RECOMMENDED

There’s no strict division between inside and outside in Nnenna Okore’s environmentally scaled installation, “Twisted Ambience.” Formed from sticks, twine and rolls of newspaper that have been twisted into what appear to be thick chains, braids, or coils of rope, Okore’s piece—which alternately resembles a hut or lean-to or a ship with tattered sails—is a study in transformation: of soft into hard, weak substances (like paper) into something strong and resilient, and trash into a renewable resource. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Ray Pride is the detached observer, the stranger on familiar ground, who prowls the local ‘hood at night shooting photographs in color–garishly illuminated back alleys, streets filled with cars flashing blinding headlights and any number of bizarre details that would arrest our attention if only we did not believe that there was any meaning to the phantasmagoria before our eyes. Have you ever been alone and detached in an unfamiliar city? Pride, who also serves as Newcity’s film editor, will stay at home yet bring you back there with all its seduction and forbidding alienation. In his banner image, Pride shows us a stop sign from above sitting isolated on a dirty street, telling us to halt the drive of personal life and look at what goes down when we have no stake in the result. We would like to make connection, but often it eludes us, and Pride shows us that we still might enjoy our distance. (Michael Weinstein)

Through August 2 at The Architrouve, 1433 W. Chicago Ave.

Jason Lazarus, "Lavina's surprise party (turning 90)"

By Jason Foumberg

It’s usually around this time of year that I look forward to finding out the winners of The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation’s artist grants, an unrestricted gift of $15,000 (up from $10,000 in years past) to three Chicago-based artists. Since 2002, the foundation awarded money to two dozen artists simply for being good artists. This year, though, the individual artist grant will not be handed out, nor will it be given in coming years, as decided by the foundation’s board late last year.

The Driehaus grant was somewhat controversial because it was unsolicited. Artists need not, and could not, apply for the money. A group of nominators (including myself in 2008) chosen by the foundation in turn each selected three artists whose practices were weighed and judged by three jurors. All participants were active in the visual arts in Chicago, so it’s likely that everyone was not only aware of each other’s art practices, but for better or worse, also their personalities and politics. This is unlike the Artadia grant that comes through Chicago and other cities annually. Artadia asks arts professionals from outside Chicago to judge the award, whereas the Driehaus grant was completely contained within Chicago. This led to some criticisms that the award process was subject to favoritism. Ideally, though, the tiered process was entrusted to people who care for the long-term development of certain artists and types of practices. That one type of artistic program (say, academic conceptualism) benefited over others was the will of the collective group of tastemakers.

The boon of the Driehaus artist grant was that it was unrestricted. Artists could use the money to buy supplies and fund a new project, or they could simply use it to garnish their living expenses. Philip von Zweck (2007) bought a car. Jason Lazarus (2008) paid off student-loan debt. Inigo Manglano-Ovalle (2008) purchased video-editing equipment. Even if an artist didn’t spend their funds on items related directly to their art practice, the implication was that a space was cleared for them, and a small amount of financial freedom granted, so they could do what they do best.

Some artists live from grant to grant. Although Manglano-Ovalle, who also recently won a Guggenheim fellowship, says, “I use these grants for making art. I don’t rely on them for living,” the build-up of several years’ worth of grants makes being an artist possible. The granting of unrestricted funds especially places trust in the notion that artists are engaged in producing a cultural good, not a commodity. “Grants help you stay fluid in the continuum from idea to exhibition,” says Lazarus. “Repeating this cycle constantly creates growth in an artistic practice.”

The Driehaus Foundation, which currently supports notable architects and the performing arts, such as dance and local theater, as well as many non-arts community organizations, will no longer directly support individual visual artists. Instead, they’ll continue to give money to “funders,” such as the Arts Work Fund, which in turn grants funds to nonprofit groups that support specific organizational and developmental missions. The Arts Work Fund adds an additional filter to the trickle down process. For instance, a recent grant of $10,000 was given to ARC Gallery, an artist-run space, “to undertake a comprehensive examination of the organization in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency.” Such money finds its way to administrators first and artists second. “Strengthen the business side,” says Arts Work Fund director Marcia Festen, “so that the art can stay strong.” (The Driehaus Foundation did not replace individual artist grants with agency grants).

In Chicago, Artadia will still make its annual round, and with the money comes prestige, like winning an Academy Award. The newly founded 3Arts agency also made individual grants of $15,000 each in 2008 to two Chicago visual artists (out of six total), and their grant, like Driehaus, is unsolicited and unrestricted. 3Arts is now the only major granting agency in Chicago that is not government-affiliated. Many Chicago artists have come to rely on the City of Chicago’s CAAP grants, which awards funds of $1,000 or less to individual artists. This year 185 people received this grant through an application process.

Alternative and do-it-yourself granting agencies have come up in the past few years in opposition to the often bureaucratic and oblique granting process. (Bad at Sports covered one such agency, InCUBATE, on May 24). One new grant comes from Chances, a queer-focused monthly dance party organized by several artists. Door fees have been collected and will be given to an artist to help fund a project. In the last round, Rebecca Kling was awarded $500 for her monologue project that marked her transition from male to female. The next winners will be announced in mid-July.

The Green Bicycle Organization, like other alternative spaces in Chicago, is tucked away on a neighborhood street, in this case, on the second floor of a Humboldt Park walk-up. Past the loitering residents of the North Hotel on California, a crumpled sign written in faded pink marker reads “G.B.O. 2nd floor,” clearly marked on the third-floor doorbell, a tribute to the building’s erroneous electrical wiring.

This quirkiness is mirrored in the GBO’s interior aesthetic, characterized by linoleum floor in the main space, vibrantly painted walls in the hallway, kitchen and dining room (which doubles as a library), and slanted floors throughout. The space, atypical in layout and design, reflects the mission of the organization in its nonchalant oddness. Arguably more than other alternative spaces in Chicago, the GBO resists the term “gallery” in favor of unconventional modes of exhibition and performance. The group writes, in part, “anomalies [are] our goal.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

After eight years of allowing it to lie dormant and alone, are we finally able to retrieve a sincere form of patriotism from the top shelf, dust it off and fully enjoy the nectar of democracy? Or rather, are we too encumbered with our immediate crises to make a real go of it? Or yet, as Kaylee Rae Wyant and Jerome Acks propose in their current exhibition at Julius Caesar Gallery, might there be a possible marriage of critical and patriotic practices? In their collaborative show, one is never quite sure if we’re in the process of building monuments or toppling them over, suspended as the images of revolution are in an ambiguous freeze-frame, the structure manifest and the stitching unraveled. The artists have presented some small collage paintings that both speak of an official portraiture that has either been classified or obliterated. Those works flank a large painting/sculpture structure that asks the audience to change our perspective, both literally and figuratively, to put the space back together. The work coyly lends itself to interpretation as liberating destruction or nascent creation allowing us to project our own desires upon it. And should we want to flog any remaining derision and sarcasm to purify our patriotism, the artists have kindly propped a red, white and blue stick in one corner for good measure. Perhaps the most salient token to take away from the show is that politics and patriotism are never as solidly two-dimensional. Instead, the artists remind us that they are fully fleshed environments for engagement and creativity. (Jason Pallas)

Through July 26 at Julius Caesar Gallery, 3144 W. Carroll Avenue, 2G

Melanie Schiff, Spit Rainbow, 2006

RECOMMENDED

In a reflection on how light can be deployed by photographers to reverse its familiar function of making the world manifest, this show, featuring works drawn from the museum’s collection, brings together eight artists who create abstractions with the help of glare. Shooting the empty rooms of a house built by Mexican architect Luis Barragan, Luisa Lambri lets light pass through a window and comes up with a pink-toned image of open shutters dissolving in a blazing, deeply-textured white-hot mist. Lambri’s blinding incandescent study sets the standard, but the others are not far behind. Melanie Schiff shot herself spitting out water to get the effect of effacing herself in an ethereal rainbow and Adam Ekberg played with his camera lens to bathe a forest in concentric rainbow circles. Light painting, slow shutter speed, ambient fog, the photogram and soft focus do the same trick for the remaining contributors. (Michael Weinstein)

Through October 4 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave.

RECOMMENDED

In a lavish and arresting display of fifty-five black-and-white and color photographs, shot in traditional style with a 4×5 view camera, Jean-Christophe Ballot sets up a “dialogue” between the monuments, buildings and museum interiors of his native Paris and his second urban love, our sweet home. A master of ultra-tight composition who is able to organize complicated forms and myriad details into powerful configurations, Ballot adds another level of play and complexity by juxtaposing his images to reveal visual comparisons and contrasts, bringing his two cities closer to each other than one might expect. Even Ballot’s simplest pairings are rife with telling visual cross references that pop out from the apparent differences between their elements. In clear yet muted color, the Wicker Park skyscraper thrusts upwards into the blue. Next to it, in soft black and white, the shadow of its doppelganger, the Eiffel Tower, is cast upon the streets, yet also appears to rise to the heavens. (Michael Weinstein)

Through August 16 at Loyola University Museum of Art, 820 N. Michigan.

Yamakawa Shuho, Relaxing in the Shade, c. 1933

RECOMMENDED
Unlike the smaller format of the thousands of  Ukiyo-e prints that cycle quarterly through the Art Institute’s Asian galleries, a six-panel folding Japanese screen, six-feet high and twelve long can dominate a room (especially if you’re sitting on the floor) and immerse a viewer into their imaginative visions. In the museum’s permanent collection galleries, such as the darkened Ando Gallery, only one or two are on display at any one time. The special exhibition, “Beyond Golden Clouds,” includes thirty-two of them, with a few of the best ones coming from the St. Louis Art Museum, where the show will travel next. Still, the sampling spans Japanese history from the chaotic Warring States period of the sixteenth-century up through the end of the twentieth.  There’s a surprising variety of themes, from Zen landscapes to Chinese calligraphy to fantasy narratives to devotional Bodhisattvas. There’s even one screen (c. 1660) that faithfully records every poem written one fine day by ladies in the court of the emperor’s daughter.
Then, of course, as we enter the twentieth-century, it just gets wackier, with Japanese versions of modern life, psychedelic art deco and eventually conceptual art. Like the tapestry show from last winter, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see an important part of the Art Institute’s collection that is usually off view, and this time around the museum is making it very accessible for closer study, as every single piece appears as a zoomable image on the web site, and visitors are allowed to use cameras. It’s also a happy coincidence that throughout this summer, the museum visitor might wander over to the newly opened Modern Wing to see “Cy Twombly: The Natural World,” an exhibition of wall-size drip paintings that appear like Japanese botanical screens that have, perhaps, endured a heavy thunderstorm. There is nothing in either exhibit that is not pleasant and enjoyable–but still there is a kind of formal intensity and compelling imagery in some of those seventeenth-century Japanese screens that goes way beyond decorative. (Chris Miller)

Through September 27 at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan.