718" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2718/original/rezac-install-copy.jpg" />

Chicago Gallery News: Where did you grow up?&nbsp;

Richard Rezac: I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska in a family of six siblings with extended family nearby. My parents enjoyed travel when they had the time and finances, so an outward look around the Midwest was an important aspect of my early years.

CGN: Is there a memory from your childhood that influenced your decision to become an artist?

RR: I had two excellent art teachers in middle school and high school. They were bright, respectful, and encouraging. As examples in their conduct and personal commitment, they were mainly responsible for me, during high school, to decide later to seriously pursue the study of art.

CGN: Why did you decide to become an artist?

RR: Largely due to these teachers, but I have also had a persistent interest in drawing since I was about six years old. That attention and outlook led to an appreciation of what it would mean to go further with other forms of art.

CGN: I grew up in Portland, Oregon and am interested in the time you spent there. What brought you to the city?&nbsp;

RR: I went to Portland to attend the BFA program at the Museum Art School (as it was known then, 1970-74), now the Pacific Northwest College of Art. One of the major benefits was its immediate connection to the Portland Art Museum with its galleries serving as an extension of the studio classrooms. The faculty were accomplished as artists and invested in education, and because the School was small, it was necessarily interdisciplinary, so I took courses in every studio area. I graduated as an artist, not as one specialized in one discipline.

CGN: What was Portland like at the time?

RR: The 1970s in Portland was ideal: open, liberal and responsible, inexpensive.

CGN: From 1980-82, you studied at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore and received your MFA. How did that time compare to your experience in Portland?

RR: It was also a rewarding education, and a positive time to be in Baltimore, though almost completely different from Portland&mdash;as an older, entrenched, industrial, working-class eastern city. Nature, as I had known it in Oregon and Nebraska, was a long distance from Baltimore. The most rewarding part of that place and time was the ready access to museum collections in Washington D.C., New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, which I visited frequently.&nbsp;

CGN: I studied the work of Katarzyna Kobro, a Polish artist associated with Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin. I see similarities between your work and hers, because you often work on a human scale, you incorporate materials like wood and metal, and, in addition to freestanding sculpture, you sometimes hang your sculpture on the wall or from the ceiling. How do you see your work relating to early abstract art?&nbsp;

RR: I do admire her work (and saw a survey exhibition in Madrid last summer) and think that it certainly needs to be better known in this country, as it is prescient to some artists working in our time. If early twentieth-century abstraction can be seen today as an examination of some fundamental forms and their realization&mdash;in relationship&mdash;to an appropriate material, resulting in a simple, yet suggestive statement, then I agree that my sculpture, and approach, is indebted to those artists&rsquo; work. Their human-scaled size was inevitable because of the hand-forming construction and the private, rather than public, motivation.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Richard Rezac, Untitled (Ren Screen), 2016-17, painted wood and aluminum, 74 x 120 x 36.5 in. PHOTO: TOM VAN EYNDE" data-rich-file-id="2716" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2716/original/renscreen.jpg" />

CGN: Can you tell me more about Untitled&nbsp;(Ren Screen)? What inspired this work?

RR: This work is a combination of space divider, but free-floating and rather small; a wall to hang sculpture but with an area only for one. Otherwise, my reason to make it came almost first, two years ago, when invited by Solveig &Oslash;vsteb&oslash; for this exhibition. I felt the need to keep the Ren gallery space as open as possible, yet with a need to mark and divide it discreetly. Light from east to west in that space is paramount, so the underside of this screen is transparent and its primary, two-sided plane is on perpendicular axis with the only other built wall in the space. There are some details and surface treatments that match the scale and sensation of my sculpture generally, so it will hopefully be understood as an extension of the sculptures, while also being a slight architectural element, speaking to the gallery structure. &nbsp;&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Richard Rezac, Chigi, 2016-17, painted wood and cast hydrocal, 49 x 69 x 43 in. PHOTO: TOM VAN EYNDE" data-rich-file-id="2717" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2717/original/rezac-chigi-2017.jpg" />

CGN: What is the significance of your sculptures&rsquo; names? I&rsquo;m particularly interested in Chigi and Quimby.

RR: The sculpture titled Chigi references the Italian papal family (originally from Siena). Alexander VII was one of three Popes in the Baroque period that commissioned Francesco Borromini in the architecture he designed for the Vatican. This sculpture incorporates an element that succinctly quotes the family emblem or crest, which is based on a series of overlapping mounds, as in the hillside landscape around Siena. All of Borromini&rsquo;s buildings initiated or completed during his reign contain these emblems, as a mark of sponsorship. My intention for Chigi was to join two seemingly unlike forms: the merged crib-like structure, and the volumetric &ldquo;foot&rdquo; in recognition of Borromini, not so much the Chigi family.&nbsp;

The other sculpture, Quimby, is only the second work that I have made incorporating stained glass. The first house that I lived in with stained glass as a feature was on NW Quimby Street in Portland, and the designs in the several rooms were comprised of a simple grid surround, resembling the fragmented version in this sculpture.

<img alt="" data-caption="From left to right: Richard Rezac, Zeilschip (knot), 2014, nickel-plated cast bronze and cast bronze, 7 x 6.5 x 3 in.; Zeilschip (gauge), 2016, Cast bronze and nickel-plated bronze, 7 x 6.5 x 3 in.; Zeilschip (lunar distAnce), 2015, Cast bronze and painted cherry wood, 7 x 6.5 x 3 in. Photos: TOM VAN EYNDE" data-rich-file-id="2719" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2719/original/zeilschiptrio.jpg" />

CGN: I&rsquo;d also like to know more about the series of sculptures with Zeilschip in the title. Can you tell me more about the material you selected for each one?&nbsp;

RR: Zeilschip is a Dutch word meaning sailing ship or sailor. The four works are based on a ceramic tile, oval in shape, that I saw at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It depicted sailing vessels in port, with the water line level, but the oval set askew. I was intrigued by that subtle disjunction, and so I ultimately made four related works. All are cast bronze volumetric forms, but each has a different surface treatment (one is nickel-plated), and all have a separate &ldquo;instrument&rdquo; or notation on its left side. These small additions complete the sculpture, re-balance it visually, and add a geometric, faceted form. These configurations were all determined by the two sets of axis of the oval: true verticals and horizontals&mdash;one set within the oval, and one set on the wall itself. The coordinates from all points at the periphery of the oval (which resembles an iron cross) in some way converge to spell out the element attached to its left side.

CGN: You have said, &ldquo;Like an architect has a drawing to begin building, I have a drawing to initiate the sculpture with some reliability.&rdquo; Can you talk about your relationship to drawing and sculpting?&nbsp;

RR: For me it makes perfect sense to draw first, to explore possible ideas&mdash;whether that starts with a conscious source or improvisational. I can then adjust the particulars in the drawing over time, and eventually decide if I want to see it as a sculpture. I have never made a sculpture without going through this drawing phase first. For years these drawings have resembled traditional architectural drawings in their showing plan, elevation, and sometimes section in alignment, so it is easy to interpret these images as three-dimensional.

CGN: How involved are you in the installation of your work for exhibitions?&nbsp;

RR: Extensively. Since 1977 I have installed all of the solo exhibitions that I have had, and I have usually been involved in the actual installation of a work in any group show, if it occurred in a city in which I was living.

CGN: How would you describe your studio?

RR: It is on the first floor of the building I live in, a former dairy store, so my studio space is not so large, but the layout is efficient, somewhat compartmentalized, and perfectly suited to my needs. It has good natural light from three directions and is segmented into three areas: for building sculpture, for drawing, and for something in-between, such as painting.

CGN: Does Chicago architecture influence your work?

RR: When I moved here in 1985, the architecture of Chicago came as a revelation the first time that I looked closely at the invention and importance represented by this history. There is an affinity, naturally, to sculpture. Primarily, I gravitate to the street level detail or isolated fragment, but I have not actively used or incorporated, any aspect of local architectural forms or buildings proper. &nbsp;&nbsp;

CGN: If you didn&rsquo;t live in Chicago, where would you be?

RR: Hard to imagine at this time in my life. This is a great city, in my experience, and offers everything I need.

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Richard Rezac&rsquo;s Address is on view at the <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/richard-rezac-address">Renaissance Society</a> until June 17, 2018&nbsp; &bull;&nbsp; <a href="http://richardrezac.com">richardrezac.com</a>

 
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Sculptor Richard Rezac at the Renaissance Society in Chicago

An Outward Look: Richard Rezac at the Renaissance Society

Each week CGN interviews a local art-industry professional to discuss the ins and outs of running a space&nbsp;in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with art dealer Aron Packer&nbsp;of Aron Packer Projects.

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Name: Aron Packer

Hometown:&nbsp;Chicago

Previous occupation: Record Store

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5 favorites from the past week&nbsp;

Restaurant:&nbsp;Bite Cafe 
Shop:&nbsp;Any Dollar Store 
Read:&nbsp;The Hunting Accident by David Carlson and Landis Blair 
Neighborhood:&nbsp;Rogers Park of course 
Music:&nbsp;The Lark Ascending by Vaughn Williams

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How did you become an art dealer?&nbsp;

AP: My parents had a big influence on that.&nbsp; My mom, Marilyn Packer, was a printmaker and painter and was pretty aggressive for not having gone to art school.&nbsp; I remember her tying large paintings on the top of our station wagon and driving them down to the Art Sales and Rental Gallery at the Art Institute or a gallery she showed at in Old Town. A little later, my folks were on the Exhibition Committee at the Evanston Art Center where she had studied and modeled for Paul Wieghardt and Nelli Bar.&nbsp;&nbsp;

My father Davey Packer was an industrial designer eventually becoming an exhibition designer, and I would always see him tinkering at his drafting table working on booths for the consumer electronics show and trade shows, things like that.&nbsp; He was very particular in how things looked and were arranged.&nbsp; They both were starting to attend local auctions buying American Folk art and ethnographic art.&nbsp; He was always interested in natural creativity alongside modern design.&nbsp;

My mother bought into an antique quilt shop which eventually was run more like a gallery.&nbsp; American Folk Art quilts have the breadth and graphic quality of contemporary painting.&nbsp; They were visually vibrant and exciting to me.&nbsp; I started to follow my folks to antique shows and flea markets.&nbsp; I bought a few quilts and eventually was comfortable enough to consign some to her.&nbsp; They sold and I was kind of hooked.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s more to it than that, but that is how I got interested in showing and selling art.&nbsp;

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Share a typical day in the life!&nbsp;

AP: I am on my computer almost all day&hellip; emailing and trying to make a dent in all my to do lists.&nbsp; Show-hang weeks are the most fun. That is my blank canvas.&nbsp;

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Best sale you&#39;ve ever had?

AP: We sold an engraved (scrimshawed) boat by Michael Dinges to Aurora University a few years ago.&nbsp; It hangs from the ceiling and has to do with our sinking ship economy among many other things.&nbsp; It looks like a classic lifeboat and is made of vinyl siding over a constructed frame.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s made with materials one would buy at Home Depot.&nbsp;

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Successes you have had this year? What about challenges?

AP: My most recent success was being head of sale for an Outsider and Folk Art auction at Leslie Hindman.&nbsp; It was the first one they have done there&hellip; I am no longer there but that was a great year in my art life. A challenge at the moment is letting people know that since September I have a permanent pop up space they can come and see 5 days a week.&nbsp; Getting a good job I love in the arts would tie with the aforementioned.&nbsp;

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Thumbs up or down on art fairs?

AP: Thumbs up and down on art fairs&hellip;. They are too expensive for a dealer like me, but I actually loved doing them.&nbsp; An empty booth is a challenge.&nbsp; But hard to sell artwork that is made by under the radar artists&hellip; which is mostly what I like to show.&nbsp;

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Who inspires you?

AP: I would have to say teachers of all kinds&hellip;&nbsp;grade school, high school, art and music and everything else.&nbsp; We&#39;ve got to support those folks and they don&rsquo;t get paid enough.&nbsp;

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What is your favorite interest outside of the art world?&nbsp;

AP: I am a huge fan of music in general.&nbsp; I play banjo and am in a band called Sinner&rsquo;s Friend.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s comprised of a gallerist, artist, architect and yogi.&nbsp; I played classical guitar and went to college for that&hellip;. worked in a record store after high school which got me into all sorts of music.&nbsp; Over the years I&rsquo;ve gone to hundreds of concerts.

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What do you look for in an artwork? When searching for yourself, what speaks to you?&nbsp;&nbsp;

AP: I often look for artwork that I wished I could have done myself&hellip;. But I don&rsquo;t have that kind of focus.&nbsp; I also like what I call raw power work, which sometimes can be found in certain Outsider Art.&nbsp; Where someone is so driven to make something they will do whatever it takes to get a piece done with whatever materials are on hand.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not always pretty per se.&nbsp;

And I do love paintings of many genres and histories.

&nbsp;

What&rsquo;s coming up next at Aron Packer Projects?

AP: We have a one on one conversation with Maria Tomasula happily grilling Jason Lahr about his current show.&nbsp; On June 9, we start a show with Ben Blount.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s a letterpress, print, and book artist.&nbsp; Letterpress is new for me so I&#39;m pretty darn excited about it. &nbsp;With this show we will be part of a print crawl on June 24th generated by Spudnik Press.&nbsp;

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Aron Packer is&nbsp;the owner of Aron Packer Projects. For more information about his exhibitions please visit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/aron-packer-projects">Aron Packer Projects</a>.

Top image credit: Background artwork&nbsp;by artist Bruce Riley

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