Kaoru Arima likes to straddle the lines between control and surrender, formal and casual, revelatory and obscure, mindless and calculating, and, of course, art and non-art. What better place to show the results than in this tiny second-floor apartment gallery in Pilsen. It’s as randomly located as Arima’s own gallery in Inuyama, Japan (curiously named the Art Drug Center). The gallery’s white walls feel like the small areas of white paint splashed onto Japanese newspapers on which Kaoru executed the twenty-eight cartoonish line drawings in the collection of the Walker Art Center. A team of scholars might spend a frustrating decade trying to puzzle out the artist’s weird hieroglyphics. Three of his drawings are included in this show, one of them well hidden in a few sheets of crinkled white wrapping paper tacked up to the wall. Also in the show are three acrylic-on-canvas portraits. They’re glorious, both in color and personality. The splotches of intense, expressive color reprise a European avant-garde from a hundred years ago, with that same thrill of discovery. The artist’s work changed dramatically as he reached the age of forty. He still makes drawings that are obtuse enough for contemporary art museums, but his new paintings are simple, bold and attractive enough for a booth in a summer art fair. (Chris Miller)
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.
Women Behind the Lens: A Review of "From Her to Eternity" Courtney Love curates on the street. Just west of Wabash on the corner of Eighth Street, there is a wall of stellar rock star images that includes a special collection made by women photographers over the years.
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.
