By GINNY VAN ALYEA

We are finding, maybe just like many of you, that we don't really want to focus on our actual work working from home, but we do want to keep busy. Here in the "New CGN office", where we are finally working day in and day out with our (truly) tireless 'interns' (have you read our masthead closely any time in the past 6 years? It's a family affair) we just keep on sharing all the news from art spaces doin' it for themselves, as Aretha and Annie Lennox sang. They're going virtual - inside and outside. Full collections are coming online. It just doesn't stop. It keeps me up late, but it's kind of fun. 

Seriously, I just posted a bunch of new ones this afternoon, but here for you are more. It's late. You're welcome. 

And speaking of the interns again, there are some creative ideas at the end of this post that up your family friendly art game (we've drawn Elsa, now we can do an Exquisite Corpse!)

 We will keep sharing creative COVID-19 work-arounds from our dealer and artist friends as we see them. All of them deserve your attention and support! 

Have a look, and be sure to connect with them directly.

Stay home, and stay healthy! 

#artwillgetyouthroughthis

GSU Virtual Tours of Sculpture Park and Visual Art Gallery

Jeff Stevenson, Director and Curator of the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park (theNate) and Visual Arts Gallery at Governors State University, is eager to bring the art from GSU into people’s homes by providing virtual tours––something he views as essential to growth.

“The founder of theNate, Lew Manilow, recognized how art serves as one of our brain’s organizing systems, and that one of the reasons it has survived and thrived for tens of thousands of years is that art raises our aspirations and helps us to imagine and achieve great goals,” Stevenson said.

By downloading Otocast, you can take a virtual tour of theNate, complete with photos of each large-scale sculpture and accompanying text, and even recorded audio from many of the artists discussing their works on display.

Stevenson has also recorded a tour of The Visual Arts Gallery’s current exhibition, Sarah Krepp: tatting <--> tearing. The exhibition’s timing in the gallery seems like a premonition, as the––now abundant––familiarity of home is juxtaposed to the fear and anxiety created by the harshness of reality.

Hyde Park Art Center – Virtual Center Sundays

Center Sundays are back - virtually! Join in on art making, workshops, and a performance all from the comfort of your home. Hyde Park Art Center is offering online programming Sunday, April 5 from 1 pm until 5 pm. More details at our Center Sunday web page.

Activities include:

• Virtual Art Making activity with Katherine Fimreite via Vimeo
• Black Lunch Table Virtual Wiki Editing Session via GSuite: The Black Lunch Table (BLT) is an ongoing collaboration between Jina Valentine, Heather Hart and Eliza Myrie. Come learn how to edit and write articles on Wikipedia.
• Virtual Tax Workshop for Artists with Krystal Boney via Zoom (RSVP required): RSVP to cmckissick@hydeparkart.org
• Virtual Poetry Performance with Visiting Resident Artist Joelle Mercedes: Kick off National Poetry Month
• Experimental Sound Studio Quarantine Concerts via Twitch: The Quarantine Concerts are a collaborative endeavor from Artist Run Chicago 2.0 participant, Experimental Sound Studio, meant to provide artists a space to share their work and continue to earn a living during this time when most live performance opportunities have been cancelled due to COVID-19.

Mana Contemporary

In the past few weeks, Mana has shifted public programming, classes, and workshops online. Don’t miss an endless stream of things to read, watch, and participate in—published daily on their website.

Workshop:

Join Dani Cole for move, connect, reflect—a movement class with an improvisational warm up, and creative writing exercise. Streaming live Wednesdays at 3pm

Career Development:

Looking to refine your social media strategy? Mana is publishing recent (and upcoming) career development programs, including Digital Strategies for Artists with Mark Rosen. Watch Now

Terra Foundation

The foundation wants to stay connected with you through these difficult times. As you conduct research from home or are looking for teaching resources, explore our online offerings. The Terra's art collection, recent publications on art of the United States, and teaching tools to engage primary- and secondary-school students are available to you on terraamericanart.org. Please reach out if you have any questions.

Connect with works from the Terra Foundation's collection and explore its nearly 800 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculptures of art of the United States up to 1980.

Dive deeper into the collection with ArtNav. Explore works of art in greater detail and navigate through an array of associated video, audio, imagery, and texts to learn more about some of the foundation's collection objects with this digital interpretive tool.

Oliva Gallery – Virtual Opening on April 10

Never has a show title been more fitting! Follow the details in the gallery's next exhibition: hOMe with @vankanegan

An exhibition of art by Nancy VanKanegan. hOMe is defined as: A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates. Whatever else hOMe is—and however it entered our consciousness—it’s a way of organizing space in our minds. (Verlyn Klinkenborg)

The primary home is the body itself. The work of the body is to observe, sustain, protect, rebuild when necessary, and most important to create: and then to share.

The word OM represents the creation of sound from deep within the body, the sound echoing in the chamber of the physical self-transmittal of the interior to the outside–and a return to silence. The silence of the home deep within.

The gallery is hosting an opening on Friday, April 10, 5–10pm – virtual only. The opening will be a multi-faceted Facebook and Instagram Live event and closed to the public. Opening date: Friday, April 10th, 5–10pm. You can also see the show via private appointments. Personal showings will require the attendee to follow the social distancing rules of Oliva Gallery. 

Monique Meloche – Artists in Coloring Books

The gallery shared this week that Curator Rossella Farinotti and Gianmaria Biancuzzi have partnered with Milano Art Guide to invite contemporary artists to create pages for The Coloring Book, a virtual album that visitors can browse, download, and color in on their smartphones, tabets, or by printing out at home. Candida Alvarez is the first MMG artist to be included. Stay tuned for pages from Jake Troyli, David Antonio Cruz, and more! If you can read Italian, it's even better! 

Lubeznik Center for the Arts - Family Art Activities

Everyone can be creative! Follow along with Lubeznik Center for the Arts' (LCA) latest videos to find something fresh and fun to do with your loved ones, including making a mini-zine, go on a Studio Tour with Dorothy Graden, or How to Create an "Exquisite Corpse" with Friends (for those not in the know it's a collaborative drawing project invented by artists of the Surrealist art movement and still used by contemporary artists, including the Chicago Imagists.)