Gallery 400’s exhibition of new work from Steve Reinke and collaborators Dani Leventhal, John Marriott, Jessie Mott and James Richards manages to be both sardonically funny as well as often unexpectedly and profoundly confrontational. Centered around an hour-long suite of Reinke’s new video work, which mixes moral interrogation with humor, ironic voiceovers and Beckettesque failures (my favorite: “cartoon for those who have a certain fondness for ideas, but are tired of thinking”); but it’s the work in other media that’s ultimately the most moving. Neon, needlepoint and mixed-media collages reference Bruce Nauman in a way that’s thought-provoking and unaffected; a study of Peanuts cartoons as repeated objects echoes a message of futility that F. Scott Fitzgerald once articulated as the combination of seeing that things are hopeless but being determined to make them otherwise. Detournement finds its strongest application in “Guernica,” which combines a doodled copy of Picasso’s painting in gel medium with a found photograph of a vulnerable, half-naked young man in a sailor hat in front of a poster reproduction of the painting. Solo work by Reinke’s collaborators is less moving but still wry examinations of sex and death from a more comfortably ironic viewpoint. (Monica Westin)
Through December 18 at Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago, 400 South Peoria.
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.
Fade to Brown: A Review of Myra Greene at Patron Gallery In the quiet pairing of photography and textiles, Greene tells a story filled with leitmotifs of autonomy, subjectivity and advocacy for human rights set against themes of power, conflict and politics.
Fire as Natural Balm: A Review of "Red" at Happy Gallery The show takes the almost impossibly broad theme of “red” and fashions it into a conversation on what shades our perception of the color, from passion and lust to violence and destruction.
Eruptions of Color: A Review of Pooja Pittie at McCormick Gallery Nothing is recognizably depicted, but something like a festive spectacle has been achieved with layers of colorful marks that range from orderly patterns of dots to large, dramatic brush strokes.
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