Michael Workman

Chicago artist Matthew Hoffman has been anonymously and pseudonymously making art in Chicago for years. Besides operating under the name of Sighn (examples of this body of work can be viewed online at Sighn.net), he has also been a leading participant in high-profile art-collaborative efforts that he requests go unnamed. Hoffman has recently started making art using his own name.

You've been in a few shows recently as Matthew Hoffman rather than disguised as one of the many pseudonyms you've operated under over the years, and now recently completed this mural project with Chris Silva and Mike Genovese at State between Randolph and Washington. How did that get started?

Chris received a call from the Department of Cultural Affairs and pulled me and Mike in on the project. It's at what used to be the Block 37 building and I'm not exactly sure what this new building is, but it's a pretty big mural in a high-profile spot, so we decided to just make it a collaboration with You Are Beautiful. They could easily have made it an advertising space, but it came down to one of those things where it was one percent of art, and if they were gonna get this lane of traffic around the site they had to put art there. It was Chris' idea to work jointly as a You About Beautiful project, he brought that up, we picked it as our theme, we all wanted to do something a little different than what we were doing individually. Basically, there are two of Chris' birds on the outside, white clouds and in the wood grain on a lot of the clouds Mike did these little drawings. They took a lot of time. It took forever--he had to do these highly intricate drawings. We did it start to finish in five weeks. Chris doesn't have a day job so he was there night and day and we'd go there afterwards and work late into the night, so it was like every waking minute. It was done in a public-art storage warehouse under Roosevelt, where they have the old statues and cows and it was really awesome to work in there. But it had no heat so we had to get it done before it got too cold. There were like a lot of bums who hang out down there and we kind of got to know them. We had a bunch of volunteers, about thirty of them. There was this one old lady who was a schoolteacher who brought brownies.

Why the shift away from working anonymously?

I just had work in a group show in Belgium in October and in the New Chicagoans show in Bridgeport, and that kind of got my blood going; I hadn't done my own work since college. I have the ability now to have tangible work to trade with my friends, to make some money on the work and pay for my studio and supplies; it's a very cool thing. I'd much rather trade work because then I know that my piece went to a good home and I'll take care of theirs as well. If you get a few thousand bucks, it's just gone in rent and laundry and groceries and whatever. I said I was going to take off December, which I've been doing and in January I'm going to hit the studio really hard and start cranking it out. I think a lot more statements--words cut out of wood--I've been really enjoying doing that. I think I'm going to spend more time and make pieces that take a lot longer. It felt like this year all the art I did was made just for those shows, and I want to focus on making work for myself and not on having to do it for one specific reason. When you do that, you're always on deadline, so inevitably you end up clipping a few corners and they're not as perfect or as well-made as you'd want. That's why, really. If you had more time, you'd maybe put them aside and let them grow a little.

(2006-01-03)

Also by Michael Workman

Eye Exam
In the final days before the holiday break, most galleries have shuttered their doors against the frost, offering a perfect chance to spend time at gescheidle in the West Loop with "la frontera"
(2005-12-20)

Eye Exam
Despite the nasty weather, a lot of people were out Friday night. Hunkered down in the offices behind Bucket Rider Gallery at about seven that evening, I was flanked on all sides by the Bad At Sports team of Duncan Macenzie, Richard Holland and Amanda Browder
(2005-12-13)

Eye Exam
Miami's market convergence comprises a center of the art world around Art Basel Miami, the main event, an export to the U.S. from Switzerland. It's impressive how much of Chicago ended up transplanted there for the weekend
(2005-12-06)

Eye Exam
Walking into Tropicalia, the Museum of Contemporary Art's showcase exhibit of the Brazilian art and cultural movement that ran from approximately 1967-1972, it's nice to see that the curators didn't stick everything into glass cases
(2005-11-15)

Eye Exam
(2005-11-08)

Eye Exam
(2005-11-01)

Chicago Artist
(2005-10-25)

Eye Exam
(2005-10-25)

The Collectors
(2005-10-18)

Eye Exam
(2005-10-18)

Chicago Artist
(2005-10-11)

Eye Exam
(2005-10-04)

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