Austin Eddy apparently hasn’t let the attention he’s received prevent him from turning corners, swapping influences, and sliding into new bodies of work. Trading trippy magic stages and Keegan McChargue for Matisse-ey interiors and Tyson Reeder, Eddy’s latest work was an intensely colorful look into work in flux. There’s something going on in painting – I’ve seen many painters starting to use traditional representative tropes like an interior or a still life as frameworks for material investigations, exploiting the commonality and relative lack of content in such imagery over riskier abstraction, where content might be created by accident or interpretation. Eddy is apparently doing the same, demonstrating in his works some interesting uses of paint, but his interiors and flowerpots come off as more sincere, dipping here and there into narrative, and worked over with more than superficial care.
Austin Eddy’s i feel better already, at least i think i do runs until December 12th @ Golden Gallery, 816 W. Newport Ave, no. 1.
Filed under: Chicago
Say Hi to Kristin Reger, a post-chicago artist who will be now and then covering Chicagoish art events in New York. Curious about the funky ad for RADAR EYES I’d seen on the back of the most recent Lumpen magazine, I asked Kristin to talk about the show, which she co-curated in New York and which featured plenty of Chicago artists.
RADAR EYES is an exhibition of “Hallucinogenic Printmaking” on view through December 30 at Fardom Gallery in New York. The traveling exhibition, brainchild of Montreal’s prolific screenprinting duo Seripop, debuted in 2008 as a curatorial collaboration with Chicago gallerist Reuben Kinkaid at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport. The 2009 incarnation of the RADAR EYES features a selection from over 50 artists and includes highlights from Le Dernier Cri (France); Zeloot (Holland); Sakura Maku (New York); Danimal (Minneapolis); Xander Marro and Lief Goldberg (Providence); and Chicago’s Cody Hudson, Dan Grzeca, Sonnenzimmer, Delicious Design League, and Plural.
Though almost exclusively comprised of screen prints, the exhibition brings together a range of technique and subject matter. Compare Gunsho‘s monster prints – beautifully rendered, incredibly disgusting drawings printed with exacting registration, careful color selection and more than 10 inks with different finishes – with Rasmus Svensson‘s scratchy sketches of people and animals, gratuitously layered in three or four neon inks, and purpously so far of kilter they might be better viewed with 3-D glasses. (Kristin Reger)
Check out the images below, or the Flickr gallery here.
For the jet set, check the show until December 2nd out at Fardom Gallery, 25-17 41st Avenue, Long Island City.
Brennan McGaffey quietly maintains one of the most interesting art practices in the city of Chicago, creating interactive, mysterious urban interjections with his Intermod Series. Enjoy the interview, a Chicago Art Review first.
Tell me a little about yourself and the history and goals of the Intermod Series. What other projects were involved?
Around 1999 I realized that a shift had occurred in the way I was working and in the way it was realized and presented. It no longer had any relationship to galleries or gallery spaces but was focused instead on methods of propagation outward with unknown results. At the time I was listening to a lot of shortwave radio and began to think that the best audience imaginable was the devoted shortwave enthusiast who spends their nights glued to their kit with headphones on and a pot of coffee, listening and drawing out faint signals.
Also, around that time the Conet Project was released, which is an intense 4-disc compilation of samples of the now well-known shortwave number stations and I remember listening to it all in one sitting. Someone had to be out there listening for these, ready to record them. These were the people I wanted to interact with. Hobbyists who really cared or the similarly obsessed. Even if it meant no one else would be interested.
The resulting activities I named the Intermod Series. Intermodulation occurs when two or more signals mix generating a new or modified signal. The Intermod Series engages through creative interference. Some examples include altering the electromagnetic field surrounding the electric-power grid, FM radio and boosted CB radio transmissions, and launching rockets in the city to alter the atmosphere. Developed to have the potential for interaction, the projects are free and distributed with 1-800 numbers, embroidered patches and stickers, radio monitoring frequencies, or online forums and journals.
Your next event involves your KC-135 Ground Tracking Network. Could you give me a brief description of what the project is and where it came from?
The KC-135 Ground Tracking Network is a skywatch program to recruit KC-135 Stratotanker airplane spotters. Earlier this week I sent out a Spotters’ Guide in the mail to carefully selected addresses. This guide was inspired by the Airplane Spotters’ Handbooks that were distributed to the public during the Second World War and is designed to give you an introduction to spotting and show you the specific characteristics of the KC-135 airplane. Once you receive this, and decide to participate, there is an online forum where you sign-up to become a member. This forum will generate a constantly updating database that can be studied online at anytime. As a spotter, this is where you go to to discuss your findings, ask questions, post photos, and so on. Members have unlimited access to the forum and are eligible to receive an embroidered patch. The Ground Tracking Network puts eyes to the sky, monitoring and recording when others won’t. You should join!
Last year you showed a scale model of the KC-135 at VONZWECK, and you’ve got another event coming up as part of the KC-135 project titled Fire & Judgment which also involves a fabricated model among other things. What can we expect to see at this next event?
The members will determine how the network progresses by their participation. That’s the most important part. But in addition, there will be a one-time purging event & gathering where the activated model will be presented ‘live’ with an indeterminate outcome. This will begin at midnight on December 2nd and end permanently at 1:00 a.m. If you’re considering becoming a member or are sympathetic, this might be something worth attending. But don’t come expecting an art show. Or an art space.
What do you mean by “activated”? You also used the words, purging, and indeterminate outcome – should we be worried?
What you saw at the VONZWECK space was a preview. On December 2nd, it will no longer be a preview. Personally, I’m a little worried having never participated in something like this but it should reflect how you approach the event. If you engage passively to observe, you should have nothing to worry about. If you come with a more focused awareness then you should already know the risks and prepare yourself accordingly.
More information on Brennan McGaffey, the Intermod Series, the KC-135 Ground Tracking Network, and Fire & Judgment can be found at the Intermod Series website. You can read more about his radio projects here and here.
Filed under: Artists of the Week
This week’s picks from Ryan. Happy holiday, click images for links.
Two Pheobes!
Filed under: Chicago
A couple really good openings this weekend. Here’s what I’ll be trying to see:
Nicholas Frank / Joe Hardesty @ Western Exhibitions
Two text-based artists hang work this weekend at Western Exhibitions, Nicholas Frank‘s self describing biographical narrative projects and Joe Hardesty‘s self-describing drawings. Check out more info here. Both shows open with a reception this Friday, November 20th from 5 to 8 PM @ Western Exhibitions, 119 N. Peoria, Suite 2A.
SUPER BAD ASS @ Co-Prosperity Sphere
Lots and lots and lots of artists are flooding the CPS for the SUPER BAD ASS show, a festival of sorts including work from Juan Angel Chavez, Dayton Castleman, Stephen Eichhorn, Aron Gent, Jeremy Tubbs, Hilary Olson, Tom Torluemke, Gunsho (James Quigley), Berry Sanders, Montgomery Perry Smith, Hui-Min Tsen (with dozens of participants), and Justin B. Williams, five live bands at the opening and a bargain basement to pillage for rent-safe artwork. Check out the this Flickr set for more images, and see the opening this Friday, November 20th from 7PM on @ Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan.
NEW BLOOD III @ Chicago Cultural Center
We get to see some new work by School of the Art Institute performance art students and graduates this weekend at the Cultural Center. New Blood III is a three night event, with performances Friday and Saturday night at 7PM and Sunday at 6PM @ Chicago Cultural Center’s Studio Theater, entrance at 77 E. Randolf St.
Party Crashers @ Concertina Gallery
Concertina Gallery opens Party Crashers this weekend, a group show with work centered around family and friends and the infecting intimacy created in those relationships. Artists include Dick Blau, Micah Lexier, Dutes Miller & Stan Shellabarger, Davida Nemeroff , Annie Pootoogook, and Carrie Schneider. Opening reception Saturday, November 21st, 7PM @ Concertina Gallery, 2351 N. Milwaukee, 2nd Floor.
Whats more!
Filed under: Artists of the Week
Seven artists of the week, from Ryan‘s picks. Click images for links.
Full march!
With a new address, coat racks, a paneled ceiling and a floor covered in tiny stones, Old Gold has opened again with a one night show featuring the work of Aline Cautis, Josh Mannis and Andy Roche. There was the prevailing social element to the event of the kind expected at one night events, with the work itself giving a nice backdrop and throbbing beat to conversation. Check out the great video documentation below.
Mannis’s looping video collage, Variations (the source of that throb) saw the artist, dressed like a subdivision neighbor and wearing a grossly disfiguring mask, winding into digitally synchronized, then syncopated dance steps. This collaging extended to Does This System Work? #1, an infinite crowd created by edge-tracing and repeating a milling marathon. The static loop, printed on fabric (#2 was on a hat), came out more as an okay wallpaper than much else, containing all of the elements of Mannis’s video work except the best ones. The extended scope and patterning of crowd might have suggest flocking or fascist troop parades, but lacking the transformative, anxious pace of his videos, the imagery looked regular and harmless.
Roche presented two polyester hair pieces and a video titled Glass Flag. The larger and pretty awesome hair piece, Wall Do, hung like a desert island decoration, strung between edges of burlap and wood in wide synthetic grins. The other, Red Talk, saw the hair draped over the sides of a pink, blown out drawing room photo like creepy drapery, framing the image. The result was an oddly feminized image of a very male sort of event, with the middle tone false hair adding an extra touch of unpleasant gaudiness. Glass Flag showed various views, including much of the installation space itself, while a transparent plastic sheet was danced before the camera. It was interesting to watch a video of the space I was currently occupying but which that didn’t include me, but I wasn’t sure how to connect this to the idea of a transparent flag, which served more as a disruption of the scenes than the anti-political content the clear flag could also suggest.
While Aline Cautis’s paintings didn’t thrill me beyond the scratched and marked surfaces on a couple, the highlight of the show was Aline Cautis’s, 1, 2, 3, 4, which managed to bridge both video, sculpture, and drawing. The work projected 16 millimeter film, strung over a spool on the ceiling, which had been marked with thousands of small parallel lines by Cautis. These handmade lines, moving along the film loop in colored chunks, skittered on the wall when projected. It was interesting to see the same marks in motion, existing at once in two different ways on two surfaces.
One night shows are great, but I saw this one more as a welcome-back party than a full on, acutely curated exhibition. Still, the work included was solid and the pieces fit well together, even with some leaning against walls or placed on mirror ledges. I look forward to seeing something done with the fireplace.
I give it a:
SEVEN AND A THIRD
Future Facing was a one night event, held on November 13th, 2009 @ Old Gold, 2102 West Palmer.
(Note: I’m catching up on my backlog of shows I attended, photographed, and never wrote about. Enjoy the pictures and the brief summary.)
September’s main space at Western Exhibitions featured Paul Nudd, I had wanted to give Dan Attoe‘s show in the second space its own review. The show was quiet, stretching its three pieces for maximum effect and building an atmosphere of creepy, confident mystery. The central piece, Sea Kayakers (You Are Not Special) was actually a very similar to an image made by Robyn O’Neil (who was at the time showing across the hall at Tony Wight Gallery, reviewed here). However, while O’Neil’s Masses and masses rove a darkened pool; never is there laughter on this ship of fools contained almost the same content for a narrative purpose, Attoe’s use of the imagery seems more arbitrary and hallucinatory. That desert trip vibe carried through to the other two as well, which flashed clips of text and image like daily glimpses from a wounded nomad’s fever trek.
Dan Attoe‘s solo exhibition opened Friday, September 11th and closed Saturday, October 10th @ Western Exhibitions, 119 N Peoria St, Suite 2A.
(Note: I’m catching up on my backlog of shows I attended, photographed, and never wrote about. Enjoy the pictures and the brief summary.)
At the end of September, Dominican University’s O’Connor Gallery opened Site Unspecific, a group show which included work by Heather Mekkelson, Mara Baker, Adam Farcus, Rafael E. Vera, Brian Yates and Heidi Norton. The pieces were linked by the thread of site specificity, though each referenced a specific site outside of the gallery. Not all of the artwork here sustained the interest and had the conceptual skin to carry the theme, and some merely suggested an unknown place without going any further, but there were notable works. Adam Farcus’s sculpture, a paper chain draped over the track lights and doing much for the exhibition’s overall framing, was constructed from photocopied maps of the stars that would have been visible above at the time and place of his birth. Heather Mekkelson’s Debris Field was a reconstructed disaster, with artifacts of tragedy such as melted aluminum and burnt file cabinets meticulously reconstructed by Mekkelson from photographs of real remains. The show ended up relying on and challenging my trust in the artists’ claims, an interaction highlighted best by Heidi Nortons photographs which may or may not be accurate to their titles, and I spent the drive home wondering about that intersection of representation and belief. Without any way to validate the fact, would it matter if Farcus’s stars were from yesterday?
Site Unspecific opened on September 29th, 2009 and runs until December 13th, 2009 @ Dominican University’s O’Connor Art Gallery, 7900 W Division St. in River Forest.
Filed under: Chicago
(Note: I’m catching up on my backlog of shows I attended, photographed, and never wrote about. Enjoy the pictures and the brief summary.)
Berry Sanders is a painter from Eindhoven, Netherlands (home of the Van Abbe Museum, recently mentioned here), and his show Tales From the Bubble was a series of large, black and white narrative oil paintings down at Bridgeport’s Co-Prosperity Sphere. That each had a self contained story was a rare thing in contemporary painting, moving the focus and the strength of the work into the illusion, into its content rather than its form. Like much of narrative, representative work, the paintings demanded more attention to unpack and experience than I was really willing to give, limited themselves to mediocrity even while doing their job better than most. Flooded alleys, space-suit chimps, and jungle militias glazed by superficially – I was more interested in the scale, eerie blacks and greys, and especially the ivy ease with which Berry had painted the wall piece.
Berry Sanders’ Tales from the Bubble ran September 25th to October 11th, 2009 @ Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan.