Nichols’ first solo exhibition benefits from his broad sense of humor and his knack for detecting the aesthetic amidst the absurd. He constructs objects in nearly every media, and “Brink” includes screen-printing, stenciling, wood, felt, pompoms, wall clocks and faux fur. This array of materials could look like a booze-fueled late-night raid on the craft supply store, but Nichols’s acute awareness of artistic intention and a child-like experience of shape and color integrate the disparate work. “The Plutonic Bubonic Family” of bright felt cutouts is immediately identifiable as the Pac-Man ghosts’ long-lost relatives, but Nichols pushes past simple nostalgic recognition with an eye for detail, in this case the creation of an elaborate ghost genealogy represented formally in drawings on the backside of the cutouts. Most of the work in the exhibition was designed to fit the space, and long, stenciled “Mentalscapes” fall from ceiling to floor in a kind of graphite cascade. That the stencils are all one word, “Siberia,” emphasizes the negative, white space of the compositions and hardens their elegant appeal. Clocks that don’t tell time and sculptural triple “X”s hint at a more sordid and disconsolate Nichols who takes all of this play seriously. (Rachel Furnari)
Through February 22 at Thrones Gallery, 123 N. Jefferson St., unit 3R
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.
Weather Patterns: A Review of John Santoro at McCormick Gallery Talking about the weather, as painter John Santoro notes, was once just a mundane space filler. Now, with more than a few “warmest year on record” behind us, the weather has become a significant concern.
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