RECOMMENDED A piece of text from a hand painted store sign set the tone for Katharine Lion’s show at Old Gold. It read, “If you can’t stop, smile as you go by.” It is this form of wanderlust that Katharine Lion’s installation of digital prints and sculpture gives off. The digitally collaged images are ones of back alleys and beaches, trashcans and sunsets. Installed in a row and wrapping around the gallery, the images show an appreciation for small places and special moments. However, the frequent and clumsy use of exposed photo edges and contrasting subject matter (i.e. a sunset over graffitied concrete) makes some works read like clichés or simplistic statements. The best pieces take advantage of the collage format and make something out of the skips in the photograph as in “3 Sunsets” or “Moonscapes” or when the shift in image is submerged causing the curiosity of the situation to create the impetus to explore the photo, such as in “Winter Sun Settings” where a lakeside sunset is merged with light coming through the clouds. The effect is an exuberant and difficult beauty which most of Ms. Lion’s pictures exude when they are given the chance. (Dan Gunn) Through December 2 at Old Gold, 2022 N. Humboldt, (773)653-9956.
Other Forces: A Review of Maw at Apparatus Projects Ailes and Lopez’s installations, images and sculptures function as a cosmos of life—worlds where the viewer is placed in a disordered exercise of cognitive sense-making between rather than sense-making of.
The Past Is Present: A Review of Birchbark, Wiigwaas All these materials work together to make the stories and experiences of indigenous Americans central to the story of Chicago, both historically and today.
Civics Lesson: A Review of Sculpture Milwaukee Sculpture Milwaukee has returned for a fourth year, transforming downtown Milwaukee’s landscape with A-list artists exhibiting outdoor sculpture.
Complicating the Narrative: A Review of Them at Roots & Culture Featuring a cohesive body of works by Flor, Manal Kara and Caleb Yono, the exhibition is a stunning display of the magic that can happen when fixed ideas about artmaking and identity are thrown out the window.
