<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

<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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<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>

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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>

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<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

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

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

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.

&nbsp;

Name: Aron Packer

Hometown:&nbsp;Chicago

Previous occupation: Record Store

&nbsp;

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

&nbsp;

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;

&nbsp;

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;

&nbsp;

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;

&nbsp;

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;

&nbsp;

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;

&nbsp;

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;

&nbsp;

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.

&nbsp;

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;

&nbsp;

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

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

An Interview with an Art Dealer: Aron Packer

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;

&nbsp;

<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.

&nbsp;

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

<h2>Ai Weiwei&rsquo;s Little Blue Book on the Refugee Crisis</h2>

The prominent Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has long used his fame and social media as a megaphone for his activism. It was because of his blogging and Twitter activity criticizing the government that he was detained by the Chinese police for nearly three months and had his passport taken away in 2011. And his Instagram posts of the last few years have brought increasing international attention to the refugee crisis, as has his documentary&nbsp;&ldquo;Human Flow,&rdquo;&nbsp;released last fall.

By&nbsp;Robin&nbsp;Pogrebin, The NY Times

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/arts/design/ai-weiwei-humanity-book-refugee-crisis.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=arts&amp;region=rank&amp;module=package&amp;version=highlights&amp;contentPlacement=7&amp;pgtype=sectionfront">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="The new proposal compared to Trump International Hotel &amp; Tower, Chicago’s current second tallest. Golub &amp; Co./CIM Group" data-rich-file-id="2715" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2715/original/screen-20shot-202018-04-23-20at-204-58-47-20pm.png" />

<h2>1,422-foot Tribune Tower addition would be Chicago&rsquo;s second tallest building</h2>

A team of developers looks to shake up Chicago&rsquo;s skyline with a striking 96-story skyscraper slated to rise just east of Tribune Tower. At a public meeting on Monday, Chicago developer Golub &amp; Co. and LA-based partner CIM Group debuted a plan for both the new tower as well as the adaptive reuse of the 1925 neo-Gothic Tribune Tower into luxury condominiums. The venture purchased the landmarked building and adjacent parcels for&nbsp;$240 million&nbsp;in 2016.

By&nbsp;Jay Koziarz, Curbed Chicago&nbsp;

<a href="https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/4/17/17246578/tribune-tower-condos-supertall-skyscraper-hotel">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="James Yood. Photo: School of the Art Institute of Chicago." data-rich-file-id="2711" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2711/original/article0-large.jpg" />

<h2>James Yood (1952&ndash;2018)</h2>

Chicago-based arts writer and educator&nbsp;James Yood, who once distilled the role of the critic as one that fulfills a responsibility &ldquo;to look and think as hard as possible,&rdquo; has died. A committed and eloquent assesser of Chicago artists, Yood was a professor of art history, theory, and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also directed its New Arts Journalism program.

Via ArtForum

<a href="https://www.artforum.com/news/james-yood-1952-2018-75105">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="The artist Jeff Koons poses for a photo in front of his sculpture Balloon Venus at the Liebighaus Skulpturen Sammlung in Frankfurt, Germany during the opening of the exhibition Jeff Koons: The Painter &amp; The Sculptor in 2012 DANIEL ROLAND/AFP/Getty Images" data-rich-file-id="2713" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2713/original/gettyimages-146546087-master.jpg" />

<h2>Collector sues Jeff Koons and Gagosian Gallery over years-long delivery delays</h2>

The collector Steven Tananbaum filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court on Thursday (19 April) that charges the artist Jeff Koons and Gagosian Gallery of failing to deliver three sculptures for which he paid over $13m in contractual deposits over a five-year period.

By James H. Miller, The Art Newspaper

<a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/koons-gagosian-balloon-venus-lawsuit">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="Paula Hayes, Teardrop Terrarium T027, 2006. Photo by Sherry Griffin. Courtesy of the artist." data-rich-file-id="2714" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2714/original/d7hftxdivxxvm-cloudfront.jpg" />

<h2>Terrariums Let Anyone Create a &ldquo;Perfect World&rdquo; in Their Own Apartment</h2>

The artist&nbsp;Paula Hayes&nbsp;has always been obsessed with the natural world, so it was never a question of&nbsp;if&nbsp;she would incorporate plants into her work, but&nbsp;how. That answer came in 2004. At a show entitled &ldquo;Forest&rdquo; at&nbsp;Salon 94&nbsp;in New York, she introduced the world to the contemporary terrarium: a delicate blown-glass sphere filled with stones, moss, and a few small plants. The art world&rsquo;s reaction to her work was immediate and enthusiastic. Her terrariums were featured in&nbsp;Wallpaper&nbsp;and&nbsp;T Magazine, and the gallery sold them as fast as she could make them. &ldquo;I had never had that response to my work,&rdquo; Hayes recalled recently. &ldquo;I had never had so many people say, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen anything like that.&rsquo;&rdquo;

By&nbsp;Kate Groetzinger, Artsy Editorial

<a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-terrariums-create-perfect-world-apartment">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

Top Image:&nbsp;Ai Weiwei on the Greek island Lesbos, 2016, where he filmed Turkish refugees coming ashore for &ldquo;Human Flow.&rdquo; &ldquo;Freedom is not an absolute condition, but a result of resistance,&rdquo; he says in his new book, &ldquo;Humanity.&rdquo;&nbsp;CreditAi Weiwei Studio

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News from Around the Art World: April 23, 2018

Chicago-based arts writer and School of the Art Institute professor&nbsp;James Yood died yesterday, April 21. He was born in 1952 and received a BA in 1974 from the University of Wisconsin, and received his MA in 1976 and was a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. He most recently taught Art History, and Theory and Criticism at SAIC and headed the school&#39;s&nbsp;New Arts Journalism program. He also taught at Northwestern University.

Yood was very well known and admired throghout the Chicago and national art community. &nbsp;He wrote for&nbsp;Artforum;&nbsp;GLASS; art ltd; and&nbsp;Visual Art Source.&nbsp;He wrote several books, including&nbsp;Gladys Nilsson;&nbsp;Spirited Visions: Portraits of Chicago Artists, and&nbsp;Second Sight: Printmaking in Chicago 1935-95. Yood was also the Chicago managing editor of the&nbsp;New Art Examiner, which led to writing to Artforum and other international publications.&nbsp;

Yood spent his career sharing Chicago art and artists with the world. He&nbsp;challenged artists&nbsp;to look at their own art more critically in order to strengthen&nbsp;their work and&nbsp;gain broader attention around the country.&nbsp;

Artforum&#39;s tribute to Yood&nbsp;referenced&nbsp;an early&nbsp;essay&nbsp;for the New Art Examiner, which&nbsp;they cite to as a turning point for his own wider recognition: &quot;[Yood]&nbsp;challenged a local trend of exhibiting group shows of &ldquo;emerging&quot; artists: &#39;It would be, quite simply, impossible to gauge trends in Chicago art by the work of these emergent artists, besides noting that young artists are the same everywhere: anything goes,&#39;&nbsp;he mused. &#39;Perhaps part of the cosmopolitanization of Chicago will be the loss of what some see as its idiosyncratic and fussy style.&#39;&nbsp;The piece made an impression, and soon after it was published in 1986, he began reviewing for national and international outlets like&nbsp;Artforum&nbsp;and&nbsp;Aperture.&quot;

In an interview by Tom Burtonwood for <a href="http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/artist-stories/james-yood-contemporary-art-critic-and-essayist">Chicago Artists Resource</a> in 2008, Yood said, when asked what critics contribute to the arts community, &quot;We&#39;re part of the mix&mdash;along with artists, dealers, curators, and collectors&mdash;that in the aggregate help create the context of contemporary art. We can help conversations get started, and (sorry if this sound pretentious!), we&#39;re part of the peer group that begins the process of evaluation, of historical reckoning. It&#39;s an awkward process, sometimes painful and unfair, and sometimes altered by subsequent events. But it&#39;s the system that has evolved steadily over the last two centuries, that artists create art and then it leaves the studio and enters the world where it becomes a commodity, both financially and intellectually, that gets picked at and assessed, consumed in a way by its diverse audiences. I&#39;m part of that audience, with the astounding good fortune that some art magazines, etc., are willing to let me think out loud, so to speak, about what I see.&quot;

Details on a planned service on April 27 may be <a href="https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/chicagotribune/obituary.aspx?n=james-yood&amp;pid=188815949&amp;fhid=14572">found here</a>.&nbsp;

Click here for the <a href="https://www.artforum.com/news/james-yood-19522018-75105">Artforum</a> tribute.&nbsp;

Photo courtesy of SAIC

Art Critic and SAIC Professor James Yood Dies

Yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago, some very generous donors made it&nbsp;rain. Well, it was actually sunny outside, finally, but inside there was news of some mega donations being made by members of the museum&#39;s board of trustees. Following is the press release shared by the Art Institute. The two significant gifts were cultivated by president James Rondeau, ensuring&nbsp;strength and development for the museum for years to come. &ndash;GV

&nbsp;

The Art Institute of Chicago announced today a $50 million unrestricted gift from Janet and Craig Duchossois and a $20 million gift from Robert and Diane v.S. Levy for acquisitions and operations. These historic gifts advance the museum&rsquo;s civic mission and enable bold planning for the future.&nbsp;

&ldquo;It is an honor to work with trustees whose foresight and generosity will shape the museum&rsquo;s impact on our community for generations to come,&rdquo; said James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director. &ldquo;Gifts such as these allow the museum to look forward with certainty and ambition, serving our city as one of the world&rsquo;s greatest art museums.&rdquo; 
 
Janet Duchossois shared, &ldquo;Craig and I chose to make this unrestricted gift to demonstrate our confidence and support of James Rondeau and the board. We are proud to be partners in their strategy and approach for the museum both today and in the future.&rdquo;&nbsp; 
 
A Voting Trustee of the Art Institute Board of Trustees, Janet Duchossois is also Chair of the museum&rsquo;s Sustaining Fellows. She serves as Co-Chair of the Committee on Libraries and is a member of the committees on Modern and Contemporary Art and Prints and Drawings. Craig Duchossois is CEO of The Duchossois Group, a privately held, family-owned company with holdings in the consumer products, technology, and service sectors. He is Vice Chair of the boards of the University of Chicago Medical Center and the Illinois Institute of Technology, and serves on the boards of the University of Chicago, the Culver Educational Foundation, World Business Chicago, and the Executives&rsquo; Club of Chicago 
 
Robert Levy is in his second term as Chair of the Art Institute&rsquo;s Board of Trustees. He is a retired partner, chairman, and chief investment officer for U.S. Equities at Harris Associates L.P. Mr. Levy is vice chair of the board at the University of Pennsylvania and chairs The Power of Penn campaign. He also serves as president of the Robert M. Levy and Diane v.S. Levy Family Foundation, which he founded with his wife, Diane von Schlegell Levy. Diane v.S. Levy is currently a member of the Art Institute&rsquo;s committees on Textiles, European Decorative Arts, and Ancient and Byzantine Arts. Mrs. Levy is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Field Museum, the Board of Directors of Chicago Botanic Garden, and served on the Board of Overseers of the Penn Museum for 10 years. 
 
&ldquo;We have a strong and committed board of trustees, dedicated to our role as an active civic partner, accessible to all members of our community,&rdquo; said Robert Levy. &ldquo;This extraordinary gift from Janet and Craig is critical to fulfilling the museum&rsquo;s mission and enhancing our visitors&rsquo; experiences.&rdquo; ##

Image:&nbsp;The Art Institute of Chicago.&nbsp;The Woman&#39;s Board Grand Staircase.&nbsp;Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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A Very Good Day for the Art Institute of Chicago

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 Jean Broday&nbsp;of Jean Albano Gallery.

&nbsp;

Hometown:&nbsp;Born and raised in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Has spent&nbsp;adult life in Chicago and its&nbsp;North Shore Suburbs

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Three from the past week

Place:&nbsp;Los Angeles

Restaurant: I was&nbsp;introduced to a wonderful up-scale Chicago Mexican restaurant - Mezcalina. It&#39;s located in the area north of&nbsp;Millenium Park. It&#39;s an Oasis in the city and is&nbsp;worth a visit.&nbsp;

See:&nbsp;This past week I was in Los Angeles to see a new grandson, Spencer, and visit with my adorable grand daughter Lucy, who is 2 1/2. That&#39;s always special.&nbsp;I did sneak in a quick visit to the Jasper Johns retrospective at The Broad, and I also caught&nbsp;a fabulous Mark Bradford exhibition at Hauser and Wirth.

&nbsp;

How did you become an art dealer?&nbsp;

JA: I have been interested in art for a long time.&nbsp;I was a Humanities major in college&nbsp;and was introduced to the Chicago Imagists by Linda Kramer when I&nbsp;moved to Chicago a few years out of school. I was excited to be&nbsp;in a position to purchase my own Roger Brown,&nbsp;and a Karl Wirsum as well, 
in the late 1970&#39;s.&nbsp;

Since then it&nbsp;has been my pleasure to work with Imagist work for many years.

I actually started in business in 1986, when the prominent designer Gregory Stratman offered me his walls to showcase artists that I had worked with privately.&nbsp;Many were&nbsp;from California.&nbsp;When Greg unfortunately died in 1989, I moved the gallery into&nbsp;311 West Superior in River North.&nbsp;I came&nbsp;to my present location at 215 West Superior&nbsp;in 1995.&nbsp;

Today we&nbsp;still exhibit some of our original artists, but we have also become involved with Imagist art.&nbsp;This fall the gallery is planning a group&nbsp;exhibit of Imagists,&nbsp;such as Joe Tallarico and&nbsp;John Maloof (a wonderful artist who discovered photographer Vivian Maier), as well as&nbsp;a group show with young artists,&nbsp;curated by Edward Cabral,&nbsp;this fall.

What is the best sale you&#39;ve ever had?

JA: I have been privileged to represent a number of outstanding artists through the years.&nbsp;We represented the Estate of Bill Mauldin and were delighted to sell all of the original Sun-Times editorial cartoons and the remaining&nbsp;Willie and Joe drawings to the Pritzker Military Museum here in Chicago;&nbsp;they are&nbsp;planning a major exhibition in 2019.&nbsp;

Through the years we have worked with Jules Feiffer, Karl Wirsum, Zack Wirsum, Donna Rosenthal,&nbsp;and&nbsp;of course&nbsp;the late Margaret Wharton, whose gorgeous chair and books creations are still amazing.&nbsp; I believe she is one of the most under appreciated and important artists whose work should not be forgotten.

Who inspires you?

JA: I am excited about new and upcoming young artists.&nbsp; I am especially excited about the wonderful artists represented by <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/patron">PATRON Gallery</a> on the West Side. It&#39;s&nbsp;important to me to promote the next generation, including some of their artists such as&nbsp;Samuel Levi Jones, Alex Chitty, and Liat Yossifer.&nbsp;

What&rsquo;s coming up next at the gallery?

JA: We are planning a group show for May,&nbsp;entitled&nbsp;Wild - It&#39;s a Wonderful World.

&nbsp;

Jean Broday is&nbsp;the owner of Jean Albano Gallery. For more information about the gallery please visit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/jean-albano-gallery">Jean Albano Gallery</a>.

Top Image (left to right): Jean Broday, Jon Bon Jovi, and Bonnie Lautenberg&nbsp;

&nbsp;

An Interview with an Art Dealer: Jean Albano

<h2>Old Chicago Main Post Office receives landmark designation</h2>

The&nbsp;Chicago&nbsp;City Council recently approved the&nbsp;landmark designation&nbsp;for the Old Chicago Main Post Office. Built in phases from 1921 to 1932, the 2.3-million-square-foot structure is located on the western bank of the south branch of the Chicago River in Chicago&rsquo;s Near West Side. The building&rsquo;s brawny nine-and twelve-story art deco design is the work of Chicago architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst &amp; White, a successor to D.H. Burnham and Company.

By Elizabeth Blasius, The Architects Newspaper

<a href="https://archpaper.com/2018/04/old-chicago-main-post-office-landmark-designation/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<h2><img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2709" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2709/original/chagall-wfo-seal-731x1024.jpg" /></h2>

<h2>The FBI Has Cracked the 30-Year-Old Case of a Stolen Marc Chagall</h2>

Thirty years after it was stolen, an early&nbsp;Marc Chagall&nbsp;has been recovered by the FBI. The painting, titled&nbsp;Othello and Desdemona,&nbsp;belonged to retired jeweler and art collector Ernest &ldquo;Pick&rdquo; Heller and his wife Rose &ldquo;Red&rdquo; Heller, and was stolen from their New York apartment back in 1988, along with numerous other paintings, sculptures, and art objects including jewelry, carpets, silverware, and Steuben china.&nbsp;

Sarah Cascone,&nbsp;artnet.com

<a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/fbi-recovers-stolen-marc-chagall-after-30-years-1263023?utm_content=from_&amp;utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=US+newsletter+for+4%2F13%2F18&amp;utm_term=New+US+Newsletter+List">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune" data-rich-file-id="2706" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2706/original/ct-photos-arte-diseno-xicago-20180413-004.jpg" />

<h2>Story of Mexican art in Chicago is the story of Chicago art</h2>

There&rsquo;s a kind of Zelig quality to the new &ldquo;Arte Diseno Xicago&rdquo; exhibition at the National Museum of Mexican Art. Its subtitle is &ldquo;Mexican Inspiration from the World&#39;s Columbian Exposition to the Civil Rights Era,&rdquo; and across those 80 years this eye-opening show intersects with so many key figures in Chicago art and the culture more broadly.

By Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/museums/ct-ae-arte-diseno-xicago-mexican-museum-0415-story.html">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="An audience at Expo Chicago’s /Dialogues program in 2017. COURTESY EXPO CHICAGO" data-rich-file-id="2705" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2705/original/dialogues-3-image-courtesy-of-expo-chicago.jpg" />

<h2>Expo Chicago Expands 2018 Talks Program and Adds Professional Forum</h2>

The Expo Chicago art fair is expanding its programming for 2018, with an off-site edition of its &ldquo;/Dialogues&rdquo; discussion program at the Venice Architecture Biennale in May and, at the hometown fair in September, more talks in addition to a first-time Professionals Forum to convene specialists in mind of &ldquo;managing, selling, and acquiring a contemporary collection,&rdquo; according to an announcement.

By Annie Armstrong, ArtNews

<a href="http://www.artnews.com/2018/04/11/expo-chicago-expands-2018-talks-program-adds-professional-forum/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Martinez speaks at the opening of the landmark Louvre exhibition in Iran 2018 Anadolu Agency; Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images" data-rich-file-id="2707" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2707/original/300-mu-vn-louvre-ambitions-paid15.jpg" />

<h2>Louvre&rsquo;s director: we are active in 75 countries</h2>

Four months after the grand inauguration of Louvre Abu Dhabi,&nbsp;Jean-Luc Martinez was off to Iran in March to open The Louvre in Tehran&mdash;a temporary exhibition (until 3 June). Unlike most art historians, the director of the Mus&eacute;e du Louvre in Paris, whose&nbsp;mandate was renewed for three years last week by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, does not shy away from political commitment and fully embraces the diplomatic role played by his institution.

By Vincent Noce, The Art Newspaper

<a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/interview/louvre-s-director-we-are-active-in-75-countries">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

News from Around the Art World: April 16, 2018

<a href="https://www.expochicago.com">EXPO CHICAGO</a> gets closer every day, and the closer it gets, the more this upcoming edition takes shape. &nbsp;As is typical of the fair, they continue to build their programming lineup and to expand their international ties.&nbsp;

Yesterday the art fair announced that for its seventh annual exhibition, taking place again on Navy Pier&nbsp;September 27&ndash;30, 2018, they are&nbsp;rolling&nbsp;out some major&nbsp;programmatic expansions here at home as well as in Europe.&nbsp;The biggest announcement was about an&nbsp;onsite panel and performance at the&nbsp;U.S. Pavilion&nbsp;of the&nbsp;16th Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy. Participants from Chicago will include Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui, and Mimi Zeiger of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago, panelists Amanda Williams,&nbsp;Andres L. Hernandez,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Shani Crowe and&nbsp;moderator&nbsp;Stephanie Cristello,&nbsp;EXPO CHICAGO Director of Programming and Editor-in-Chief of&nbsp;THE SEEN.

They also trumpeted&nbsp;the third annual /Dialogues Symposium,&nbsp;Present Histories: Art &amp; Design in Chicago, that will address&nbsp;select art and design legacies produced in the city and take&nbsp;place during EXPO CHICAGO in conjunction with the&nbsp;Terra Foundation for American Art&rsquo;s initiative&nbsp;Art Design Chicago, presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Additional details from the April 11 EXPO press release are shared below. &ndash;GV

<h2>EXPO CHICAGO at the U.S. Pavilion&nbsp;2018 Venice Architecture Biennale</h2>

<h3>SUNDAY, MAY 27, 2018</h3>

For the first time ever, the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale will be curated by a joint team led by Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui, and Mimi Zeiger of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. Their vision,&nbsp;Dimensions of Citizenship, will challenge architects, designers, artists, and critics to respond to transformative modes of belonging at radically different scales, from the citizen to the cosmos.&nbsp;EXPO CHICAGO will partner with SAIC and the University of Chicago to&nbsp;present a program as part&nbsp;of the official Vernissage for the U.S. Pavilion on&nbsp;Sunday, May 27, 2018.

10:45&ndash;11:30am 
Panel Discussion 
Location | U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 
Panelists | Amanda Williams&nbsp;(Chicago-based Artist and Architect, Participant in the U.S. Pavilion),&nbsp;Andres L. Hernandez&nbsp;(Chicago-based Artist and Architect, Participant in the U.S. Pavilion) and&nbsp;Shani Crowe&nbsp;(Chicago-based Artist). Moderated by EXPO CHICAGO Director of Programming and Editor-in-Chief of&nbsp;THE SEEN,&nbsp;Stephanie Cristello. 
&nbsp; 
Tackling questions of citizenship status, gender and race at the intersection of history, theory and practice of art and architecture, this panel will explore the unique ways in which black women have historically navigated and shaped space to advance their position in American society. Highlighting the historical figures of Harriet Jacobs and Harriet Tubman as muses, this conversation will trace the impact of American history on Williams and Hernandez&rsquo;s practice, complemented by a performative element by Shani Crowe, preceding the conversation.&nbsp; 
 
For more information, click&nbsp;<a href="https://www.expochicago.com/programs/year-round">here</a>. 
&nbsp; 
Presented in partnership with the commissioners of the U.S. Pavilion, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago.

<h2>/Dialogues at EXPO CHICAGO</h2>

<h3>Symposium |&nbsp;Present Histories:&nbsp;Art &amp; Design in Chicago 
 
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28</h3>

A curated component of the full /Dialogues program, presented in partnership with the&nbsp;School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the third annual Symposium will feature a day-long series of discussions open to all EXPO CHICAGO visitors, presented in alignment with&nbsp;Art Design Chicago&nbsp;and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Entitled&nbsp;Present Histories: Art &amp; Design in Chicago,&nbsp;the Symposium will trace select artistic and design legacies produced in the city, spanning from 1968&ndash;2018, as well as their impact on the larger social, aesthetic, and cultural movements from the twentieth-century to the present.&nbsp; 
 
For more information, click&nbsp;<a href="https://www.expochicago.com/programs/dialogues/2018-symposium">here</a>. 
&nbsp; 
Presented in partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art and Art Design Chicago. 
 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; 
 
&nbsp;

<h3>Full Schedule:&nbsp;/Dialogues Stage</h3>

Sept 28,&nbsp;11:30am 
Performance:&nbsp;R&eacute;v&eacute;rence&nbsp; 
 
Artist&nbsp;Brendan Fernandes&nbsp;(Artist | Monique Meloche Gallery)&nbsp;stages a site-specific iteration of his performative work&nbsp;R&eacute;v&eacute;rence&nbsp;(2015), featuring a series of choreographed dancers to both welcome and confront the audience. Using his training in classical ballet, alongside his unique cultural background as a Kenyan-Indian-Canadian, the performance features classically-trained dancers from the Joffrey Academy of Dance to question identity and power dynamics. 
 
12:00pm &ndash; 1:00pm 
Brendan Fernandes | In Conversation with Sarah Thornton 
 
This discussion, between author and sociologist of culture Sarah Thornton with Chicago-based artist Brendan Fernandes, will trace the impact of Fernandes&rsquo; work, as well as the role of performance in his practice, which questions positions of power, control and &lsquo;queering space.&rsquo;

Sept 28,&nbsp;2:00&ndash;3:00pm 
AfriCOBRA: Chicago in the Age of Black Power&nbsp; 
Featuring&nbsp;|&nbsp;Gerald Williams&nbsp;(Artist | Kavi Gupta Gallery, Founding Member of AfriCOBRA) 
 
This panel is presented in alignment with Art Design Chicago exhibitions at the Smart Museum of Art and the DuSable Museum of African American History,&nbsp;South Side Stories: Rethinking Chicago Art, 1960&ndash;1980&nbsp;and&nbsp;South Side Stories: Holdings,&nbsp;which focuses on the Black Arts Movement&mdash;from the Civil Rights Movement to AfriCOBRA.&nbsp;

Sept 28,&nbsp;4:00&ndash;5:00pm 
Alterity and the Exhibition Environment: Feminist History of Alternative Spaces in Chicago&nbsp;

Panelists |&nbsp;Lynne Warren&nbsp;(Adjunct Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago),&nbsp;Torkwase Dyson(Artist | Rhona Hoffman Gallery),&nbsp;and&nbsp;Kay Rosen&nbsp;(Artist | Alexander Gray and Associates, ARC Member). Moderated by&nbsp;Jenni Sorkin&nbsp;(SAIC BFA 1999), (Associate Professor, History of Art &amp; Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara).

Alternative spaces are often discussed within the canon of Chicago&rsquo;s exhibition history. Yet, these spaces also played a parallel role in the activities that defined feminist art and social practice in the city&rsquo;s scene. This conversation will trace the histories and roles of feminism in Chicago&#39;s alternative spaces from the 1970s to the present. 
&nbsp; 
Sept 28,&nbsp;5:00pm 
Publication Launch |&nbsp;Art in Chicago: A History from the Fire to Now 
Published by the Terra Foundation for American Art, this newly launched publication will be available for a book signing at the /Dialogues Stage through the University of Chicago Press.

Screening | Designers in Film: A Glimpse into the Goldsholl Archive 
A screening of select films and reels produced by Goldsholl and Associates&mdash;whose films, televi-sion ads and other moving image work innovated &ldquo;designs-in-film&rdquo;&mdash;will be on view at the /Dialogues Stage, as an inter-lude to the final conversation in the Symposium on Chicago&rsquo;s Mid-Century impact on the adve-rtising and commercial industry at large.

Sept 28,&nbsp;5:30&ndash;6:30pm 
Making the Modern Image:&nbsp;Mid-Century Commercial Industry in Chicago 
Panelists&nbsp;|&nbsp;Theaster Gates&nbsp;(Artist | Rebuild Foundation),&nbsp;Corinne&nbsp;Granof&nbsp;(Curator of Academic Programs, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University) and&nbsp;Lara Allison&nbsp;(Lecturer, Art History, Theory and Criticism,&nbsp;School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Moderated by&nbsp;Michael Golec&nbsp;(Associate Professor, Art History, Theory and Criticism, SAIC). 
 
Through recent exhibitions that relate the advertising and commercial publications industries to the context of contemporary art, this discussion will trace Chicago&rsquo;s contribution to the glossy image that defined the Mid-Century aesthetic. Examining the political, social and cultural impact of these design philosophies, this panel will look at the national impact of firms and companies whose work pushed industry boundaries through avant-garde approaches.&nbsp;

Top image:&nbsp;Gerald Williams,&nbsp;Portrait Y,&nbsp;1970&ndash;2007.&nbsp;Acrylic on linen.&nbsp;24 x 18 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago.

EXPO CHICAGO Announces 2018 Programmatic Expansion

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

Artist Anna Kunz creates art across a colorful, creative spectrum, seeking to immerse her viewers into her works on a sensory as well as intellectual level.&nbsp;Her art, from works on paper, paintings, sculptures, installations, and other projects, goes beyond&nbsp;physical limits and changes constantly, depending on existing light and other environmental factors. Her work often takes time to see and to experience. Her latest exhibition, Anna Kunz: Color Cast, after three years of experimentation and careful execution, is on view now at the Hyde Park Art Center.&nbsp;

Kunz&rsquo;s work has been included in numerous national and international collections. Anna has had exhibitions in Los Angeles, Houston, Brooklyn, San Antonio and the UK and Poland. Recent exhibitions include at LVL3 in Chicago, TERRAIN the outdoor community exhibition space run by Sabina Ott,&ldquo;Luminae&rdquo; at White Box NYC- also featuring the work of Louise Fishman and Alexandra Phillips, curated by Juan Puentes, &ldquo;Color: Fully Engaged&rdquo;, curated by Jamilee Polson Lacy, &ldquo;Spectral Landscape&rdquo; at Gallery 400 UIC, and &ldquo;The Banner Project&rdquo; at the Smart Museum on the University of Chicago&#39;s campus. (She also once worked at CGN for a time, where she was the most fun co-worker ever.)

Following is a transcript of a recent Q&amp;A about her current exhibition. &ndash; GV

&nbsp;

You&rsquo;ve been an artist and teacher here for most of your career. How did you get started, and what were your early artistic explorations like?

I got started on&nbsp;things pretty early during my time as an&nbsp;undergraduate&nbsp;at SAIC, and I was involved with places like Links Hall, MoMing Theatre, and The Contemporary Art Workshop. At&nbsp;Space Gallery on Division St., which&nbsp;was run by FITZ, an SAIC grad student,&nbsp;I had some shows&nbsp;when I was still in school. One day art dealer Thomas McCormick visited my studio at the generous suggestion of artist Wesley Kimler, who lived in a space below us and who was working with Tom at the time. Tom&nbsp;ended up offering me my first commercial show.

Our studio building on Western and 26th was&nbsp;home to a lot of creative people who were into performance and sculpture, music and collapsing life and art.&nbsp;I was working on performance, painting and printmaking with young ideas about transference, reflection, the haptic and emotive parts of art, poetry, comedy, and using the body as a tool or armature for painting, really. Color was always a key element in my work.

Teaching happened after my Graduate School days at Northwestern. &nbsp;I don&#39;t know how I would ever have met the people I know if it weren&#39;t for teaching. It&#39;s helped me to cast a pretty wide net and it&#39;s kept me up to date. I can&#39;t believe that social media is becoming the new Art History/Visual Culture text book. &nbsp;My early explorations would have been very different if I were making the work now. I&#39;d be much more aware of the camera persona of everything I was making.&nbsp;

What is different about your current work, and this series? &nbsp;

My work has been moving in the direction of this current installation at HPAC for the whole time I&#39;ve been working as an artist. A striking difference here, I guess, is the scale. I wanted to make this work a 360&deg; experience. Embedded in the work, though are the many relationships to painting, performance and printmaking. My more conventional paintings are a distillation of older work. This time it&#39;s coming from more personal places, with a more direct and pure approach, I suppose one that is&nbsp;riskier or a more raw approach,&nbsp;maybe, as well striving for&nbsp;a deeper understanding of color and its associations and relationships.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2702" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2702/original/kunz1.jpg" />

Talk about the various materials and experiences that are part of this show that may make people think about&nbsp;&lsquo;painting&rsquo; differently. &nbsp;

This show includes a 30 x 30 foot floor painting that has transducers embedded into it. The painting is made into an instrument, with the sound created by Beth Bradfish, and it is intended to pull sound up through the viewer&#39;s body&nbsp;and doesn&#39;t require the sense of sight to have the experience. Other elements are&nbsp;large, suspended paintings that take their proportions from the space of the gallery and are positioned to be visible through each other so they&nbsp;engage the changing light and shadow in the gallery. I think of the piece as a volumetric painting, but viewers might think about the piece in other ways: low relief sculpture, architectural, set-like, giant monotype-like, etc. &nbsp;

We have created a few tangential experiences during the run of the show. Mwata Bowden and his University&nbsp;of Chicago Jazz X-tet performed a piece inside the installation on April 8. &nbsp;

I want the piece not to serve as a set for performance&nbsp;but an inspirational space for new, improvisational art. I&#39;m very excited to see how that happening turns out. I am also going to be teaching a workshop on color and memory for the 65+ group of artists at HPAC, and I am excited to learn how rich life experiences inform those artists&#39; color choices.&nbsp;

The exhibition description mentions that colors talk to each other &ndash; please elaborate.

I&#39;ve positioned the colors and sight lines to be choreographed, positioned in such a way as to move the viewer through the space. Some of the colors are in harmony with each other, and some of them disagree and are more discordant. The relationships change depending on where you are moving, or what your point of view is; it&#39;s not unlike conversations.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2703" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2703/original/kunz3.jpg" />

What is a walk through painting? &nbsp;

Come see it at&nbsp;HPAC.&nbsp;

Would you ever do a series just in black and white and gray? 

The wealthy taste for the demure is alive and well in gray. I think that gray is very decorative and safe. I&nbsp;do think that your question is an interesting idea, but I&#39;m not there at the moment. There is no time for gray or the divisions of black and white in my mind.&nbsp;Perhaps some chromatic gray piece will happen at some point.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2704" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2704/original/kunz4.jpg" />

You&rsquo;ve been working on this HPAC show for months &ndash; what&rsquo;s coming up next? 

Anyone close to me knows that I have been walking around with an architectural model of HPAC for about three years. The shown view now could have been about 20 other shows that I have ready to go, I just need the space :)

But next I&#39;m going to go and make very small paintings, sculptures and works on paper this summer in Upstate New York during a residency that will undoubtedly be informed by my recent experience with this show.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Anna Kunz: Color Cast is on view at the <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/anna-kunz-color-cast">Hyde Park Art Center</a> through June 24

To view a video walk-through of Kunz&#39;s installation, visit <a href="http://www.annakunz.net">annakunz.net</a>
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A Q&A with artist Anna Kunz on her show Color Cast at Hyde Park Art Center 

The Colorful Perspective of Anna Kunz

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 John McKinnon&nbsp;of Elmhurst Art Museum.

Previous occupation: Program Director at the Society for Contemporary Art

Hometown: I&rsquo;m originally from Trevor, Wisconsin and have lived in Chicago for 16 years.

&nbsp;

5 favorites from the past week&nbsp;

Restaurant: Marisol at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It&rsquo;s a great place to meet up with colleagues and friends. 
Shop: Brewpoint Coffee in Elmhurst. They have two convenient locations near the museum, so I&rsquo;ve become a regular. 
Read: I came home to find a note written by my daughter that said, &ldquo;Mom is hiding&rdquo;. 
Neighborhood: West Town recently received a huge boost with Rhona Hoffman&rsquo;s new location. 
Music: Freedom, the new album by Amen Dunes is a very enjoyable, solid album.

&nbsp;

CGN: Tell us about your background and how your position with the Elmhurst Art Museum came to be?

JM: I started undergrad in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UW-Madison. About half way through school, I took a sharp right turn, and was guided by some amazing professors towards a Bachelor of Science in Art. I worked at the Wendy Cooper Gallery in Madison, who started a location in Chicago a few years later where I became the Director. While pursuing dual Masters degrees in Arts Administration and Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I had several internships and did some freelance writing. I then had the pleasure of working as the Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum for a number of years. Next, I spent seven years as the Program Director of the Society for Contemporary Art where I worked with a core group of donors and collectors to support contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was a fantastic opportunity to oversee this nonprofit and work with a lot of very dedicated people.

The position at the Elmhurst Art Museum was enticing because of many opportunities for personal and organizational growth. The museum is at a fascinating point, where it will soon be philosophically and physically transformed as the unique McCormick House, designed by Mies van der Rohe, becomes more visible.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&#39;s the first thing you do each morning when you get to the museum?&nbsp;

JM:&nbsp;I usually drink a little coffee, check-in with everyone in the office, organize a few papers, and then head right into a meeting. Lately I&rsquo;ve also peeked into our construction site to see the progress of our building restoration.

&nbsp;

CGN: Do you have a favorite exhibition or collection from the past?

JM:&nbsp;I enjoy all of our shows for very different reasons, but I was personally very proud of our January exhibitions (Gertrude Abercrombie: Portrait of the Artist as a Landscape and IN THIS HOUSE, a site-specific group show in the McCormick House) because I watched the organization come together in my new role. We had a number of fantastic loans, partners, and participating artists; the staff worked very hard; and a lot of my friends and colleagues traveled to see the exhibition.

&nbsp;

CGN: What major successes have you had this year? What about challenges?

JM:&nbsp;Before our construction, visitors to the Elmhurst Art Museum would commonly ask &ldquo;Where is the house?&rdquo; The biggest challenge I had was sharing our vision for the construction because most people did not understand where one building started and where the other ended. After giving a number of tours, I had red tape placed on the floor, as well as moved and replaced some interpretive materials. I would say it was successful because we received a lot of generous support to fund the project, and now the tape even seems to be used by our construction company.

On June 10th, we will re-open the McCormick House. Visitors will be able to see its full exterior for the first time in over twenty years and will understand it as a standalone structure again. I am very grateful for the opportunity to guide the organization at this point, and we would not have been able to accomplish it without the leadership and generosity of our donors.

&nbsp;

CGN: What do you want to tell a young person considering this career path?

JM:&nbsp;I often tell potential arts professionals they should not be afraid to take an unconventional route and take as many internships as possible to try out several different things. It sounds like a clich&eacute; but find what you are passionate about. I did not expect to be in this position, and everyone&rsquo;s path is different.

&nbsp;

CGN: What is your favorite interest outside of the art world?

JM:&nbsp;I listen to a lot of music. For an eight-year period I made a mixed tape every month. The exercise forced me to discover a lot of new music, whether brand new albums or things I missed from the last few decades. Taking a deep dive into another contemporary field gave me a good sense of how you can find things you aren&rsquo;t expecting, an understanding of other artistic approaches, and it led me to appreciate things in a new way.

&nbsp;

CGN: What do you look for in an artwork? When searching for yourself, what speaks to you?

JM:&nbsp;I love to be challenged. I often pause when I find something unexpected that jumps out to me, especially when I return to the same work and reconsider it multiple ways. It is a privilege and a pleasure to talk with artists and hear their thinking process. But truly one of the most enjoyable parts of my job is to share my impressions of an artwork or an entire exhibition with others.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&rsquo;s coming up next at Elmhurst Art Museum?

JM:&nbsp;I&rsquo;ve already hinted at this, but we have big plans for this summer. When the McCormick House is unveiled, we will have a stunning architectural intervention within it by I&ntilde;igo Manglano-Ovalle. Both of these will be accompanied by an exhibition in our main space curated by Barry Bergdoll entitled Mies&rsquo;s McCormick House Revealed: New Views. The show provides an introduction, background, context, and visibility to the McCormick House (1952), one of only three single-family homes built by Mies van der Rohe in the U.S. It is my hope these three concurrent events will give the building an increased visibility as the home is a rare and important example of the architect&#39;s mature style, incorporating elements of his celebrated designs for the Farnsworth House and 860-880 Lake Shore Drive. I hope the exhibition will educate and inspire new generations about the unique and important modern home built in Elmhurst.

&nbsp;

John McKinnon is&nbsp;Executive Director of Elmhurst Art Museum. For more information about the EAM please visit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/elmhurst-art-museum">Elmhurst Art Museum</a>.

Top Image&nbsp;courtesy of Aidan Fitzpatrick

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&nbsp;

An Interview with John McKinnon, Executive Director of Elmhurst Art Museum

<h2>Saving landmark Eternal Indian statue may hinge on &#39;1 or 2 charitable angels&#39; as supporters try to restart restoration</h2>

For three years, fifth-grade teacher Becky Fuller and about 100 students have trudged through Lowden State Park to the bluffs of the Rock River as part of their Outdoor Education program. The objective: to see the beloved, iconic behemoth known as the Black Hawk statue.

Instead, what they encountered resembles a giant mummy.

By Ted Gregory, Chicago Tribune

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-eternal-indian-statue-oregon-illinois-20180405-story.html">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="Kehinde Wiley Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images" data-rich-file-id="2698" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2698/original/wiley.jpg" />

<h2>Kehinde Wiley&mdash;the artist behind Obama&#39;s presidential portrait&mdash;signs with Hollywood talent agency</h2>

Kehinde Wiley, the artist whose portrait of former President Barack Obama is attracting record crowds to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, has joined the Hollywood talent agency Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

The firm will licence Wiley&rsquo;s paintings for use on screen as well as &ldquo;identify directing opportunities&rdquo; for the artist, &ldquo;option books&rdquo; on his behalf and help him &ldquo;produce, develop his own material [and] collaborate with other screenwriters,&rdquo; according to a report on the film and entertainment news website&nbsp;Deadline.

By Cristina Ruiz, The Art Newspaper

<a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/kehinde-wiley">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="Photo by Gene Pittman. Courtesy of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. " data-rich-file-id="2699" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2699/original/d7hftxdivxxvm-cloudfront.jpg" />

<h2>11 of the World&rsquo;s Greatest Sculpture Parks, from Seattle to Oslo</h2>

The tradition of mounting works of art outdoors in nature stretches back for centuries. In the late 1500s, for example, Henry VIII adorned his gardens at Nonsuch Palace in Surrey, England, with sculptures inspired by Greek mythology. In Renaissance Italy, nobles like the Medicis bedecked their gardens with&nbsp;Classical&nbsp;pieces excavated from ruins. And at the end of the 17th century, Louis XIV lavishly decorated the sprawling grounds of Versailles with over 200 sculptures made of marble, bronze, and lead. Later, when site-specific outdoor sculptures were first commissioned in the 1800s, the earliest iterations of what we now consider sculpture parks began to emerge. Today, these outdoor spaces around the world strike a delightful balance between nature and art, displaying a wide range of work, from massive contemporary sculptures to earthworks and subtler, historic pieces.

By&nbsp;Rachel Lebowitz, Artsy Editorial

<a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-11-worlds-greatest-sculpture-parks-seattle-oslo">Read More&nbsp;</a>

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<img alt="" data-caption="2018 Henry Darger/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Emily Andrews for The New York Times" data-rich-file-id="2700" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2700/original/merlin-136164774-bd3a5be8-3b55-4e7b-a886-a10366715649-master768.jpg" />

<h2>An Insider of Design and Media Who Favors Outsider Art</h2>

If there were a Collecting Confidence Index, Robert M. Greenberg&rsquo;s score would be 100.

In the same way he entered a number of fields and excelled &mdash; co-founding the influential digital advertising agency R/GA, designing titles and visual effects for hundreds of feature films including &ldquo;Alien&rdquo; and establishing himself as a communications guru &mdash; Mr. Greenberg goes all-in and doesn&rsquo;t second-guess.

Scooping up collections by the dozens or hundreds of items is easier when you live in a massive, two-story penthouse loft, as Mr. Greenberg does with his wife, Corvova Lee (an artist whose work is also on view). It&rsquo;s one of five homes they own, including two in the Hudson Valley.

By Ted Loos, The New York Times

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/arts/design/show-us-your-wall-bob-greenberg.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fdesign&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=design&amp;region=stream&amp;module=stream_unit&amp;version=latest&amp;contentPlacement=10&amp;pgtype=sectionfront">Read More</a>

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News from Around the Art World: April 9, 2018

After 15 years on North Peoria in the West Loop, and over 40 years in the art business,&nbsp;Rhona Hoffman Gallery has relocated to 1711 W. Chicago Ave. in West Town, joining a growing group of galleries who have moved for more affordable rent and to be part of an emerging gallery community. Hoffman&#39;s inaugural exhibition in the new space,&nbsp;Judy Ledgerwood: Far From The Tree, opens Friday, April 6 and runs through May 19. This is the artist&#39;s fifth solo show with the gallery.&nbsp;

Three years ago, Hoffman signed her last lease in the West Loop. Since then, the surrounding neighborhood, and its price per square foot,&nbsp;changed rapidly, spurring the consideration of a major move instead of closing the doors.&nbsp;

Hoffman told CGN on Thursday, &quot;The exhibition of Judy Ledgerwood&#39;s unbelievably beautiful, color-filled paintings make us even more excited to show the public our new gallery space designed by John Vinci.&quot;

<img alt="" data-caption="Judy Ledgerwood, Hopscotch Chelsea Rose, 2018, Oil on canvas, 76 x 46 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery." data-rich-file-id="2697" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2697/original/jledgerwood-hopscotch-chelsea-rose-2018-preview.jpg" />

Ledgerwood is known for using bright colors in her paintings and experimenting with various textures and patterns. According to the gallery&#39;s show description, &quot;The visual pleasure, luminosity, and optical stimulation primary in Judy Ledgerwood&rsquo;s new paintings are hinged upon their embedded conceptual complexity. For over thirty years the Chicago-based painter has been dismantling the canon of Abstract Painting from within by using disruptive color combinations, deconstructing the minimal / conceptual grid, and employing decidedly feminine forms.

<img alt="" data-caption="Judy Ledgerwood, Yoni, 2017, Oil and metallic oil on canvas, 60 x 50 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery." data-rich-file-id="2696" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2696/original/jl1.jpg" />

Maximalist color and provocative shapes are primary agents in Judy Ledgerwood&rsquo;s engagement with historical painting.&nbsp;Whether interrupting rich blues with unexpected green, orange, and yellows in&nbsp;Tiny Dancer&nbsp;or combining glowing orange with translucent mustard browns in&nbsp;Sheela,&nbsp;Judy Ledgerwood always provokes viewers to extend beyond complacent enjoyment and actively engage with looking.&nbsp;In&nbsp;Hopscotch Chelsea Rose&nbsp;and&nbsp;Drunkard&rsquo;s Path,&nbsp;quilting patterns serve&nbsp;as the instrument to organize Ledgerwood&rsquo;s characteristic chevron and quatrefoil matrix.&nbsp;

In&nbsp;Far From The Tree,&nbsp;Judy Ledgerwood&rsquo;s signature shapes are augmented with circles, diamonds, chevrons, and seed-like forms associated with Paleolithic and Neolithic goddesses. The artist refers to these shapes as &ldquo;ciphers of feminine power&rdquo; - rooted in the generative, flexible Yonic form. Manipulating the grid, shape, and color of large-scale contemporary painting, Ledgerwood shatters the canon from within to create a distinct, feminist painting voice.

Far From The Tree&nbsp;opens Friday, April 6, 5-7:30pm&nbsp;at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/rhona-hoffman-gallery--2">Rhona Hoffman Gallery</a> at 1711 W. Chicago Ave. in West Town.

&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2015/9/rhona-hoffman-40-years-of-having-fun">Click here</a>&nbsp;to read Kevin Nance&#39;s 2015 interview with Rhona Hoffman.

<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2015/5/artist-insights-judy-ledgerwood">Click here</a>&nbsp;to read Laura Mettam&#39;s 2015 interview with Judy Ledgerwood.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Top image: Left &ndash; Photo of Hoffman by Kevin Nance for CGN from 2015; &nbsp;Right &ndash;&nbsp;Judy Ledgerwood, Drunkards Path, 2018, Oil and metallic oil on canvas, 78 x 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery
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Rhona Hoffman Gallery moves to West Town and opens Judy Ledgerwood show

Rhona Hoffman Gallery Moves to West Town; First Show Features Judy Ledgerwood

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&nbsp;Jonathan Kinkley of VGA Gallery.

&nbsp;

Age: 38

Current Positions: Executive Director and Co-Founder, VGA Gallery, and Philanthropic Advisor, Major Gifts, Art Institute of Chicago

Hometown: Wheaton and Chicago, IL

Previous Occupations: Director of Development at Museum of Contemporary Photography; Manager of Foundation and Government Relations, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago

5 favorites from the past week: Logan Square has it all -- this past week I played games at Logan Arcade with friends, went jogging with my dog on the boulevard, and had delicious drinks and lunch at Lonesome Rose with my wife and daughter. I&#39;m&nbsp;terrible at reading books in print so I have an audible subscription and am on a 2018 quest to read all of Hemingway (my favorite author). I just finished For Whom The Bell Tolls, can&#39;t get enough. I&#39;m playing Battle Chef Brigade and Tumbleseed made by great local developers for the Nintendo Switch, and listening to Marlon Williams at a trusted friend&#39;s recommendation. Took a few listens but am now super into it.

&nbsp;

CGN: Tell us a little bit about your background and your connection with VGA Gallery?

JK: I always had a lifelong passion for both the arts and video games. In recent years games have made leaps and bounds in artistic distinction and maturity as a medium. I also had years of professional experience working for art galleries and museums around the world and thought how great it would be if there were an art organization for games.&nbsp; I called up a like-minded friend from grad school, Chaz Evans, who was into the idea, and we worked together to assemble our first exhibition and Video Game Art (VGA) Gallery was born. After three years, VGA is now a non-profit with a great, energetic staff and board, that serves over 10,000&nbsp;people a year in exhibitions, events and other programming. Crazy growth this year included opening a physical space for VGA&mdash;a storefront gallery space off the blue line Western stop and the 606 with exhibitions, prints of art from video games, education programs, and a scholarly journal about video game art called the VGA Reader.

&nbsp;

CGN: Give us a day in the life!

JK: During the day I have the incredible job of connecting some truly amazing philanthropists in the city with special exhibitions, and projects of significant scale that requires special support at the Art Institute. On nights and weekends I work with a cool group of people who are building Chicago&#39;s first dedicated space for video games and enjoy the city with my family and friends.

&nbsp;

CGN: Most exciting exhibition you have worked on?

JK: For over a decade, I&#39;ve been thinking about the ideas and work in the current VGA show that I curated, Gun Ballet: the Aestheticization of Violence in Video Games exhibition (through June 3rd, 2018). It&#39;s very satisfying to see it finally realized and sparking interesting and nuanced conversations with viewers of the show.. After Parkland, it has an added relevance with a national debate about gun violence, that includes video games. The show was always intended to be more about &#39;how&#39; game artists represent violence than &#39;why&#39; but some artists in show&#39;s work asks direct questions of violent games and question why we are drawn to them. &nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN: Share some successes this&nbsp;year.

JK: The biggest deal for VGA this year will be our participation in Terra Foundation&#39;s major initiative, Art Design Chicago. For VGA, SAIC artist and professor Jon Cates is curating an exhibition and catalogue called Chicago New Media 1973-1992 in partnership with UIC&#39;s Gallery 400 and Electronic Visualization Lab. It&#39;s going to be incredible and the first time the full story of Chicago&#39;s history of video games and new media art will be told. I&#39;m super excited.

&nbsp;

CGN: When did you know this industry was a path you wanted to pursue?

JK: Ever since walking through the Art Institute as a kid and seeing the suits of armor from the Harding collection, I was enchanted with museums and galleries as places for beauty, ideas and history. I was hooked. The road was long though, I studied art history in undergrad and interned for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Chinati Foundation in Marfa Texas before getting a masters at UIC in art history in new media and the art and architecture of games and virtual worlds, before getting into the gallery and museum world in Chicago.

&nbsp;

CGN: What do you want to tell a young person considering this business?

JK: I used to think I was terrible at finance and math and business and was initially interested in art and video games precisely because they seemed far from these fields, but man was I wrong. Now, I live in spreadsheets and budgets and have learned to appreciate the behind-the-scenes strategies for how arts organizations can not just function, but thrive.

&nbsp;

CGN:What do you look for in an artwork? When searching for yourself, what speaks to you?

JK: For me, art I like in all media has got to have a great aesthetic and captivating ideas. Art that looks amazing but has no depth is not my cup of tea and neither is work that is all concept with no concern for its form or appearance. It&rsquo;s definitely got to be interesting and not boring. I&#39;m also a big civic booster and Chicago homegrown work is always an attractive quality in my book.

&nbsp;

CGN: What should we expect to see from VGA Gallery in 2018?

JK: In the lead-up to Art Design Chicago we have a full schedule&mdash;next up will be a great summer exhibition of work by Hong Kong-based artists, and we&#39;re also working to kick off a game design educational program for middle and high schoolers.

&nbsp;

Jonathan Kinkley is&nbsp;Executive Director of the VGA Gallery. For more information, please visit <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/vga-gallery">VGA Gallery</a>.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

An Interview with Jonathan Kinkley, Executive Director of VGA Gallery

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

Last month the John Toomey Gallery announced a generational succession as well as a name change.&nbsp;According to the press release, after&nbsp;three decades John Toomey Gallery&nbsp;has been a leading specialty auction house and private seller, and it is now known as <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/art-services/toomey-co-auctioneers">Toomey &amp; Co. Auctioneers</a>, marking a new era for a company that, since 1987, has built a reputation of integrity and of being well equipped to compete with large, global auction houses. &nbsp;&nbsp;

John Toomey will assume the role of a hands-on consultant for Toomey &amp; Co. Auctioneers, while turning over the company&rsquo;s management to Lucy Toomey, formerly Senior Vice President, who will now serve as CEO.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Times change and the industry progresses, and it&rsquo;s important that we evolve and adapt to meet the demands of our business as it is today,&rdquo; said John Toomey. &ldquo;The past 30 years have been fantastic, and it&rsquo;s time for the next generation to expand their role. I&rsquo;m proud of what&rsquo;s been created thus far&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;and I&rsquo;m very proud of the team that is taking the reins now.&rdquo;

In December 2017, John Toomey Gallery ended its partnership with Treadway Gallery of Cincinnati after previously conducting auctions jointly as Treadway Toomey Auctions.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an exciting time in our industry and we look forward to continuing to work with our current clients and developing relationships with new clients&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;ensuring that we are providing the best 21st-century service, with the same value system that we always have had in place,&rdquo; said Lucy Toomey. &ldquo;The enthusiastic feedback we&rsquo;ve received regarding the new business has been very encouraging.&rdquo;

At Toomey &amp; Co., Joe Stanfield and John Walcher will serve as Vice Presidents, while also continuing in their roles as Senior Specialists. Lisanne Dickson will continue as Senior Specialist and Rebecca Williams will assume a Specialist position. Director of Operations Kevin Mannella and his entire staff will remain in place.

<img alt="" data-caption="The group at Toomey &amp; Co." data-rich-file-id="2690" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2690/original/grouptoomey.jpg" />

Toomey &amp; Co. Auctioneers will continue to provide the service and expertise that the company&rsquo;s clients are accustomed to, and auctions will continue to be conducted at the same Oak Park location where they have been held for the past 30 years.&nbsp;They plan to hold several&nbsp;curated auctions each year and will continue to specialize in&nbsp;Fine Art, Early 20th Century Design, Modern Design, Fine Furniture &amp; Decorative Arts, Silver &amp; Objects of Vertu, and Fine Jewelry &amp; Timepieces. &nbsp;

The Toomey+ Online Marketplace&nbsp;offers&nbsp;an exclusive, curated selection of Prairie School design, Arts &amp; Crafts, Fine Art, Modern Design, furniture, lighting, and more.

Toomey &amp; Co. Auctioneers&rsquo; first sale, under its new brand, is scheduled for Sunday, April 8, 2018. Highlights include works by Jim Nutt, Roger Brown, David Hockney,&nbsp;Lucio Fontana, Ed Paschke,&nbsp;Robert Lostutter, Thomas Hart Benton,&nbsp;Karl Wirsum,&nbsp;and others.&nbsp;

Additional contact details and info may be found <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/art-services/toomey-co-auctioneers">here</a>.

Images from the upcoming April 8 auction:

<img alt="" data-caption="Jim Nutt (American, b. 1938) Where Is It?, 1981, colored pencil and graphite on paper signed, titled and dated on verso 11 3/4&quot; x 13 3/4&quot;. Est. $15,000-20,000" data-rich-file-id="2691" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2691/original/nutt.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="David Hockney (British, b. 1937) Henry Seated with Tulips (from Friends Series), 1976 color lithograph signed, dated and numbered in pencil A.P. edition of 20 41 1/2&quot; x 29 1/2&quot;. Est. $3,000-5,000" data-rich-file-id="2692" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2692/original/hockney.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Roger Brown (American, 1941-1997) Standing Around While All Are Sinking, 1977 etching and aquatint signed and numbered in pencil 19 1/2&quot; x 15 1/2&quot;. Est. $2,000-4,000" data-rich-file-id="2689" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2689/original/brown.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975) Nebraska Evening, 1941 lithograph signed in pencil lower right edition of 250 10&quot; x 13&quot; Est. $1,500-2,500" data-rich-file-id="2687" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2687/original/benton.jpg" />

&nbsp;

Top image: From&nbsp;John Toomey Gallery&#39;s 20th Century Art &amp; Design auction, December 2017: Charles Eames (1907-1978) &amp; Ray Eames (1912-1988) for Herman Miller early&nbsp;DCW, pair,&nbsp;Grand Rapids, Michigan, c.1949,&nbsp;natural and ebonized plywood,&nbsp;early Evans/ Herman Miller paper label,&nbsp;original finish,&nbsp;19.5&quot;w x 21&quot;d x 29&quot;h.&nbsp;Sold for $2,470
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John Toomey Gallery announces a change to Toomey & Co. Auctioneers in 2018

Toomey & Co. Auctioneers Represents a New Generation in Auctions

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

I have been to the Shedd Aquarium many times since having children. It&#39;s a wonderfully interactive and stimulating place to view so many fish and animals&nbsp;up close in gorgeous aquatic environments.&nbsp;

The&nbsp;Shedd&nbsp;is ultimately much more than a Chicago destination for families and tourists. Scientists at the Shedd are devoted, both publicly and behind the scenes, to&nbsp;saving endangered species and their habitats. Their animal care experts rescue and rehabilitate wildlife in need, across the country and around the world.

An ongoing exhibition uses art to make the case for&nbsp;how important it is for all of us to work to save these beautiful animals, since there is a crisis in our waters.&nbsp;Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea is a&nbsp;limited-time installation featuring&nbsp;colorful sculptures of a 11-foot seahorse, a sinuous 13-foot-long eel, a 150-pound anemone and seven other gigantic aquatic animals.&nbsp;

The sculptures are fun to behold, but looking closely you see that they&#39;re constructed of our every-day refuse that often escapes the trash bin and ends up as a lethal obstacle in the water. It&#39;s important to notice that while this plastic material is being repurposed, it&#39;s not actually recycled - it was just discarded after (most likely) a single use. Trash used in the art includes plastic bottles, straws, lighters, toothbrushes, flip-flops, ropes, toys and other mostly plastic flotsam and jetsam. The things we don&#39;t give a thought to once we are done with them don&#39;t go away; they add up.&nbsp;More than&nbsp;5 tons that was&nbsp;washed up&nbsp;on West Coast beaches&nbsp;was used just in this exhibition for these few sculptures.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2686" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2686/original/seahorse.jpg" />

The traveling exhibition is an endeavor&nbsp;of the&nbsp;Washed Ashore Project,&nbsp;born in 2010 after artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi&nbsp;witnessed mounds of plastic trash piling up on formerly pristine beaches along her native Oregon coast. She organized all-volunteer cleanups and used the collected trash&mdash;washed and sorted&mdash;to create massive, realistic sculptures of the sea animals most affected by the pollution.

Since the project began, 10,000 volunteers have removed more than 38,000 pounds of plastic trash&mdash;largely single-use plastics&mdash;from over 300 miles of beaches. Ninety-five percent of the debris collected has been used in more than 60 sculptures so far. &nbsp;And who knew&nbsp;Americans use an estimated 500 million straws each day?

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2685" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2685/original/clownfish.jpg" />

Though the reality of floating trash is dire, there is whimsy and fun in these sculptures, which is fitting in a wonderous place like the Shedd. My family enjoyed this latest trip, and we have been making extra sure to bring our own water bottles wherever we go.

Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea&nbsp;runs at the Shedd Aquarium&nbsp;through September 2018. A behind-the-scenes video from Washed Ashore is below.

<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E4V_RZ-p9-Y" width="560"></iframe>

<a href="https://www.sheddaquarium.org">Click here</a> for more info.

Photos courtesy Shedd&nbsp;Aquarium
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Washed Ashore at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium makes a statement through art using discarded plastic 