Steven Bernas

RECOMMENDED

From Jean-Robert Franco’s black-and-white large-format full–frontal female nudes, standing and staring straight at us impassively; through Elena Elbe’s color studies of overlapping exposures of the same nude woman that illustrate the conceit of “Me, MYSELF, and I,” and Steven Bernas’ crazy-colored, distorted and ghoulish figures—constructed by projecting snippets of pornography and his own handiwork on images of nudes—who inhabit “tactile territory;” to Francoise Anger’s atmospheric, astral color abstractions of volatilized figures, we run a gamut of the wildly contrasting ways in which the human body can be represented to evoke whatever sense of existence with which an artist might like to conjure. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Unframed and tacked unpretentiously on the gallery wall, Carleen Clifton Bragg’s black-and-white street portraits—mostly candid—of down-and-out African Americans and wasted whites who live amongst us forswear indulgence in patronization, humanization or victimization; her subjects are for the most part depressed, as we see them when we venture into their neighborhoods. Sometimes homeless and holding signs, Bragg’s subjects are epitomized by a young man standing slumped under the weight of a backpack and bundled in a hoodie, with his head bowed and eyes closed—asleep on his feet—as he holds an outstretched Styrofoam cup in one hand and an appeal in the other in faded lettering that reads: “Please Help Me I Have Nothing.” An engaging, straightforward and thoughtful individual, Bragg says that she is “elated” when she takes her shots, because she loves “naturalness.” (Michael Weinstein)

Through March 26 at ARC Gallery, 832 West Superiorar

RECOMMENDED

Seized with the purpose of revealing the archetypal and impossible longings exploited by television advertising, Anat Pollack photographs moments of commercials from the screen and processes them in the computer so that the original color images no longer bear traces of specific products and communicate only hazy hopes and phantasmic dreams. In one of Pollack’s most effective images, a car reduced to a blur of motion rounds a corner, radiating the sense of speed and control. Other studies are more bucolic and tranquilizing. If Pollack intends her series as a foray into cultural criticism, she fails, because her technique results in photo-works that are suffused with soft impressionism that renders the eye contemplative and absorbed in the aura of the ideal, rather than in questioning it. If Pollack aims at showing us that advertising manipulates deep-seated desires, she is stunning, but only after we have broken the spell that she casts and are aware of her program. (Michael Weinstein)

Through September 25 at ARC Gallery, 832 West Superior #204

Wes Carson, “201004240121”

RECOMMENDED

Ending up somewhere in a liquid world of surreal fantasy tinged with New Age, Wes Carson gets there by putting his willowy model through various paces, shooting her in the act of performing so that the resulting photo will be blurred, and then printing the image digitally in blue tones to make it look like a nineteenth-century cyanotype. Although we can discern her features—and then barely—in only one image, Carson’s subject is clearly a lithe and tough beauty who can stand up to any assignment, such as appearing to take off into the misty sky like a Greek goddess turned angel. What saves Carson from hackneyed sentimentality is the woman, whose strength dominates his images; etherealized as he mightily strives to make her, she will never morph into a water nymph radiating the incredible lightness of being or a foamy sprite. The model rises to her ultimate level of power when she appears emerging from an arch formed by two enormous wrench-like hands sprouting from the earth; her black garment and legs attenuated to shreds, she casts a ghostly overmastering presence. (Michael Weinstein)

Through July 17 at ARC Gallery, 832 W. Superior

RECOMMENDED

Another of the army of redeemers of the ruins, Shane Prine shoots the interiors of derelict houses, finding in the copious rubble and refuse forms that—but for the fact that they are filthy—could pass for modernist sculptures and assemblages. Prine renders his subjects in black-and-white chiaroscuro, taking advantage of shadows and pools of light to show them forth in their ramshackle backgrounds. At an extreme pole of the photographic proclivity to alert us to the unrecognized beauty that lurks in the most unexpected places, Prine’s work insures that we will never look at a pile of construction trash the same way again—or at modernist sculpture. In Prine’s most powerful shot, he offers a view of the side of a chair looming up from the litter, its back lost in black, its upholstery torn and mended with duct tape, and a weathered board propped against its front—a gangplank to the throne. (Michael Weinstein)

Through April 24 at ARC Gallery, 832 W. Superior

RECOMMENDED

“Cabrini Green is beautiful,” the man in the film proudly declares, standing in front of a chain-link fence and graffiti-covered wall. And to him and many of the former Cabrini tenants, this seemingly contradictory statement is true. Michele Stutts captures their testimonials in a forty-five minute documentary. Juxtaposed against ten mixed-media pieces, the result is more reactionary than activist. The show serves as a frank record of the tenants’ personal loss of home and identity after the ten-year-long Cabrini transformation project that has forced tenants to relocate in an effort to create a new, safer, mixed-income neighborhood. The emotionally charged interviews, presented in informal dialogues in the tenants’ former homes, are contrasted against the mixed-media pieces’ visual depictions of the demolition. The former presents individual perspectives, while the latter treats Cabrini as a whole. Individual identities are lost in the abstracted depictions of the familiar red brickwork layered with blueprints, coin rubbings, and shredded dollar bills, a commentary on the Chicago Housing Authority’s long, strained relationship with the Cabrini project. More conceptually complex are Stutts’ found-object pieces. The objects’ tactility is further enhanced by their deterioration—a frayed, dirty fabric piece is woven around a rusty rake top—and they appear as if they could be the surviving remnants from the demolition’s aftermath. The contrasting textures careful compositions import a reverence for the discarded objects—the same reverence Cabrini community holds for their former home, no matter how infamous. (Patrice Connelly)

Through September 25 at ARC Gallery, 832 W. Superior, #204

RECOMMENDED

An old-school modernist straight black-and-white photographic abstractionist, Ken Konchel shoots details of the most powerful architectural structures that he can find to create geometric force fields that assault the viewer’s eye. With a proclivity for massive concrete and steel forms that his framing places in juxtaposition, Konchel’s aesthetic combines the sense of imposing brute solidity with the subtlety of twists and turns, and intensifies the play through the varied visual relations among the components of the designs he intuits, producing an effect of elegant monumentalism that is reminiscent of Alexander Rodchenko, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Paul Strand. Konchel’s subjects are overmastering; we feel them confront us and sense that we can do nothing to alter them, as in “Into Joe”—his most abstract study—in which the black silhouetted masses dissolve into obdurate blocks. (Michael Weinstein)

Through September 25 at ARC Gallery, 832 W. Superior

RECOMMENDED

Roman goddesses of the hunt, not. Margaret LeJeune’s series of color photographic portraits, in “The Modern Day Diana,” of women who take to the fields and forests with their weapons and bring their trophies back dead, show unassuming and ordinary people who betray no traces of blood lust. Shot in their simple rural homes and sometimes lounging on their beds in full dress, we often have only the slightest hint that LeJeune’s subjects are devoted to the pursuit of game. We see benign Kathi sitting back and taking a break from stitching up her jeans on a sewing machine; only at a second look do we glimpse two petrified fowl on the floor behind her and the gun racks above her head. If the National Rifle Association is looking for propaganda, they will find it here. (Michael Weinstein)

Through August 14 at ARC Gallery, 832 W. Superior, #204

RECOMMENDED

Much in the news as a site in the “war against terrorism,” Pakistan is for Sabba Saleem Syal a “contested” country without a fixed identity–a site in the culture wars of our time. To prove her point that diversity rules, Syal has cut out scores of informal color photos of Pakistani women of all kinds–veiled, head-scarved and decidedly modern–linked them with thread, and hung her construction on the gallery wall. The threads convey the message that these women are bound together tenuously as representatives of the same cultural scene. Yet their differences are stark. At one demonstration, women hold up a sign reading “Islamic Law As The Best Way.” At another the placard reads “Stop Violence Against Women.” Syal has provided through her tight conceptual photo art a welcome corrective to prevailing stereotypes. (Michael Weinstein)

Through August 14 at ARC Gallery, 832 W. Superior, #204

Jason Lazarus, "Lavina's surprise party (turning 90)"

By Jason Foumberg

It’s usually around this time of year that I look forward to finding out the winners of The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation’s artist grants, an unrestricted gift of $15,000 (up from $10,000 in years past) to three Chicago-based artists. Since 2002, the foundation awarded money to two dozen artists simply for being good artists. This year, though, the individual artist grant will not be handed out, nor will it be given in coming years, as decided by the foundation’s board late last year.

The Driehaus grant was somewhat controversial because it was unsolicited. Artists need not, and could not, apply for the money. A group of nominators (including myself in 2008) chosen by the foundation in turn each selected three artists whose practices were weighed and judged by three jurors. All participants were active in the visual arts in Chicago, so it’s likely that everyone was not only aware of each other’s art practices, but for better or worse, also their personalities and politics. This is unlike the Artadia grant that comes through Chicago and other cities annually. Artadia asks arts professionals from outside Chicago to judge the award, whereas the Driehaus grant was completely contained within Chicago. This led to some criticisms that the award process was subject to favoritism. Ideally, though, the tiered process was entrusted to people who care for the long-term development of certain artists and types of practices. That one type of artistic program (say, academic conceptualism) benefited over others was the will of the collective group of tastemakers.

The boon of the Driehaus artist grant was that it was unrestricted. Artists could use the money to buy supplies and fund a new project, or they could simply use it to garnish their living expenses. Philip von Zweck (2007) bought a car. Jason Lazarus (2008) paid off student-loan debt. Inigo Manglano-Ovalle (2008) purchased video-editing equipment. Even if an artist didn’t spend their funds on items related directly to their art practice, the implication was that a space was cleared for them, and a small amount of financial freedom granted, so they could do what they do best.

Some artists live from grant to grant. Although Manglano-Ovalle, who also recently won a Guggenheim fellowship, says, “I use these grants for making art. I don’t rely on them for living,” the build-up of several years’ worth of grants makes being an artist possible. The granting of unrestricted funds especially places trust in the notion that artists are engaged in producing a cultural good, not a commodity. “Grants help you stay fluid in the continuum from idea to exhibition,” says Lazarus. “Repeating this cycle constantly creates growth in an artistic practice.”

The Driehaus Foundation, which currently supports notable architects and the performing arts, such as dance and local theater, as well as many non-arts community organizations, will no longer directly support individual visual artists. Instead, they’ll continue to give money to “funders,” such as the Arts Work Fund, which in turn grants funds to nonprofit groups that support specific organizational and developmental missions. The Arts Work Fund adds an additional filter to the trickle down process. For instance, a recent grant of $10,000 was given to ARC Gallery, an artist-run space, “to undertake a comprehensive examination of the organization in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency.” Such money finds its way to administrators first and artists second. “Strengthen the business side,” says Arts Work Fund director Marcia Festen, “so that the art can stay strong.” (The Driehaus Foundation did not replace individual artist grants with agency grants).

In Chicago, Artadia will still make its annual round, and with the money comes prestige, like winning an Academy Award. The newly founded 3Arts agency also made individual grants of $15,000 each in 2008 to two Chicago visual artists (out of six total), and their grant, like Driehaus, is unsolicited and unrestricted. 3Arts is now the only major granting agency in Chicago that is not government-affiliated. Many Chicago artists have come to rely on the City of Chicago’s CAAP grants, which awards funds of $1,000 or less to individual artists. This year 185 people received this grant through an application process.

Alternative and do-it-yourself granting agencies have come up in the past few years in opposition to the often bureaucratic and oblique granting process. (Bad at Sports covered one such agency, InCUBATE, on May 24). One new grant comes from Chances, a queer-focused monthly dance party organized by several artists. Door fees have been collected and will be given to an artist to help fund a project. In the last round, Rebecca Kling was awarded $500 for her monologue project that marked her transition from male to female. The next winners will be announced in mid-July.