Female powerhouses of contemporary urban art from Chicago and across the country are being featured in a group show this Saturday to benefit the Connections for Abused Women and their Children (cawc.org). Featured artists include the organizer Monstrochika, who has painted various murals around the country including at the B-Girl Be Summit, a celebration of women in Hip-Hop, in Minneapolis. This summit was where she became inspired to put together the Defenders of the Earth Show. Defenders also includes work by TooFly of NYC, legendary Chicago graffiti writer Stef, spoken word performances by Lady Death Stryke and rap artist PoR. The evening is likely to be a smorgasbord of socially interactive events including tarot card readings by Divinita Lunare, a handmade craft market, and raffles. With the aesthetics of urban art multiplying into all aspects of culture while all too often remaining a male dominated genre, these women are not only defending but also redefining. The event will be preceded by a free children’s fair from 12pm to 5pm with food crafts and face painting. (Sara McCool)

1100 W. Cermak, Saturday August 23, 6pm-12am. $5 cover.

RECOMMENDED

From the street, you may think it’s hay. Grass. Something organic, harvested from right from the gallery floor. It streams out of the walls, tapering down into tail formation, filament-covered knolls flowing across the Chicago Arts District. The illusion, however, is short lived, and quickly the landscape shows itself for what it really is: paper. Tons upon tons of shredded paper, culled from a single address. During a residency at BauerLatoza Studio, artist Barbara Hashimoto collected staff members’ junk mail for one year, hand-shredding the unsolicited deliveries daily. The resulting roughage—all 3,000 cubic feet of it—became the primary medium for “Junk Mail,” which continues to evolve with each performance by Hashimoto and her guest artists. The message behind “Junk Mail” is obvious, but subtlety is not the point here. It seems that for all our “Inconvenient Truth”s and green marketing, it isn’t until we are slapped in the face with some tangible evidence of our eco-ignorance (say, 3,000 cubic feet of evidence) that society recognizes the true weight of their actions. Though “Junk Mail”’s performative elements are exhibited only on select dates, the sight of so much day-to-day waste collected in one place is a harrowingly effective wake-up call, even for those who think their eyes are already wide open. (Jaime Calder)

Through September 12 at Chicago Arts District, 2003 S. Halsted, (312) 738-8000. 

RECOMMENDED

“Death” comes in myriad forms, as is made plain by the twelve photographers—six from Chicago and six from New York—who give us suites of Polaroid images in this tight conceptual show, inspired by the demise of instant-print technology. Among the memento mori here are Brett Ryan’s decommissioned and derelict prison, Gina Mauro’s relatives who have passed away and appropriated images dredged up from garage sales to which Anthony Vizzari has appended stories that he made up about their subjects, giving them lives they never had—perhaps the ultimate death. The most intriguing take on Thanatos is curators Nicole Kenney’s and K.S. Rives’ project of taking headshots of anyone they can seduce and having their prey write beneath their “portraits” their answers to the question: “What do you want to do before you die?” A study in democratic existentialism, Kenney’s and Rives’ ever-expanding grid is an acid test of authenticity that most of their subjects fail, with exceptions like the young man who writes, “I want to LIVE.” (Michael Weinstein)

Through August 31 at the Chicago Art Department, 1837 South Halsted, (312)226-8601.

RECOMMENDED

Pairing contemporary art with historical artifacts, “A Declaration of Immigration” illustrates the unique voice of the Mexican immigrant experience in America. Situated in Pilsen, an enclave of the Mexican-American, or Chicano, population in Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art is well positioned to strengthen its community, as well as to educate the uninformed beyond simple assumptions or stereotypes about immigrants. Immigrants carry with them their culture, and the product of border-crossing is the mixing of culture. How does one define the Mexican-American experience? Dulce Pinzon’s photographs of superheroes performing daily tasks, such as Spiderman washing windows on a skyscraper, Wonderwoman at the laundromat and Catwoman tending to her kids, are ironic reversals that teach an empowering lesson—sometimes it takes superhuman strength to get through the tasks of a day. Mario Ybarra, Jr.’s Aztec temple-inspired vitrine houses the ubiquitous calling card with imagery marketed to Mexican-Americans. Removed from their context at the newsstand, San Juan Diego and dancing jalapeno peppers signal the easy commodification of culture. Carmela Valdiva’s commemorative quilts of border crossing are masterful statements from the home-front, and Yolanda Lopez’s brash 1968 poster “Who’s the illegal alien, pilgrim?” is a slice of the historical, public face of retaliation. Only works such as passport applications folded into paper-airplanes and lodged in a metal cage, or Anni Holm’s portraits composed of fingerprints, beat the message to a pulp. Perhaps the time for subtlety has passed. (Jason Foumberg)

Through September 7 at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19^th St.

RECOMMENDED

Few raw artists exist in today’s world of over-stimulation and waste. Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, a self-taught and self-proclaimed “refuse alchemist,” uses only tape, scissors and trash to shape sculptures without preconceived plans of their finished appearance. Alley-Barnes builds upon his sculptures as the ideas take shape in his mind, creating works of layered dimension.

Though the sculptures of “Nocturne” are all black and made of similar materials—milk jugs, modified shipping crates, plastic bags—perhaps the only underlying theme is the environmental and social statement. Alley-Barnes’ sculptures are approximately five pounds—the weight each American contributes to landfills daily. His pieces are meant to convey a statement about the artist through the reuse of his daily waste and to connect the viewer to the art as well as to the waste of their own lives. In addition to providing a poignant social message the sculptures are bold and captivating. Distorted faces and oversized crows leer from the walls of the gallery. For those who long for natural beauty and an unfettered creativity Alley-Barnes is the artist to check out this summer. (Rachel Turney)

Through August 6 at Artistic Jeanius, 1711 S. Halstead, (312) 912-1444.

RECOMMENDED

Growing up on her family’s farm, Renee Shaw spent her summers watching her parents swelter over hot stovetops preserving foods in glass mason jars to suspend the goods at their peak freshness. Years later, Shaw too has generated a wealth of preserved goods, though these are not quite the Smucker’s variety of her youth; rather, one finds doll shoes, hairballs, flowers and other curiosities heaped in the sealed jars, pickled in corn oil. From a distance, the hundreds of jars create a kaleidoscopic effect in the front window of Logsdon 1909, but beauty gives way to bewilderment as one approaches the containers. The curves of the mason jars distort their contents, exaggerating the chaos generated in the presence of such a grand mess, such that close inspection of this installation threatens to overwhelm, and even repulse, viewers. With patience, however, the clutter begins to sort itself out: natural elements, pop-culture pieces and religious icons appear in the brine, and one can suddenly see a marinating snapshot of everyday life, with all its disparate elements jumbled together in volatile coexistence. Shaw’s menagerie of inanimate objects suddenly takes on new life, begging viewers’ examination of stability, social constructs and even nature itself. Those brave enough to take that step nearer will find that what “Preserved” lacks in traditional beauty is more than made up for by its intriguing concept and, well, jarring execution. (Jaime Calder)

 Renee Shaw, “Preserved,” shows at Logsdon 1909, 1909 South Halsted, (312)666-8966, through July 25.

RECOMMENDED

For artists that have held any idealism in terms of the possibility of art to “change the world” there eventually comes a time when that idealism is met with a dose of “reality” or, in many cases, a violent beating. A group of young Pilsen artists and gallery owners have been working to secure a stable studio space for artist Jaime Mellin to take his work where it is destined to go; Mellin’s work is a prime example of the power of art to consume, connect and resuscitate. Daris Jasper, the owner of Artistic Jeanius Gallery where Mellin currently holds studio space states with inspiring simplicity, “We help each other because that’s what artists do.” Jaime Mellin is the definition of prolific, making work every day for almost fifty years through a variety of obstacles that would push most artists straight to day jobs at Kinkos. Mellin is part of a growing number of artists slowly eroding the title of “outsider artist.” He meets the requirements of the outsider: he has no formal training, doesn’t work as Sallie Mae’s bitch, sacrifices at every level to make his work and has unstable studio and housing space. Even so, he spends at least thirteen hours of his day focused on his work—work that is explosively colorful, experimental yet intricate, that reads more like the new art director for Scion than “outsider” art. Mellin’s work is increasingly popular among young digital media makers or generation Y, stealing the show at a few group exhibitions he has been in. His work is completely hand-produced with sharpies and paper, yet is imbibed with a newness that is fresh, fun, and gorgeous. (Sara McCool)

Jaime Mellin, “The Sharpie King,” shows at 2ndFlr Gallery, 903 West 19^th. Opening Reception: July 11, 7pm-midnight.

RECOMMENDED

In a tour-de-force of performance art, Ana Gagliardi persuaded twelve photographers to shoot her affecting her multifarious personae in “the cell-phone-style images depicted on Match.com.” Do we want to hook up with her? Gagliardi has a little bit of something for everyone—desperate suburban housewife, blase yuppie, “hard candy” in tight jeans, manic screamer, pensive depressive, fashionista on a motor scooter, and the beat goes on. She wears it all well, always introducing a dollop of irony worthy of her Gen X roots and milking each photographer for everything he or she is worth. At her opening, Gagliardi showed up in tight black jeans, black sandals and a low-cut black top with a message emblazoned in white letters reading “I Renewed My Vows at Graceland Wedding Chapel Las Vegas.” With whom? (Michael Weinstein)

Through July 13 at Studio 101 Gallery, 1932 S. Halsted, (312)624-8291.

RECOMMENDED

In his day job as a re-designer of newspapers, photographer Ron Reason traveled to Kenya to spruce up Nairobi’s Standard (the Sun-Times of East Africa) and ventured with his camera into Kibera, a vast slum that was a focal point of resistance in the country’s recent presidential election. From Reason’s group and individual color portraits of Kibera’s children, flashing smiles and every possible hand signal, you would never know that they live engulfed in poverty and crime. Reason also shot the commercial facades adorned with street paintings and graffiti-dotted walls of Kibera, and those images are the most telling and impactful. In a wild montage of small snapshots, Reason captures Kibera’s exuberance and unexpected ironic attitude; on a dilapidated shack, direction signs have been placed with arrows pointing to “Amerika” and “China”; on a crumbling wall, we read the words, “Another Kibera State of Art Museum.” (Michael Weinstein)

Through July 3 at within(Reason), 1932 S. Halsted. (773)562-7464.

RECOMMENDED

The humble beet never looked so seductive as it does when Mary Rezny has impressed it, leaves and all, on light-sensitive paper, presenting us with images that will beat anyone else’s calla lilies in the race for vegetative beauty. Rezny’s beets appear in her luscious photograms in subtle and muted rosy red, pink and light-brown tones, floating like visions of sugar plums against rich and deep chocolate-brown backgrounds. The secret of Rezny’s success lies in the soft definitions of her subjects, which make them appear to be arrested in a sinuous dance, and their isolation, which gives them a pleasurable hallucinogenic jolt. Forget the joys of psychedelia, where every color is super-saturated and you might go blind; relax, feast your eyes on the magic beet and take a gentle, involving journey to the undulating center of your mind. (Michael Weinstein)

Through July 5 at LOGSDON 1909 GALLERY, 1909 S. Halsted. (312)666-8966.