EXHIBITION Weekend
Coinciding with EXPO CHGO ONLINE, EXPO CHICAGO is collaborating with Newcity to present EXHIBITION Weekend on Friday, April 9th and Saturday, April 10th offering select hotel packages and opportunities for either Chicagoans or visitors to enjoy an art-filled staycation weekend in support of our galleries and institutions. Special EXHIBITION Weekend hotel rates with our official partners can be found here.
Kathleen Waterloo in her Studio (Encaustic Painting in America).
Encaustic in America: New Work
In-Person Exhibition
April 3- April 30, 2021
During the month of April, Addington Gallery hosts an exciting exhibition of paintings made by some of the leading voices of encaustic painting in America. The exhibition will feature recent work by leading encaustic artists, including color-based painting by Joanne Mattera; sculptural atmospheric work by Jeff Hirst, expressive compositions by Lisa Pressman, paintings referencing sky and water by Robin Denevan, and painterly geometric compositions by Kathleen Waterloo, Marissa Voytenko, and Cat Crotchet.
Paula Blackwell: "Out of the Blue".
Paula Blackwell: Out of the Blue
In-Person Exhibition
April 3- April 30, 2021
Paula Blackwell presents Out of the Blue, a recent series of etherial landscapes created using her unique approach to the Encaustic method.
"Under Pressure" by Kathleen Waterloo, 30x24, encaustic on wood (Encaustic Painting in America)
The Modern Evolution of Encaustic Painting
In-Person Event
April 3- April 30, 2021 | 5-6pm CT
A lively discussion of encaustic materials and processes. Curator and artists featured in the exhibition will be participating. Limited space is available. Contact dan@addington.com or 312.664.3406 to attend. Masking/distancing enforced.
Bonnie Lautenberg, 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Keith Haring, Untitled, 2018. Archival pigment print, 62 x 49 in.
In-Person Exhibition
March 5- April 30, 2021
Animal Farm is a whimsical group show of several artists who use animals in creative and sometimes non-traditional ways. It is meant to showcase the artistic work of the artists, the subject matter being less important.
Image courtesy of Gallery Victor Armendariz.
In-Person Exhibition
March 20- April 30, 2021
Fugue State—A Fugue State is a dissociative psychiatric disorder characterized by sudden, unexpected travel away from home with inability to recall one's past, confusion about personal identity, or the assumption of a new identity. The world events of the past year have caused a shift in collective interpretations of normalcy. The works in this show address issues of distortion through visual interpretation of psychological states of mind.
Image courtesy of Gallery Victor Armendariz.
Carol Pylant - Roman Gardenscapes: Paintings Inspired by the frescos of Villa di Livia
In-Person Exhibition
March 20- April 30, 2021
Carol Pylant Roman Gardenscapes Paintings Inspired by the frescos of Villa di Livia “Roman Gardenscapes” is a series of paintings created in response to seeing the frescos from the subterranean triclinium of the ancient Roman Villa di Livia in 2007 and 2010. Built near Rome around the last half of 1st century, B.C., the Villa di Livia was the country residence of Livia Drusilla, wife of the emperor Augustus. The triclinium was a formal roman dinning room with three reclining benches, centered around a low dinning table. The frescos, which originally covered all four walls of the windowless subterranean 40 foot long by 20 foot wide dinning room, where moved and reinstalled to the same scale room at the Palazzo Massimo, Rome, Italy in the 1950s. These frescoed paintings offered the subterranean dinner guests of the villa the amazing illusion of dinning in an outdoor grotto, overlooking a beautiful garden full of trees and birds, bordered by segments of a fence and low wall. The tree and shrub species depicted in these frescoes include pines, oaks, red fir, myrtle, oleander, laurel, viburnum, cypress, date palm and boxwood. Flower species, all blooming simultaneously, include roses, poppies, chrysanthemums, chamomile, violets and irises. The series of “Roman Gardenscape Paintings” borrowed freely from the trompe l’oeil Roman frescos, specifically from those areas of the frescos that suffered the most deterioration and weathering of time. The addition to the selected compositions was the insertion of architectural elements specific to my time spent teaching in Italy. Likewise different birds entered my “Gardenscapes” as symbolic representatives of present states of mind. The series continues the career long exploration of finding a spiritual and concrete continuum between the past and the present.
The Art Institute of Chicago
Bisa Butler. The Safety Patrol, 2018. Cavigga Family Trust Fund. © Bisa Butler
In-Person Exhibition
Now - September 6, 2021
Bisa Butler’s portrait quilts vividly capture personal and historical narratives of Black life. She strategically uses textiles—a traditionally marginalized medium—to interrogate the historical marginalization of her subjects while using scale and subtle detail to convey her subjects’ complex individuality. Together, Butler’s quilts present an expansive view of history through their engagement with themes such as family, community, migration, the promise of youth, and artistic and intellectual legacies. Bisa Butler: Portraits is the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work and will include over 20 portraits.
Claude Monet. Water Lilies, 1906. The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection.
In-Person Exhibition
Now - June 14, 2021
When Monet’s paintings first appeared alongside his contemporaries’ in a Chicago gallery in 1888, he was singled out for praise by the press. And when his works were shown in the city again as part of the last Inter-State Industrial Exposition in Chicago (also known as the “American Salon”) in 1890, they not only captured the eye of local collectors—they ignited a collective passion. In keeping with the theme of firsts, Monet and Chicago is the first exhibition to explore Chicago’s pioneering connection to the great Impressionist artist.
Cameron Gainer, N.I.L.4, 2014, archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle photo rag.
In-Person Exhibition
March 20- April 24, 2021
Aspect/Ratio Projects is pleased to present Intentional Attention, a two person show from artists Cameron Gainer and Xie Hongdong. This exhibition reveals the natural beauty of our world not always readily apparent to the naked eye. By definition, intentional attention involves cultivating a constant readiness to capture external elements, in this case through a photographer’s lens, exposing the raw, untouched beauty of our environment.
Courtesy of Chicago Artists Coalition.
In-Person Exhibition
March 19 - April 29, 2021
Chicago Artists Coalition is pleased to present Preview 10, the tenth anniversary survey show of works by BOLT artists-in-residence: Selva Aparicio, Kyle Bellucci Johanson, Susy Bielak, Julian Flavin, Maryam Taghavi, and Paige Taul. Preview 10 is curated by Kristin Korolowicz. Preview 10 presents various creative viewpoints from recent works that are gestures in new directions for the artists, in preparation for their solo exhibitions in 2021 and 2022. The exhibition is conversational, provisional, and open-ended in allowing the art to define itself and to evoke feelings of persistence and renewal.
Courtesy of Chicago Artists Coalition.
In-Person Exhibition
March 19 - April 29, 2021
Chicago Artists Coalition is pleased to present Survey 2, a group exhibition featuring new works by HATCH 2019-2020 residents, and curated by Fabiola Tosi, Juelle Daley, and Stephanie Koch. Exhibiting artists include Katie Chung, Gericault De La Rose, Naomi Elson, Jazmine Harris, Ellen Holtzblatt, Julia Klein, Bryan LeBeuf, Juan Molina Hernández, Solomon Salim Moore, José Santiago Pérez, Joshi Radin, and Unyimeabasi Udoh. Survey 2 asks the twelve resident artists to reflect on and share the distinct ways they relate to time: How do you manifest the connection between process and object, both enduring and ephemeral? With a deep look into the process and methods of each artist-in-residence, the exhibition is a survey of the different scales at which time is perceived, seized, and reshaped through diverse artistic practices. What does it mean to relate to concepts such as now and then, before and after, slow and fast? When all the artworks collide in the same space as a collective, in what way do they negotiate, depart from, merge or challenge each other’s notion of linearity to reveal the artist’s personal rhythm and unique timestamp of individuality? The artworks on view are symbolic permutations of the individual embedded with the artists’ relationship to the ephemeral.
Digital Exhibition
April 1 -30, 2021
Authentic spontaneities between color, form, and representational imagery spark a gravitational pull like the blossom of a cultural wellspring. Spiritualist illustrations needed coloured fire to take on the forms clothed in the living light of other worlds as Annie Besant conveys in Thought Forms, the seminal book on Theosophy. Here, embodied elements become the source material for creation. We bask in the impassioned use of color, we delight in the afterglow of work that awards these elements the sense of lyricism they deserve.
Digital Event
April 9, 2021 | 1-2pm CT
Guest curator talk with Pari Dust, about her work on Art's of Life - Circle Contemporary's latest exhibition, Colored Dust. Pari Dust explores new ways to combine the elements of our visual world, offering windows into contemporary art, fashion, and the built environment through her unique lens. In an ever-evolving space Pari Dust seizes opportunities to engage in conversation with influential minds and collaborate with those who share and heighten her vision. Seeking to provoke and expose new ideas through the process of discovery as she travels the world, Pari celebrates the interactions and influence of art and design and how they merge to define our contemporary moment.
RSVP for Zoom details: circlecontemporary@artsoflife.org
Lynne Cohen, Office, 1980
What Remains: Thirty Years of New Topographic Vision
In-Person Exhibition
April 2 - June 5, 2021
What Remains: Thirty Years of New Topographic Vision features works by Lynne Cohen, John Gossage, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Charles Swedlund, and Henry Wessel.
Kevin Wolff, Bob, 2006, oil on canvas, 60 x 96 inches.
Kevin Wolff, Never Not Looking
In-Person Exhibition
April 9 - May 15, 2021
Devening Projects presents Never Not Looking, a survey of and reflection on the paintings, works on paper and sculpture of Chicago artist Kevin Wolff (1955 – 2018). In collaboration with his long-time partner David Scott and featuring essay contributions from Julia Fish, Kay Rosen, Richard Rezac, Mark Pascale, Ben Murray and others, Never Not Looking offers a celebration of a painter renowned for his evocatively charged perceptual work.
Katy Cowan. Courtesy of DOCUMENT.
In-Person Exhibition
February 27 - April 10, 2021
DOCUMENT is pleased to present Katy Cowan’s first exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition will open on view until April 10, hours Tuesday - Saturday 11am-6pm.
Visits can be scheduled for 1-4 persons every half hour and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. You must schedule your visit in advance via Tock.
Installation photography by Michael Tropea at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Chicago, 2020.
A Tale of Today: Nate Young and Mika Horibuchi
In-Person Exhibition
September 26, 2020 - April 18, 2021
The second exhibition in the Museum’s contemporary art initiative features two Chicago-based artists, Nate Young and Mika Horibuchi, whose works engage our expectations of the Nickerson Mansion by responding to the design and history of the 1883 building. Young and Horibuchi deftly employ personal and site-specific frameworks in approaching their additions to the 1883 building. The installations presented take on a decidedly quiet tone, allowing the objects to speak more calmly in order for the Nickerson Mansion to take center stage. Nate Young explores themes of familial and collective history while his skillful woodwork recalls the same craftsmanship used to build the Nickerson Mansion. Mika Horibuchi blurs the lines between truth and fiction using the visual technique of trompe-l’oeil to pose questions regarding authorship and the construction of historical narratives.
Installation photography by Michael Tropea at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Chicago, 2020.
A Tale of Today Nate Young and Mika Horibuchi Virtual Tour and Exhibition Catalogue
Digital Event
April 9, 2021 | Available with catalogue purchase
Virtually experience A Tale of Today: Nate Young and Mika Horibuchi alongside the artists who created it. A Tale of Today 2019-2020 Curatorial Fellow Kekeli Sumah, curator of the exhibition, guides us through each gallery as Nate Young and Mika Horibuchi share the stories behind the works created specifically for the historically and architecturally significant space. This tour is offered exclusively when purchased with the exhibition catalogue.
Alexandra Eregbu, If Ala, Ci, and Eke Lived Under the Same Roof R If Heaven Was Home, 2019. Acrylic ink and indigo on linen
A Tale of Today: Emerging Artists Fellowship
In-Person Exhibition
April 8 - April 18, 2021
A Tale of Today: Emerging Artists Fellowship is a six-month art and design program for four Chicago-based emerging ALAANA artists. Participants engage with the staff, partners and network of the Driehaus Museum through a series of events, professional experiences and artistic encounters that culminate in a pop-up exhibition at the Museum. The Fellows will take the Museum's home, the 1883 Nickerson Mansion, as a jumping off point for creativity. Once known as Chicago's Marble Palace, the venue offers a chance for the Fellows to explore the relationship between their practice and the many decorative and architectural elements of the house; between their identities and the ideas of home as expressed through the Mansion; and between their locus in the art world and the sense of place expressed through one of the Gilded Age's finest examples of architecture and decoration.
Devon T. Mays, Weight, 2019. Concrete and wood. Images courtesy of the artist.
In Conversation with the 2020 A Tale of Today: Emerging Artist Fellows
Digital Event
April 10, 2021 | 3-4pm CT
Curatorial Fellow, Kekeli Sumah will be in conversation with the Driehaus Museum's 2020 A Tale of Today: Emerging Artist Fellows - Alexandria Eregbu, Devin T. Mays, Maryam Taghavi, and Unyimeabasi Udoh - about their contributions to the exhibition. They will explore the relationship between their own artistic practices and a sense of place and ideas of home and identity as expressed through the design and architecture of the 1883 Nickerson Mansion, the Museum's home.
In-Person Exhibition
January 30 - May 29, 2021
The exhibition, Gallery Artists 2.0, marks a new beginning for the gallery, as CEG embarks on a new vision that includes an innovative Viewing Room, where visitors enter the gallery and experience the current show on view through a guided 3D tour as if one was walking through the space. Now viewers who are not local can walk through the gallery, and see the show as it is meant to be experienced. This 3D tour is in collaboration with iart, a curated collection of gallery exhibits that provides access to the best art on display anywhere in the world. I hope you enjoy this new experience, as well as my introduction, and the artworks on display.
Terry Evans: A Small Central Illinois Prairie, May 2018.
SaraNoa Mark: : 36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E
In-Person Exhibition
February 27 - April 10, 2021
Goldfinch is proud to present 36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E, a solo exhibition of new sculptures by SaraNoa Mark. SaraNoa Mark’s practice investigates traces left by time, as they exist in landscapes and in collective memory. Using lasting materials like carved clay and discarded stones, the artist explores notions of permanence and erasure, questioning why certain pieces of history remain visible, while others fall away and are lost. Through intricate sculptural work that “rhymes” with, rather than replicates, ancient artifacts and sites of antiquity, Mark considers how we task certain objects with surviving time and how, in turn, these objects shape our perceptions of history. In other words, when we only see what we’re reminded of, what do we neglect in the process? What remains hidden, but still present? Mark’s new body of work stems from a recent Fulbright research fellowship in Turkey, during which the artist visited living rock monuments throughout the country. Among these sites was Myra, an ancient Lycian metropolis, in the present-day Antalya Province. Now a Turkish national park and international tourist destination, the site is known for its rock-cut tombs, carved into the vertical cliff faces of a mountain. With further exploration of the area, Mark visited the mountain’s other side, quietly tucked behind orange groves, away from the crowds. The mountain’s “backside” revealed rock cut staircases and tombs, equally as complex and mysterious as the carved ruins of the front. For Mark, this “secret” or neglected part of an ancient site threw into very literal relief questions about pilgrimage and abandonment, value and neglect. 36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E, the coordinates of Myra’s reverse mountainside, invites us into a new landscape, where what is discarded, buried, and remembered is exposed all at once—a historical record remade, and then remade again.
Hero by Delisha McKinney.
The Never Ends by Delisha McKinney
In-Person Exhibition
March 12 - April 10, 2021
The Never Ends is a collection of imaginative narratives based on the black experience from the perspectives of children. Delisha draws from her own personal experiences growing up in Chicago. The whimsical nature of Delisha’s work draws you in and holds you there. Bright colors are against dark ones, repetitive child-like symbols appear, gestures of the characters are full of emotion and fairytale-like imagery invites us in with open arms. Each piece is a story, precious in nature like a child, but deep in meaning like the process of growing up and coming to understandings about the world. The exhibition is open online and by appointment only. Contact kim@elephantroomgallery.com to schedule a viewing.
Installation view of "SaraNoa Mark: 36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E."
Goldfinch
Installation view of "Scott Wolniak: Alight."
In-Person Exhibition
February 27 - April 10, 2021
Goldfinch is proud to present Alight, a solo exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Scott Wolniak in Gallery II. The exhibition will open Saturday, February 27, 2021, and is on view through April 10, 2021. Special Opening Weekend viewing hours are Saturday and Sunday, February 27-28, 12-4pm, by appointment. Scott Wolniak’s multi-disciplinary practice encompasses painting, drawing, video, and sculpture; in all media, the Chicago-based artist is concerned with building relationships and spaces that he has described as “contemplative and funny.” Wolniak strives to create pictorial spaces that ask for and reward “slow” ways of looking. “The accumulation of small marks, chance operations and textural fragments creates optical energy, and embodies an off-kilter sort of life-force that I think of as my style,” Wolniak recently noted. “Disparate sources such as natural phenomena, urban decay, new-age symbolism and studio-craft merge to illuminate everyday life within a cosmic context.” In the new series of paintings and cut paper works included in Alight, invented botanical forms are the starting point for artistic improvisation. Plants and grass imagery provide Wolniak with “a flexible structural motif” that function both as symbols of the natural world as well as allegories for human behavior.
Gallery Hang-Out with SaraNoa Mark
In-Person Event
April 9, 2021 | 12noon-5pm CT
Artist SaraNoa Mark will be on hand to provide gallery chats, walkthroughs, and/or answer questions from 12-5pm during this casual gallery hang-out in conjunction with Mark's current solo exhibition, “36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E." Goldfinch is location at 319 N. Albany Avenue, Oak Park, IL. PLEASE NOTE: You must make an appointment in advance to visit the gallery - covid19 social distance restrictions are still in place, and we will allow no more than 5 visitors to the gallery at any one time. Schedule an appointment at: https://goldfinch-gallery.com/gallery-visit-appointments/
Gallery Hang-Out with Scott Wolniak
In-Person Event
April 10, 2021 | 12noon-5pm CT
Artist Scott Wolniak will be on hand to provide gallery chats, walkthroughs, and/or answer questions from 12-5pm during this casual gallery hang-out in conjunction with Wolniak's current solo exhibition, Alight. Goldfinch is location at 319 N. Albany Avenue, Oak Park, IL. PLEASE NOTE: You must make an appointment in advance to visit the gallery - covid19 social distance restrictions are still in place, and we will allow no more than 5 visitors to the gallery at any one time. Schedule an appointment at: https://goldfinch-gallery.com/gallery-visit-appointments/
Kavi Gupta
Image courtesy of Kavi Gupta.
Deborah Kass: Painting and Sculpture
In-Person Exhibition
September 10, 2020 - April 24, 2021
Kavi Gupta proudly presents Deborah Kass: Painting and Sculpture, the gallery’s inaugural solo exhibition with the artist. Pairing a stunning new body of work with select historical pieces, the exhibition creates an unflinching examination of the American condition before and during the Trump presidency.
Credit: Michael Joo, Sensory Meridian (installation view), 2021, Kavi Gupta | Elizabeth St. Photo: John Lusis.
In-Person Exhibition
January 21 - April 10, 2021
Kavi Gupta presents Sensory Meridian, featuring a series of new sculptures of disincarnate body parts, alchemized from scans of historical works in the Smithsonian Archives, exploring the prior mentioned issues of representation, and transmission–making the exhibition fertile ground for discussion.
Image courtesy of Kavi Gupta.
In-Person Exhibition
April 3 - June 27, 2021
Kavi Gupta presents Kour Pour, Familiar Spirits, his inaugural solo exhibition at the gallery. Kour Pour has made a body of work instilled with the idea of family—not only that into which we are born but the families we construct as our personal histories unfold. Pour’s debut at the gallery will present a group of paintings he created around the motif of the tiger. As with past bodies of work, such as his acclaimed carpet paintings, this series contains elements that reference both global art history and various interconnected cultural iconographies.
Left: Michael Joo, 2020. © Michael Joo. Courtesy of the artist and Kavi Gupta. Photo: Tom Bigelow. Right: Charles Gaines, 2020. © Charles Gaines. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.
In Conversation: Michael Joo & Charles Gaines
Digital Event
April 9, 2021 | 3:00pm CT
Kavi Gupta presents the next edition of In Conversation, featuring Michael Joo and Charles Gaines on the occasion of EXPO Chicago and the closing of Sensory Meridian, Joo's exhibition at Kavi Gupta | Elizabeth St. Focusing on nature, transmission, representation, and systems, the two will discuss Joo's exhibition and the thematic cross sections between their respective oeuvres. Register Here.
Sensory Meridian features a series of new sculptures of disincarnate body parts, alchemized from scans of historical works in the Smithsonian Archives, exploring the prior mentioned issues of representation, and transmission–making the exhibition fertile ground for discussion.
Image courtesy of Kavi Gupta.
A Private Collection Visit with Renowned Chicago Gallerist Kavi Gupta
Digital Event
April 10, 2021 | 2:00pm CT
Please join ICI and Artful during EXPO CHICAGO for an intimate walkthrough of the Gupta Moss Collection, the private art collection of renowned Chicago gallerist Kavi Gupta and his wife Jessica Moss, Gallery Principal and former Curator of Contemporary Art at University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. Artful Co-Founder and Chief Curator Matthew Israel will be in conversation with Gupta, who will share highlights of their personal collection and discuss his history in the art world. Artful created Artful Anywhere complimentary experiences to offer a bridge until we can return to traveling safely. Register Here.
Image courtesy of Carl Hammer Gallery.
In From the Cold / Celebrating the Art of Outsider Art
In-Person Exhibition
April 2 - July 2, 2021
In From The Cold celebrates not only the self-taught brilliance of the "outsider" artist but also recognizes the overwhelming acceptance of the genre by the world art establishment. Works by these artists have become iconic byproducts of and leave significant legacies to the history of American art experience. The exhibition features works by Ulysses Davis, Johann Garber, Lee Godie, Jessie Howard, Mr. Imagination, Frank Jones, Dwight MacIntosh, Simon Sparrow, Clifton Sulzer, Bill Traylor, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, and Joseph Yoakum.
Digital Exhibition
March 20 - August 23, 2021
Hilton | Asmus Contemporary is pleased to present Humanity, a virtual group exhibition of art by Hugh Arnold, Susan Aurinko, Nick Compton, Jason Dorsey, Lawrence Fried, David Gamble, Kostis Georgiou, Cristina Mittermeier, Paul Nicklen, Jack Perno, George Rodger, Marco Nereo Rotelli, Lawrence Schiller, Tom Stoddart, Blake Ward, Boky Hackel-Ward, Michael Ward, Julian Wasser, Zack Whitford, Ted Williams, David Yarrow. In Humanity, time is collapsed and made fluid. Events of the past are mirrored in moments from the present. In this extremely divisive moment, the images in this exhibition demonstrate how connected the world actually is; regardless of decade or locale, globally countries and citizens share more commonalities than dissimilarities. Viewers from all over will be able to identify with the images because they depict universal themes, hardships, and experiences. Join us on this voyage featuring photography, paintings and sculptures with emerging artists alongside some of the most renowned artists of our times.
In-Person Exhibition
April 12 - June 21, 2021
Scottish photographer David Yarrow (b. 1966) is celebrated for his stunning black and white wildlife photography. He is also renowned for his staged images of animals paired with people. On the Road Again is a visual journal of David Yarrow's journey through his travels around the world during the time of COVID-19.
In-Person Event
April 10, 2021 | 1-7pm CT
We celebrate the launch of our springtime exhibitions reflecting on the symbiosis of humanity and nature. Additionally, our curators will host a program discussing changes to their roles within the climate of COVID-19 and its impact on the art world. Hilton Asmus Contemporary is located at 716 N Wells St #3739, Chicago, IL.
Sergio Lucena, The Blue that embraces me, Blue series, 2020, Oil on canvas, 55 1/4 x 67 in. Courtesy Mariane Ibrahim.
In-Person Exhibition
March 12 - April 10, 2021
The Blue that embraces me...highlights the silent essence that illuminates the memory of such things that, individually and intimately, bring us back to ourselves. These seminal landscapes seek to identify the contours of life, presenting a kind of tracing of the soul as the artist views his work as a spiritual language, a way to see life as a sacred experience of interrelations. The show marks a defining moment in the artists career as Lucena’s artistic production is moving toward a wider understanding of “limit” as a concept. The limit being both the environs that define a space and those naturally perceived. As a painter, Lucena felt the need to run against the limits of language. The duplicity of these slivers of light is the boundary that invites us to extend beyond the previously established liminal environments and spatial interstices to expand our point of view and create a new and unanticipated permeance.
Photograph by Cheri Eisenberg.
Outsider Art: The Collection of Victor F. Keen
In-Person Exhibition
February 6 - April 25, 2021
Victor F. Keen began collecting outsider art in the 1970s and has since developed an expansive, growing collection of exemplary work. From art brut artist Adolf Wölfli to Southern African American artists like Bill Traylor and Inez Nathaniel Walker to self-taught artists James Castle and Martín Ramírez, the Keen collection includes work that spans the breadth of the genre.
In Focus: George Widener Selections from the Collection of Victor F. Keen
In-Person Exhibition
February 26 - May 9, 2021
Born in Covington, Kentucky, in 1962, George Widener displayed mathematical prowess and exceptional memory from an early age. After encountering his first wall calendar in 1968 at his grandmother’s house, Widener began a lifelong fascination with dates, calendars and numbers, which he now transforms into complex visual imagery. Intuit is pleased to exhibit selections of Widener's drawings and notebooks from its collection and his large-scale multimedia works from the collection of Victor F. Keen, a prominent collector of Widener’s work. In Focus exhibits a breadth of George Widener’s oeuvre with works dating from 1999 to 2018.
Photo © John Faier
In-Person Exhibition
Permanent Exhibition
The enigmatic Chicago-born artist Henry Darger left behind a cache of artwork and writings that have fascinated critics, scholars and the public for decades. The Henry Darger Room Collection is a permanent exhibition featuring the contents of the artist's living and working space; it is an invaluable resource supporting the appreciation and study of Darger's life and legacy.
Image courtesy of Janie Stamm, 2021.
In-Person Exhibition
March 27 - May 1, 2021
Julius Caesar (JC) is an artist-run project space in Chicago. Fluid Ground represents JC's longstanding investment in artist-run project spaces nationwide. From March 27th to May 1st, JC will be turning over our space to MONACO, an artist-run project space in St. Louis. Fluid Ground features Yowshien Kuo, Howard Krohn, Allison Lacher and Jeff Robinson, Janie Stamm, Kalaija Mallery, Bruce Burton, Vaughn Davis Jr, Edo Rosenblith and Alyssa Knowling and Marcus Stabenow (Visitor Assembly).
Image courtesy of Alan Koppel Gallery.
Diane Arbus: A Secret about a Secret
In-Person Exhibition
April 1 - May 8, 2021
Alan Koppel Gallery welcomes you to the inaugural exhibition in our satellite location: Alan Koppel Gallery- North in Glencoe, IL. Opening April 1, Alan Koppel Gallery-North presents Diane Arbus: A Secret about a Secret with 7 iconic photographs by one of America's preeminent artists, along with works by contemporary artists influenced by Arbus. Alan Koppel Gallery-North invites you to visit our new space Thursday - Saturday 11:00 - 5:00 pm. Alan Koppel Gallery-North is located at 342 Park Avenue Glencoe, IL 60022.
Image courtesy of M. LeBlanc.
In-Person Exhibition
March 6 - April 17, 2021
M. LeBlanc is proud to present a group exhibition, featuring the work of six artists: Sayre Gomez, Arnold J. Kemp, Vincent Larouche, Xavier Robles de Medina, Yves Scherer, and Christine Wang. Known for his large-scale trompe l’oeil painting and sculpture, Sayre Gomez’ work explores the fragility of representation and the mutability of reality. His exhibited work, a banal industrial post, gestures toward the often invisible remnants of industry that litter urban environments. Gomez’ airbrush nods in shorthand to classic painting technique, emphasizing the new sense of being for the subject of the work. Arnold J. Kemp’s Slow Season Ritual Drawing is from an ongoing series of experiments in drawing developed while Kemp was a resident of The Drawing Center's exhibition/residency program Open Sessions. Taking advantage of an impure aesthetic, Kemp’s work incorporates high and low cultural materials and technologies while foregrounding practices that probe collective fictions of person, personality, and narrative. Vincent Larouche’s paintings are speed, the disposable, the readymade, and the painted. Frequently created directly from screen, often untitled or titled with little meditation, each work reaches for an efficient analog translation of a moment between the eye and the screen, so that the act of painting becomes one of an exercised near-machinic transposition of the present. Rajio Taiso (2018), Xavier Robles de Medina’s work is a cast graphite and plaster amalgamation of the portraits as they appear in the work of Belgian engraver Frans Huys. Huys, whose mid-16th century etchings are largely shaped by a new sense of globalism in the dawn of the European colonial project, serves as a ripe subject for contemporary discourse surrounding cultural appropriation and the pursuit or assignment of identity. Cast in aluminum and then powder-coated, Yves Scherer’s Untitled (Camila) (2020) is a life-size figurative sculpture of a young woman gazing blankly out across the gallery. Christine Wang’s meme paintings are oversized versions of their digital original. Occasionally dissociative or glib in their jokes, Wang’s meme works skewer art’s lofty intellectualism, while questioning everyday motivations of desire and how the collective inherent social power of online culture is mitigated in the real.
Sarita Garcia, Fantasyscape, 2019. Alder & Floyd, Chicago. Courtesy of the artist.
In-Person Exhibition
March 30 - May 29, 2021
Five Works is a bimonthly project series that features new and/or recent works from members of the Chicago art community. Works are on view during regular business hours and available for purchase. Curated by the staff of Mana Contemporary Chicago, Five Works is installed in various intimate and site-specific settings, allowing an inside look into the developing practice of emerging and mid-career artists.
Hương Ngô, The Voice Is an Archive (still), 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
In-Person Exhibition
February 8 - May 20, 2021
another time; once more is a collection of video works by Chicago-based artists who propose new forms that contend with structures of mimetic representation, through re-performative acts. Through the reconfiguration of archival footage, interviews, and other source materials, media and gestures are made anew to be experienced again, another time; once more.
Image courtesy of McCormick Gallery.
Kyle Surges: Mid-Century in 2020-Postponed
In-Person Exhibition
March 6 - April 24, 2021
After much delay, the gallery is proud to present the solo show Kyle Sruges: Mid-Century in 2020 Postponed. This show was impacted due to Covid, hence the title, and had to be pushed back to March 2021. The influence for this body of work came to be from the artist wife and his hunt for a house and discovering mid-century modern homes. He was impressed by the architecture of the style and era, and became fascinated with items from this time period too. These objects are encapsulated in an era of forward thinking and designs that are still beautiful today. Portraying this beauty is the objective of this group of work, not to mention the monumental amount of nostalgia.
moniquemeloche
Maia Cruz Palileo, The Answer is the Waves of the Sea, 2020. Oil on Canvas, 84 x 72 in, 213.4 x 182.9 cm. Courtesy of moniquemeloche.
Maia Cruz Palileo: The Answer is the Waves of the Sea
In-Person Exhibition
March 6 - April 10, 2021
moniquemeloche is pleased to present The Answer is the Waves of the Sea, an exhibition of new paintings by Maia Cruz Palileo. This is her second solo show with the gallery. Informed by her family’s Filipino heritage, Palileo investigates the malleable language of painting, offering a panoramic lens through which to investigate the larger questions pertaining to forgotten histories and how best to honor these stories in perpetuity.
Installation image courtesy of moniquemeloche.
In-Person Exhibition
April 8 - April 12, 2021
On View in moniquemeloche’s Backroom: Selected works from EXPO CHGO ONLINE, April 8-11, 2021. moniquemeloche is proud to present a showcase of the gallery’s longstanding commitment to artists with diverse voices that explore socio-political issues through material innovation. Featuring works by Candida Alvarez, Sanford Biggers, David Antonio Cruz, Brendan Fernandes, Dan Gunn, Kajahl, Ben Murray, Cheryl Pope, Karen Reimer, David Shrobe, and Nate Young, this curated selection of roster and visiting artists represent the broad spectrum of practices championed by the gallery, all of which are tied together by the desire to disrupt and challenge, formally and conceptually.
Open by appointment Tues-Sat, 10am-5pm.
Book your visit by emailing info@moniquemeloche.com, or phone 312.243.2129.
Image courtesy of moniquemeloche.
Instagram Live studio visit with Kajahl
Digital Event
April 9, 2021 | 12noon CT
Please join Monique Meloche for an Instagram Live chat with EXPO CHGO ONLINE participating artist Kajahl on Friday, April 9th at 12pm CST.
Through painting, Kajahl resurrects objects that are lying dormant in historical archives. He endlessly scours and sifts through books, online images and visits museums in order to gather source material. He takes these finds from his excavations and hybridizes entities that eventually become grandiose figures. Although the characters he constructs belong to a multiplicity of time periods, locations and cultures, they foreground the forgotten past and reanimate minor artifacts of history into what amounts to a transformative assemblage.
Kajahl's debuted his first solo exhibition, Royal Specter at moniquemeloche, Chicago in November 2020.
Image courtesy of moniquemeloche.
Instagram Live studio visit with David Shrobe
Digital Event
April 10, 2021 | 10-10:30am CT
Please join Monique Meloche for an Instagram Live chat with EXPO CHGO ONLINE participating artist David Shrobe on Saturday, April 10th at 10am CST.
New York based artist David Shrobe creates multi-layered portraits and assemblage paintings made in part from everyday materials that he finds in multiple geographies, and especially from around his familial home. He disassembles furniture, separating wood from fabric and recombines them as supports for collage, painting, and drawing. Through these various modes of production his work brings notions of identity, history, and memory into question, while challenging conventions of classical portraiture. Shrobe produces new narratives, fragmented and nonlinear, that feel intimate and personal without being anchored to a specific time or place.
Shrobe will debut his first solo exhibition at moniquemeloche, Chicago in September 2021.
Image courtesy of MICKEY.
In-Person Exhibition
April 2 - May 16, 2021
Coast to Coast features work by Michael Madrigali.
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Installation view, The Long Dream, MCA Chicago. November 7, 2020–January 17, 2021. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago
In-Person Exhibition
November 7, 2020 - May 2, 2021
The Long Dream is part reflection on the state of the world after the arrival of COVID-19, and part celebration of Chicago artists and creatives.
Installation view, Carolina Caycedo: From the Bottom of the River, MCA Chicago. Dec 12, 2020–Sep 12, 2021. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.
Carolina Caycedo: From the Bottom of the River
In-Person Exhibition
December 12, 2020 - August 8, 2021
Informed by Indigenous philosophies, Caycedo’s work challenges us to understand nature not as a resource to be exploited, but as a living and spiritual entity that unites people beyond borders. Her innovative approach integrates her art-making practice in the studio with actions in communities affected by mining, damming, and other resource extraction projects by corporations and governments.
Christina Quarles, Yew've Got Yer Gud Things, n' I've Got Mine (Split), 2018. © Christina Quarles Courtesy of the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London.
In-Person Exhibition
March, 13 - September 5, 2021
Los Angeles–based artist Christina Quarles (American, b. 1985) paints bodies that are subjected not only to the weight and gravity of the physical world but also to the pleasures and pressures of the social realm. Her ambiguous and evocative scenes feature figures whose limbs, torsos, and faces collide and merge with familiar domestic objects made strange through her color choices and experimental painterly gestures. Her work explores the universal experience of existing within a body, as well as the ways race, gender, and sexuality intersect to form complex identities.
Still from Jane: An Abortion Service by Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy, image courtesy of Women Make Movies.
Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency
In-Person Exhibition
January 19 - May 23, 2021
Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency explores the psychological, physical, and emotional realities people encounter in the years leading up to, during, and after fertility. The exhibition features eight artists who consider a range of topics including birth, miscarriage, pleasure, the lack of access to abortion, trauma, and the loss of fertility. The term “reproductive” is twofold. It implies the characteristics of a photograph, bringing attention to a notable lack of visual representation of the experiences of the female body. Additionally, the term is a reference to a common patriarchal, capitalist view of women’s bodies as vehicles for reproduction. This exhibition aims to add visual presence and a deeper understanding of the precarious nature of female rights and freedoms in a time where the future of these rights is uncertain.
"Jane: An Abortion Service" & "Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa" Screening
Digital Event
April 9, 2021 | 7-8:30pm CT
Jane: An Abortion Service, A film by Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy 1996, 58 minutes, Color, 16mm/DVD. This fascinating political look at a little-known chapter in women's history tells the story of "Jane", the Chicago-based women's health group who performed nearly 12,000 safe illegal abortions between 1969 and 1973 with no formal medical training. As Jane members describe finding feminism and clients describe finding Jane, archival footage and recreations mingle to depict how the repression of the early sixties and social movements of the late sixties influenced this unique group. Both vital knowledge and meditation on the process of empowerment, Jane: An Abortion Service showcases the importance of preserving women's knowledge in the face of revisionist history. Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa A film by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater and Mike Attie 2019, 13 minutes, Color, DVD. Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa, shortlisted for Oscars 2021 for Best Documentary Short Subject and winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Shorts at AFI Docs 2020, is a powerful short documentary that exposes how economic stigma and cruel legislation determines who in America has access to abortion. Taking Care is presented in partnership with Women Make Movies and features a selection of six films from WMM’s catalogue. These films span 50 years of consciousness raising campaigns, mutual aid networks, education, organizing, and the intimate stories of lived experiences within the struggle for reproductive freedom. Join us each Friday in April for a new film in this series. Purchase tickets here.
Photo by Robert Chase Heishman.
Pope.L: My Kingdom for a Title
In-Person Exhibition
January 21 - May 16, 2021
My Kingdom for a Title is the first exhibition to be organized at the Neubauer Collegium since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global health emergency has unavoidably cast a shadow over the project, which contains allusions to the crisis with a degree of directness that is unusual in Pope.L’s work. Visitors enter an immersive installation under a cloud of objects that have come to symbolize our current socio-medical predicament. The centerpiece is a selection of works chosen from Pope.L’s Skin Set Project, an ongoing series of text-based drawings and paintings featuring elliptical aphorisms that call attention to the way color is deployed to categorize people. An arrangement of medicine cabinets with mirrored doors left ajar are lit from the inside, inviting visitors to get a better look at the works contained within. The subtle play of prompts and references animates the gallery as a space where notions of access — to art, to meaning, to health care — are entangled with those of color as conventional markers of identity. Curated by Dieter Roelstraete.
Courtesy Paris London Hong Kong.
Memory’s Great Vertigo: David Hartt and Leah Ke Yi Zheng
In-Person Exhibition
March 6 - April 10, 2021
Where is memory, and what is it, ex-act-ly? A method of bindery? The thing which makes us WE? Communal stories; tales to which we all agree? Nature’s mystery explained as conjec-ture-ies? Or oft re-told myth-o-lo-gy.
Al Ravitz, Untitled, 2020, acrylic on panel, 11 x 14 inches, courtesy of PICKLEMAN.
In-Person Exhibition
April 6 - May 8, 2021
Eleven new paintings created during lockdown by the one-time Chicagoan Al Ravitz explore the deep recess, and associative potential, of non-verbal image making. PICKLEMAN is located at 216 W Chicago Avenue. Appointments preferred via text 773.45.0586.
Nick Makanna & Maryam Yousif, Brati's Throne, 2021, ANDREW RAFACZ, Installation View.
In-Person Exhibition
February 27 - April 10, 2021
ANDREW RAFACZ is pleased to announce Brati’s Throne, a two-person exhibition of new ceramic works by Nick Makanna & Maryam Yousif in Gallery One. This is both artists’ first exhibition with the gallery. Nick Makanna and Maryam Yousif present Brati’s Throne, a collaborative exhibition that combines their distinct but synchronous sculptural ceramic practices, bringing together the representational, Mesopotamia-influenced work of Yousif with the architectural stacking works of Makanna. Brati’s Throne marks the second time Makanna & Yousif have collaborated on an exhibition, with the title taking inspiration from each of their respective bodies of work. Brati translates to ‘my daughter’ in Assyrian, the language of the indigenous people of modern day Iraq, a diasporic community to which Yousif belongs. Throne refers to the spindly and structural work of Makanna, which combines his references to gothic architecture, campy sci-fi and heavy metal aesthetics. Makanna and Yousif recently relocated to Chicago from the Bay Area, where both artists have been influenced by its rich ceramic tradition, from the irreverent gestures of Funk ceramics to the pioneering lineage of auteur ceramicists of the California Clay Movement, such as Viola Frey, Peter Voulkos, and Ron Nagle.
Jeremy Bolen, Slow Pause, 2021, ANDREW RAFACZ, Installation View.
In-Person Exhibition
February 27 - April 10, 2021
ANDREW RAFACZ is pleased to announce Slow Pause, a solo exhibition of new works by Jeremy Bolen in Gallery Two. Slow Pause explores our impact on the planet and its health. With the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak and the resultant pandemic, we saw a dramatic reduction in human travel around the globe. This resulted in the Earth vibrating less starting in the spring of 2020. Utilizing makeshift seismographs, airplane parts, tires, bleached coral and archives of the earliest writings on climate change, Bolen’s newest body of work incorporates unique, material-based and site-specific recording processes to explore ways of understanding the unseen and how our patterns of movement impact the world we live in. The works in Slow Pause are a combination of photo-based images, hybrid objects and sculptures, both wall-mounted and floor-standing, that explore how we interact with the invisible. During this time when we are all intimately dealing with the pandemic, concerns with what we can and cannot see have become quotidian and paramount. For Bolen, it is more critical than ever to consider how knowledge and truth are produced and perceived, and what tools are needed to interpret the world we live in. These speculative works address human adaptability on an ever-changing planet. Bolen incorporates materials that have been proposed to cool the planet, using them to create dynamic works that oscillate between abstract images recording our planets collective movement, and familiar sculptural objects that reference the human technology impacting it.
The gallery will be open with extended hours Friday, April 9 | 11-7pm CT for in-person viewings of our current exhibitions. Additionally, the gallery will be open with extended hours Saturday, April 10 | 11-7pm CT with Nick Makanna, Maryam Yousif, and gallery artist Jeremy Bolen on-site throughout the day to lead tours of their respective exhibitions. Visits can be scheduled for 1-4 persons every half hour and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. You must schedule your private visit in advance via Tock (https://www.exploretock.com/andrewrafacz/).
Penny B Roll, courtesy of the U.S. Mint.
In-Person Exhibition
April 10 - May 23, 2021
Featuring the premiere of a new film and other new works, Jill Magid's Tender: Balance at the Renaissance Society thinks about the circulation of currency and measures of absence and loss, with dimensions that are both intimate and attuned to larger systems. This exhibition is the second manifestation of a larger unfolding project by the artist, set against the backdrop of the pandemic. While developing new threads, Tender: Balance parallels Magid's monumental but nearly-invisible public artwork, Tender, produced by Creative Time in New York last fall, for which Magid engraved the edges of 120,000 new US pennies with the words ‘THE BODY WAS ALREADY SO FRAGILE' and quietly put them into everyday circulation.
Artist Talk: Jill Magid | Tender: Balance
Digital Event
April 10, 2021 | 6-7:30pm CT
Featuring the premiere of a new film and other new works, Jill Magid's Tender: Balance at the Renaissance Society thinks about the circulation of currency and measures of absence and loss, with dimensions that are both intimate and attuned to larger systems. This exhibition is the second manifestation of a larger unfolding project by the artist, set against the backdrop of the pandemic. While developing new threads, Tender: Balance parallels Magid's monumental but nearly-invisible public artwork, Tender, produced by Creative Time in New York last fall, for which Magid engraved the edges of 120,000 new US pennies with the words ‘THE BODY WAS ALREADY SO FRAGILE' and quietly put them into everyday circulation. On April 10, the exhibition's opening day at the Renaissance Society, the artist joins curator Karsten Lund to discuss the project and its various manifestations, in Chicago and beyond.
Paul Levack 'New Works' at David Salkin Creative, Chicago.
In-Person Exhibition
February 5 - April 10, 2021
David Salkin Creative, Chicago, is pleased to announce an exhibit of new photomontages by artist Paul Levack, on view 5 February through 10 April, 2021. Included in the presentation is a photo edition that features an essay-image by artist Poy Griesedieck, available for free. Paul Levack (b. 1992 Akron, Ohio) currently lives and works in Mannheim, Germany. He studied at School of the Art institute of Chicago and at the Städelschule under Peter Fischli. Recent exhibitions include: Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt am Main; Haus der Kunst, Oslo; Zaza, Naples. Group shows including MAK foundation Los Angeles; Kammer/Rieck, Berlin; and Red Tracey, Copenhagen. Recent publications include a series of advertisements in Periodico Magazine, Zürich, for Portikus in Frankfurt am Main, Sperm Cult Magazine with Richard Hawkins and Elijah Burgher on Bad Brains Press. Email or direct message @DavidSalkin on Instagram for more information, and to make an appointment for this show and the other shows at the 1709 W Chicago Avenue, Chicago IL gallery building. David Salkin Creative is a custom surface and textile-design studio that hosts a diverse exhibition program, located in West Town, Chicago.
Visits can be scheduled for 1-4 persons every half hour and will be filled on a first come, first served basis.
You must schedule your visit in advance via Tock.
In-Person Exhibition
March 13 - April 24, 2021
Established in 1992, Carrie Secrist Gallery emphasizes visual aesthetics and the slow process of looking. The program engages a vast range of media by emerging and established contemporary artists, with whom the gallery collaborates to explore new concepts and techniques. In a contemporary system characterized by browsing, our commitment lies in curating gallery exhibitions and art fair installations which ignite critical conversations with our international audiences.
Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend, Daphne Fleeing from Apollo, c. 1500, Oil, formerly on panel, transferred to canvas. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1973.45.
Smart Museum of Art
Lust, Love, and Loss in Renaissance Europe
In-Person Exhibition
April 8 - June 13, 2021
Passion, violence, and virtue emerge in this exhibition as fundamental, intertwined elements in the artworks of Renaissance Europe. The exhibition features more than 40 paintings, prints, and sculptures, and luxury wares that played an essential role in intimate, personal experiences, while at the same time shaping and responding to massive intellectual, political, and religious shifts throughout Europe between 1400 and 1700.
"night stand" (detail), latex paint, glassware, velvet, earrings, fake nails, gear tie, clothing rack, 21 x 71 x 9 inches, 2021.
In-Person Exhibition
March 6 - April 17, 2021
Space & Time announces i am flowering, a solo exhibition by Madeline Gallucci. Gallucci presents work that is diaristic, marked by glimpses of self-portraits, mirror paintings from early quarantine, and velvet sculptures, all showcasing deep introspection alongside performative installation elements. Multiple moments of doubling are found throughout the gallery, drawing attention to points of symmetry and strangeness. i am flowering was conceived in response to extended physical distancing while completing her MFA at The University of Chicago during the COVID-19 pandemic. Madeline Gallucci is an artist, educator and organizer living in Chicago, IL. She received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2012 and her MFA at the University of Chicago in 2020. Madeline is a recipient of the 2016 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award and has held residencies at Minnesota Street Project, Grin Collective and Kansas City’s historic Hotel Phillips. She has exhibited at LVL3 and UGLY in Chicago, IL, Super Dutchess Gallery in New York, NY, Rebekah Templeton in Philadelphia, PA, Skylab Gallery in Columbus, OH, Terrault Contemporary in Baltimore, MD, Pelican Bomb Gallery X in New Orleans, LA, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO. She is currently a Visual Arts Teaching Fellow in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.
Jennefer Hoffmann, and deep down in my little finger, installation images courtesy of Volume Gallery.
and deep down in my little finger
In-Person Exhibition
February 26 - April 10, 2021
Volume Gallery is pleased to present the second solo exhibition of Chicago-based artist Jennefer Hoffmann, and deep down in my little finger. Featuring a collection of recent ceramics, from the display of intimately scaled objects to architectural interventions, the exhibition brings together a body of work made within the last year. Central to many of the works on view are a series of clay formed gestures, which the artist refers to as “aches”—stand-ins of Hoffmann’s pinky finger in pallid hues of tan, dusty rose, ochre, and charcoal.
Visits can be scheduled for 1-4 persons every half hour and will be filled on a first come, first served basis.
You must schedule your visit in advance via Tock.
Installation view of Geoffrey Todd Smith "Sordid Orchestra" Photograph by James Prinz. Courtesy of Western Exhibitions.
In-Person Exhibition
February 27 - April 10, 2021
Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present Geoffrey Todd Smith’s sixth solo show with the gallery, Sordid Orchestra. Smith will present new vibrant and nervy multi-media paintings on paper and on panel. For Geoffrey Todd Smith, abstraction is an unreliable narrator. Like carnival music playing in a horror movie, his abstract drawings and paintings don’t accurately convey the mood of the moment. Rather than holding up the proverbial mirror to society, Smith’s images are more like funhouse mirrors, further distorting and guiding the viewer away from reality. Every decision in the development of his compositions is fraught with the worry that he’s not saying enough, quickly giving way to the alternative, that he may have revealed too much–therein lies the tension. These Rorschach-like blobs bubble up to induce a sense of familiarity, only to be met with uncertainty. Each work in Geoffrey Todd Smith’s Sordid Orchestra began with one continuous, wavy line, meandering throughout the composition until it ended back where it started. From there, Smith searched for compelling arrangements within the long tangle of the continuous line. In a complicated juggling act of materials, Smith integrated a variety of materials including, acrylic, enamel, gel pens, gouache and oil-based paint markers, on both paper and wooden surfaces. As he moved around the picture plane, flipping the images upside-down and returning them to their original orientation, mysterious figures were discovered, developed, examined, obliterated, revived and eventually, adorned with seething doodles of repetitious zig-zags and a virtual plague of dots.
Visits can be scheduled for 1-4 persons every half hour and will be filled on a first come, first served basis.
You must schedule your visit in advance via Tock.
Installation view of Kareem Davis "A Draftsman's Dream" Photograph by James Prinz. Courtesy of Western Exhibitions.
In-Person Exhibition
February 27 - April 10, 2021
Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present Kareem Davis’ first show with the gallery, running from February 27 to April 10, 2021. Davis will present meticulous architectural renderings of buildings both real and imagined. Kareem Davis’ elegant graphite drawings focus on the simple and straightforward beauty of buildings that may or may not exist. Many depict Chicago Housing Projects, the majority of which have been torn down. Some are delightful wishful thinking, like his renderings of The New Obama International Hotel and Suites and The Chicago Sky Tower, possibly homage to the Chicago’s WNBA team. Most of the drawings contain a small rendering of the sun or the moon to show scale. Davis is a life-long Chicago resident and is extremely knowledgeable about the Chicago Transit Authority. When he is not drawing skyscrapers, he is rendering images of CTA L-trains and buses while enthusiastically informing his viewer of the design and function. The largest drawing in the show depicts the CTA’s 2200 cars that were, as Davis notes on the work, built by Budd in 1969-1970 This show is presented in conjunction with Project Onward, a Chicago-based studio and gallery dedicated to the creative growth of adult artists whose lives are impacted by mental illness and developmental disabilities, where Kareem Davis has been member artist for five years. He works full time at both Antique Taco locations, family-run restaurants in the Wicker Park and Bridgeport neighborhoods of Chicago. He proudly lives in a high-rise apartment on the twentieth floor in Noble Square. He has also recently taken up light weight-lifting and dancing.
Amy Casey, "Johnson, VT #18" walnut ink & acrylic on Yupo, 9"h. x 12"w., 2019, courtesy Zg Gallery, Chicago.
AMY CASEY: Chilly Scenes of Winter at the Vermont Studio Center
In-Person Exhibition
April 9 - June 30, 2021
AMY CASEY: Chilly Scenes of Winter at the Vermont Studio Center features the installation of (23) walnut ink studies on Yupo of Johnson, Vermont created during Amy Casey's artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
Gregory Jacobsen "Precious" oil on panel, 6" x 6", 2018 courtesy Zg Gallery, Chicago.
Gregory Jacobsen: Glamour Cats
In-Person Exhibition
April 9 - June 30, 2021
Gregory Jacobsen: Glamour Cats features the installation of humorous and lovingly painted series of Glamour Cats by Chicago artist Gregory Jacobsen.
River North Gallery District Saturday Open House
In-Person Event
April 10, 2021 | 11:30am-5pm CT
Visit both exhibitions on view at Zg Gallery, located at 300 W. Superior St., Chicago, IL 60654.