Two little shows opened this Sunday at The Suburban, the backyard super-space of Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam. The first, Keil Borrman: I have not painted in a year. I have been listening to my stereo, is a small collection of works by Borrman and six others. The second, located in the original ten by ten space, is a multimedia installation by David G.A. Stephenson entitled Songs for Suburbanites, an art rock display shipped in from the United Kingdom along with the charming artist himself.

Amelia Saddington, Notes

I thought Keil Borrman: I have not painted in a year. I have been listening to my stereo represented interesting work from interesting artists, but casually presented. Borrman‘s four paintings were good but scrappy (all were suggestively entitled November 3rd, 2008), Divya Mehra‘s photograph was also enjoyable but was only a selection of a series, and Malika Green & Alex Jovanovitch‘s piece was a funny one-off exquisite corpse. The Virginia Poundstone/Bel Canto design pairing was smart,  and the Amelia Saddington was beautiful.

Keil Borrman

What I mean is that it’d be impossible to complain about the work or the quality of the work, but the whole show together felt like it was curated by way of “So, what have you been up to?”. I’m okay with that. These shows are one of the benefits of having alternative spaces. And it led me to watch Divya Mehra‘s holy shit, insane videos like this one.

Keil Borrman: I have not painted in a year. I have been listening to my stereo

While the outbuilding was still done up as it was when Konsortium installed their “Eurostyle” show last month, Sebastian Freytrag‘s wallpaper fit perfectly (and ironically) with David G.A. Stephenson’s installation. I really enjoyed the three pronged iconoclastic combination of Americana (though limited specifically to the overlap between artists and musicians) by way of English fascination laid on a background of German design.

The show featured clips and collages of music and art history from art reviews to raisin boxes to magazine spreads pinned to the walls or spread on the ground before a television which played videos accompanying musical pieces by Stephenson and about, well, art.

David G.A. Stephenson, Songs for Suburbanites

Stephenson’s tunes were great, both poetic and funny in an appropriately Lou Reed-y way, and I liked being reminded of the history of (and crossover between) art and music and appreciated Stephenson’s enthusiasm in pointing out all the polymathic artists who made it happen.

Here’s his song, I Want Paint a Joke Like Richard Prince:

And another, I Want To Hang Out With Ed Ruscha:

The Suburban has an extensive description of his life and work here. For now, at least.

Dave Muller (Untitled)

Not a new show, but one that I saw for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed, was a show of xerox prints put together by (and with the proceeds benefiting) the long-time, longest-time running New York alt space White Columns. With each piece in editions of 50 and priced at or around $150, it makes for a really smart, affordable show, and a great way of fund-raising with excellent art on a relative dime.

Xerox Show @ The Suburban

Pretty cool stuff all around. I’ll mash both shows together and give the whole experience a:

7.6

Keil Borrman: I have not painted in a year. I have been listening to my stereo & David G.A. Stephenson’s Songs for Suburbanites both run July 26th to September 5th @ The Suburban, 125 N. Harvey, Oak Park. Hours by appointment.

Mystery replaces history this month at the Hyde Park Art Center, where the heavy and the high of contemporary art have been shaken south for one of the hottest shows of the summer. Following the curatorial undertaking that was Artists Run Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center’s Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture is a doomsday blend of local and international artists curated by Front 40 Press, who publish the critical survey book of the same name and from which is born this exhibition.

Eduardo De Soignie, Saint Child of Atocha

Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture immediately brought up place and time as contributory issues. However foreboding the subject matter of this show, the HPAC’s main gallery space is so beautiful that the imagery of ruin and whirlwind destruction echo like hellfire in a megachurch. Whats even stranger is that the content of the show seemed five years old and politically unsynced, as if some time around the re-election of George W. Bush would have been the more appropriate moment for this show, the peak of doom, back when we were fucked for sure whether it was the terrorists or the neocons or the fags or the devil who would push the button.

Jon Elliott, Continental Drift

Back then I could stare at a Julie Mehretu and imagine myself exploding.

Back then if someone asked me how I expected to die, I would have said “violently.”

Today, I’d say “broke.” Its a different kind of horror.

Ricky Allman, Apocolyzer

Emilio Perez (detail)

But while the horrible specter of poverty might be overlooked in the content of the artwork shown in Signs of the Apocolypse/Rapture, the quality of artwork does invoke it. Putting an Emilio Perez next to a Julie Mehretu is enough to make any collector ache, and that pairing represents only two of the many top shelf artists who are represented. Though there are plenty of scenes of chaos and collapse, they’re matched with more somber images (David Opdyke‘s Undisclosed Location and Richard Misrach’s Swamp and Pipeline, Geismar, Louisiana) along with a few pictorial, appropriately scaled rapturous paintings (Nicola Verlato‘s Mothers 2, John Prianca‘s Autumn).

Caleb Weintraub (detail)

The only piece to actually disturb me was from Caleb Weintraub. I think. His painting is hung on the ominous black object in the middle of the gallery and, like the other pieces on that object, whether for misfortune or mystery or mistake, isn’t tagged so far as I could see. Hopefully they are by now.

In addition to the artwork in the main gallery, two wall pieces are included, both stellar and massive. The first is a boggling, visually ecstatic wall painting by Hisham Akira Bharoocha (who also has work in control c, control v), and directly across from it Andrew Schoultz‘ mural rampages down the hallway in a flaming ticker-tape parade. Both are excellent installations, and Schoultz’ piece is an especially appropriate up-sized companion to his painting in the main space.

I wish I had greater access to Front 40 Press’ Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture book, whether at the show or online, as without the critical writing that informed the show I feel like I’m only getting one half the experience. I’m curious. However, when considering the quality and work on display, even my partial slice of the curatorial team’s complete vision may be enough. Signs of the Apocolypse / Rapture is simply an excellent show, a highly appreciated opportunity to see top flight work, and yet another excuse to get down to Hyde Park.

I give it a:

9.3

Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture runs from July 19th to September 20th, 2009 @ the Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave.

I first dropped by Roots and Culture’s latest show on opening night, squeezed past the crowd outside and poked my head over shoulders of an unusually tall crowd to see the art, decided the tide had turned to afterparty early, and ran out. While too much crowd to see art with both eyes, not bad for a space looking to engage the community.

Luckily what I did manage to see convinced me to make a return stop.

Clay Schiff, Nine and a Half Objects

NAH POP NO STYLE features art – mostly paintings – from Providence and Baltimore. Despite the geographic differences, the work here tends to homogenize; there isn’t enough dramaticly different between the art out of Providence/RISD vs. Baltimore/MICA to see the work separate into camps. That doesn’t really matter, except to say that the show doesn’t have as much internal contrast as a two-city show might suggest.

Geography aside, the work in the gallery was some interesting stuff.

Annabeth Marks, Rumspringa

I’ll run through what I liked quickly: Annabeth Marks‘ paintings were grungy, clever abstractions that made pukey pallete-goo oil paint look less gross than, say, Kent Dorn‘s Figutives,  but more fuck-around-ish too. Clay Schiff’s work was more reserved, but made up for straightforward material use with excellent composition and color choices. Blade Wynne not only has one of the most bad assed names in the world, but his gouache paintings were very skilled, advanced pieces too. Wynne was definitely a standout in this show and someone I’d keep an eye on in the future.

Blade Wynne, Garden

Lucy Campana’s work ended up using paint in a beautiful way, but for mediocre ends. I enjoyed her After Laughter Comes Tears up to the point where I recognized the profiles traced into the paint, at which time I tried hard to un-see them. The way she uses paint, I can imagine her work losing the pictorial or figurative elements and being better for it. Unfortunatey I have neither a photo or a link for Ms. Campana, so you’ll have to take my word on this.

(Update: You can see her work here.)

Quinn Taylor, (Untitled)

I liked Quinn Taylor’s two pieces both as works themselves and as foils to the work around them. The curatorial team (Michael Thibault and Hugh Zeigler) made good use of Taylor, and in turn Taylor’s pieces looked great in the show.

Chloe Wessner, The Last Walk

However much talent was on display at NAH POP NO STYLE, there was a new artist smell to some of the pieces, with work that seemed to spring from the art school structure rather than from a developed body of work. Chloe Wessner’s The Last Walk and Kandis Williams’ I Saw What You Did, Bitch (Cunty Whisper) both felt like one-off, pointed constructions. These may be other cases of wait and see.

Thomas Harrington, Untitled

While there were few pieces I swallow whole, and despite minor problems with some pieces, NAH POP NO STYLE is still one of the most interesting shows up in Chicago right now. Thibault and Zeigler have put together a very balanced show, rich in content and interplay, honestly beautiful in the space, and with pieces that generated more opinions and discussion than most shows I’ve attended and/or discussed. I may go a third time.

I give it a:

7.6

NAH POP NO STYLE runs July 11th through August 8th @ Roots and Culture, 1034 N. Milkwaukee.

P.S. This was one of the more difficult articles to write, only because of the very sparse online content. I nearly wore out my googler trying to track down information for some of the artists involved in this show. While I can (only reluctantly) handle the gallery not putting up a piece list/images for the show, the artists themselves should really have some online presence for interested parties. If you’re an artist without a website, please, for my sake as well as your own, go set up a blog and put your name and work on it. Put a tiny bio. Include the word artist. For me. Please.

If you’ve been following Fecal Face‘s features this year and panting at work coming out of California, you’ll be happy to know that  Ebersb9‘s latest show control c, control v has brought lots of familiar Fecal Face featured (fecal?) faces to Chicago. This fecal feel probably has something to do with Ryan Travis Christian, sole contributor for Fecal Face’s Chicago bureau, local starlet, a person I once stole a killer painting from, and curator for control c, control v.

While a collage show, only half of the artists really take a direct and formal collage approach. Hilary Pecis‘ Untitled, Hisham Akira Bharoocha‘s All That Baggage, and Alexis Mackenzie‘s Youthless and Dust are all straighforward (at least in construction), whereas the other artists’ work feature a more collage of content rather than of form. In Eric Yahnker‘s Bearded Asterisk, the collage came before the drawing, chopped and composed digitally and reconstructed in graphite on the paper. Likewise, Bjorn Copeland‘s Kokomo and Tobacco/Beta Carnage’s Hawker Boat are both the kind of video collages you might wind up with whirling a razor in a local access hell-vault, composed of weird, surreal, and sort of familiar bits from just about everywhere.

Eric Yahnker, Bearded Asterick

That slant towards extra eclecticism infects much of the art in the show. There is that certain aesthetic flavor to much of the work that is hard to name but easy to recognize. I’d call it psychedelic, but its visual intensity and chaotic content would be a hard microdot to swallow; no, this is closer to digital psychosis, a glitchy tour of shit culture with saturation at max, an intense absurdism. Its the flavor of Dan Deacon, Tim and Eric, of a purely aesthetic reading of Ulysses with 3D glasses on, and perhaps most crystally of the split second random commercial drop spliced between breaks of a show you recorded years ago on VHS. It feels very west coast, though its not entirely separate from the visual intensity and weirdo content of Chris Millar or Patrick Lundeen.

Whatever you want to call it, its here to see, more (see Pecis, Yahnker, and both video artists) or less (see Matt Irie’s Loomy Tombs) in every piece. Even Mackensie’s subdued natural collages have a hint of strange collission.

Hisha Akira Bharoocha, All That Baggage

By the way, I’m calling it drop culture.

Not only is this the strongest show yet at Ebersb9, control c, control v is really just way too good for being only the third opening at a brand new apartment gallery. Had Ryan and Sara and Dominic been given enough space to exhibit larger works from the same artists this show could easily compare to and compete with any exhibition currently in Chicago. As it is, control c, control v still packs in a solid group without overburdening the main space.

Though the backroom/bathroom is getting crowded.

The Artiest Bathroom in Chicago

I give it a:

8.53, give or take .01

control c, control v runs from July 17th to August 15th, 2009 @ Ebersb9, 1359 W. Chicago Ave.

Last Saturday saw the final show at Mini Dutch, Lucia Fabio‘s seasoned apartment gallery in Logan Square. Having ran the gallery for more than two years (a truly respectable amount of time for any alternative space), Lucia and her fiance Robert Mueller chose to close it out by exhibiting the art they’d personally collected along the way.

As sorry as it is to see a space like Mini Dutch go, all apartment gallery owners take note: if you’ve got to go out, this is the way to do it.

Lucia Fabio and Robert Mueller

By some luck I arrived at the gallery early and despite my tics and ticks was graciously invited in to snap some pictures and chat and distract while the titular duo finished up the final points of the show. Though I missed the meat of the event – the memories and good-byes and champagne toasts – I was allowed a sunny private view of the work, which was a great thing indeed considering the art in the space.

I don’t think it would be entirely appropriate to critique a personal collection, so I’ll limit myself to congradulating Lucia on bringing the work out for us to see in a way that could have easily passed for a dream-team group show of Chicago artists. Many small and medium-sized works were presented here from artists like Chris Millar (who I’d call one of the the best artists living in the city at the moment), the soon-to-be-in-New-York Stacie Johnson (her new project named Wandering Caterpillar is well worth a look), E. C. Brown, Mark Porter, and many, many more.

Here are some pictures!

Chris Millar, Life Inside a Very Small Painting

Andrew Holmquest, New Heart (The Bob Newhart Show)

Blazo Calovic, Untitled

Stacie Johnson, Frontside: Starburst with Mirrors

 

Carol Jackson, I burst from my confinement then hid unseen amid the rocks until the flies gave way to gnats.

I wish Lucia the best in her new place on the left coast and hope that if or when she ends up starting a new alternative (or more standard) space, she would choose to open it with this exact same show. It would be as perfect a Hello show in California as it was a Good-Bye show in Chicago. Good luck!

I give it a:

Selections from the Fabio-Mueller Collection was held Saturday, July 11th at Mini Dutch, 3111 W. Diversy (1st floor apartment).