Michael Workman

It's World Cup time across the pond in Dublin, where I've started a nine-day tour of Ireland, England and finally Basel, Switzerland for this year's installment of the annual Basel show, Art 37 Basel (more information online at www.artbasel.com). With the collapse of Art Chicago this past year and its subsequent sale to the Merchandise Mart, the state of this international art show has become more vital than ever to Chicago's place in the global art marketplace. Art Chicago's new owners are smart to visit the city to see how it's done, and hopefully their visit will have a positive effect on the quality of next year's exposition at home. Everyone in the city's eager to return the Midwest to its lost status as an art-world destination of merit, and officials all the way up to the mayor's office know that a city just can't call itself world-class without a thriving art contingent.

I'll report on the state not only of the Chicago galleries participating in this biggest of the international art fairs, but also on Chicago connections at Liste 06, the Young Art Fair at Basel (www.liste.ch); the new Balelatina Contemporary Art Fair (www.balelatina.com), the art fair concerned overall with the exhibition of Latin art; and Voltashow 02 (www.voltashow.com), the art fair down the Rhine from Liste and Balelatina, formed as a partnership between Friedrich Loock from Wohnmaschine, Berlin, Ulrich Voges of Voges + Partner, Frankfurt and Chicago's own Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago. Gupta has established his gallery as a kind of youth-market trend stop on the global forward march of market value, mostly drawing from a pool of artists accomplishing--at least for the moment-- some measure of global renown. This, of course, has spurred the comment, often voiced as a complaint, that Gupta's disinterested in Chicago art and artists. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, and even if he cared less about Chicago art (which he doesn't: Adam Scott and Jeff Carter, for instance, are important additions to his stable of artists), that wouldn't preclude connecting those artists to the global scene. First and foremost, of course, Gupta's a business guy (he graduated with an MBA from the U of C), so his instinct to aim for the top market makes sense, though as a mission, "presenting the vision of contemporary art galleries of global repute whose artists represent new and relevant positions for curators and collectors alike," as stated on Voltashow's Web site, could stand to offer a few more specifics. In any case, a visit to Voltashow 02 will go a long way toward understanding what this Chicagoan has to offer on the world stage, and what that means for his gallery and, by extension, the city's art culture.

So, why fly into Dublin first? Besides a compulsion to visit this most beloved city of James Joyce, it's also the cheapest access point into Europe, and a host to some fine art galleries and spaces, including the innovative Green on Red Gallery and the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (www.templebargallery.com). Europe also maintains some excellent low-fare airlines with which to fly cheaply, often for as little as twenty dollars (ryanair.com and easyjet.com are a few for all you budget world-travelers). Temple Bar, a neighborhood section of Dublin south of the main strip, is lined with Irish pubs and bars, all of them packed this weekend with people cheering on the World Cup, a huge affair here where, aside from culture and art, soccer's perhaps the city's biggest draw. That's in large part due to the fact that football's a profoundly tribal affair in Dublin--or Blackpool, as nationals refer to it--and whatever region you're from, no matter how small, defines the cheering sections. We had dinner in a restaurant sitting next to a crowd of University of Chicago students, chatting up the annotated "Ulysses," wearing Pink Floyd and Guinness t-shirts. You can spot U of C students anywhere, and this gang of four guys was no exception, unshaven, bed-head hair and culturally aware to a fault--they actually went so far as to photograph themselves in front of heaping plates of bangers and mash. Ahhh, Chicago. They did this, of course, taking no notice of the drunken bruiser who needed forcible escort out of the building by five bar staffers--a typical scene in the midst of the heavy drinking that attends cheering for your favorite team. In the center of all this soccer madness is the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, with a show of photography, "The New Painting," by Elina Brotherus up at the moment.

It's a show worth noting for its treatment of photography as the incorrigible child of painting. Photography, since its inception, has drawn much of its formal convention from painting, and Brotherus returns to painting through those accepted wisdoms, often using herself as a model in landscapes that capture light in a way that Midwest photographers such as Harry Callahan would have appreciated. Given our city's obsession with photography, Brotherus offers a new lens through which to re-experience our own rich traditions.

(2006-06-13)

Also by Michael Workman

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It's great to go see art in a place where you can walk back to the kitchen, grab a beer, sit on the couch and talk with pals
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New media art--art that integrates computers or technology in any number of different ways--suffers from an ongoing visibility problem
(2006-05-30)

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A certain subculture exists in online chat forums such as www.dollforum.com, with its nearly 15,000 members, to discuss the kinds of doll-ownership pleasures depicted in a new exhibition of photography by Elena Dorfman opening Friday at the River North neighborhood's Schneider Gallery
(2006-05-23)

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In recent years, conceptual art has given way to a wave of objects whose main qualities include a stubborn adherence to pleasing the senses, art that merely affirms and requires no additional involvement besides the viewer's approval
(2006-05-09)

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(2006-05-02)

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(2006-04-25)

Breakout Artists
(2006-04-25)

Eye Exam
(2006-04-18)

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(2006-04-11)

Eye Exam
(2006-04-04)

Tip of the Week
(2006-04-04)

Eye Exam
(2006-03-21)

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