Anthony Pearson, "Untitled (Tablet)," 2010. Bronze sculpture with silver nitrate patina. Courtesy of the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York

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Small is beautiful in Anthony Pearson’s show at Shane Campbell’s new gallery space on Milwaukee Avenue. This sparse exhibition consists mainly of Pearson’s abstract untitled photographs that are actually pictures of ink drawings the artist made on aluminum surfaces and then discarded. Pearson’s original drawings are also abstract with layered grids crisscrossed by quick brush strokes. By transforming these ink-wash drawings into photographs, Pearson reminds the viewer of the watery darkroom origins of his shimmering silver gelatin prints. The photographs are more than simply a reproduction of his drawings because Pearson solarizes his negatives, reversing the lights and darks, distancing the photographs from the original drawings. The result of this entire process is that Pearson supplants the tactile, textured drawings with their visual record—the relatively flat, low-contrast photographs. Read the rest of this entry »

Conrad Bakker, "Untitled Project: SELF HELP"

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Many stories, such as tales of time travel and apocalyptic visions, center on the dilemma of the self-fulfilling prophecy. In varying shades of reverence, so too does the archive of futurism now on display at Green Lantern Gallery. Curated by Abigail Satinsky, “Future Shock” is a collection of blueprints for utopia (and coping mechanisms for dystopia) that correspond to Alvin Toffler’s 1970 bestseller of the same name. Visitors are immediately greeted by Randall Szott’s stacked copies of “Future Shock,” acquired at sundry thrift stores, color-coded to represent a progressively increasing bar chart and reflected in a floor mirror à la Robert Smithson. In an alcove further back in the gallery, one can watch Orson Welles’ absurd yet chilling documentary based on Toffler’s book—a pulpier inversion of the overlapping flashbacks in Citizen Kane. Read the rest of this entry »