Michiko Itatani paints a mysterious but familiar world, its meaning just beyond our reach. Her exhibition of works at Wrightwood 659 is grand in vision and in scale, occupying two out of three floors, as big as most major museum shows. Immense canvases depict palatial baroque libraries set against the cosmos. In a fifties sci-fi movie kind of way, futuristic telescopes and scientific controls are set back behind the walls. Floating tesseracts and mysterious rings of light occupy dreamscapes like mystical talismans. The human presence is everywhere, but strangely no humans are depicted. Is this the future the way the artist imagines it, or is it heaven itself? Are these the fresh ruins of a future human extinction event or perhaps the leave-behind of a race that has exited the planet voluntarily? Old-fashioned planetary globes occupy the chambers, and rudimentary spacecraft hover over some of the paintings, more like insects in the palace than central characters. An old-fashioned notion of the quest for knowledge as a virtue seems to be the defining motif; if humans were present, I might expect them to be dressed in the garb of the Renaissance.
The work feels all of one body, and most of it has been created in the last decade, in the last few years, even. But some paintings date back to the late seventies, early eighties, when a then-new-to-the-United States Itatani was just getting started. Those early works are abstract, but certain elements, like a painted mesh that is central to her early work recur, now subordinated to pictorial concerns, but with an unmistakable presence. Itatani’s more recent representational paintings have a subtle artifice to them; her chandeliers glow with a light so strong you’re tempted to look for a power cord behind the canvas. Her dimensionality is slightly off-kilter, compressed; the painting has a certain flatness to it that makes its elements–globes and planets, musical and scientific instruments–evocative of another time, in the past.
The now-emeritus longtime SAIC professor is something of a science junkie; her artwork titles are cataloged like taxonomy, or perhaps works in a library. Before she started painting, she wanted to be a fiction writer. In the exhibition catalog, she offers no essay but rather a short story that might have guided her in the creation of the work, or perhaps was written retrospectively to try and offer a path to understanding. In any case, it’s drawn from the milieu of scientific fantasy, like “Lord of the Rings” or “Game of Thrones,” one in which knowledge in antiquated books is paramount, and ancient voices have something to tell us, if only we can figure out what they are saying.
Gone But Not Forgotten: A Review of Patric McCoy at Wrightwood 659 McCoy, who initially rode around Chicago on his bicycle with a point and shoot, was amazed at how many men asked him to take their photo. Although his father and brother were deeply involved in photography, for McCoy it was simply fun to capture people he met.
A Celebration of Identity: A Review of "The First Homosexuals" at Wrightwood 659 The exhibition takes viewers through an international historical maze of drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, and films of the "first homosexual" artists. Wrightwood 659 examines how queer artists view themselves and how the world viewed them as well.
The Power of Truth: A Review of Shahidul Alam at Wrightwood 659 In the 1980s Alam began documenting protesters on the streets of Dhaka, and for nearly fifty years, he has used his camera to bring to light corruption, oppression and the resilience of the Bangladeshi people.
Building Community: A Review of Balkrishna Doshi at Wrightwood 659 Although heavy in information, the built structures within the exhibition allow for pause and reflection, a chance to interact with the architect’s work and experience the space as it relates to his often-communal design.
