• From the print edition of the May-August 2013 issue of Chicago Gallery News

Designs by 2012 Eunice W. Johnson Fellowship winner Alex Ulichny (BFA 2012) at THE WALK 2012 fashion benefit gala. Photo by Sara Condo

BY MARY DE YOE

On May 3 in Millennium Park, the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) will present 

THE WALK. This 79 year-old fashion show and benefit will present, on the catwalk, the latest designs by SAIC students, and, in the audience, Chicago’s best dressed. Chicago is known for many things, but as a fashion capital it is still not quite New York or L.A. Quoted recently in Crains’ Chicago Business, Greg Cameron, Chief Operating Officer of WTTW and SAIC Fashion Committee member for 10 years said of THE WALK, “It’s one of the most exciting events of the year….[The Gala guests] are beautiful and glamorous—it’s when you see a little bit of New York in Chicago.” He meant it as a compliment, of course, but is it really fair to continuously  view Chicago only in so far as it relates to New York, when it in fact does stand on its own?

Chicago’s fashion and art worlds may not have the resources or market presence that cities like L.A. and New York do, but what they lack in manufacturers or collectors they make up for in ingenuity and creativity. There is nothing revolutionary in saying that art and fashion are inextricably linked—they are derived from the same impulse to express oneself or an idea visually. But in Chicago the two worlds, perhaps out of necessity, often act in tandem and bolster one another.

“It is difficult to keep talent in Chicago,” said Cheryl Pope, SAIC Faculty in the Fashion, Contemporary Practices, and Continuing Studies Departments. Pope also received a Masters in Fashion from SAIC in 2010.  “The resources and materials just aren’t here. I often tell students that they need to take trips to New York to buy fabric. With fabric stores like Mood, they are really able to see what’s available.” That said, while Pope encourages students to leave the city for fabric, she does not encourage them to relocate. “In Chicago [with affordable rents] you can find amazing studio space. To have the space to work is invaluable,” said Pope. She added that, “Chicago is hungry for a shift.” 

RSVP Gallery in Bucktown is helping to pave that way. Part high-end boutique, part art gallery, RSVP offers visitors more than a shopping experience. A highly-curated and very “cool” selection of luxury items like a 3.1 Philip Lim rabbit fur iPad case in “absinthe green” or a hoodie with a print inspired by engines and cables by London-based designer Christopher Kane set the tone for the unique space. Whether it’s your taste or not, nearly everything at RSVP is a conversation starter. “We need places like this,” said Pope, “places that blur the lines between art, fashion, and lifestyle. The more places we have like this, the more people will choose to stay.”

Ikram Goldman, owner of the luxury boutique in River North that bears her name and Chicago’s doyenne of fashion, is another  great supporter of Chicago’s art scene. When Goldman, in 2011, moved her boutique to its new location on East Huron—a literal beacon for fashion with its bright red facade—she incorporated an art gallery. Showing work by Chicago artists, the exhibitions rotate throughout the year. Past exhibitions featured work by graphic designer Jason Pickleman, and drew on similarities between the processes of fashion designers and of artists. About his exhibition, Typeballs, Pickleman said, “I love tearing apart letters and making new forms. I think the way I’m handling language is similar to the way some fashion designers, such as Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons, handle hems and seams—tearing them apart, cutting at odd angles and letting threads hang loose, all in an effort to create new images with new meanings.”

When at Ikram, as is the case at RSVP, you are not just shopping. You’re engaged in a discourse about visual culture (whether you’re aware of it or not.)

It is important to have people who support these art forms, and who are working in Chicago. Nick Cave, whose celebrated Soundsuits blur the lines of fashion, sculpture, and performance, is a fantastic example of Chicago’s ability to push the envelop in the field. A professor at SAIC, Cave has lived and worked in Chicago since 1990. Additionally, the Chicago-based design duo “Creatures of the Wind” was a 2011 Finalist for CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. The pair continues to work in Chicago, and it is their success (both of the designers, Shane Gabier and Chris Peters, are SAIC graduates) as well as Cave’s success and presence that will encourage other designers to work from Chicago as well. 

One of Nick Cave’s Soundsuits displayed with a video installation at the Jack Shainman Gallery booth at the 2013 Armory Show in New York. Photo by CGN

“You still have designers working in Chicago,” said Pope, “who are thinking ‘am I designing for an East Coast market? A West Coast market? Or a European market?’” In other words, the “Chicago market,” while it does exist to some degree, is not large enough to fully support fashion designers. “We need manufacturing companies that support [designers]. Once you build that, they will come,” Goldman said in a recent interview in Michigan Avenue.

In the past decade, several resources have popped up that indicate an interest in making Chicago a greater home for fashion. These include Chicago’s Fashion’s Night Out, October Fashion Focus, and The Chicago Fashion Incubator (CFI). CFI, located in Macy’s on State Street, offers designers workshop space and resources to help them develop necessary business skills. It was established as part of an initiative by Mayor Richard M. Daley to keep graduates from Chicago’s design schools—Columbia College, Illinois Institute of Art, and SAIC, which ranks among the world’s top fashion programs—in the city. These events and programs are small steps, but they are important ones.

Like Chicago’s unique pop-up and apartment galleries, some of Chicago’s most powerful fashion forces are occurring off the grid. “The availability and attention to street-style blogs,” said Pope “has transformed the streets into a runway or potential editorial at any moment. [Chicago youth] are recognizing the power of fashion as a language, as an expression, as a way to be an individual and they are owning it! They are chargingforward with their own brands using online printing and production companies.”

SAIC students experiment with street fashion 

It is a risk both for designers and to production companies to stay or operate in Chicago, but Chicago is not a city that typically shies away from risk. Nowhere is that more prevalent this year than in the spectacular exhibition, Inspiring Beauty, at the Chicago History Museum (currently on view through January 2014.) The exhibition presents more than 60 designer garments, by luminaries such as Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta, Emanuel Ungara, and Missoni—from the Ebony Fashion Fair, a 50 year tradition spearheaded by Eunice Johnson of Chicago-based Johnson Publishing. The traveling fashion shows brought high-fashion, drama, theatricality, and fantasy to communities that did not have access to these styles, but that quickly came to embrace them. 

“Eunice Johnson understood the importance and power of fashion as a means to express oneself, to express an identity,” said Joy Bivins, Exhibition Curator. “The Fair was more than just a fashion show, it was a conversation between the runway and the people in the audience. It was an opportunity to show off the fashion on the runway, and for the audience to show off their style.” Keeping in the Fair’s tradition, that sounds a lot like what we can expect to see at Millennium Park this May.

Chicago’s fashion world, like its art world, is not New York, L.A. or Paris. As it turns out, it’s just fine being itself.

Notes: 

SAIC’s 2013 fashion show runs four times on Friday, May 3. Tickets and details at www.saicfashion.org

For more information on the other resources mentioned here, please visit:

www.chicagofashionincubator.org 

www.chicagohistory.org

www.ikram.com

www.nickcaveart.com 

www.rsvpgallery.com

The start of the exhibition takes visitors back to 1967 when Picasso's monumental sculpture was unveilled in Daley Plaza. Recordings of Studs Terkel interviewing spectators offer candid insights.

For most Chicagoans, Picasso first "arrived" in Chicago in 1967 in a major, public way that still resonates with our city's citizens today. Now 46 years later, his influence may be seen as the beginning of this city's modern artistic identity. 

Picasso of course never actually set foot in Chicago, or in this country for that matter. He was very, very close - it is rumored that a plane ticket to Chicago for the sculpture's unveling had been purchased by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the firm that commissioned the sculpture that today is the star of Daley Plaza downtown. While Picasso is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated, admired and prolific artists in the history of art, Chicago has a few of its own personal ties to the artist and his work. The new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, the first major Picasso exhibition organized by the museum in nearly three decades, makes the case that long before his famous sculpture mystified and delighted Chicagoans in 1967, Picasso's artistic style and influence was key to launching local enthusiasm for embracing modern art. 

A lot of Chicago/Picasso 'firsts' are covered in the show: in 1913 the Art Institute of Chicago became the first American museum to show Picasso's work, after being a part of the innaugural Armory Show in New York that same year. Inspired by the Armory Show, the Arts Club was founded in 1916. In 1923 it presented Picasso's first US solo showing outside of a commercial gallery. One of AIC's most well-known collection anchors is the Old Guitarist, which was purchased by Frederic Clay Bartlett in memory of his wife Helen Birch Bartlett and given to AIC in 1926. It was the first painting by Picasso acquired by a US museum. 

The exhibition is vast, including 250 works done in a range of mediums and time periods. The works come primarily from AIC's own collection, and mostly they are not blockbusters (3 major paintings on loan from other museums are separated from the main exhibition and are hanging in the Modern Wing - something I found logistically awkward) but the many pieces in the show add up to an illuminating picture of how Chicago came to see itself in an artistic light as well as be known in the world as a progressive city committed to the arts.  It is worth spending time with as many of the pieces as possible, while also seeking out new favorites. 

A highlight is the opening of the show, where a recording of Studs Terkel interiewing Chicagoans in the Federal plaza (now Daley Plaza) on the day the Picasso Woman was unveiled. It's delightful to hear the candid respones. One spectator was there for a baton contest.  Someone else thought a statue in honor of someone who'd 'done something for humanity' would have been more fitting.  One gentleman thought it resembled the 'pelvic structure of a prehistoric monster.' Others were worried it would rust and hoped it 'worked out.'  Most seemed to gaze in awe that their city had put this project together and made such a show of being progressive. After I saw the exhibition, I learned another secret from SAIC's former president, Tony Jones. He recalled recently leading Paloma Picasso on a tour of the show before it opened. While they were examining the Picasso Woman macquette, she leaned her head into the sculpture and pointed out that her father wrote inside many pieces. For the Woman he had apparently been concerned that the piece would hold up because of the weight of the steel and the strong welding that would be required. Just to make sure the piece would stand the test of time and that the heavy head would not tumble down on visitors, he wrote some simple instructions for the welders in Gary, IN - basically, he said, make sure it's on there tight! 

Picasso never accepted payment for the commission, instead giving it to the city as a gift. That generous spirit is certainly still present here today.

Picasso and Chicago

Febraury 20-May 12, 2013

A portrait of Marie-Therese. Pablo Picasso. Head of a Woman with Straw Hat on a Pink Background. Paris, January 23, 1938.  Oil on canvas. Private collection.

Pablo Picasso. Weeping Woman I, July 1, 1937. Drypoint, aquatint, and etching with scraping on paper.

Pablo Picasso, Nude under a Pine Tree. Cannes or Vauvenargues, January 20, 1959. Oil on canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago, bequest of Grant J. Pick, 1965.

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Jacqueline. Mougins, December 28, 1962. Graphite with smudging and black ballpoint pen on paper. Richard and Mary L. Gray and the Gray Collection Trust.

Picasso's interest in the seated female figure show up again in his renderings for the sculpture for Daley Plaza.

Drawings for the Sculpture in Daley Plaza. 1963-1965.

There are so many ways to enjoy the holidays, when you're not rushing here and there, keeping track of to-do lists or trying to meet end-of-year deadlines. In case you have any free time, or out of town visitors, we've come up with a few highlights you should check out this season. 

• Chicago Urban Art Society is having its’ annual holiday art sale Windy City Artist Alley on Sunday, December 16 from 12-6pm. Artists, illustrators, printmakers, DIY artists, and vintage sellers will all be there to cover your last minute shopping needs. This year’s event will be located at 1664 S. Blue Island Ave. at the intersection of 18^th and Blue Island in Pilsen neighborhood. Interested vendors or artists should contact peterkepha@chicagourbanartsociety.com. Chicago Urban Art Society Chicago’s First Annual Holiday Benefit is on Wednesday, December 12, 6-11pm.  An evening of good company and good music, along with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served. A fifty dollar donation is asked to attend. A special poetry reading by Kevin Coval is sure to make this a fun, holiday evening.

The Art Institute is always a festive place to visit this time of year - don't miss the chance to gaze at the impressive lion adorned with red wreaths for the season.  While the weather is still mild, wander the museum's sculpture garden, or spend some time in sunny Millennium Park.  Also, in honor of the season, the miniature Thorne Rooms have also been decorated for the season.  Details here.

• Come experience Greek traditions with the National Hellennic Museum’s one-day fun-filled event It’s A Greek Christmas! on Saturday, December 15, 11am-5pm. Festivities include crafts, caroling, dance lessons, christopsomo, storytime, and much more. Details here.

• Bring your kids along and get creative at Lillstreet's Holiday Family Party Saturday, December 8th from 12-3pm. Bring the whole family and decorate a lovely holiday ornament with Lillstreet's ceramics department and cookies with First Slice Pie Cafe. Stop by the gallery and take a peak at the Stacey Lee Webber jewelry trunk show reception. Free. Also this weekend, Let There Be Light: Lillstreet's 37th Annual Holiday Show and Sale. Details here.

• December 6-8 you can do some holiday shopping at the 4th annual ShopColumbia market at Columbia College.  Not only is this the perfect place for holiday shopping, but you'll also meet the artists behind the work! ShopColumbia will also host themed mini-boutiques within the shop for the environmentalist, art lover, fashionista, and more. Details here.

Visit Chicagogallerynews.com all season for art news, events and openings!  Happy holidays! 

Chicago Artist’s Month (CAM) continues, and this weekend, on Saturday, October 13, Chicago Gallery News' Saturday Gallery Tours in River North and the West Loop will feature work by select Chicago artists on view in participating galleries.  On these tours, a gallery representative leads visitors to four art galleries in River North and the West Loop.  Tours are ongoing and happen all year round, but this Saturday’s tours are special CAM events.

The Jean Albano Gallery is leading the River North tour this Saturday, which will feature Chicago artist Gladys Nilsson’s vibrant, compositionally intricate watercolor paintings.  Visitors on this tour will also get the chance to visit the Roy Boyd gallery, which is currently hosting its 40^th anniversary exhibition.  Perimeter Gallery and Addington Gallery are also taking part in the River North tour.  To participate, meet at 750 N. Franklin Starbucks by 11am. 

Gladys Nilsson, Jumping, Jean Albano Gallery

 Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery will be leading the West Loop tour, which features “Palisades,” the gallery’s first solo exhibition for Los Angeles based contemporary painter Elisa Johns.  Johns’ oil paintings display a combination of abstract, dream-like landscapes and distorted figures, which fuse together as a narrative mechanism. 

Elisa Johns, Muses, Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery

The Chicago Artists Month featured artist Jeremiah Lee’s cigar box guitars are being exhibited at the Packer Schopf Gallery, another destination on the West Loop tour.  At 3pm there will be a music performance using the instruments from Lee’s show.  The Linda Warren Projects Gallery and Mars Gallery are also taking part in the West loop tour.  To participate, meet at 215 N. Aberdeen (Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery) by 1:30pm.  These tours are free, and no reservations are required.  For more information, including the tour schedules, visit Chicago Gallery Tours. 

But wait, there’s more!  This Saturday and Sunday from 11am-2pm at the Art Institute of Chicago, you can get interactive with the art at “The Artists Studio: Mini Model Sculptures.” Build a small-scale version of your favorite public sculpture, or design your own monument for your favorite spot in the city. This is a great activity for children and adults of all ages!  Visit their website for more information.  And if sculpture is your thing, there is also a Reception and Trolley Tour of Chicago’s Sculpture Exhibit on Sunday at 3pm that spans Lakeview, Lincoln Park and Wicker Park/Bucktown.  For details about this sculpture tour, click here.

Picasso, Maquette, Richard J. Daley Center

Michael Young, Looking Up, Chicago Sculpture Exhibit

Roy Lichtenstein, American (1923-1997). Whaam!, 1963. Magna and oil on canvas. 172.7 x 406.4 cm (68 x 160 in). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Tate: Purchased 1966. Photo ©Tate, 2011.

The Art Institute of Chicago presents a colorful exhibition of old favorites and lesser-known works in Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, opening to the public on Tuesday, May 22.  The retrospective samples five decades and over 160 works by Lichtenstein (1923-1997) grouping bodies of work into familiar categories of the artists’ oeuvre, i.e., cartoon and comic paintings that staked his place in the Pop scene of '60s, a series in black and white, a variety of enlarged brushstroke paintings. 

Roy Lichtenstein, American (1923-1997). Look Mickey, 1961. Oil on canvas. 121.9 x 175.3 cm (48 x 69 in). © National Gallery of Art. The National Gallery of Art. Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein, Gift of the artist, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery.

Many will recognize Lichtenstein’s more well-known works like Look Mickey (1961), Drowning Girl (1963), and others in his notable comic-like style of large halftone dots, but other bodies of work felt refreshing amidst the more familiar arenas – a grouping of bronze and brass Art Deco sculptures; a room filled with small drawings, sketches and studies for large paintings; a series of nudes and Chinese landscapes.  These more obscure groupings were the highlights of the exhibition for me, a Lichtenstein fan, because they provided a glimpse into his career that I had not seen before.  I’ve seen the large painting, Ohhh…Alright… (1964) several times, and while I still enjoy examining the canvas, I very much appreciated seeing the tiny study from which it stemmed. 

Roy Lichtenstein, American (1923-1997). Ohhh…Alright…, 1964. Oil and Magna on canvas. 91.4 x 96.5 cm (36 x 38 in). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Private Collection.

Lichtenstein was born in New York City in 1923 and studied at New York’s Art Students League prior to attending Ohio State University where he earned both his BFA (1946) and MFA (1949).  Before completing his studies, Lichtenstein was drafted in 1943 to serve in the U.S. Army, where he was on active duty in Europe beginning in 1945.  When he returned from the Army, he attended and taught at Ohio State until 1951 when he married and moved to Cleveland.  After several successful shows and a gaining reputation in the artworld, Lichtenstein returned to New York and continued making work.

Like other Pop artists, Lichtenstein’s work blends characteristics from seemingly far different realms: fine art, mass media, advertising, comics.  Lichtenstein continued to combine these different characteristics throughout his career with the use of large Benday / halftone dots seen in work that was done early in his career through some of the last series the artist completed in the nineties.  The Brushstrokes series is a prime example of the pairing of mass media with fine art.  In his large canvases, Lichtenstein depicts expressionist brushstrokes, drips and splatters.  From a distance, those gestural marks are the first thing the viewer picks up on, but upon closer inspection, the halftone dots come into focus as does the juxtaposition of the almighty Abstract Expressionist marks against the dot pattern used in mass-produced print materials.  It is this kind of unconventional pairing in Lichtenstein’s work that appeals to me, while examining what is depicted and how it is depicted. 

Roy Lichtenstein, American (1923-1997). Brushstroke with Spatter, 1966. Oil and Magna on canvas. 121.9 x 152.4 cm (68 x 80 in). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Art Institute of Chicago, Barbara Neff Smith and Solomon Byron Smith Purchase Fund.

James Rondeau, Dittmer Chair and Curator, Department of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute states “Lichtenstein is rightly recognized for being a foundational Pop artist who created some of the most iconic works of the 20^th century.  But these works – the comic strips, the war imagery – represent only part of Lichtenstein’s decades-long career.  Our aim with this exhibition is to explore the full range of absorbing contradictions at the heart of Lichtenstein’s work – starting with the paradox that Lichtenstein systematically dismantled the history of modern art while becoming a fixture in that canon.  Lichtenstein, we hope to show, was a profoundly radical artist with a lasting impact on the history of 20^th-century art.”

Roy Lichtenstein, American (1923-1997). Landscape in Fog, 1996. Oil and Magna on canvas. 180.3 x 207.6 cm (71 x 81.75 in). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Private Collection.

Following its run at the Art Institute through September 3, the retrospective will travel to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Tate Modern, London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Art Institute member days for Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective have been extended through Friday, May 18.  The museum will be closed to the public during the NATO summit, from Saturday, May 19 through Monday, May 21, and the public opening date for the retrospective is Tuesday, May 22, 2012.

Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective
May 22 - September 3, 2012
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60603

Roy Lichtenstein, American (1923-1997). Untitled, 1959. Oil on canvas. 86.5 x 71.3 cm (34.0625 x 28.0625 in). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Private Collection.