How long has William Conger been showing his hard-edged abstract paintings in Chicago? It’s been almost forty years, and this exhibit of his most recent work shows him just as keen, high-spirited and menacing as ever. Menacing? Just a little, because the world he has created is beautiful but also a bit scary, like the illustrated covers of paperback science-fiction novels. And as his paintings take you to “Cuba” or “Chinatown” or the “Kabuki,” watch your back because Conger is not offering a sweet and peaceful refuge from our busy world. But still, the visions are appealing, charged with energy and finely crafted enough to draw a viewer right up to the canvas to feel the thickness of the paint or the straightness of a line. There’s a certain elegance and crispness of style as might be seen in the fine suits and coats worn on Michigan Avenue and, happily for those who have seen Conger’s shows before, that style isn’t always the same as the painter is always setting different formal challenges for his design. He hasn’t tried to be a regionalist but his paintings feel like Chicago, or at least the upscale urban canyons that stretch along the lake. (Chris Miller)
Lost in Translation: A Review of Crip* at Gallery 400 The strongest works in the exhibition succinctly express the ways the artist relates to their own body while calling out how the artist’s body and body of work has been perceived or coded against norms or ideals.
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.
RECOMMENDED
