Art Break
Community Whitewash
Artists and community organizers from Chicago's Wicker Park and Bucktown neighborhoods are unhappy with a decision made by Alderman Manny Flores’ office to whitewash a mural. The painting currently covers half of the 2300 block of West Bloomingdale Avenue. The decision comes after complaints to the office from residents in the condominiums across the street that the mural is gang-related and too "urban"
(2008-05-06)
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Eye Exam
Back in Black
Is there a safe place to say the N-word? A new thematic group exhibition at the Renaissance Society pretends that the term can be used without consequence if uttered at a critical remove, or if it is a scholarly concern. That which otherwise has no place in print, on air, or on lips finds refuge when examined under the microscope of the art exhibition
(2008-05-06)
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Tip of the Week
Chris Dorland
Chris Dorland has been painting utopian architecture for several years now, creating pictures that indulge in gorgeously threatening baroque colorations, and that have a strange Piranesi-like splendor
(2008-05-06)
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Eye Exam
Art Fair Hangover
It’s too tempting to not report "overheard at the art fair." In front of a painting by Neo Rauch, one shopper said to another, "The thing about art is you don’t have to like it." You don’t even have to see it, either; just order it by name. "Names, names, names, darling!" (Okay, that one was from "Absolutely Fabulous," but the sentiment holds.) For one whirlwind weekend we had to put our care for meaningful art practices on hold in the hope that Chicago could contribute to the still-thriving art market
(2008-04-29)
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Tip of the Week
Ben Gest
One of the great virtues of photography is to seize upon distinctive moments of life and preserve their emotional tone for extended contemplation. Ben Gest realizes that potential in his series of semi-staged studies of people of assorted ages undergoing the all-too-familiar, yet habitually overlooked experience of irritable frustration tinged with anxiety
(2008-04-29)
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Art Break
What's NEXT?
This spring finds the Merchandise Mart fully committed to the art-fair business with the recent purchases of the Armory Show, Volta and the Toronto International Art Fair. Also under the Mart’s banner is NEXT, "The Invitational Exhibition of Emerging Art" presented by Volta members, local gallerist Kavi Gupta and Christian Viveros-Faune
(2008-04-22)
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All is Fair
Critics Pick the Artropolis Highlights
Artropolis, with five art-related fairs running contiguously this weekend at The Merchandise Mart and hundreds of related events on-site and around town, is a colossus. We asked our critics to pick a few easy-to-overlook highlights
(2008-04-22)
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Tip of the Week
Monika Wulfers
Riding the swelling wave of photography that uses nature as a springboard for enlarging and transforming perception and meaning, Monika Wulfers shoots flowing water and reveals its visual possibilities as we have never seen them before
(2008-04-22)
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BREAKOUT ARTISTS
Chicago’s next generation of image makers
The Department of Cultural Affairs and the Chicago Artists’ Coalition report that there are an estimated 80,000 artists and "creative types" in Chicago. So it was an exceedingly difficult decision to feature seven, or about one one-hundredth of one percent of the 80,000. The criteria for inclusion were based loosely on the notion of an emerging artist
(2008-04-22)
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The Five-Year Plan
Breakout Artists 2004-2007: Where are they now?
To mark this fifth edition of Breakout Artists, we decided to check up on the artists we’d featured in the past and see where their careers have taken them
(2008-04-22)
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