• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Newcity Art

Visual Art Culture of Chicago and Beyond

  • Newcity
    • Newcity Network
    • Best of Chicago
  • Art
    • About Newcity Art
    • Featured Exhibitions
    • Breakout Artists
  • Brazil
  • Design
  • Film
  • Lit
  • Music
  • Resto
  • Stage

Review: Nicholas Frank/Western Exhibitions

November 23, 2009 at 11:57 pm by Art Editor

by Art Editor
November 23, 2009November 23, 2009Filed under:
  • Multimedia
  • West Loop

page_126_detailRECOMMENDED

Yellowed book pages with grainy black-and-white illustrations from the fictional “Nicholas Frank Biography” hang in Western Exhibitions as a part of Nicholas Frank’s new show, titled “Reality, whatever that is.” These ruthlessly self-referential pages chronicle events from Frank’s past exhibitions and projects, including the Hermetic Gallery in Milwaukee. They adopt the look, feel, syntax and grammar of an art-historical monograph. Frank writes in third person, alternately A) lampooning the self-important style of art writing or B) sincerely analyzing the ideological basis for his artistic output. In order to complete task A he packs in superfluous details including hearsay and quotations from friends, snapshots with captions, self-defeating references to his unknowable emotional states and other private information. Additionally, Frank likes to dangle important concluding thoughts from the last paragraph deliciously just off the page.

On page 263, Frank records photographs of group exhibition (and here I am inadvertently mimicking the written style of the pages themselves) containing the works of an “artist” Roni Layne. These same paintings accompany the book pages in the exhibition at Western, but attributed to Frank. The small square paintings contain text and read together as /JUST WAIT/ IT GETS GOOD/ NO REALLY/ NO/ REALLY/ REALLY.  Layne is a fictional invention by the artist, as revealed on page 264 where a confidant of Frank’s calls the gesture “snide and ungenerous, an exercise in self-dramatization.” A small point of the show is a critique of the real, through the device of the fictitious artist (whose painting says NO REAL-LY), written about in the fictitious book. This is a fairly recognizable topic that Frank nonetheless executes inventively. But the more worthy attributes of the “Nicholas Frank Biography” come in the passages where he, the narrator, debates with himself, the artist. This allows a glimpse inside the history of a robust and witty thought process that’s sifting through layers of reality. (Dan Gunn)

Through December 19 at Western Exhibitions, 119 N. Peoria

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Google

Related

Tagged:
  • Nicholas Frank
  • Western Exhibitions

Post navigation

Previous Post Review: Charles Osgood/Chicago Tourism Center
Next Post Review: Konstantin Grcic/Art Institute of Chicago

Primary Sidebar

Popular Stories

  • This Major Retrospective Asks How "To Paint The Indian"? A Review of Rick Bartow at the Schingoethe Center
    This Major Retrospective Asks How "To Paint The Indian"? A Review of Rick Bartow at the Schingoethe Center
  • Portrait of the Artist: William Staples
    Portrait of the Artist: William Staples
  • Casting Colorful Spells On A Troll Cult: A Review of Molly Colleen O’Connell at Julius Caesar
    Casting Colorful Spells On A Troll Cult: A Review of Molly Colleen O’Connell at Julius Caesar
  • Three Painters, All Women:  A Review of “Kim Piotrowski, Heather Marshall, Nina Rizzo” at Linda Warren Projects
    Three Painters, All Women: A Review of “Kim Piotrowski, Heather Marshall, Nina Rizzo” at Linda Warren Projects
  • Brushing Up On Southeast Asia: A Review of  "Asian Perspective: Sixteen Artists From South East Asia" at Galerie Waterton
    Brushing Up On Southeast Asia: A Review of "Asian Perspective: Sixteen Artists From South East Asia" at Galerie Waterton

Copyright Newcity Communications, Inc. © 2018

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.