Burt Michaels

The fees that collectors’ groups charge for studio crawls seem nervy when the annual Pilsen East Artist’s Open House, which ran last weekend, is free and fun. Save the crawl fees and you can use your money to buy something enchanting, like ceramic drones that artist Michael Martinez says "bridge [the] gap [between] high and low culture, shallow appeal and informed appreciation."

We first noticed the drones at CS37, a curated group show, where a digital image by Robin Rios was arresting enough to propel us to his gallery, 4Art. We were enjoying unfamiliar music being spun there by a DJ from Urbanicity, an arts co-op whose logoed sportswear is very appealing, until the friendly elevator man persuaded us to ride up to the fifth floor and work our way down. Up there the views of the skyline were awesome, and the live-work spaces fascinating. One studio took minimalism seriously: all black-and-white walls and furniture, four tiny black-and-white triptychs on display, even a totally empty black bookcase.

Back on the ground floor we were drawn to an indoor forest of birch trees that turned out to be the living room of painter Joslyn Beta Laurence and photographer Brian Kulmann. She explained the trees: "I just moved here from California and missed the outdoors." Her work displays natural themes; his is more urban, like shots of mannequins surrounding the Flatiron Building; their collaborative work fuses photography and painting.

We snared our drones at Logsdon Gallery then wandered through the gardens behind the building, tripping on Mambo Marilyn’s. A "visual anthropologist" who teaches at the SAIC, Marilyn Houlberg exhibited voodoo shrines and hand-beaded flags that she brings here from Haiti—well worth the trip, as was Under the Wire, the neighborhood’s first gift shop, offering bowls made from old phonograph records and exuberantly painted skateboards.

The Arts District holds open houses the second Friday of each month, so you don’t have to wait till next year to visit. Most of this work probably won’t wind up at the MCA—more probably on the walls of the young couples from the burgeoning condos nearby who, complete with toddlers in strollers, came out opening night, alongside oldsters who’ve probably been attending since the 1970s and art-school hipsters, all swinging merrily between accessible pop and au courante haute.

(2007-10-02)

Also by Burt Michaels

Profile of the Gallerist
"Quirky": far out, offbeat, unconventional, whimsical. Susan Gescheidle, entering her fifth year as a gallerist in a new West Loop space, describes the art she exhibits as "quirky"
(2007-09-25)

Art Break
An exhibition called "Concerning Tomorrow" could well be a real downer, but in fact—while there are no feel-good pictures here and much that's dark—the show exhilarates and makes you delighted to be in Chicago at this point in history
(2007-09-18)

Portrait of the Gallerist
For his twentieth anniversary Aron Packer is characteristically exhibiting work that is in no way academic—no "empty conceptualism" in this gallery
(2007-09-11)

Portrait of the Gallerist
Like Athena springing full-grown and battle-ready from Zeus' head, Alfedena Gallery burst on the Chicago art scene in January with a roster of nineteen well-established Midwestern artists, immediately fielded three widely and favorably reviewed exhibitions and exploited its state-of-the-art commercial kitchen to host several corporate team-building retreats where guests work with area chefs to create meals that befit the sleek, art-adorned, tri-level space
(2007-05-15)

Portrait of the Gallerist
(2007-04-24)

Art Break
(2007-03-20)

Eye Exam
(2006-12-05)

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