Michael Workman

Wheaton-born artist Andrew Guenther sees dead people. A gang of lanky, green-faced ghouls entertains by slashing each other with stiletto knives. Eyes roll back into their sockets with glee. Five decapitated yet animate heads float against a plain background, teeth distended from rotting lips as a portrait of some split-tongued Apollyon leers below. These are the spirits of destruction on exhibit at the West Loop's Bucket Rider Gallery. It's a darker show than one would expect in the summer. What better time to turn an eye to the shadows? Counterbalancing such celebratory depictions of the basest human traits, Chicago artists Heidi Norton and Constance Faulk offer a looped video of the pair bouncing on a mattress. Muscles taut in delirious excitement, they circle and spring with the occasional snippet of a joyful squeal. The tape's jump-cut so that their feet never actually touch the surface, suspending them in a lovely ignorance to the despair all around them.

"The Witching Hour" shows at Bucket Rider Gallery, 119 North Peoria, (312)421-6993, through August 28.

(2004-07-20)

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