Depth, humor, deception, and a whole lot of color are what you will find at Kipper and the Corpse opening this Friday, April 20th at Robert Bills Contemporary Gallery. These works of art created in a variety of different mediums, including sculpture, photography, drawing, collage, and animation will play tricks on you, abstracting spatial relationships and disguising images and materials as if it were a game. Flipping through the preview images on gallery's website, it's no wonder why this group was put together. Visually you can see parallels between form, texture, color combination, and technique. It's not until you investigate a little bit further into the artists' work where you begin to read into a clear dialogue happening between the themes and context of these crafted works as well.

(Montgomery Perry Smith)

The show features the works of four highly talented conceptual and skilled makers, Lauren Anderson, Mike Andrews, Jessica Labatte, and Montgomery Perry Smith. The three, Anderson, Labatte, and Smith are all former students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), while Mike Andrews, is a current faculty in the Fiber and Material Studies Department, making this a show that I personally am definitely anticipating and looking forward to. The show will be on view from April 20th until June 2nd.

(Mike Andrews)

(Lauren Anderson)

(Jessica Labatte)

Take a look at the full press release at:
http://robertbillscontemporary.com/

   Krisanne Johnson  

Glass Curtain Gallery presents Black Gossamer, a group exhibition opening November 17^th where several artists are exploring black identity.

Glass Curtain Gallery comments, “An anxiousness exists among people of color because there is still an expectation to "perform," explain and react to one's Blackness in society, maybe even make excuses for it, both within and outside "black" culture. One outlet utilized to express this dichotomy is through dress.”

“This exhibition showcases the work of black contemporary artists who use and draw inspiration from clothing, fashion, textiles and fabrications to explore and uncover recent revolutions in black identity.” (Class Curtain Gallery)  

 Wangechi Mutu 

Black Gossamer exhibits an impressive collection of work from several artists, including New York based Kenyan artist, Wangechi Mutu. Mutu’s work has been shown in venues such as: the Tate Modern, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, MOMA, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, and at the Royal Academy in London.

Other artists include: Aisha Bell, Sheila Bridges, Myra Greene, Marlon Griffith, Krisanne Johnson, Kalup Linzy, Ebony G. Patterson (colum.edu/Student_Life/DEPS/)

Black Gossamer will include multiple opportunities to attend gallery talks and hear from some of the artists as well as curator, Camille Morgan. See below for a list of corresponding events.

Marlon Griffith, LOUIS (from the Powder Box School Girl series), 2009 

Located at 1104 S. Wabash on the 1^st floor of the historic Ludington building at Columbia College, Glass Curtain Gallery exhibits emerging and mid career artists. By presenting museum-quality exhibitions, workshops, and visiting artist lectures, Glass Curtain acts as a catalyst in the dialogue for students in the arts. 

Ebony G. Patterson 

For more information about the exhibition click here 

Exhibition Programming

November 17: Opening Reception 5:00-8:00pm

November 18 : "Taboo Fashion and Chameleon Identities" Gallery Artist Talk with Artists Aisha Bell and Ebony G. Patterson, 11-12:30pm

November 22: Critical Encounters Cafe Society discussion with artist Myra Greene and Curator, 4-6pm

February 1: Closing Reception - African American Heritage Month Kickoff Celebration, 5:30 - 7:30pm

Stop by Perimeter Gallery this evening for the opening reception of Keiko Hara’s exhibition of new paintings and works on paper.  Hara’s colorful, abstract work includes mixed media and collage, monotype prints, oil paintings, and works on paper.

The reception will run from 5-8pm, today - Friday, March 18, at the gallery located at 210 W. Superior (60616).  The exhibition will run through April 16. 

Perimeter Gallery has been located in the heart of Chicago's River North Gallery district for 28 years.  The Gallery features contemporary Painting, Sculpture, and works on paper by midcareer and emergent artists as well as master works in Ceramics and Fiber arts.

For more information on the artist and artwork, visit her website http://www.keikohara.com/index.html

Keiko Hara, Space Sukumu-Sky 17, Monotype print with collage and hand work/Triptych, 20 x 46 inches, 2011

Tony Fitzpatrick is a man who's seemingly everywhere, and this weekend while in New York for the Verge Art Fair, he's getting some nice press from the New York Times style magazine, T (also a familiar name for the artist.)

The magazine gets a few choice quotes from Fitzpatrick, and includes an unmistakeable image of one of his signature collages, featuring one of his favorite subjects, a standing fish.  The artist's well-praised play, This Train, showed in Chicago in 2010, first at The 16th Street Theater in Berwyn, and then at Steppenwolf Theater in Lincoln Park. This Train's next stop is a little further from home, in Brooklyn.  Now, New York is taking notice.

The article may be found here, but be sure to grab the magazine this weekend. My only question is how did this end up in the style magazine rather than say, the arts section... Though perhaps that's still to come this summer.  Let's hope.

Now showing at The School of the Art Institute’s (SAIC) Sullivan Galleries, is Touch and Go: Ray Yoshida and his Spheres of Influence.  Ray Yoshida (1930-2009, SAIC BFA 1953) was one of the most vital American artistic figures to emerge from the Midwest.  Curated by John Corbett and Jim Dempsey of Corbett vs. Dempsey Gallery in Chicago, this exhibition is the first to consider Yoshida’s work and the impact from the academic faculty community and from teaching at SAIC, while also placing it historically at the juncture of mid-century Chicago, which was a time of transition from expressionism to pop.

The exhibition is a retrospective of Yoshida's work featuring many pieces from the artist's estate and some rare works culled from a range of private and institutional collections. The show hangs chronologically and includes Yoshida's early comic collages of the late 1960s, abstractions of the 1970s, selections from his "bathrobe" period, as well as figurative works from the 1980s including Touch and Go, which lends its name to the show title.

The show highlights some significant influences on Yoshida including SAIC faculty Kathleen Blackshear and Paul Wieghardt; his SAIC colleagues Ted Halkin, Whitney Halstead, Miyoko Ito, Thomas Kapsalis and Evelyn Statsinger; his contemporaries William Copley, Öyvind Fahlström, Peter Saul, and Karl Wirsum; self-taught artists Martin Ramirez and Joseph Yoakum; and his SAIC students Mark Booth, Roger Brown, Brian Calvin, Sarah Canright, Jordan Davies, Ed Flood, Art Green, Philip Hanson, Richard Hull, Jim Nutt, Christina Ramberg, Suellen Rocca, Barbara Rossi, William Schwedler, Rebecca Shore, Chris Ware, and Mary Lou Zelazny, among others.
In addition, the first collaboration between SAIC's Department of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies and the Art Institute of Chicago's Department of Contemporary Art, will result in a concurrent presentation of Yoshida's work and will be on view in the Art Institute’s Modern Wing through May 8, 2011.

Yoshida's influence continues with an endowed scholarship: in 2006, he and his family established the Ray Yoshida Fine Arts Scholarship with the Hawaii Community Foundation. The annual merit scholarship supports Hawaiian students planning to attend SAIC and/or major in Fine Arts. Three Hawaiian students have already studied at SAIC with support from the scholarship.

Sullivan Galleries, where the Yoshida exhibition is mounted, is the largest gallery space devoted to contemporary art in Chicago’s Loop, filling 32,000 square feet on the seventh floor of Louis Sullivan’s design for the Carson Pirie Scott department store.  The building, a National Historic Landmark, was constructed in 1899 and stands on the block of State Street, between Monroe and Madison.  Additional SAIC galleries, school departments and administrative offices are located throughout the Loop, including Betty Rymer Gallery in SAIC’s Columbus Building.  Visit saic.edu/exhibitions for details and exhibition schedules.

This exhibition runs through February 12, 2011, and is supported in part by the Estate of Ray Yoshida, Ruth Horwich, Cleve Carney, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Ray Yoshida, Untitled, c. 1970, Oil on canvas, 46" x 40", Courtesy of the Estate of Ray Yoshida.

Touch and Go: Ray Yoshida and his Spheres of Influence installation photo by Sara Condo. Image courtesy School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Touch and Go: Ray Yoshida and his Spheres of Influence installation photo by Sara Condo. Image courtesy School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Touch and Go: Ray Yoshida and his Spheres of Influence installation photo by Sara Condo. Image courtesy School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Ray Yoshida, Touch and Go, 1980. Acrylic on canvas, 38.5 x 50”. Photo courtesy of Karin Tappendorf by David M. Ward

Ray Yoshida, Undesirable Grouping, 1975. Acrylic on canvas, 36" x 46". Courtesy of the Estate of Ray Yoshida

Ray Yoshida, Untitled, c. 1995. Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in. Image courtesy of the Estate of Ray Yoshida