By Dana Boutin

With new staff and a new site imminent, the Evanston Art Center, in the words of Executive Director Norah Diedrich, is at a crossroads. Poised for challenges to come, Diedrich says, “The environment and economy that we’re all in—whether you’re a for-profit company, a Fortune 500, or a community center—is in flux and chaos. Darwin said it’s not the smartest or strongest that survives but the most adaptable.” As the Art Center’s new director since 2009, Diedrich is looking outward and onward. She worked previously as Manager of Public Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and as the Director of Cultural Programs at Alliance Française, and is now applying her experience in community engagement to plan the Evanston Art Center’s future. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

“Social Mobility” is an installation put together by Temporary Services, a group that investigates public space. Their projects represent and raise questions about everyday places and people, rather than the colorful outpourings of privileged individuals. Relational art is not political per se, except that it generally takes place in the city, and simultaneously in the flow of signals we call the internet. Although the people who practice in this area likely have what we might call progressive ideas, their tactics often owe more to Dada, Situationism and punk rock than any theoretical or ideological position. “Social Mobility” centers on projects that challenge accepted (or hegemonic, if you like) channels of distribution of art and information by freely sharing information as pretexts for social exchange. Their current exhibition contains several vitrines of booklets and found ephemera, such as stickers, posters and religious tracts, some bookshelves that hold the Self-Reliance Library, an unpredictable collection of books and references regarding practices like self-publishing, nomadic living, herbals and weapons production.

Despite the aleatory nature and potential for disarray in its divergent collections, the installation seemed antiseptic (like a hospital waiting room) and just a bit too cerebral for the on-the-street strategies usually enacted by the group. Banners designed to call attention to the economic and political forces shaping the ubiquitous and homely personal petrochemical plastic shopping bag make an impact—they were quilted—but for all their admirable labor, they are very neat and drab. Among the banner slogans: “The inexperienced dreamer simply cannot survive alone—The Survivor.” Read the rest of this entry »

By Jason Foumberg

When we’re tourists we often find ourselves standing on graves or admiring tombs of the illustrious dead. Several years ago, after a traipse through some European cemeteries and catacombs, I became (morbidly) obsessed with the Capuchin ossuary in Rome, a series of underground chapels decorated with the bones of monks in the seventeenth century. Where a tomb designed by Bernini or Michelangelo hides the deceased behind decadently carved marble, the Capuchin monks used actual bones for their headstones, creating decorative patterns in the style of Baroque stucco bas-relief or fresco—swirling aureoles and floral motifs—while other skeletons are collaged into tableaux, such as a clock made from phalanges and flying cherubim composed of skulls and winged shoulder blades.

I wanted to learn why the Capuchins built their shrine to death but, oddly, I could not find any full historical accounts about this strange place. I realized that the thousands of tourists who visit the chapels each year are not informed about why this place exists or how it came to be; we are simply left to ogle the lugubrious sculptures and ponder our own mortality. Tourists to the bone chapel can purchase postcards of the crypts so that the visceral images of bodily decomposition may be contemplated in private or distributed around the world like a decree: death trumps art. Read the rest of this entry »

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The mid-eighteenth century was the heyday of Georgian England. The civil and international religious wars of the previous century were a dim memory, revolution had not yet risen in France, and commercial swag was flowing into London from the far-flung empire. As brewers, gamblers, young women and musicians flocked to the capital, the prosperous citizens of London did their best to thoroughly dissipate themselves. Writers such as Henry Fielding (“Tom Jones,” 1749) and John Cleland (“Fanny Hill,” 1748) were developing the comic and pornographic novel to depict that scene, and Thomas Cannon was one of the first gay activists (“Ancient and Modern Pederasty,” 1749).

In 1768, thirty-four prominent British painters, sculptors and architects, with the official endorsement of King George III, proclaimed the establishment of a Royal Academy “to promote the arts of design.” Its first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, proclaimed the purpose to train artists capable of creating works of high moral and artistic worth. But ten years later, two of its earliest students, James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson, were applying the exceptional pictorial skills of the European Baroque to that very English activity of mocking, laughing and celebrating the pomposity of authority and every other human foible. Which is to say that Rowlandson, who was himself no stranger to the gambling dens and brothels, was not the moralizer that his famous predecessor, William Hogarth, had been. Read the rest of this entry »

Enrique Chagoya, "Return to Goya No. 9," 2010

By Julia V. Hendrickson

Comic and cartoon artists work quietly but profusely in Chicago, drawn, perhaps, to the functionality of its gridded streets, city blocks like frames on a page. Comic book and specialty bookstores like Quimby’s and Challengers flourish because there is an audience for experimental narratives and a vibrant community surrounding comic art. In reaction to such public interest, January brings a flurry of exhibitions related to comic and sequential narrative art.

For those interested in historical context, the Block Museum in Evanston offers a small but superb collection of prints in “The Satirical Edge,” with work from the 1950s to the present, all using graphic comic and cartoon imagery for socio-political commentary. The majority of this collection features a group of artists, the “Outlaw Printmakers,” who were part of a 2004 exhibition at Big Cat Gallery in New York. Most striking are Tom Huck’s series of small-town narratives depicted in large, hypnotically intricate woodcuts. A handful of R. Crumb comic books from the early 1970s are the only direct connection to comics, but the influence of comic art is evident in works like Richard Mock’s bug-eyed linocuts and Enrique Chagoya’s collaged accordion book.

Chagoya’s newer work is also prominently displayed, and includes an etching from his latest edition, a dancing, demon-chased Obama, a subtle revision of Goya’s “Los Caprichos.” The Block aptly compliments the “Satirical Edge” with a concurrent exhibition of prints by eighteenth-century caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Rowlandson. Read the rest of this entry »

“Can we hang the painting this way?” asked an interior designer, holding up a washy abstract canvas over an antique side table. The painting is by Deborah Boardman, and the answer was no, even though it would have fit better horizontally, but sideways, in that corner of the living room. Peter Fagundo, whose collection of paintings is being used in the staging of a restored landmark mansion in Evanston, made the call. “It’s not one of mine,” he said, although plenty of his own works, a decade’s worth of paintings, grace the home’s walls and halls.

The funny exchange between designer and artist highlights the typical way that many interior designers and homeowners use art—as one design element among many, like a carefully placed basket of potpourri. Janet Kohl and Peter Fagundo purchased the Evanston home twelve years ago with the goal to restore it, and this week’s celebration, with tours and workshops, marks the culmination of a massive home-renovation project. For one of Janet’s previous restorations, HGTV caught her on film belittling the use of framed Monet prints as a design tool. For this project, with the help of Peter’s art collection, the goal is to challenge one’s assumptions of how we incorporate art into our lives. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kate Tierney Powell

The 20th Annual Evanston + Vicinity Biennial opened its doors on Sunday to a world of works that hang, protrude, stand, wipe, light up and may require watering.

Forty years after the first Evanston + Vicinity Biennial was held in 1970, submissions for the open-call exhibition continued to rise, up nearly forty percent from last year, indicating this juried show is still an important showcase for emerging and veteran artists alike. Of the roughly 570 local artists who submitted works, only forty-seven artists and roughly sixty works made the cut.  John Himmelfarb, an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, and Julie Rodrigues Widholm, the Pamela Alper Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, juried the exhibition, reviewing the submissions digitally, and narrowing them down to a broad range of painting, sculpture, drawing, installation art, mixed media and photography. “The vibrancy and diversity of Chicago’s large community of artists was reflected in this year’s submissions,” said Rodrigues Widholm, who spent nearly forty hours pouring over hundreds of digital images. Himmelfarb felt the submissions were both visually and conceptually strong, and though certain pieces were difficult to review in a digital format, the pieces they believed might be risky, were quite successful in the space. Read the rest of this entry »

Frank Smith, "Banner for a New Black Nation"

“Black Men – We Need You – Preserve Our Race – Leave White Bitches Alone,” screams the angry text on a silk-screened poster from the early 1970s. Thank goodness Barack Obama Sr. didn’t heed that advice ten years earlier! This is but one of several historical issues that arise when contemplating the AfriCOBRA exhibition at Northwestern University’s Dittmar Gallery.

Why did the young women carry rifles? Why do the colorful graphic designs seem as psychedelic as they do African? And whatever happened to the Chicago-based AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists)? As it turned out, most of the commune artists began or continued careers in academia. Forty years later, all that anger and Afrocentric cultural activism seems gone, especially in the concurrent exhibition of “African American Contemporary Paintings” at the Murphy Hill Gallery in Garfield Park. The skills in graphic design seem gone, too, as Murphy Hill has assembled a hodgepodge of local artists, most of whom lack professional training, have any kind of ideological commitment, and some of whom aren’t even African American (similar to the “post-black” strategy used in “Black Is, Black Ain’t” at the Renaissance Society in 2008). Ethnic boundaries may not be drawn as sharply as they were back in 1970, and, as opposed to relentless ethnic idealism, there’s instead mugshots of relentless despair, as seen in attorney Tim Leeming’s paintings and drawings of young criminals.

Most of the AfriCOBRA people were competent graphic designers who could carry and sugarcoat a message as well as any commercial artist. Some are exceptional artists, like Murry Depillars (1938-2008), who managed a brilliant synthesis of narrative figuration with African-American folk-art quilting in his homage to the imaginary “Queen Candace.” Depillars eventually retired as Dean of the Visual Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Frank Smith (b. 1939) took that quilting back and forth with abstract expressionist painting in his “Banner for a New Black Nation,” and later became a professor at Howard University.

At Murphy Hill, Mary Qian’s recent drawings effectively record and celebrate the individual spirit of people she meets on streets and trains. It’s too bad that Murphy Hill could not pull in more good work on African-American themes, and even show local masters like Kerry James Marshall or Robert Guinan. Perhaps, though, only museums can mount that kind of comprehensive exhibition—but would they, and have they? (Chris Miller)

“AfriCOBRA and the Chicago Black Arts Movement” shows at Northwestern University’s Dittmar Memorial Gallery, 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, though March 17. “Contemporary African American Painting” shows at Murphy Hill Gallery, 3333 W. Arthington, though April 3.

Vanessa Bell, "Virginia Woolf," ca. 1912, oil on paper board. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, gift of Ann Safford Mandel, class of 1953.

RECOMMENDED

Intimate portraits of well-loved Bloomsbury-era British artists and writers in their cozy interiors and idyllic exteriors are sure to please. Artists in this remarkable group—Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry, Dora Carrington, E.M. Forster—gathered around the creative hub of the sisters Vanessa and Virginia in the Bloomsbury district of London or various country cottages for creative stimulation or conversation about “art, sex or religion” freely (as Woolf said). Carrington’s charming, cartoonish drawings are an unexpected surprise. Crockery, decorative arts and household goods display the good intentions of the Omega Workshop, Roger Fry’s brainchild to create high-quality, handcrafted goods by anonymous artists. However short-lived, the workshop’s principles still inspire. Tantalizing explanations of the group’s romantic relationships may inspire visitors to do some googling of their own. (Kelly Roark)

Through March 14 at the Block Museum of Art, Arts Circle Drive, Northwestern University

RECOMMENDED

Boasting one of the most comprehensive collections of Robert Motherwell’s graphic works in the world, the Walker Art Center is an important resource not only for Motherwell’s editioned prints but for the study of the New York School painter’s entire oeuvre, which spanned hundreds of lithographs, screenprints, collages, drawings and artist’s books and, of course, iconic paintings. This representative sampling of more than forty works on view in “Robert Motherwell: An Attitude Toward Reality,” an exhibition organized by the Walker and drawn exclusively from its own holdings, provides a well-focused overview of the artist’s career with a particular focus on his prints, drawings and collage works.

Motherwell’s study of psychoanalysis, psychic automatism, Carl Jung’s theories of unconscious creativity and the principles of Zen Buddhism, among numerous other areas of interest, led him to view abstraction and reality as a spectrum. The artist plumbed the material world and the subconscious alike for inspiration, extracting key gestures from both that helped him hone in on an individual style. Motherwell’s series of spare red pencil automatic drawings is but one example of how he used automatism to unearth a core gestural vocabulary from “the preconscious” mind, while another, more uncompromising approach to automatic techniques is seen in his exquisite “Lyric Suite” from 1965, a series of several hundred ink-on-Japanese-paper drawings executed one after the other without pause or subsequent alteration. Motherwell’s incorporation of bohemian detritus into collages and lithographs enabled him to tap into another type of reality, the sheet music, cigarette packages and wine labels he favored providing a fundamentally different yet equally powerful vehicle of self-expression. Read the rest of this entry »