Visual Art Culture of Chicago and Beyond
Myriam Ben Salah’s inaugural curatorial project at the Renaissance Society, “Smashing into my heart,” scrutinizes the intricacies and incongruities of our attachment to others through the work of thirteen artists.
Highlights for November
Listening to the whispers that lie between the pigment and the surface of the canvas, Netrabile works on each painting till it feels resolved, not necessarily finished or complete.
While this show is timely for everyone, I consider its setting within a university art gallery and emerging tech hub like the city of Ann Arbor a subversive provocation which Dinkins invites the greater public—including members of the university community—to consider our own positionality to AI and technology.
What’s most compelling about the totality of the exhibition may be the way in which denying the traditional material structure of painting simply reinforces its essence.
In “Dealer’s Choice,” the deceptively simple new exhibition from Mike Lopez at Material (as part of the 2021 Terrain Biennial), the artist uses the occasion as a solo show, complete with (mostly) new work, almost as a pretense to highlight the liminal space of art handlers and preparators in exhibition making.
Merging metaphor and direct accounts of Fort Marion, Hopinka’s “Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer” offers perspectives on the long and complex reality of American colonialism told through this site of annihilation.
What matters is how each artist feels after months of lockdowns, fear, and maybe the loss of friends or family.
For Wirth, the privatization of parking is no less than the privatization of the commons.
After nearly two decades in New York, Williams is back in Chicago, and our scene is richer for it.
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