This Sunday, September 11, the Evanston Art Center will present an opening reception for Dimensional Lines: Art + Dress.  The exhibition features eight Chicago-based designers, and follows them as they expose the beauty of decay while utilizing the 82-year-old Evanston Art Center’s aged condition as the perfect environment to showcase their work. 

Curators Gillion Carrara and Fraser Taylor (Taylor is also a contributing artist), extended an invitation to eight local artists to respond to the mansion’s crumbling façade, “architecturally, historically, and emotionally,” Taylor says.  Participating artists include Abigail Glaum-Lathbury, Conrad Hamather, Anke Loh, Beata Kania, Kristin Mariani, Katrin Schnabl, Kristina Sparks, and Fraser Taylor.

The artists all have a hand in the fashion world as well as in some other artistic medium, and each created a distinct work for the show.  Carrara and Taylor enlisted the help of freelance theatre designers Mary Griswold and Geoffrey Bushor to play with and transform the space using light, sound effects, and the installation of temporary walls to disorient the viewer.

Fraser Taylor speaks about his work and interest in building three-dimensional drawings - part of what his work is based on.  His installation lies between being “constructed and destroyed all at once.”  Taylor previously worked in fashion and textile designs, but has since experimented with other mediums.  In his featured work, he covers materials in black to “manifest the decay, erosion, and revolution of Evanston Art Center.”

Kristin Mariani, who is know for repurposing 80’s and 90’s leather coats, focuses on deconstructing her work while also building upon it.  Her piece is an evolving “grid of various elements associated with dressmaking” that will transform throughout the course of the exhibit.  Mariani explains how it is “about addressing the different layers of a building’s various facades.

Katrin Schnabl is a fashion designer and professor at The School of the Art Institute Chicago, who most often works as a costume designer.  Her reuse of cotton and linen pieces has created an intertwineable structure linking the interior and exterior of a space.  “The garments will be exposed to the elements.  It is deliberate in a sense that as the place is decaying, and my idea of how the memory is changing, the structure is invited to react and change.”

Insight from these three featured artists helps highlight the meaning of the exhibition and its homage to the Evanston Art Center, a home to the arts for many decades.

The exhibition opens to the public this Sunday, September 11, with a reception from 1-4pm.  Admission is free and the exhibition will run through November 6.

Where: Evanston Art Center, 2603 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60201

Two different print-heavy exhibitions open today at The Block Museum: The Satirical Edge in Contemporary Prints and Graphics, and Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England.  Both exhibitions opened today, January 14, and run through March 13, 2011.

The Rowlandson exhibition, showing in the Museum’s main gallery, features 71 drawings, watercolors, prints and books that show a slice of social and political life of Georgian England – a period of time that produced literary figures Jane Austen and Percy Bysshe Shelley.  Rowlandson (1757-1827) was one of the most popular satirists of his time and lives on through his impressive detailed technique and sense of humor found in these works on paper.

The works in the Rowlandson exhibition are drawn from the collections of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale Center for British Art, Lewis Walpole Library, and Vassar College Libraries, Archives and Special Collections.

Thomas Rowlandson, The Devonshire, or Most Approved Method of Securing Votes, 1784, etching, with stipple, in black ink with watercolor on cream wove paper.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittesley Fund, 1959, 59.599.57.

Thomas Rowlandson, Comedy in the Country, Tragedy in London, 1807, etching in black ink with watercolor on cream wove paper.  Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 807.05.29.01.1.

Thomas Rowlandson, Vauxhall Gardens, 1784, watercolor with pen in black and gray ink over graphite on cream wove paper.  Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1975.4.1844

The Satirical Edge in Contemporary Prints and Graphics is comprised primarily from the Block’s collection and features works from the 1950s to present day by artists working in America who have created powerful works of art that address issues such as warfare, greed, gluttony and injustice.  Included in this exhibition is one of the Guerrilla Girls well-known prints that focuses on feminist issues, among many other varied works by different artists. 

Guerilla Girls, Do women have to be naked to get into the Metropolitan Museum, 1989, reprinted 1999, color offset lithograph.  Block Museum, 2001.  Copyright by the Guerilla Girls.  Courtesy www.guerillagirls.com

William Gropper, Lust, ca. 1955-57, lithograph.  Block Museum, Gift of Evelyn Salk in memory of her husband, Erwin A. Salk, 2011.21.33

Warrington Colescott, History of Printmaking Update: Leroy Neiman Pulls a Screen Print, 1982, color etching, aquatint, and sugar-lift aquatint.  Block Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John A. Bolz, 1985.75.6. Courtesy of the artist

...More Prints!

Coming up later this month at The Block is the Printpalooza Print Fair on Saturday, January 29 from noon – 4pm.  Mark your calendars and stop by for live printmaking demos, on-the-spot t-shirt printing, affordable original prints starting around $20, one-of-a-kind graphic publications and more. Also featuring Drive By Press, Cannonball Press, Spudnik Press, Comix Revolution, and music by Abstract Science DJs. 

For more info, visit blockmuseum.northwestern.edu

The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art

Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL 60208

So far, the various art salon dinners around the city have not gotten old, since the rotating cast of artists, as well as dining venues, keeps changing, offering cool locations and destinations to check out.  Artist Rene Romero Schuler hosts the Art Salon Dinners of the North Shore at two different restaurants, and next up is a dinner at Evanston’s Campagnola, featuring Stephanie Dean’s still-life photographs inspired by Dutch still life paintings. Dean’s latest series, Modern Groceries, features packaged foods we toss into our grocery carts illuminated by a very specific art-historical context.  Dean’s technical elegance makes her mundane subjects beguiling. Notice the sticker on the apple, a bag of plastic cups, a jar of pickles, and a container of hydroponic lettuce. The items seem classic and familiar because of joint references to Dutch painting as well as our own modern kitchen table.

Most of us discover, at some point while living in Chicago, that Evanston, while considered a ‘suburb’, is in fact:

a. Basically 15 minutes from downtown via Lake Shore Drive

b. Cool - it's a far cry from a stereotypical quiet, cookie-cutter suburb.  Take advantage of a chance to take a trip there for an arty dinner, and you’ll no doubt come back to the city refreshed by your little mini-break. 

The Salon Dinner construct is loosely modeled on the precedent established by Gertrude Stein, the enigmatic and influential art dealer who lived in Paris in the early 20th Century. The format of these very lush dinners allows for a much greater level of intimacy between the artist, collectors, and other arts enthusiasts.  6:30pm cocktails will be followed by an exquisite dinner inspired by the installation.  Accompanying each course comes a special wine pairing.  You’ll meet other art-enthusiasts and foodies, and you’ll be sure to learn a lot in a relaxed, sophisticated setting that spices up your normal routine.

Art Salon Dinners of the North Shore

Contact: Rene Romero Schuler

312-952-3005

• Friday, October 15: Stephanie Dean, Modern Groceries

Campagnola Restaurant in Evanston (815 Chicago Avenue)

Cost: $80/person, includes, dinner, wine, tax and gratuity
Space is limited.  All are welcome.

• Friday, November 12: Elisa Boughner (location TBD)

• Friday, January 14: Rene Romero Schuler (location TBD)