Bigger Isn’t Always Better: A Review of “Small Painting” at Corbett vs. Dempsey
In an artworld where size is proportional to value, the gallery has dared to go small.
“Red Summer Road Trip”: Jefferson Pinder Interprets the Violence of 1919
As the one hundredth anniversary of the 1919 Chicago Riots arrives, a cohort of organizers, archivists, sociologists, writers, artists and others work to ensure that its incidents are not forgotten.
Transforming the Mundane: A Review of Tara Donovan at the Smart Museum
The gallery space is filled with objects we see every day, objects we use every day. Donovan breathes new life into them.
The Aesthetics of Terroir: A Review of Christien Meindertsma at the Art Institute of Chicago
The exhibition is an escape amidst the white walls of the Modern Wing—a fresh approach to landscape, that also happens to be about design.
The Second City is Alright: Making the Case for Chicago as a Global Arts Hub
“When Chicago gets going, she’ll make culture hum,” wrote Eugene Field.
The Art of Advertising: A Review of “Everyone’s Art Gallery: Posters of the London Underground”
These travel posters have a faith in our dynamic secular world that so much twentieth century art does not share (and not a single church is offered as a preferred destination!).
Far Beyond Identity Politics: A Review of Laura Aguilar at the National Museum of Mexican Art
Aguilar presents perspective and proportion as “culturally shaped and unshaped possibilities” and fashions a profound alternative to the artistic tradition of the nude as fetishized object for the male gaze.
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.
Metaphysical Pop: A Review of Rob Pruitt’s “The Obama Paintings”
The Obama series speaks to the core and foundational values of artwork, the preservation of history, the documentation of importance and the power of action.
A Failed Attempt at Utopia: A Review of Inka Essenhigh at Kavi Gupta Gallery
The paintings are too naïve, too frivolously executed in style and subject matter to rise to the seriousness for which their creator claims on their behalf.
