Jacob Livchitz

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Exhibitions of successive generations of artists from the same family unavoidably document the change of fashion, but the three generations of artists from the Livchitz family also straddles two different cultures, Soviet and American. As a member of the Soviet Artist’s Union, the grandfather, Chaim (1912–1994), did what most professional artists have done throughout history: glorify the ideology of rulers and priests. Though we might disparage that as propaganda, it’s hard to find a society, including our own, that has survived without it, and Chaim convincingly, if predictably, imagines men of action as strong, intelligent and reliable. His work reminds us that such positive images have been unpopular from the mainstream American art world for several generations. His American-born grandson, Jacob, is predictably ironic as he creates monumental, pseudo-propaganda for that monster of the Cambodian killing fields, Pol Pot. Read the rest of this entry »

John A. Kurtz

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Meet three wild and crazy Chicago guys from the generation that grew up in the 1950s and sixties, back when the language of art had not yet been deconstructed and the Beatles had not yet met the Maharishi. Although John Kurtz, Paul Lamantia and Bruce Thorn are introspective, their artworks are hardly private, and rather than inviting you into their own pictorial world, the energy of each picture is always pushing into the world of the viewer.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Contemporary symbolist painting is a hard sell in Chicago. It doesn’t revel in bright, sunny landscapes, gritty urban realism, or echoes of popular culture. As developed in the late-nineteenth century, it cultivates spirituality in a dark inner world accessible only to the artist/genius and those able to follow. As the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren once put it, “It is not our faith and our beliefs that we put forward; on the contrary, it is our doubts, our fears, our boredoms, our vices, our despair and probably our agony.”

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At the heart of Elsa Muñoz’s exhibition of recent seascapes, landscapes, still-lifes and portraits seems to be a coming-of-age drama with recent or impending tragedies that may or may not be autobiographical. The sun never penetrates a humid atmosphere of sadness that hangs over these dark images, even when the artist steps outside to share a daylight view of Ireland or Mexico. All the paintings are so quiet!—as quiet as Vermeer. The interior views feature the slender figure of a young woman, alone, never facing the viewer, and always in front of a door or window. In one version she is opening a door for a presumed visitor, but she is so cautious, and the lock on the door is so large, heavy and prominent. Read the rest of this entry »

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Kaoru Arima likes to straddle the lines between control and surrender, formal and casual, revelatory and obscure, mindless and calculating, and, of course, art and non-art. What better place to show the results than in this tiny second-floor apartment gallery in Pilsen. It’s as randomly located as Arima’s own gallery in Inuyama, Japan (curiously named the Art Drug Center). The gallery’s white walls feel like the small areas of white paint splashed onto Japanese newspapers on which Kaoru executed the twenty-eight cartoonish line drawings in the collection of the Walker Art Center. Read the rest of this entry »

They have dotted the skyline for longer than anyone remembers. Brawny artifacts of redwood or cypress, the water tanks are like forgotten but proud old men, once employed, now replaced by sprinkler systems, their modern counterparts. You might have noticed them from the corner of your eye, but artist Larry W. Green observes them with the curiosity of a biologist studying an endangered species. His paintings reveal the graphic strength of the iconic forms, stark silhouettes amid silent cityscapes.

Green’s water tanks, as well as his book of photographs and paintings on the subject, will be featured on May 2nd at Fortunate Discoveries on Armitage. One-hundred copies of the slim volume, “Water Tanks of Chicago: A Vanishing Urban Legacy” (Chicago: Wicker Park Press, 2007), will be offered for free.   Read the rest of this entry »

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Graphic design duo Sonnenzimmer once again flexes their fine art muscle with an ambitious exhibition of slick abstract paintings, each layered with various application techniques. Some marks, which look like gestural brushstrokes, reveal themselves to be carefully screenprinted upon closer inspection, only to be mostly obliterated by literal strokes, smears and sprays of watery paint. On the floor, Sonnenzimmer debuts a collection of exciting sculptural works as well. Delving into the tradition of textiles, they’ve merged hand-woven, hand-painted and screenprinted fabric into a series of quilts, which are strategically stretched and draped over clever wooden structures constructed by Club Club, an award-winning architectural collaborative. With this addition of the third dimension, Sonnenzimmer’s careful compositions are accentuated and their forms come to life. Unexpected color choices and an impeccable eye for detail draw us in, make us scratch our heads and keep us looking. (Kelly Reaves)

Through June 7 at Public Works Gallery, 1539 North Damen. Artist lecture on Friday, May 17 at 7pm.

Seth Adelsberger

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Up three flights of stairs from Milwaukee Avenue, beyond the trendy Wicker Park shops, is LVL3 Gallery. The current exhibition, “Transposed Planes,” brings together three artists working on parallel problems in abstract painting, found art and sculpture from Baltimore, Brooklyn and Bloomington, Indiana. The gallerists choose the artists—Seth Adelsberger, Stacy Fisher and Peter Shear—from websites, social media and studio visits, so the process of choosing artists and artwork for display shifts from mining local connections and affiliations to finding affinities from nodes on the web. Read the rest of this entry »

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The depiction of Mexican farm workers became so connected to left-wing politics in the twentieth century, it is hard to remember that ever since Hesiod, rustic idylls were created for the landed gentry. How pleased the Duc de Berry must have been to contemplate his très riches domains cultivated by happy, hard-working peasants. The politics of the Chicago painters who moved to New Mexico a hundred years ago were less clearly defined. Some of the paintings, permanently displayed in a special gallery at the Art Institute, seem like anthropological studies of Native American life. A current exhibition of paintings of California farm workers by Eric Bellis seems to invite all three perspectives. In text that accompanies the exhibition, the artist expresses some concern for the makeshift facial barriers the workers need to protect themselves from the toxic pesticide in which they are immersed. But he has rendered their scarves as such alluring masks that it is nearly impossible to contemplate anything sinister. And, the quality of light is so delicious, some of the paintings glow like ornamental stained glass windows. In addition to his career as a post-punk, alt-country musician with the Mekons, Bellis is quite a painter—and the variety of effects suggests that he’s more of an explorer than a brand builder. Read the rest of this entry »

“Circuit Landscape: No. IV,” 1973, oIl stick on canvas

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Shortly before creating the paintings in “Ghost: Rhythms,” in the early 1970s, McArthur Binion became the first African American to receive an MFA from Cranbrook Art Academy. The eleventh child of Mississippi tenant farmers, the painter’s uncomplicated aesthetic came to the attention of Minimalist luminaries Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre, and in 1973 the young painter was included in a significant exhibition at New York’s renowned Artist Space. Read the rest of this entry »