If you happen to be in the neighborhood of suburban Glen Ellyn, you can go see “Celebrity and the Peculiar” by the corporate-art duo Industry of the Ordinary. As the title Industry of the Ordinary suggests, Adam Brooks and Matthew Wilson are interested in the banal, the usual in daily life. Here they tackle celebrity culture. Five life-size square plastic tents stand in rows each containing a single humidifier. On an adjoining wall spot lit bottles of celebrity endorsed perfume sit like jewels on a shelf, Beckham’s “Instinct,” Jennifer Lopez’s “Glow,” Diddy’s “Unforgivable,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Covet” and Prince’s “3121.” The humidifiers waft up a perfume that you could smell by uncovering a flap in the plastic. The stale humid climate turns the scents slightly sweaty, which makes sense with Beckham’s cologne but clashes with Ms. Parker’s uptown chic. The laboratory feel of the space helps to reveal the differences in the scents, with each one reinforcing the celebrity’s particular brand. Other than producing the realization that celebrities are marketed through products that have lifestyles and cultural particularities attached to them the show leaves viewers with little else to concentrate on but the smell. (Dan Gunn)
Through March 1 at Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, 425 Fawell, Glen Ellyn, (630)942-2321.
Repurposing AI: A Review of Stephanie Dinkins at Stamps Gallery 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.
