This Week on ArtSlant: Chicago

This week on ArtSlant: Chicago Robyn Roulo visits Corbett vs. Dempsey to see “Big Youth” and writes about some of the standouts there, then heads to the super new ebers|B9 apartment gallery to see more new work there and reflects on the advantages the current apartment gallery movement has. Finally it’s over to the MCA for some free jazz on their terrace on Tuesdays (and free admission to the museum).

Check it out: http://www.artslant.com/chi/main

beatiful form

Opening at 65GRAND this Friday, January 16 and running through February 14 is the exhibition that I curated beautiful form.  There will be a ‘reception’ from 7-10pm.  Here’s the Press Release:

Zachary Buchner. Untitled (Green/Pink/ Black), 2008.Foam, Joint compound, MDF, Enamel and Acrylic. 18″x 18″x 49.5″

65GRAND is pleased to present the group exhibition “beautiful form” featuring current work investigating modes of geometric abstraction, curated by Abraham Ritchie.

All of the work displays the strong formal elements typical to geometric abstraction: composition, angle, flatness and harmony.  Inextricable from this attention to the objective qualities of the work, is the result it creates, its aesthetic appeal.  Or, more controversially, its beauty.

This exhibition gathers together several current approaches to geometric abstraction.  Artists like Titus Dawson Polo and Peter Shear embrace formal aspects of abstraction with an ironic twist.  Steven Husby and Todd Chilton investigate ever new ways of constructing an abstract canvas. Zachary Buchner takes the implications of geometric abstraction to the arena of sculpture.

Zachary Buchner lives and works in Chicago. He received his MFA from Northwestern University in 2005. He has exhibited most recently at 40000, Chicago, IL.

Todd Chilton lives and works in Chicago.  He received his MFA from the School of the Art of Chicago in 2005.  He has a solo exhibition running concurrently at Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago.

Steven Husby lives and works in Chicago. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  He currently has work in Bad Moon at Andrew Rafacz, through January 24.

Titus Dawson Polo lives and works in Chicago.  He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004.  He exhibited at NFO XPO, at The Suburban in 2008.

Peter Shear lives and works in Bloomington, Indiana and is enrolled at Indiana University. His work is currently on view at Hallway Bathroom Gallery, San Francisco

Abraham Ritchie is a writer who lives and works in Chicago.  He received his degree in Art History from the UW- Madison in 2005.  He is the Chicago City Editor for ArtSlant.com.  Invited to curate by 65GRAND, this is his first curatorial project.

Speaking of Donwood and radiohead. . .

So I was walking down Chicago Avenue yesterday and I walked past a bookstore and noticed that the Christian band Third Day has a new album out:

Which reminded me of an older, better, much more relevant artwork on the cover of an older, better, much more relevant band:

Hmmmm “thou shalt not steal” anyone? It would seem that Stanley Donwood’s art, has been effectively kitsch-ified by crappy pop rockers Third Day.

Robert Rauschenberg Passes Away at 82

On Monday night American art legend Robert Rauschenberg passed away. He was 82.

Rauschenberg was an artist in the widest sense, refusing to limit himself to a single medium. He often combined disparate media to create unique and unusual objects and images that upset the hegemony of the Abstract Expressionist status quo. In his words, he sought to create art that occupied “the gap between art and life.”

Relative to those of us living in Chicago, he collaborated with Merce Cunningham’s dance company, creating work simultaneously with a performance.

Breaking down the supposed barriers between genres and media set the stage for younger artists to use a variety of methods in their art production. One contemporary artist that always reminds me of Rauschenberg’s influence is Stanley Donwood, most well known for his artwork for all of radiohead’s albums. Below is Rauschenberg’s Brace, 1962, oil and silkscreen on canvas.

Above is Donwood’s cover for radiohead’s ok computer, 1997.

Modernism at the Jewish Museum in NYC

If I lived in New York City I would be very excited to see the new show at the Jewish Museum.  “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976″ looks like it’s a great study of the emergence of high Modernism and pays special attention to its champions and critics Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg.  It’s hard to understand the art that comes after the fifties without understanding the atmosphere and production of Abstract Expressionist art.  I remember trying to explain to my brother why Jasper Johns “Flag” and “Map” were such a big deal at the time and having to backtrack to explain the critical theory of Greenberg and the work of the Ab/Ex heavyweights.  This show seems like it would be a great introduction.  The review from the New York Times brought it to my attention, click here to read it. Fortunately for us in the Midwest the show will travel to the St. Louis Art Museum (and the Albright-Knox, TX), close enough to Chicago for a trip.

The Curse of Critical Laziness

Amy Sillman, P, 2007

Modern Art Notes (MAN) yesterday mentioned the critical reception of Amy Sillman’s exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. in the Washington Post.  The review by Michael O’Sullivan is symptomatic of many, many other reviews that appear in newspapers across the nation as it seems some critics simply lack understanding of the art they are assigned to review.  It is almost as if they write a review to match how their audience might feel about a certain artist, which is not the job of an art critic.  It is lazy, it is intellectually dishonest, and it is a disservice to the readers of the Washington Post.  

I’ve restrained myself more than once from citing specific examples, but the review in the Washington Post is so unbelievably bad that it cannot pass without strong objection from myself.  Construing Sillman as a conceptual artist is inaccurate, she’s also an abstract painter and later on is described as such.  O’Sullivan frames his assertion as if the artist describes herself as simply a conceptualist, writing: “The artist, a rising star in the contemporary art scene, calls it “conceptualism.” I say it’s a gimmick.”  This is quote mining, giving no further context what else she said.  O’Sullivan appears to not understand the difference between Conceptual art and the method an abstract artist might use to produce their work (see inspiration).  He goes on to complain, “Rather, the artist says, they’re “investigations” of the space between figuration and abstraction. More artspeak? Yup.”  What is O’Sullivan’s objection to this simplest of explanations (this is not artspeak, if you as a critic don’t understand what figuration and abstraction are and how they relate to each other you should not be writing on art) of what her work is about?  The transposition of the three-dimensional onto the two-dimensional has been a concern of abstract art since Picasso and Braque continuing through Gerhard Richter and most likely, will continue to be.  Which is the point that O’Sullivan laments he cannot find.  

At the end of the review one is left with the feeling that O’Sullivan has no vocabulary or understanding of abstract art.  O’Sullivan seems adrift in a sea of abstraction without any recognizable realism to anchor him.  Thus he searches desperately for ”any visual clues that connect one image to its source.”  He laments that the paintings look “like inanimate objects,” which they are.  Under the accompanying image to the article he writes “Amy Sillman’s “investigations” of the space between figuration and abstraction lack depth,” in what sense does he mean ‘depth’?  I’m sure he means it pejoratively, but in abstract art one doesn’t want depth, and it comes out as an unintended compliment.  At the end of his article, besides confusing High Conceptualism with Sillman’s work yet again, O’Sullivan tries to take another swipe at her through quote mining her own words and only ends up confused yet again.  While implying that portraiture would be more interesting than abstraction, he tries to negatively spin Sillman’s quote: “It’s basically just moving from being in a relationship with those people to being in a relationship with an oil painting.”  Sillman is essentially re-phrasing a Pollock quote, and O’Sullivan doesn’t pick up on that, or address the formalist issues it raises, instead he implies that this is why in his book her paintings lack “passion.”  From beginning to end this article lacks knowledge of art, bungles vocabulary, misrepresents Sillman and never gives exact reasons for his own distaste for the work.

Sharon L. Butler at Two Coats of Paint, suggests that O’Sullivan “might be more comfortable writing for the sports section.”  Others have thought this a little strong, but I think she is exactly correct for the reasons I have just mentioned, if you don’t understand basic tenets of 20th century art you shouldn’t be writing about it, you should be writing for sports.  It’s a disservice to the readers, the artist, the paper and the field in general.