Wherever artist Puppies Puppies exhibits, he has a knack for sensitively responding to the conditions and qualities of that context while bringing forward his own nuanced fascinations with Internet memes, popular culture and fantasy. Whether on his irrepressibly funny Facebook page or in recent exhibitions in Chicago, Oaxaca, Los Angeles and Japan, Puppies draws together signs of our times to be repackaged and redistributed in a spirit of generosity that also usually compels him to bring a few of his friends in to collaborate with him or appear in his stead. He never shies away from the weird; uncanny juxtapositions are central to his milieu.
Puppies Puppies’ special art project for Newcity is no exception: Harry Potter and his friends (and foes) are the pivot point around which Puppies’ latest site-specific project spins. Responding to the condition of a biweekly print publication in an increasingly Internet-driven age, we’ve been transfigured into the magical Daily Prophet that figures in J. K. Rowling’s literary world. What follows are hacked fashion editorial spreads in which Lord Voldemort (a recurring motif in Puppies’ work) looms.
At this point of intersection between an arts and culture publication and fanfiction cosplay vignettes lie ruminations on fashion and popular trends, how art and magic might be compared, and the future of art criticism in print and on the web. Additionally, as art schools across the city are just this minute embarking on new semesters, Puppies and two other Chicago-based artists who are no longer students in any formal way don Hogwarts school uniforms.
Daily Prophet cover image credits: Art project by Puppies Puppies Photography by W. Andrew Ripley, TenThousand Media Artistic models are Chloe Seibert and Sim Lip Hair and makeup by Luis Miguel Bendaña
An Artistic Project: Portable Gray at Ten (Issues) The journal was conceived as a way to share the work of the Gray Center’s fellows and the University of Chicago’s broader artistic and scholarly community with the rest of the city. This May the journal will launch its tenth issue on the subject of “Family.”
Cloud Atlas: A Review of Sonya Bogdanova at Ignition Project Space The ephemeral and intangible quality of cloud making is what binds together Bogdanova’s solo exhibition, “A Dream We Dream Together is Reality.” It’s a whimsical move, capturing, on a micro-level, the joy of seeing things in clouds, which is to say, the perceiving of meaning in the random.
