In 1952, Frank McEwen, on the recommendation of Herbert Read and Pablo Picasso, became the first director of the Rhodes National Gallery in Salisbury, Rhodesia. Shortly thereafter, in the museum’s basement, he began the Workshop School that gave birth to a tradition of stone carving that still flourishes today. Shona sculpture is kind of African, but it’s also kind of modernist European (it got a show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1968). And thanks to some savvy marketing, it has become mostly decorative, likely to be found in gift shops around the world. This doesn’t mean that all of it is tourist trash. The Nyanhongo family has set a high standard for design and craftsmanship, and one of the sons, Gedion, has now moved to Arizona and is showing his work in Chicago. It lacks the edginess and formal power that made African sculpture so important to European modernists a hundred years ago. Instead, his large stone statues feel like an Africanized Art Deco, with special attention paid to the colors and patterns of the material. Thematically, his poignant native figures are searching for that peaceful normalcy that has tragically eluded Zimbawe in the post-colonial era. It’s sculpture that very much wants to be liked. So why deny it approval? Despite its decorative qualities, its message is insistent: I want to live. (Chris Miller)
Across Layers of Reality: A Review of Jacolby Satterwhite at SAIC Galleries The exhibition bills itself as the first major survey of work by the artist. Across its large footprint, audiences can see how Satterwhite’s aesthetic has evolved while maintaining the commitment to personal history and embodied practice that launched his career.
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.
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.
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