“Snooping for a New Lexis of Peace” is an attempt to discover a new vocabulary of imagery relating to recent U.S.-led military adventures. A lot of people have questioned the lack of “oppositional practices” in American art today—there is, unfortunately, only one Paul Chan—and so this experiment of James J. Peterson is timely. But this artist goes in a direction that is totally counterintuitive, even quixotic. Like an Arizona St. Anthony, he retreats to the desert. He meditates, performs strange improvised rituals, documents it on video. The pieces in the show are relics of these rituals. The little paintings are strange and beautiful, as roughness and coffee stains and finger painting are paired with a miniaturist’s delicacy of hand. The paraphernalia of the old counterculture is here, but transformed, as if it had come back altered from another universe: magic buses and prayer flags and the palmate leaf of Cannabis sativa. These lost icons are all melancholy, like the toys of a dead relative found in an antique store. “Nauvoo Number” seems to be about Mormon founding myths: a golden ray from the clouds shines on the ground, and finely drawn lines spill out, lines reminiscent of Shaker devotional drawing—but there is a bit of Shock and Awe about the scene, too. The Shaker motif is repeated everywhere, and provides a serious and heartfelt counterpoint to the dopey clichés of hippiedom. You can sense the anger at state violence permeating everything like background radiation. A rose is at the same time a convincing piece of exploding ordnance. “Johnny Vase and Glasses,” a clear vase placed next to a pair of eyeglasses marked with red paint, hints not only at the soldier’s wound and funeral urn, but also at indifference and the attitude that the war is so remote, it might as well be fake. (David Mark Wise)
For Us: A Review of "Something from Something" at Engage Projects Kushala Vora and Adia Sykes’ collaboration "Something from Something" tells us as viewers that knowledge, art, creation, inspiration, love—really anything you can think of—has a place of origin.
Looking Down: A Review of Bob Tanner at Perspective After the loss of his wife, Bob Tanner made two photography series, “At Ocean’s Edge” and “At Winter’s Edge,” that are shown in this meditative show filled with graceful visual poetry.
Women Behind the Lens: A Review of "From Her to Eternity" Courtney Love curates on the street. Just west of Wabash on the corner of Eighth Street, there is a wall of stellar rock star images that includes a special collection made by women photographers over the years.
Microcosm: A Review of “Dialogues” at Patron Through each artist-relationship, "Dialogues" offers the viewer a rare opportunity to witness the direct connections that flow through the electric nervous system that both infiltrates and generates Chicago's art world.
Excavated Images: A Review of “Life Against Itself” at Patron For the better part of a decade, the L.A.-based artist has used a variety of bladed tools to make her signature alla prima monochromatic gestural abstractions. In the last year, however, the hand has cut off the knife.
