Jason Foumberg

"There’s a lot of birds that people like to draw," softly sings Devendra Banhardt. It’s true enough, and there are a lot of birds that are worth looking at, especially in the hands of artists. Four concurrent bird-themed exhibits question how birds scratch at our imagination. Not only are they great to observe, but also they invite so many metaphors—of freedom, as omens, into other worlds. In these four exhibitions, though, it is a rare sight to find any flying birds; isn’t that odd? They are dressed up, propped up, stuffed, shaped and presented. The bird as symbol of unconstrained nature is constantly up for renewal and readjustment to fit our earthbound ideals.

"Flights of Fancy" is a group show at Printworks Gallery that features work by six printmakers, curated by local favorite author and printmaker Audrey Niffenegger. The menagerie of bird obsessions on view here range from the playful to the meaning-laden. Curtis Bartone’s fine etchings and silverpoints pair various bird species with textures of their kin, such as a rooster with an artichoke and an orchid in "Subject." The emphasis in Bartone’s six works seems to be in finding the commonalities in oddities or in emphasizing nature’s awkward and elegant flairs. Mardy Sears’ studies of deceased starlings rounds out the freak flock with a meditation on chance encounters with death. When a bird falls from the sky and interrupts our daily lives, it seems necessary to take notice and mourn, even if only for a moment. The murmuration of starlings (that’s the name for a group of them—isn’t it great?), an arrangement of tense-limbed and matted-feather piles, swarms to an un-ignorable pitch in Sears’ hand; what do these birds want from us and why can’t we hear them until after they are dead?

At the Evanston Art Center, the newly installed annual Sculpture on the Grounds piece is a bird nest for humans. Assembled by Shawn Decker and Jan-Erik Andersson, "Bird’s Nest" is an enterable gourd-shaped structure of yellow twigs, open at the top and with a grassy floor. The experience of nesting here provides a sensation of safety for those who enjoy cozy spaces. Lining the walls are small speakers that speak to inhabitants of the nest in bird-language. These mingle with Evanston’s natural bird population near the beach. The ensuing chorus acts like a magic hymn and then we, too, become birds. The sculpture is then pregnant with us and although we do not so much emerge with wings, we do exit renewed, maybe not nature-loving but with an ear for those with whom we share our trees and skies.

An appreciation of nature was one of John James Audubon’s motivations for his epic collection of ornithological studies in "The Birds of America," published in the mid-1800s and on view in lithographic reproduction in the Thompson Center’s Illinois State Museum. Here we see Audubon’s clearly sharp eye and hand for naturalistic reproduction, yet like a natural-history museum, it is easy to be led away from the beauty of plumage and poses to the artist’s sense of the tableaux. In essence, the birds have been manhandled into scenes of artistic fetishization, although satisfyingly so. The tableaux are complemented by stuffed and mounted birds of all variety, from falcon to barn owl. I’m particularly fond of Audubon’s taste for shaping hierarchic totems of death, often happening mid-air, where a hawk darts vertically down into the face of another hawk, who grasps a struggling, bleeding hare. Audubon’s thirty or so prints are accompanied by an exhibition of contemporary bird-related art titled, "While all the tribes of birds sang," which seems to overlap a bit with Audrey Niffenegger’s exhibit at Printworks. Indeed, Niffenegger has a print on view here, and yet this exhibit seems to focus on humanoid bird-forms, dressed up in suits or with dexterous hands, while "Flights of Fancy" at Printworks is more of a take on bird-as-bird symbology. Still, the prevalence of Chicago artists capturing bird likenesses is stupefying.

Colleen Plumb’s exhibit of photographs at The Nature Museum extends the Museum’s interest in highlighting not only nature’s forms and biosystems but also the culture and the politics of nature. Thus, Plumb focuses her lens on a dead baby bird, a caged goose and an ornamental owl. Nature-lovers will find the group of photographs to be horrifyingly debased, but the truth is that we often see our bird-friends as expendable, props in a system of human consumption, or as obnoxious. The current debate about banning foie gras in Chicago, and the accompanying insouciance of many detractors of the bill, indicates the lack of care for nature that has become our norm. While Plumb’s photographs don’t necessarily push this morality onto viewers, they do provide a moment for reflection and open an opportunity for us to be more mindful of our shared airspace.

"Flights of Fancy" runs through August 18 at Printworks, 311 West Superior, Suite 105, (312)664-9407; "Bird’s Nest" is on view at the Evanston Art Center through Summer 2008 at 2603 Sheridan Road, (847)475-5300; John James Audubon and "While All the Tribes of Birds Sang" runs through August 24, Illinois State Museum, Thompson Center 100 West Randolph, (312)814-5322; Colleen Plumb shows at The Notebaert Nature Museum until November 4, 2430 North Cannon, (773)755-5100.

(2007-08-14)

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