Ali (short for Alastair) Bailey is a recent transplant to Chicago, having moved here from London last July to be with his wife, Kavi Gupta Gallery director Kristen VanDeventer. The sense of personal dislocation Bailey experienced upon his arrival suited his work well, for much of “You Are Young,” his first solo show at Golden, involves a quirkily subjective displacement of the familiar.

Bailey thinks of his sculptures holistically, as individual aspects of an encompassing field of vision. At Golden, we see a sprout poking through a tear in an old baseball, and a pair of moldy helmet liners placed atop two crushed water bottles like mushroom caps. In the hallway, a glistening replica of a dropped ice cream cone evokes a child’s chagrin and an adult’s crestfallen impotence. Looming over it all is a creepily faceless figure, its head formed from a deflated basketball, its body a sleeping bag held upright by a hidden pole. Read the rest of this entry »

Rebecca Shore has been making paintings for about thirty years, and some of her newest paintings are her largest yet. She usually paints on a panel that’s roughly the size of a sheet of paper, but a few of the new works are about a meter high. The change in scale allows for a greater density of visual information, which is what’s so satisfying about her new body of work—collections of objects and symbols, seen in shadow, and laid out as if on a blanket, the treasured possessions of a collector. As with any collection, the more that’s amassed brings a greater understanding of the whole.

Shore began painting what she calls these “irregular patterns” by noticing and photographing faux rock patterns on houses, which are handmade wall paintings of abstract shapes made to resemble stacked rocks. Her photographs are on view in the gallery, in a small case for reference, and in the show’s catalog. Shore is an incessant collector of imagery who documents signage, advertisements, and even oddball shapes taken from television screenshots.

Many of Shore’s older paintings look to decorative motifs, such as filigree flourishes and stylized floral designs, recalling sheets of wallpaper. The new work, however, brings the imagistic associations to the forefront, including butcher knives, alphanumerics, slippers and urns. Shore flattens these images, thereby abstracting them, turning them into both essentialized and ambiguous forms.
Read the rest of this entry »

Abstract painting has had a long history in Chicago, with luminaries like Morris Barazani, Miyoko Ito, Moholy Nagy, Miklos Gaspar, Charles Biederman, going all the way back to the Armory Show in 1913. Manierre Dawson, who had traveled to Europe, was the first to bring the new ideas home to Chicago galleries, and the Palette and  Chisel Club sponsored the “Abstract Show” of 1915—even if it was only a semi-serious event. Few Chicago artists took up the new approach because there was no money in it, while illustrators could earn as much as movie stars. Among those early abstract painters, Dawson returned to Michigan to become a successful farmer.

It wasn’t until universities began their own art schools, and Ab-Ex flooded the art world, that abstract painting could be considered a practical career option—and this was  the path chosen by William Conger in the late 1950s. He found an early mentor in Chicago abstract painter Raymond Jonson, who had moved to New Mexico by that time,  and later in Elaine DeKooning. Their transcendent, formal approaches were dramatically different from the “monster roster” of Chicago Imagists of that decade, and are still  reflected in Conger’s work, although he has gone in his own, unique direction.

Conger also began his career in academia at this time, taking an MFA at the University of Chicago, and began a lifelong interest in the methods and institutions of  academic study. In 1971 he returned to Chicago as chair of the Art and Art History Department at DePaul University, and in 1984 moved up to Northwestern where  eventually he would chair the Department of Art and Art Theory.

How does a stellar career in academia impact the life of an artist? Is it somehow connected to all those frightening, high-tech, aggressive images of Conger’s work in the  1980s and ’90s? Maybe, maybe not, but at least it has led him to become immersed in the theoretical literature of contemporary art, and encouraged him to become an  articulate voice in that field. An extensive interview can be found online at geoform.net, and if you actually want to talk with him, he’s been holding forth daily on the  aesthetics-l listserv for almost a decade.

Conger practices and advocates painting that is allusive: “The important thing for me is to make paintings that exist somewhere between actual depiction and complete abstraction,” he says, so that they can serve as “surrogates or metaphors of selfness—layered metaphors of self-imagining” in a style that critic Donald Kuspit now calls “Fantastic Abstraction,” as it asserts “the repressed psychic reality” of living in America. (Although it also strongly resembles the Bauhaus period of Kandinsky.) The artist Lorser Feitelson had said much the same thing about his own paintings from 1950-51 as a “configuration that for me metaphorically expresses the deep disturbance of our time”—and it’s interesting to compare the discomfort of Feitelson’s Los Angeles with the ominous visions of Conger’s Chicago.

Whether “Fantastic Abstraction” will stick around as a Chicago style remains to be seen. Despite his four decades of teaching, Conger has few followers, and the “repressed psychic realities” of younger artists don’t seem to require Conger’s brand of meticulous craftsmanship and formalist credentials. He may just be an historical anomaly, an outsider on the inside. (Chris Miller)

William Conger, Paintings: 1958-2008, shows at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, through March 24, and at Roy Boyd Gallery through March 3.

By Jason Foumberg

Pedro Velez fashions himself as an art world muckraker. He seems to enjoy bullying the in-crowd, stripping the tenuous links between business and art, pulling the sheets off the back-scratching orgy and generally stirring the shit till it stinks. But “I’m trying to be nicer,” he says with a smirk. After spending the past five years in his native Puerto Rico on an extended “vacation,” Velez is back in Chicago, and he marks his return with a show at Western Exhibitions.

Velez has a history of upsetting people. “You’ll never work in the U.S. again!” shouted über-collector Rosa de la Cruz at Velez after he appropriated her name for one of his artworks, a showcard for a fictional exhibition in which she was unwittingly listed as a participant. Velez’s fake exhibition announcements are one of his more potent forms of critique, and they seem to instigate the most dramatic responses. He’s been making them for years, in both Chicago and Puerto Rico. The cards and fliers resemble typical gallery press for group exhibitions, and Velez “curates” an imaginary cast, which has included art world superstars Maurizio Cattelan, former Art Institute curator Okwui Enwezor, Eva Hesse, Jan Vermeer, and often includes topical news items, such as Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy whose mother drowned bringing him to the U.S. in 1999, and the endangered coral reef.

Velez relates the story of Rosa de la Cruz’s upset with a bit of pride, for her outburst reveals a lot about the international art community. Certain cities hold prominence in the social history of art. Paris in the nineteenth-century gave way to New York City as the twentieth-century’s cultural capital. In the last thirty years, the number of biennials in far-flung corners of the Earth, from Gwangju to São Paulo to Istanbul, has grown steadily, giving the jet-set curatorial class a sense of purpose. Unfortunately, you’ll often see the same artist roster no matter the region. It’s a story of increased global wealth, where biennial organizers can afford the “best” artists, and, as some see it, is an iteration of the colonize-and-conquer mentality.

The biennial franchise opened shop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2004. Being just a hop from Miami, where the art crowd convenes every December for its massive art fairs, the island is conveniently exotic. Its unique Latin flavors, sunny beaches, favor-trading politicians and lax regulations on entrepreneurship make it easy to forget that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory—its residents being American citizens. Surely Rosa de la Cruz forgot this when she threatened to excommunicate Velez from U.S. soil.

For being a self-made gatekeeper, de la Cruz wasn’t very knowledgeable about her terrain. Nor were the curators, says Velez, who swept in to take stock of the culture, and export it. Velez believes the art community, including curators, collectors and dealers, has a responsibility to respect its locale. But Puerto Rico quickly became an over-harvested field whose roots have been pulled, and the changing winds of taste blew away all that remained. “Puerto Rico’s art scene dried up,” says Velez. Likewise, in Chicago, he’s complained about curators who don’t bother to take stock of local culture.

As a working critic, curator and artist, it’s often difficult to parse out Velez’s various practices, although the critical edge is ever-present. Is the fake exhibition announcement his art or his curatorial work, or is it an artful form of critique? The term “remote control curators” appears in both his critical writings and his art, referring to exhibition organizers who curate via email in territorialized countries, not bothering to see either the art or the site in person. Somewhat similarly, Velez’s fictional exhibition announcements, which he hands out at art gatherings or shows in the gallery, pluck famous figures from the news feed, and the exhibition venue is never listed (leading to some frustration if you don’t get the hoax). Critic Michelle Grabner interpreted this as Velez idealistically dreaming the perfect exhibition, recalling André Malraux’s 1950 book “Museum Without Walls,” wherein a show is conceptualized using only reproductions of famous artworks.

But Velez is not sitting around waiting for some postmodern fantasy wish fulfillment; his practice focuses on uncomfortable social situations and the problem of inflated cultural capital. Many of the posters in his current show feature images of girl-next-door type porn models sporting bruises and black eyes. These girls embody the spectacle of pillaging—Velez’s art is necessarily un-beautiful. The list of implicated public figures, what he calls the “unwilling performers,” this time includes Puerto Rican condo developer Arturo Madero, Roger Clemens, even Blago. Above it all, a designer store’s shopping bag hangs upside-down in a signal of distress.

Velez is working in the tradition of the artist-as-watchdog, much like artist Hans Haacke’s 1971 exposé on underhanded Manhattan real estate sales, which was framed as an art piece. Velez says that Illinois’ current political troubles would barely make waves in Puerto Rico. Its art scene reflects widespread ill maneuverings, and while a true regulation of any country’s art dealings, from its auctions to VIP lists, would surely topple it, for Velez, to be critical is a performance itself.

Pedro Velez, “The Day of the Corrupt: Our Father’s left US shit,” shows at Western Exhibitions, 119 N. Peoria St., through February 14.

By Jason Foumberg

Artist Young Sun Han placed a Craigslist ad for a stranger to engage in a twenty-four-hour sustained hug. After receiving several responses, Young invited Gerald O. Heller to participate. Though not an artist himself, Gerald was comfortable with endurance practices, having run thirteen marathon races. The two men began their embrace on December 30 at midnight, and after moving through several emotional phases of excitement, physical fatigue and mental boredom (they agreed to remain silent), comfort, and finally, impatience, Young and Gerald released on December 31 as a crowd counted down the last seconds of 2008.

The world record for the longest embrace is twenty-four hours and one minute, a duration that could have easily been exceeded here, but that was not Young’s intention with his performance. Instead, he wished to heighten a hug’s normally fleeting physical sensation; even the most heartfelt hugs between mothers and sons last only a few seconds; even as we spoon with lovers, who we may have known for a lifetime or for one night, we must eventually push away. At which point does a hug or a handshake become uncomfortable or even taboo? Young wished to fight the internal stopwatch, commanded by cultural conventions, and invited the public to watch.

Since the performance, Young has returned to Auckland, New Zealand, where he is a permanent resident and has lived for the past two years. The Skokie-native runs an art gallery there, called City Art Rooms, a spacious white cube with large arching windows, with Kylie Sanderson, wherein they exhibit the work of emerging artists. While earning his art degree in Chicago, at the School of the Art Institute, Young worked on a project that also extended for twenty-four hours. He hit the streets of the city and engaged twenty-four strangers for one hour each, learning as much about them as a casual conversation would allow, and they about him. He then photographed them, and moved on. The idea of the stranger also figures in to his 2004–05 double-portrait series of couples that Young approached almost at random and photographed in their domestic settings.

Now, with the hugging performance, the complexities of intimacy are given full expression. At times Gerald, a tall 64-year-old Caucasian, felt like the contours of past lovers or even of the artist’s father, says Young, a twenty-something Korean-American. Also on view in the gallery space was a projection of a self-portrait. Here, Young has a red sheet over his head like a child’s ghost costume, with three holes ripped in it: two for eyes and one for his dick, protruding gloryhole-like. The photographic print could easily extend commentary on anonymous Internet sex sites, like Craigslist, where Young met Jerry, where identity is shrouded during a transaction of pleasure. The ghost looks strikingly like a Klan member, so that the gay ghost comes to represent the self-loathing and internalized shame inherent in some repressed homosexual desire. Too often, though, gay identity becomes over-sexualized, and is maintained as a simultaneous concealment and exposure; the public image of the sanitized and witty gay seems nothing like the haunting image of symbolic ancestors dead from disease.

In his artist statement, Young writes that art saved his life. In fact it gave him direction, and freedom. Perhaps to be sincere is uncool, said Young when I asked him about the sentimentality of his projects, which are refreshingly devoid of hip irony. Indeed, they are genuine endeavors. During the culmination of the hugging performance, onlookers engaged each other in a group hug.

Young Sun Han shows at Swimming Pool Project Space, 2858 W. Montrose, through January 31.

By Beatrice Smigasiewicz

Lilli Carré flips through comics at a café in Ukrainian Village where she can often be seen leaning over a half-finished drawing, crowded by a laptop, a stack of pens, notebooks and an unfinished coffee. She had just released her first graphic novel this October with Fantagraphics Books, “The Lagoon,” and has a full-color comic, “The Carnival,” on the horizon, scheduled for release in the spring issue of Mome. In the midst of comic-book projects she’s working on a handful of illustration assignments, and while I want to ask her how she manages to find time enough to sleep, she pulls out a handful of zines she’s been working on.

Its only been three years since what started as a comics feature in a student paper, “The Tales of Woodsman Pete,” about a hermit who’s slowly losing his wits in the wilderness, was nominated for the Eisner award. This was shortly followed by the premiere of her animation, “How She Slept At Night,” at the Sundance Film Festival.

Still in her early twenties, Carré admits she didn’t think seriously about making comics until she moved to Chicago in 2002 to attend The School Of the Art Institute. There she had a chance to try her hand at writing, but by the end she says she was turning in illustrations to go along with her writing assignments, and started working on animations with experimental filmmaker Chris Sullivan. “He pointed out things to me about my stories that made me think about how I craft them in new ways. I just really respect him, his work, what he finds important in a story and it’s characters.”

But it wasn’t too long before Carré stumbled on the Holy Consumption group, (which includes Chicago’s comic-book artists Jeffrey Brown, Paul Hornschemeier, Anders Nielsen and John Hankiewicz). Drawn to Hankiewicz’s beautifully rendered but idiosyncratic stories, she admired the intuitive way in with he structured his narrative. “They follow their own logic,” Carré says, and “I was excited to come across such a unique and engaging book. I think Hankiewicz’s ‘Asthma’ is one of the best comics to come out in a while.”

Like Hankiewicz, Carré focuses on developing the moment rather than telling a particular story. She’s always resisted the straightforward front-to-back readings of a narrative. Her most recent release, “The Lagoon,” is an accumulation of a three-year process based on a short comic she wrote in the remote parts of Michigan. Carré has been writing and rewriting the story, which she says, “is in essence much closer to a poem than any sort of a novel.”

Drawn in black and white, Carré’s style and wit brings to mind early American sensibilities of comic book artists/animators like George Herriman or Winsor McCay. Inspired by early classic horror films, “The Night Hunter” and “The Creature from the Lagoon,” Carré admits she wanted to “try and make something similar, slow-paced and eerie, something that would simply let the water and the night hold their own in the story for a while.” The narrative revolves around a creature from the lagoon that comes to pay the family a visit each night. As each family member learns to deal with the song of the creature in his or her own way, the attention of the story shifts to focus on sound itself. The night resonates with sounds of snoring, clocks ticking and creaking floorboards that pick up pace with finger tapping and whistling. Each sets the tempo, pace and mood of the story but also define the characters relationship to the creature and to each other. Every character seems to be possessed by and aware of the sounds around them. Whether it’s the call of the wild, or the lure of the siren’s song, everyone has his or her own relationship to the call. Grandpa, like a cat in heat, whistles lounging in the flowerbed emptying the lot of every little petaled stem he sets his eyes on, the mother and father lured by the creature’s song disappear in the swamp, and the granddaughter, Zoey, learns to play the eerie tune on the piano.

Yet, the story of “The Lagoon” itself doesn’t resolve in a typical way—if it resolves at all—Carré admits she’d rather “leave the reader to make his own conclusions about the significance of this creature and its song based on how the family members relate to it and individually deal with this unknown thing that has dipped into their lives.” Take it as is, the book aims to give the reader something that they can pick up and read over and over, finding something new in it every time.

Lilli Carré signs copies of her new graphic novel “The Lagoon” at Quimby Bookstore, January 15, 7pm-8pm. She will also sell prints and various little handmade book items. On Tuesday, February 3, Lilli Carre and Alexander Stewart will be present for the MCA’s Work In Progress from 11 am-7 pm.

“Don Baum: In Memoriam” is a shout-out to one of the greatest promoters of Chicago art. Ephemera from his curatorial career include documents from the 1969 exhibition “Don Baum says: Chicago Needs Famous Artists.” A press release describes the exhibition area, held at the MCA’s then-recently refinished basement, as “a homey Chicago basement atmosphere.” A newspaper clipping depicts a determined-looking Baum, wearing his familiar dark, round-framed glasses in the basement with a large, prominent furnace. Behind him stands an equally determined-looking group of artists.

As a curator and exhibition leader, Baum mounted shows that championed Chicago artists, both formally trained and “outsider” artists alike. Reading through the catalogue, familiar names pop out of that have since become immortalized in Chicago Art lore: Ed Paschke, Roger Brown, H.C. Westermann. Other artists feature members of Chicago “Imagists” groups, who were known for their surrealist pop art representations: the Non-plussed Some, False Image, and the Hairy Who. These were not intentional groups, but artists brought together in shows curated by Baum. Their rather grotesque pop art style can be seen in a few Hairy Who posters included in the exhibit.

Baum also contributed to the Chicago art scene in the roles of teacher and artist. He taught at the Art Institute and Roosevelt University, and served as former chairman for the latter’s art department. In addition, he continued to develop his own art. Baum originally studied art history at the University of Chicago in the 1940s, but found himself drawn to painting. He later turned his attention to assemblage art, often using found objects with reoccurring themes, including baby dolls and sculptures in the basic shape of Western-style houses. Many of these works incorporate “paint-by-numbers” kits that have been mutilated, rearranged and juxtaposed to create new images with social, sexual, and religious connotations.

"L.B.J." 1968

Unfortunately, only two pieces by Baum are on display from the MCA’s permanent collection. Both are from Baum’s “Baby Doll” period: “LBJ” and “Babies of Della Robbia.” “LBJ” is particularly engaging—a chubby-cheeked baby head and upper torso, just fitting into a tight wooden box, is decorated with a cut-out of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s face, creating a grimacing visage. Decals of cobras, coiled and ready to strike, decorate his forehead. Similar decals of eagles in flight, talons outstretched, cover the box.

Baum died in October 2008 at the age of 86, believing to the very end that Chicago had a vibrant and passionate art culture, one which he helped cultivate. After stopping by the MCA, check out more of Baum’s work at the Carl Hammer Gallery. It may inspire you to make an impact of your own in the Chicago art community. (Patrice Connelly)

Through January 25 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave.

By Anthony Elms

In public events, posters, exhibitions, demonstrations, objects, discussions and presentations, Temporary Services has been responsible for some of the most engaging and chaotic art actions to come out of Chicago in recent memory. Furthermore, they have tried to demonstrate how collaboration is the most active noun in the English language. They refuse to work in commercial galleries, but will work in just about any other venue and location you can conceive of.

For example, on March 19, 2001, Temporary Services’ “The Library Project” opened at their self-run space. On the walls were posters promoting reading; instead of the usual cheap wine or beer there were Dixie cups and jugs of water, and instead of the usual chitchat, the attendees were engrossed with a large table littered with books. While slightly unusual for an exhibition opening, the real work was just beginning. Temporary Services had arranged for more than 100 books to be donated by artists. Most of the books were conventionally produced hardcover or paperbacks and some not so—a book that opened out into a wearable suit, a photo album, a cast book made of concrete. All titles had been given call numbers, and little by little snuck onto shelves throughout Harold Washington Library. As soon as someone tried to borrow a surreptitiously added volume from the library, any librarian who entered the book into the database after discovering the title had no barcode became an unwitting collaborator. And so the project played out over months, one book at a time. Titles not generally collected by the library (because of interest, funds or format, or if collected, relegated to rare-book holdings) became part of the library collection, avoiding red tape, committee selection and concern for cost, preciousness or value. Eventually, a sharp librarian caught on and began collecting the found volumes and cataloging them as one collection. “The Library Project” was generous if cantankerous, fugitive, inquisitive, slapdash, caring, caustic, absurdly fun, intrinsically interactive, but dispersed in a manner that makes it hard to achieve an overarching view. And that in a nutshell describes Temporary Services.

Temporary Services is currently Brett Bloom, Marc Fischer and Salem Collo-Julin. On December 5 at Co-Prosperity Sphere, the group celebrates the release of its book, “Public Phenomena,” an assortment of hundreds of snapshots documenting all sorts of pedestrian creativity from parking-place savers to “fence-eating trees”; as well as the release of two new booklets: one an interview with members of Texas punk band The Dicks, the other a conversation with Austin-based musician and artist Tim Kerr. “Public Phenomena” is printed by Temporary Services’ newly inaugurated publishing imprint and online store Half Letter Press. But the big news is not the new publications, not even the new imprint and store; after all Temporary Services has generated eighty-three booklets or books, most self-published. The big news, and one reason not to miss this event, is that Temporary Services will be celebrating its tenth anniversary. There will be music by The Velcro Lewis Group and others, publications galore, slideshows and in true Temporary Services fashion, food and further surprises.

It would be unethical for me to not mention that I am anything but an impartial observer to Temporary Services’ history. I met Brett and Marc at the University of Chicago. We were all painters at the time (yes, incriminating evidence exists and yes I know where to find it). Sometime around 1996 I met Salem through Brett. In early 1998 when Brett was readying Temporary Services as a storefront at 2890 North Milwaukee, he asked me to be a partner. I gave a resounding “no,” in what remains either one of my brightest or dumbest moves.

It was not long after formation that Temporary Services (TS) moved beyond the original storefront (1998-1999), spilled out into the public sphere, landed for a time in an office space at 202 South State (2000-2001) and then on to the Post Office Box and Web site that act as the only consistent bases for Temporary Services today. One result of this transformation is that the moniker changed from the name of a space for activity to the name of a group of individuals and set of activities.

In light of the upcoming anniversary and book release, it seemed time to reacquaint myself on a base level with three people I see on a fairly regularly basis, ask some basic questions I have not heard them answer for at least four years, and learn how they define their practice today. For example, how did the current group see the change from a situation where one was asked by Brett to contribute projects for the nascent Temporary Services to a group with equal members? All responses to my questions were written together by the group.

“There was a direct conscious decision to make a group and to move away from running an ‘alternative art space.’ We found the limits to this way of working really rapidly. TS could have continued indefinitely in that mode and would have been kind of interesting, but it wasn’t pushing things as far as we wanted.

The move wasn’t hard. We all were working more or less as a group over the course of three or so years and it was easy to make this relationship more formal. Everyone who is involved in the group now had participated in some way since the first exhibition—either as an included artist or someone who helped behind the scenes.

The coherence of a group creates stronger ties and commitments. We have become more like a family with deep responsibilities to one another and to a shared creative endeavor.”

Over the course of this transformation I, like many others, got pulled into Temporary Services’ actions. I organized a project for the Temporary Services storefront, contributed as an artist to several projects initiated by Temporary Services, was the organizing contact for projects that have included Brett, Marc or Salem as individuals at other institutions, collaborated with Marc on projects, disagreed passionately with all of them when given the chance, and in 2003, through the organization WhiteWalls, published the book “Prisoners’ Inventions” in collaboration with Temporary Services. Reflecting back on these events and activities, the best description for my relationship to Temporary Services might be as both active participant and hostile witness. In this I am not alone. During the transition from a storefront to a group, four others passed through TS and dozens more contributed projects, ideas or labor. For a time, membership was fluid, but in 2002 TS solidified into the current trio.

Even as stable stewardship settled, TS didn’t stop collaborating with others, they simply appended the collaborator’s names. Projects would be credited to, for example, Angelo and Temporary Services, Brennan McGaffey with Temporary Services, Biggest Fags Ever (Rob Kelly and Zena Sakowski) and Temporary Services, etc. They have collaborated with other artists, writers, gardeners, actors, performers, passersby, prisoners, academics, activists and the homeless. Naturally, the question arises: What drove the change to keep a consistent roster, and if working with others, list them as additional collaborators rather than TS members?

“We used to insist on Temporary Services being an umbrella for a more or less anonymous group of people. This caused many problems for us and created public misperceptions of the group (which were fueled by ignorance, racism, sexism and, more commonly, unfamiliarity with the way we make art).

One way of being explicitly clear about who was behind Temporary Services was to list our names. It is not because we want recognition as individuals, but to cut out the possibility that someone think that Temporary Services is only one of us while the others are just helpers.

We used to think—in the days when we were apt to call ourselves a collective—that growing the group was healthy for Temporary Services. We learned that this wasn’t necessarily the case and that once you add a few more people, you have to spend a lot more time taking care of the group over the work. At this point, we didn’t take care of the larger group in the ways we take care of each other now—and this means having conversations that can be uncomfortable about the power dynamics and problems we have relating to one another. We had a lot of romantic ideas about collectives and how to make work in groups. Those ideals are still there, but they are tempered by practical considerations and real efforts to keep our group healthy.

Adding additional people to the fold on a per project basis has been a great way for us to get other people included who are perhaps less recognized in the arts (or in some cases are not artists) and to learn how others work while we work with them. It also destabilizes our identity a little, creates a healthy kind of confusion, introduces curators and organizers to people they might not have included otherwise, and keeps the three of us from falling back on solutions that we might be inclined to repeat too often if everything we did drew only upon our own interests, skills and concerns.”

A telling story speaks to their commitment to the ethics of group organization: When Temporary Services was offered free storefront space soon after a mention of the group in a New York Times article, the members decided not to launch Temporary Services Location Mach 3. Rather they invited likeminded individuals to help program a multi-use space, Mess Hall. The space quickly morphed beyond the core group of TS, and beyond TS functioning as the lead organizers. Running since 2003, Mess Hall now counts fifteen “keyholders” who program free workshops, screenings, talks and exhibitions in the Rogers Park storefront. Around this same time, a frantic rhythm settled in for the TS group, and five years later this pace is well entrenched and shows no signs of abating. The three members don’t necessarily all travel to the numerous international Temporary Services exhibitions and events (sometimes due to monetary limitations of the host organizations). All began to reassert their individual practices. Each one at least doubled their individual collaborations with other individuals and groups. To hear them tell it:

“There is definitely an ebb and flow to how we work and whether or not we give all our energy to TS at one time or another. We think we are doing a lot more work now in general and we are all are giving a tremendous amount of time to TS. The demand for TS has increased significantly over the years. TS is limited in the kinds of things it does and the ideas it takes on. We all have concerns that are better addressed when we work by ourselves and in other configurations. The freedom to move back and forth has been a real strength that we have had to develop.

It is also an important outlet for us all to do things that are not TS. As the three of us have moved away from running Mess Hall and Mess Hall has added many new keyholders, this has also created a bit more time for members of Temporary Services to experiment outside of the group, as well as take on more work within the group.”

Still, over the last decade I sometimes have had a sense looking at Temporary Services projects and of thinking, “oh, that’s a Brett project, or that’s a Salem touch, or a Marc approach.” Is this a problem? Do they care if people read the individual personalities into the gestures?

“It isn’t an issue. You might be one of only a handful of people who can see this because we have all known you for so long.

In earlier projects there was a clearer division of labor or authorship and it was more common to see things like essays with an individual author’s name attached. Now most texts are written by all of us together and we only identify individual contributions in things like live interviews where multiple members are talking, or other situations where it gets confusing to use a group identity.

The group has to agree on everything that shows up as TS work, and we all have our hands in TS work. So, while one person brings ideas to the group that may be his/her obsession, we all have to agree on it and we end up working on everything. The degree to which we each work on every aspect varies a great deal based on the time we have or the level of interest. However, our practice is incredibly flexible and accommodating to individual and group concerns and an oscillation between them, and is why we have been able to stick together for so long. We also genuinely like working with each other and the challenges that it brings.”

Having known the individual members for longer than Temporary Services has existed, I continue to argue with Brett, geek-out over music with Marc and laugh about what probably shouldn’t be laughed about with Salem. The major change in my relationship with the group has been the fact that where once I often got contacted by people outside of Chicago asking me to tell them about Temporary Services, the group now works outside of Chicago, and the country, much more than they do in their hometown. Now I often find myself having to ask out-of-town friends to describe Temporary Services’ latest activities to me.

Marc and Salem both still live in Chicago, Brett currently resides downstate. So don’t miss the chance to see them together in the same place and at the same time. For the event at the Co-Prosperity Sphere everyone’s invited, and more to the point, everyone is asked to be involved. “Do-it-yourself motherfuckers.” This phrase, equal parts motivation, threat and promise, is written across a banner TS produced from melted plastic shopping bags. One constant with the group has been calling attention to the creativity that surrounds us everyday, with particular attention to practices that take the right to creativity as a given, and rewrite or trespass on any rules or barriers that seek to limit this fact. Recently they initiated a series, “Temporary Conversations,” where they interview people and groups they admire. This could lead one to interpreting the recent TS projects as more archival, focused on documenting other people and groups. The group made clear this was not a conscious move away from generating their own content toward a more documentary practice.

“We try to do both things and to actually alternate them so we don’t get bored or stuck too much in any one way of doing things. We are generally doing several projects simultaneously and it is hard to get a sense of this from outside the group.

The increased interest in interviewing, and shedding light on the work of others, has been a nice way for us to learn from people who have worked in groups for many more years than we have, as well as to present practices that don’t always get enough attention. For our next booklet we’ll be publishing a long interview with Jean Toche from Guerrilla Art Action Group. Jean is 75 years old, still angry, still fighting the good fight, and still working on the margins. He’s the pissed off kind of artist that we’ll all hopefully be in about forty years. It’s helpful for us to talk to him so we can learn where we might wind up!”

The party for Temporary Services’ tenth anniversary and the release of their book “Public Phenomena” takes place December 5 at Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan, at 7:30pm-midnight. $5.

Chicago artist Joseph Grigely has an intensely self-reflexive practice. Using his experiences as a deaf person, Grigley explores the stuff of everyday discourse—words, sounds, sentences—shaped by what the artist calls a “meaningful kind of meaninglessness.” His current exhibition features installations, sound and video works, all dealing with language and the nature of (mis)communication.

In “We’re Bantering Drunkening About What’s Important in Life,” Grigely hangs notes with bits of conversations jotted on them—traces of his “spoken” interactions with friends and strangers. Hung in a grid, the notes imply humor (“We’re in digestive stupor”), reflect some banalities (“We do accept checks”) and bespeak empathy (“She loves you”). Questions, statements and sketches created by Grigely and those with whom he converses create a record of past narratives. While the fragments don’t always reveal connections and shared bonds, they all suggest attempts.

The exhibition’s centerpiece is “St. Cecilia,” a two-channel video installation. Named for the patron saint of music, the videos feature a choir singing three Christmas carols. The catch? In one video, the choir sings lyrics of words based on the common misreadings that come when trying to lip-read these songs. The lyrics “Sleep in heavenly peace” become “Tell me everything please.” Shown next to a video of the choir singing the original words, the installation explores the idea of the productive mistranslation, the idea that everyday disconnects are substantive for their creative possibilities, if not only revealing of difference. Just out of sync enough to be disorientating, the videos make real the simultaneous bigness and subtly of aural and visual disconnects.

Grigely, a professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, says it is important to keep academic critical theory from becoming a “modulating force” in his art. Ultimately, he says, “the art takes its own path.” The most ineffable work in the exhibition does just that, and it is Grigely at his most restrained. Based on a newspaper clipping in which a fisherman defends the merits of ice fishing, the installation “That’s What We Live For” consists of two overturned buckets fabricated out of crystal urethane resembling ice. The buckets are positioned in close proximity as they would be if used by two fishermen. Using absence to suggest corporeal presence, the installation uses space and material in a masterfully emotive way recalling Fred Sandback’s charged spatial constructions.

Grigely shows us that where language seems silent, it is in fact the loudest. His work, because it is about attempts to connect rather than successful bonds, produces a conviviality more real than most overtly ‘relational’ works of the last several decades that strive to connect audiences in real-time. And if we consider that any type of universality could possibly exist within the limits of human experience, Grigely makes visible the collective frustration, absurdity and vulnerability that characterize human discourse—spoken, written or signed. (Jessica Cochran)

Joseph Grigley shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave., through February 22.

The sea. “It’s mesmerizing,” says Helene Steene, an abstract artist who grew up in Sweden. “I’ve seen it during heavy, heavy storms, in shades of wine-colored red to purple.” Steen stares at the water from her seaside bungalow in Paros, Greece, which she bought twenty-four years ago with her then-husband. While they vacationed with Swedish friends on the tiny island, a Greek man bedecked in gold chains insisted they look at a house for sale. “We looked at each other and said, ‘This makes no sense at all.’ But we went home and scraped the money together and bought it.”

Steene’s abstract art paintings, currently on view at Logsdon 1909 Gallery, pay homage to her summer place in Paros. “Aegean Cove” is a series of eight panels that capture the ocean at various times. A close-up view of part of “Aegean Cove VI” shows a wooden slab layered with acrylic, marble dust, sand and oil glazing. Pure pigments and intense dry powders are next, followed by sanded aluminum shapes and blocks. The forms resemble chapel roofs and Greek columns lying sideways. “Aegean Cove” exudes beauty and poetry, energy and movement. It is Greek frescoes and a crashing, soothing, ever-changing ocean.

A section of “Dilion” shows a swath of red splashed with orange and green paint, topped by aluminum shapes. The rich layers of paint produce a depth and vibrancy that command attention. Red is the color of love, Apollo is the god of love, and remnants of Apollo’s temple are found in Dilion on Paros. Moreover, the temple area that honors Asklepios, the god of healing, gave Steene the name for her mixed media show: “My Asklepion.”

Greece is the inspiration for Steene’s exhibit, but Japanese-born artist Kenzo Okada was a strong influence. Steene discovered his work after marrying an American, moving to D.C., and studying art at George Washington University. While wandering around The Phillips Collection museum, she found Okada’s paintings. Struck by the colors, layering, and build-up of different surfaces, she ran to her teacher’s office, and said, “I don’t understand it. What is this?” It was abstract art, and she was hooked. Her love for this art form “has stayed with me through all these years—through fiber, weaving, collage, painting,” she says.

Following a 1987 move to Lexington, Kentucky, Steene worked on her art and raised her children. Then she returned to school. In 2004, she received her MFA from the University of Kentucky and committed to working as a full-time artist. Lexington may be a small, traditional place, but it has a vibrant art scene, she says.

When Steene began her seascape art, she considered painting only in blue. Instead, she put down the opposite color of orange. Then she sanded, scraped, lifted, pulled—and painted blue on top. Her work is indicative of her admiration for Kenzo Okada and her belief in Japanese philosophy. She says, “You have many disharmonies, things that scrape on each other a bit. But ultimately you can make it all come together.” (Sarah Klose)

Helene Steene shows at Logsdon 1909 Gallery, 1909 S. Halsted, (312)666-8966. Saturdays noon-5pm and by appointment: call the artist at (859)684-1716. Through December 6.