Michael Workman

Small group shows usually render ideas in Petri-dish-sized portions. "Approaching Personhood" at the Schopf Gallery on Lake follows this format: most of the works are divided up into their own little "real estate" in the gallery. You've got Cariannacarianne in one section with her typewriters and wall-hung sections of paper exploring her dual identity through the process of becoming a notary public. Noe Kidder's "Hobo's Home," a small water-grayed shack, takes the middle of the room and Teresa O'Connor's tiny digital screens play DVDs of a high-noon shootout indoors, with points awarded for the winning shot. This proliferation of tiny digital screens reminded me of a small Gary Hill I'd seen years ago in a recessed wall at the MCA, maybe twenty little monitors attached to wires, each with a small section or part of a man's body projected onto them. It's an interesting attempt at providing cohesiveness that other group shows miss, these TV's throughout the room, and an interesting choice on Cariannacarianne's part to deal exclusively in text.

At the opening, we briefly discussed her experience applying for notary status, and she was quick to point out her interest in making her artist's signature a legal act. As such, her two typewriters, while unguarded, are not for public use. It's for Carianna to witness Carianne (for those unfamiliar with her work, Cariannacarianne's artistic goal is to experience her art-making as two people, and has legally changed her name to reflect this). In the process of signing, which she will do as she receives commissions, each half finds opportunity to bring the other half of her dual persona to the fore, a departure from her former and purely seamless "collaborative" stance.

Ten-Minute Interview: Inigo Manglano-Ovalle

It was insightful to walk past the deluge of coverage on Spanish-born artist Inigo Manglano-Ovalle's "iceberg" sculptural installation up now at the Art Institute of Chicago. As with past projects, this one uses scientific data as the basis for a finished sculptural or video piece. Inigo's work has long left viewers and critics more than a little nonplussed--mostly because his work intentionally includes the reactions of viewers as part of his larger project of cultural analysis. None of the writing out there so far mentions that the sculpture represents only the second in a trilogy of works grouped under the categories of "Purgatory," "Inferno" and "Paradise" (Ovalle insists that his use of these mythical concepts are meant as distinct from the metaphysical planes of Dante's novel). His "iceberg" sculpture represents the "Inferno" phase of the project, with "Paradise" yet to come. Without these essential details, it's a project without a context. That's what convinced me to dig into the archives from nearly a year ago, when Ovalle first showed me a computer-generated schematic model of the aforementioned "iceberg." We sat down later that morning to discuss his trilogy.

Newcity: What exactly do you want to accomplish with this trilogy?

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle: In the trilogy, I'm less interested in the connection between science and art than I am in recognizing how both science and art are cultural manifestations of particular moments. I'm not interested in science for science's sake nor art for art's sake, but in overlapping the two of them to look for a representation of a contemporary climate or moment. In "Purgatory," references to Oppenheimer may be historical, but they are equally contemporary: the cloud as an explosive event talks about mass proliferation not only in the Cold War, but currently. These pieces, I'm hoping, are commenting on a series of issues within a globalized climate, and using weather systems and natural systems to refer to that condition of being a global community now and its references are less to the Cold War and perhaps more to our current war with Iraq and the continued proliferation both outside Western nations and also the proliferation inside our own communities of these technologies, and both our fear of them and our embrace of them. Continually, these works are using very traditional things such as beauty and the monstrous to hopefully create this tug and pull with the viewer, and to put the viewer in a situation where they're having not only an aesthetic or phenomenological experience, but they're also having an ethical conundrum in existing in the same space with that art.

Newcity: What will "Paradise" look like?

Ovalle: I don't know exactly what we're doing with that third part of the trilogy, but there's this idea that the sculpture will represent all those things that we desire--and the "we" that I'm talking about is the cultural climate we're creating right now and so the idea for the sculpture in "Paradise" is some sort of stealth sculpture that uses military technology and materials to create itself and to create its form, as kind of an object of desire. "Paradise" is really a kind of implosion of itself and ends up bringing us the "Inferno." I don't know yet what form it will take.

"Approaching Personhood" shows at Schopf Gallery on Lake, 942 West Lake Street, (312)432-1630, through May 2. Inigo Manglano-Ovalle shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, Michigan and Adams, (312)443-3600, through May 14.

(2005-03-29)

Also by Michael Workman

Eye Exam
The nonprofit Gallery 312 has reopened--four months after closing at 312 May Street--in a vacant upper-floor apartment on a strip busy with forklifts and delivery trucks on Fulton Market
(2005-03-15)

Games People Play
It's a typical night in the Temple of Retribution
(2005-03-08)

Eye Exam
I loved "Tragic Beauty" at the West Loop's Open End Gallery
(2005-03-08)

Eye Exam
In "Schematic Patterns," a new collection of paintings with drawing elements, Julia Henderson tackles the visual representation of Chicago's historically segregated racial populations
(2005-03-01)

Tip of the Week
(2005-02-22)

Eye Exam
(2005-02-22)

Tip of the Week
(2005-02-15)

Eye Exam
(2005-02-15)

Eye Exam
(2005-02-08)

Tourist Class
(2005-02-01)

Eye Exam
(2005-02-01)

Publishing whores
(2005-02-01)

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