28 Hours in Chicago, Part 1

(This post has been featured on The Blogger Show's website)

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Parts 1 and 2 of this post are arranged to read chronologically, so if you've read this post scroll down to Part 2--jm

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Julie Karabenick, solo show at Woman Made Gallery, Chicago

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Chicago is a great city for art. It’s big enough to have a range of good galleries in several locations, yet small enough to let you take in quite a lot in a short period. I hadn't been there in six years, and it was good to be back.

Two Openings, One Space

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I flew in on Friday, September 7, to attend the opening of my good friend, Julie Karabenick, who was having a solo show. Julie is the founder and editor of Geoform, an online curatorial project, international in scope, focused on contemporary abstract geometric art. She is also a fine painter, and this was evident at her solo at Woman Made Gallery.

Julie's geometry is rigorously plotted and cleanly executed; it’s beautiful in its order, cerebrally and visually satisfying. The newest work is a breakthrough because it has all that and more: a greater sense of space, more intense color and, well, I guess emotion is the word I’d use. You’ve seen Julie's work on this blog before—recently, in fact, as I included her in Luxe, Calme et Volupte, my big, beautiful curatorial effort at Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta this past summer.

At Abstract and Geometric: Above, Eileen Goldenberg and Lisa Endriss; below, my painting, Quadrate 4, acrylic on canvas, 32 x 32 inches, 2006

Given her expertise with geometric abstraction—a strong sense of its history as well as who’s working with this particular visual expression, Julie also juried a show, Abstract and Geometric, for the large upstairs gallery. Artists I’ve mentioned on these pages were included: Rose Olson; Diane Ayott; Reese Inman, who flew in from Boston (surprise!); Kathleen Waterloo (more of whom shortly); and myself. I also liked work by Eileen Goldenberg, Penelope Jones, Naomee Guest, Paola Merazzi and Lynda Ray.

I don’t enter shows anymore, but this was a worthy project and a worthy gallery, so I broke my no-entry rule. The not-for-profit WomanMade, 15 years old last month, carries on a feminist tradition started by galleries such as A.I.R. in New York, giving women artists the opportunity to show and network, and giving younger artists the opportunity to interact with those a generation ahead who may function informally as mentors. Beate Minkovski, the co-founder, executive director—and heart and soul— of the gallery, has surrounded herself with able and talented women. Spend some time on the gallery’s website. Better still, visit the gallery.

Beate Minkovski, executive director of Woman Made Gallery

River North, Earlier in the Day

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In the four hours between checking in at HoJo (not the Ritz, but the location, right in River North, was great) and getting to the Woman Made openings, I visited the nearby galleries ("river" being the Chicago River that meanders through town; "north" being its location in relation to the river). It’s half a dozen blocks chockablock with galleries. The main gallery street in this neighborhood is Superior, which, like the rung of a ladder, connects Wells and Franklin, two other streets with a strong gallery presence.

I can’t list everything—hey, I’m not Chicago Gallery News (if you're visiting the city, this is the publication to seek out, not Gallery Guide)--but I can take you from A to Z.

Looking at the galleries on Superior Street, shot from the corner at Wells

Addington Gallery

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Its name newly shortened from Gwenda Jay/Addington, the Addington Gallery is now owned by Dan Addington, longtime dealer and himself a painter. Howard Hersh had the solo show, and a number of other artists—including Amanda Crandall and Addington himself, had work up in the front gallery. I’ve written about Howard before; his abstraction is of the geometric variety, with a palette of deep earth hues. Crandall does beautifully executed miniature landscapes, and Addington exhibits a kind of gothic romantic sensibility in his small paintings. All three work in encaustic.

Above, view of Addington Gallery from N. Wells Street; below, Howard Hersh's solo show at the gallery

Byron Roche

I particularly responded to the exquisitely patterned geometries in egg tempera by Rebecca Shore, which were hanging in the office and in the middle gallery. As you know, I respond to materials, to geometry and to pattern, so Shore’s work was something of a trifecta for me. "I love these," I exclaimed to no one in particular. "I do too," responded the gallery guy, who turned out to be Byron Roche himself.

Above, view of Byron Roche Gallery from N. Franklin; below, Rebecca Shore's geometries in the office and in the middle gallery

Maya Polsky

Here the materials were, well, materials: inkjet prints on tulle and canvas, more specifically tulle layered several inches above the canvas so that the double images created dimension and atmosphere. The photographer Gabriela Morawetz called her solo show "Egospheres," and approporately each work places the figure in its own little slightly dimensional world.

Gabriela Morawetz's photographs at Maya Polsky on Superior Street

Melanee Cooper

I've known Melanee for several years and participated in two group shows with her. This was the first time I’d visited the gallery in its new location. It’s on Franklin, nestled under the El. My encaustic-involved readers will find a plethora of wax-based painting here: the geometries of Tracey Adams, Tremain Smith and Kathleen Waterloo, and the mixed-media landscapes of Miranda Lake.

Above, the Melanee Cooper Gallery on N. Franklin; below, a gallery view

Perimeter

The New York outpost of this gallery had a short life, but the Chicago original is an anchor of the River North neighborhood. Perimeter Gallery is an elegant space with elegant work—elegant as in clean, precise, formal, reductive. The solo show, "Constructions," contained reductive work with a strong material sensibility by Gordon Powell: wafer-thin layers of wood collaged (and framed) as if they were paper, or thicker pieces assemblaged into relief sculptures.

Installation view of Gordon Powell's solo show at Perimeter Gallery

Roy Boyd
This gallery has the first floor and basement of its own three-story building. The main gallery was showing the work of Daniel Bodner, woozily atmospheric streetscapes of New York. But the draw for me was in the lower-level gallery where favorites like William Conger, Marcus Linenbrink and Jerome Powers were in a gallery-artist show. New to me: John Fraser's minimalist constructions, which on closer inspection turnedout to be deconstructed bookcovers.

Lower-level gallery at Roy Boyd, with work by Jerome Powers, Marcus Linenbrink and John Fraser; below; two works by Fraser Above, William Conger's V-Day, 2005-6, oil/canvas, 59"x59" (from the artist's website); below, the Roy Boyd Gallery on N. Wells

Zg
Ellen Lanyon, legendary Chicago artist was in this gallery when I was there. I don’t know her and we didn’t talk, so I’m just name dropping. I can tell you that I LOVED the solo show there: Jackie Tileston’s "Adventures of the Semionauts."

Vaguely landscape referential, with a visual collage of Hindu dieties, mandalas, biomorphic shapes and some hard-edge geometry, it’s a fantastical, almost psychedelic mashup that’s the exact opposite of the coolly reductive work I usually respond to. Turns out "semionaut" means "likely pathways through disparate elements." Yes, that about sums it up. (Disclaimer: Tileston and I are both represented by Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, just outside New York City. In fact, Tileston is part of a group show up now, "Crazy Beautiful," which includes the work of Julie Gross, Tricia Wright and others. )

Above and below: Paintings by Philadelphia-based Jackie Tileston at Zg Gallery

A Studio Visit with Kathleen Waterloo
Saturday morning, after a quick trip to Cyberia (the cafe) to check my e-mail, I was picked up by Kathleen Waterloo who brought me to her studio a couple of miles west of River North. Waterloo, who shows at Melanee Cooper, is an accomplished artist whose particular brand of geometry is loosely executed with a lot of overpainting—she works in encaustic with a milky, opaque palette--which makes you want to look into the surface and behind every shape.

Above, Kathleen Waterloo in her studio; below, the studio with a work in progress and cans of encaustic paint on the hotplates

Next post: A visit to the galleries of the West Loop

28 Hours in Chicago, Part 2

The West Loop: Peoria, Between Randolph and Washington

G.R. N'Namdi Gallery on Peoria, site of Howardena Pindell's solo show, "In My Lifetime"

From River North I took a taxi to the West Loop galleries, most of which I know through their presence at the art fairs, except for G.R. N’Namdi, which I know from its 26th Street outpost in Chelsea.

G.R. N'Namdi
It's always good to see Jumaane N’Namdi, the young director of the three G.R. N’Namdi galleries in Chicago, Detroit and New York. Not many dealers have had an entire life in art, but Jumaane came up under the tutelage of his father, George ( the natty guy in the porkpie hat, should you happen to run into him at an art fair) and he’s got a lifetime’s worth of stories about artists. (There’s a book there, Jumaane.) All three N’Namdi galleries show primarily established midcareer artists, many of them artists of color.

Jumaane N'Namdi before an autobiographical painting by Howardena Pindell, whose image is in the painting

The show here was “In My Lifetime,” a solo by Howardena Pindell. Her work is widely exhibited, of course, and spans some forty-plus years. Pindell, a charter member of the A.I.R. Gallery in New York, often mines the twin themes of racism and sexism in her strongly autobiographical work. Here she showed a range of work, from representation to abstract in mediums as diverse as conventional oil on canvas to stitched canvases and large, irregularly shaped mixed media works. Like her contemporary Lynda Benglis, she’s a “material girl,” using a variety of materials in service to the work. (Overdue, by the way, a post on Benglis and Bourgeois, who had a museum-worthy show at Cheim in Reid in early summer. I’ll get to it….)

Installation views of Howardena Pindell's solo at G.R. N'Namdi Gallery

Three mixed-media works on canvas by Howardena Pindell, including from left: Autobiography: Earth / Eyes / Injuries, 83 x 74.5 inches; and Mountain Reflection, 77 x 82.5 inches

Rhona Hoffman Gallery
I’d been wanting to visit the Rhona Hoffman Gallery because I’d seen it only at the fairs. The gallery represents Mikalene Thomas, whose work I noted in my Miami coverage. This show was by Jacob Hashimoto, an artist whose constructed paper installation fills the front gallery like a cumulus forest and whose multilayered installation of small, kite- or parasol-like shapes hugs the walls in the large central galleries. It’s a technical tour de force of glueing and tying, and a really beautiful installation.

Looking into the front gallery at Rhona Hoffman, above; and looking out to the street from that gallery

Jacob Hashimoto's installation at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Photo courtesy of Paul Klein’s Art Letter

After I'd taken a few shots, I foolishly asked, “Do you mind if I take pictures?” I identified myself and my blog. The gallerina behind the desk said I couldn’t shoot. Well, that I should wait to get the permission of the gallery director who wasn’t there at the moment. The clock was ticking, so I spent some time looking and then left. Fortunately I can show you the main-gallery installation courtesy of Paul Klein's e-mail Art Letter and give you a link, also courtesy of the same document, which shows a video of Hashimoto making the work.

Paul Klein, in case you don't know, is the eminence grise of the Chicago gallery scene. Since I don't get to Chicago often, I value his newsletter--informative, well-written, and hugely supportive of Chicago arts--as a way to stay in touch with a vibrant art scene. You can ask to be put on the subscriber list.

Other shows I liked:

. At Thomas McCormick Gallery, “Ariadne’s Clew,” a solo show of body-centered sculpture by the Chicago-based Darrin Hallowell. Once I got past my Auschwitz associations, I particularly responded to the casts of the artist's own hands piled into a small pyramid on the floor.

Darrin Hallowell's solo show at Thomas McCormick, above and below

Galleries on Washington, including Thomas McCormick and Carrie Secrist

. Next door at Carrie Secrist Gallery, “Struck: Introducing New Painters” co-curated by Chicago artist Richard Hull.

Above, a peek into the Carrie Secrist Gallery; below, from the gallery website, Douglas Bloom's Museum Lover, 2007

. At Bodybuilder and Sportsman the digital grids—gallery description: “compound photographs”--of Charles LaBelle. By the way, despite the “bodybuilder" in the title, the space itself is a 90-pound-weakling in size. But this gallery gets to the art fairs, and that’s a muscular presence. (I think if I were a dealer, I might do the same thing: keep it small locally and pump it up out in the world.)

Charles LaBelle's solo show of "compound photographs" at Bodybuilder and Sportsman; below, a detail of the work on the back wall

. At Gallery 40000, “Where’s My Ship,” a sculpture installation by Nathan Redwood, a California-based painter. The installation took up the entire small space. It’s what what the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria might have looked like if assembled by a boatbuilder with a wide independent streak--and maybe not too much knowledge of how to make something float.

Nathan Redwood's sculpture docked at Gallery 40000

. At Three Walls, a solo show by the Chicago-based Cayetano Ferrer, was a sleeper featuring manipulated digital prints of the environment. What you see and what the artist wants you to see are folded together, a kind of time lapse of the spaces he has photographed. What I most liked were several small installations in the gallery that contained the same trompe-l’oeil manipulation of the space. (Three Walls is a not-for-profit space dedicated, as its promotional material will tell you, “to contemporary art practice and discourse. ")

Cayetano Ferrer's solo installation, with some unexpected bending of space, at Three Walls Gallery

I started the previous post with Julie Karebenick. Let me end this one with her. After hopping a taxi back from the West Loop to River North, I met Julie and her husband Stuart for a late lunch. Julie had been interviewing Chicago legend William Conger for Geoform, with Stuart (a researcher and educator by profession) serving as photographer. We walked over to Karyns, a vegan restaurant on N. Wells, just across the street from Roy Boyd. Vegan was perfect for the three of us. Over Buddha Bowls (stirfried vegetables and brown rice) and a basket of deepfried cauliflower, zucchini and tofu, we sat and talked before I hopped a taxi for O’Hare.

Tell you one thing: I’m going to tighten up my return schedule. Six years is too long between visits.