To receive the 2025 Arts Guide in the mail, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" target="_blank">click here</a>. It also makes a great gift all year long! <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1734626670/x8tz0bv8hjhf2zbizq8p.jpg">Image: CGN Publisher Ginny B. Van Alyea with her family at the Detroit Institute of Arts, posing in a reflection of a work by Tiff Massey. Photo by Albert Van Alyea. My children are finding out that traveling with mom involves seeking out art – often it’s work-related, but it’s also because seeing art in other places is eye opening. Despite some protests on our most recent trip, the kids are coming around to the idea that there is a reason why most tourists like to visit museums (and galleries). Personally, I am interested in exploring what distinguishes art communities around the country, and of course comparing them to home. Art-wise, Chicago has everything going on here. It really does. The city counts dozens of world class institutions, and there is a long history of a multi-generational collector base that built these institutions. We also have scores of smaller, independent spaces supporting artists in the early stages. Some of the world’s most famous artists today are either from Chicago or started and built their careers here. Multiple schools and programs in the area are hard at work nurturing the next generation. The City dedicates resources to an evolving collection of public art (a proven tourism success). And still, it’s like when your mother tells you you’re the best. Sometimes, it means more when someone else tells you the same thing.&nbsp; Every few years the topic of Chicago’s national art reputation bubbles up. Someone talks about that other city where things happen–when anyone there takes note or writes about Chicago, somehow it means more. It’s like really being seen. But first Chicago needs to see itself. There is so much here, and we need not be overlooked.&nbsp; * I started working at CGN in 2002. I have spent this last year approaching an unusual milestone. As of 2024 I’ve spent half of my life–all of my adult years–working on this publication. It’s an interesting thing traveling to other parts of the country and visiting arts communities, only to come home to be enamored with the legacy Chicago has built over the decades. As we head into 2025, I hope each of you will champion art close to home. It’s a new year, and there is new art. I encourage you to seek out undiscovered spaces and reconnect with the ones you already know. And be sure to take friends with you and introduce them to CGN and this exciting, dynamic world right here in Chicago. For my family despite a little resistance, art is opening our eyes, and there is still much more to see.&nbsp; &nbsp;– Ginny Van Alyea <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1734626671/rlfmnccfwd3f8n0icfid.jpg"> 2025 Cover artwork:&nbsp;Jonathan&nbsp;Higgins, “Untitled (dark blue)”, 2019. Metalpoint drawing in silver and copper on dark blue acrylic ground on panel.&nbsp;30 x 30 x 2.75 inches. Courtesy Jonathan&nbsp;tcHiggins and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mannekenpress.com" target="_blank">Manneken Press.</a>

Publisher's Letter: 2025

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/ytlqgk20wljssixs1qli.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAOn a Monday evening downtown at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an energetic crowd of around 700 gathered to cheer the announcement of this year's 3Arts Awards. <a href="https://www.3arts.org">3Arts</a>, the Chicago-based nonprofit grantmaking organization, announced the recipients of its Next Level Awards—$50,000 unrestricted awards given to past 3Arts awardees. The organization also celebrated ten previously announced 3Arts Awards recipients with $30,000 unrestricted grants, and ten artists who were selected by past 3Arts awardees to receive $2,000 unrestricted Make a Wave awards, a pay-it-forward gift that artists are empowered to usher through their own creative community in order to create a rising tide.&nbsp;While 3Arts has in the past distributed five Next Level Awards, the roster this year was expanded to include one additional award for teaching artists; at $50,000, this is the largest no-strings-attached award for teaching artists in the world. Honoring the powerful work of local artists and their ripple effects in neighborhoods across Chicago, the 2024 Next Level awardees are teaching artists William Estrada, Emily Hooper Lansana, and Andy Slater, and visual artists Rozalinda Borcilă, Bethany Collins, and Riva Lehrer.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/w1czngjredobirzinufz.png"><figcaption>The 2024 Next Level awardees. Top row: Rozalinda Borcilă, Bethany Collins, William Estrada. Bottom row: Emily Hooper Lansana, Riva Lehrer, Andy Slater.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;In such a competitive field in which grants and awards for artists are often hard to access, receiving a major award is quite an achievement—but a one-time infusion of support is rarely enough to power artists’ ambitious dreams. Our Next Level Award is a rare second award designed to fuel their work as their careers evolve over time, when they are ready to bring new visionary projects to life,” said 3Arts Executive Director&nbsp;Esther Grimm. She adds, “In 2023, we celebrated three Next Level visual artists and two teaching artists. Last night, we announced the addition of a third Next Level Award for teaching artists, expressing our enduring admiration for the artists who work across generations, in schools, neighborhoods, hospitals, prisons, elder care centers, and more. The six new awardees are truly ‘next level.’”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/qfgpnecezh2nxeg4isja.jpg"><figcaption>Esther Grimm</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The night's other big annoucement was about the future of 3Arts. Esther Grimm, who has served as Executive Director for 23 years and who is stepping down in 2025, shared that the organization will always have her heart, even when she's not there in an official role. Leading 3Arts, she said, unexpectedly became the ride of a lifetime. Grimm told the crowd that since the organization started 17 years ago, there has been a dream of reaching artists beyond Chicago in order to bridge divides and connect more artists. Next year 3Arts will partner with <a href="https://artspace304.org">Art Space 304</a> in Carbondale, Illinois to pilot two 2025 3Arts awards, in East St. Louis and in Carbondale, meaning 3Arts will celebrate 12 artists in 2025 – two more than the usual 10.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092761/eblp7lubgmmcbvx76ybw.jpg"><figcaption>Nashon Holloway</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The jam-packed awards ceremony featured boundary-breaking performances by three past 3Arts awardees, including Rika Lin (2023 awardee) presenting the experimental dance work, Feedback, with collaborator Takashi Shallow. Appearing in what looked like sunset on stage, singer-songwriter Nashon Holloway (2022 awardee) performed the world premiere of Go Awf, an original new song from her forthcoming album. Wearing a pink sparkly ballgown the color of cotton candy, Holloway sang and spoke about doing things in harmony and making it a life style and ethos for treating one another.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092762/mpxwvhqqhu6or1tx8ncn.jpg"><figcaption>M.A.D.D Rhythms</figcaption></figure>Donnetta “LilBit” Jackson (2023 awardee) performed an excerpt from A M.A.D.D. Mixtape, a piece choreographed by Jackson that explores the African diasporic roots of tap and footwork with a team of energetic dancers from Chicago's M.A.D.D Rhythms. Bright backgrounds and alternating sounds and tempos sustained the energy of the evening.&nbsp;Each awardee was part of a video program featuring individual interviews with each artist as they shared their stories of the moment they got the call from 3Arts as well as what they hope to create and give back to Chicago. Each recipient was so positive about Chicago and its artist communities, creating a picture of a community hard at work to keep the city a culturally rich place with people from so many corners of the world.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092764/pq2ssjj7xj5agoscj2cn.jpg"><figcaption>Awardees</figcaption></figure>When it was time for the program to conclude, Co-Chairs Michelle T. Boone, Whitney Hill, and Candace Hunter thanked the Host Committee of arts and civic leaders and noted that its 17-year history, 3Arts has distributed more than $8.1 million to more than 2,300 Chicagoland artists. 3Arts awardees include 68% women artists, 73% artists of color, and 22% Deaf and disabled artists. Boone thanked Grimm for her leadership as her tenure, sharing testimonials from artists, such as Amanda Williams, who credit their 3Arts award with helping them reach new heights in their career. Grimm has tended to this community and nurtured so many artists, and her work will continued for years to come, now that 3Arts has been established as a model for arts best practices in our country. Said Boone, It’s an organization with guts.More information about this year's awardees may be found at <a href="https://www.3arts.org">3arts.org</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

3Arts Awards Transformative Funds to New Group of Artists  and Announces Big Plans

<html><head></head><body>Editor's Note: Jessica Cochran and Angee Lennard launched a new printmaking venture earlier this year called Process / Process. They have been releasing special print editions of works by area artists and also trying to educate the public about why collecting prints and works on paper is fun, accessible and an affordable means of supporting contemporary artists in a market that can sometimes seem out of reach. There are many artists in Chicago and beyond working in printmaking &nbsp;– sometimes exclusively as their chosen medium and sometimes as a means of creating more affordable versions of their work (painters and sculptors can work in printmaking too.)&nbsp;The feature below was posted by Process/Process on October 21, 2024. To learn more visit <a href="https://process-process.com">process-process.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/ckbsz5bnoj6oqdsmlhzn.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By JESSICA COCHRAN AND ANGEE LENNARD of PROCESS/PROCESS&nbsp;Sometimes artists make prints on their own, and sometimes they “publish” in collaboration with a gallery or studio like Process/Process. As Nate Freeman <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-5-essential-tips-collecting-prints">wrote</a> in an explainer for Artsy, “So, aren’t prints just, like, copies of an artist’s big, famous works?”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Well, no. In our case, they are original–handmade–artworks, and always incredibly meaningful expressions of an artist’s practice. A print might typify an artist’s visual vocabulary, for example, or it might offer an experimental interlude.&nbsp; Here are&nbsp; just a few reasons to collect what we like to call “multiple originals.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ORIGINAL ARTWORKSWhile prints may pull imagery or themes from an artist's existing body of work, prints rarely just replicate a painting or drawing. As artworks, prints carry their own meaning and potential. An artist who more typically paints, for example, may utilize the etching process to draw an image by hand directly onto a copper plate (see Figure 1). When pulled from the press, the resulting impressions are signed, dated, and numbered by the artist.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We are often asked: how involved is the artist in the printing process? It varies. Sometimes an artist works side by side with us in the shop or they actually work “on press”; and other times, an artist turns over the printing entirely to us–that is, after they create the original plate, drawing, collage, or source material from which we work. At every step, however, the printer and artist are in close collaboration, with the printer offering guidance on everything from technique to paper selection.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/lywdgkclqnl0mlwyxbue.jpg"><figcaption>An etching by painter Alex Bradley Cohen</figcaption></figure> &nbsp;AN AMAZING TRADITIONPrintmaking is one of the oldest artforms, traced to China’s Han Dynasty and proliferating through Europe from the fifteenth century onward, with the spread of techniques like woodcut and Intaglio. Much (much) more recently, 20th century artists like Helen Frankenthaler, Picasso, and Andy Warhol helped to popularize prints within their incredibly expansive oeuvres. Printmaking at the intersection of art is also crucial&nbsp; to the history of democracy, activism, and protest, from revolutionary Mexican lithographs to screenprints by the Guerrilla Girls: think broadsides, underground newspapers, and wheatpaste posters. PRICE POINTSWhile prints can carry high prices for distinguishing qualities such as size, complexity, scarcity, and an artist’s market, they tend to land at more accessible price points. It is not uncommon for a “blue chip” artist whose works in painting or sculpture sell for tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars to have an edition that is priced in the low thousands or even hundreds of dollars.Prints are popular both with collectors who collect “vertically”—that is, as much as they can by a single artist; and also by those who collect works horizontally in a variety of mediums. Prints are sometimes considered a “gateway” to collecting for their more approachable price points, but prints on the primary market can also reach prices in the tens of thousands.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/c70utcoddjp1rhdxaamn.jpg"><figcaption>Alberto Aguilar</figcaption></figure> MARKET DURABILITY&nbsp;It is no secret that the art market has hit hard times over the last year, with some analysts suggesting that primary market prices have simply soared out of reach. But prints do offer some durability and perspective in a cyclical marketplace. The Art Newspaper <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/02/07/will-the-art-market-rebound-that-might-not-be-the-right-question">reported</a> last February that “that auction sales of prints and limited editions—a sector favoured by younger art buyers—generated $103.2m last year across Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, an increase of 18.3% on 2022.”&nbsp; Prints along with multiples, and photography <a href="https://theartmarket.artbasel.com/global-market">made up</a> 9% of art sales by dealers in 2022, and the IFPDA Print Fair in New York reported a 45% increase in attendance for their 2022 fair over their last in-person edition.&nbsp;&nbsp;SCALECan prints be huge? Sure! But they are often done in sizes that are perfectly scaled to residential or commercial interiors. As many advisors will attest, prints lend themselves to salon style hangs, or playful interventions from home to office.&nbsp;COMMUNITYTo publish a print is to work collectively. We find ourselves working alongside artists, and also fabricators and suppliers.&nbsp; And to&nbsp;buy&nbsp;a limited edition print is to join a community! As veteran print dealer (formerly of <a href="https://paceprints.com/home">Pace Prints</a>) Jeff Bergman pointed out to us recently–one is buying an image that an artist liked so much they wanted to put it into the world 10 or 20 or 30 times. And so naturally, that print’s many collectors find themselves in the very good company of like-minded connoisseurs. &nbsp;</body></html>

Why Collect Prints? A Primer from Process/Process

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/nw1kpdz3nrcsdhma27vo.jpg"><figcaption>Visionary Luncheon featuring Sarah Sze in conversation with MCA Pritzker Director Madeleine Grynsztejn, October 7, 2024. Photo: Jeremy Lawson Photography, © MCA Chicago.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAOn Monday October 7, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s Board of Trustees and the MCA Women’s Board hosted the MCA Chicago Gala Visionary 2024 at The Four Seasons Hotel, Chicago.The luncheon is an annual celebration of leadership in the arts and featured a dynamic conversation between renowned artist Sarah Sze and the MCA's Pritzker Director, Madeleine Grynsztejn. At the luncheon, attended by nearly 350 arts industry leaders and supporters, collectors, board members, as well as civic and corporate leaders, the MCA presented the 2024 Arts Philanthropy Award to BMO Bank N.A. for its exceptional support of arts education in Chicago. Mr. Darrel Hackett, President, and Chief Executive Officer of BMO Bank &nbsp;accepted the award on behalf of the bank. Additionally, the award honored both Mr. Hackett and his wife, MCA Trustee Nickol Hackett, for their generous philanthropy in our city.In addition to being one of the fall season's highest profile arts gatherings, the Visionary luncheon plays a crucial role in supporting the MCA's commitment to learning and public programs. Each year, thousands of young people from across Chicago visit the museum to engage with contemporary art and explore its broader historical, social, and cultural contexts. The MCA raised over $640,000 dollars at the event in support of its Learning programs.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/iff8iejbcgczh4t5xnv6.jpg"><figcaption>Daytime candlelight</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;During their extensive conversation, Grynsztejn and Sze discussed Sze’s painting and sculptural work, how the MCA was her first institutional solo venue, and how artists and museums work together to create an artistic experience for the viewer. Sze's career has spanned three decades, but her creative perspective on technology and art continues to evolve. She notably got one of her early starts at the MCA, and at the luncheon Sze shared her own personal fondness for the museum, [The MCA] is a very special place. As Madeline said, it was here where I first did a show at an institution, and it was an incredibly warm institution. There are still many people on the staff who were there in 1999.Sze's career has grown internationally since that first museum show, and she and Grynsztejn discussed how much the world has changed in the ensuing years, particularly when it comes to the accessibility as well as bombardment of images in our daily lives. At a time when everyone is a photographer, Sze has largely returned to painting.The return to painting, she said, is about not representing reality, but really thinking about how we store images in our head. Since the late nineties, when I started making work, for all of us who have lived in that time period, we have been barraged by images in a way that has really changed the way we experience the world, the way we communicate. We're all photographers, we receive images at this incredible rate. I want to remind people about what we dream for, what we hope for, what we imagine. I want the paintings to be in this place when we wake every morning, where we've spent hours of our time making images in our head – that time where you are in this fragile moment trying to remember what your mind has created in the images, but you're moving into the space of the images outside your head.Sze also still harnesses the ubiquity of images, merging the digital and the static in her public sculpture. Even the history of photography has influenced her current work. Sze explained, Most of the images that are in the paintings are actually stills from videos. So I think the static photograph is disappearing. Film was really started in the 1880s, and it came out of photographs – the photographs in repetition became the moving image. And now we rarely see images static. Our children are all pushing the button down and holding it and getting 20 images and choosing. Similarly in my work, they're mostly stills from video that I choose.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/nmaoxowhwfo71jtcreds.png" 2024-10-19="" at="" 3.01.50="" pm.png=""><figcaption>Sarah Sze, Sleepers, 2024. Mixed Media, Paper, String, Video Projectors, Aluminium Dimensions variable. More info at <a href="https://online.victoria-miro.com/sarah-sze-venice-2024/">victoria-miro.com</a></figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Grynsztejn drew attention to a work by Sze in Venice, noting for the audience the synthesis of a somewhat static grid holding pieces of torn paper onto which video is projected. Explains Sze, This idea reminds people that the digital and the physical are not actually separate. That everything outside our eyes is physical. In this work they're torn pieces of paper that you can imagine having in your pocket. Usually when we see a film and we forget the world around us. I'm interested in keeping you in this teetering place between what is the real and what is imagined. Floating images and space that we're navigating at this incredible pace is something I'm really interested in right now.Continuing, Grynsztejn added, You've called these interior landscapes. The time of them, the experience of them is more like looking at memory than it is looking at reality. It's a nonlinear kind of experience. The writer, Sadie Smith, a really good friend of yours, recently compared your installations to being in an open iPhone that mashes up momentous and really incidental events.&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092761/criigryj2fj7w1ldviiy.jpg" copy.jpg=""><figcaption>Installation view, Sarah Sze, MCA Chicago. Photo: James Isberner, © MCA Chicago</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Sze’s father immigrated to the United States from China and became an architect. She reflected that he probably would've been an artist, except that his family emphasized that he would have to get a degree or he would not get a job, or worse, no one would take him seriously in his new country. In the next generation, Sze grew up in Chicago looking at the world through the eyes of an architect in a modern city and understanding the potential to do what she wanted. That perspective of examining space and structure remains with Sze today.&nbsp;When looking at images from Sze’s U.S. pavilion where she represented the United States of the Venice Biennale, Grynsztejn commented, “The thread that I think you may be picking up on directly, or even unconsciously, is that your work is both whole and made up of parts. Because of that sometimes, even though it is not the case in reality, it communicates the state of being barely held together. A consistent theme in your work is that vulnerability of the object, that fragility.” Grynsztejn continued, asking, “Why is that important to you? Why do you want to create that condition for us to share?”Sze responded, “One of the primary ideas for me was how do you create an artwork that feels live? I think post COVID we've become more addicted to live events, to theater, to these shared moments where we feel things will never happen again. So [the work is about] how do you mark time? A birth, a marriage, a death – these moments are completely out of our control but they really mark what it is to be alive in this way that nothing else can, this kind of serendipity of process in the moment.”Grynsztejn’s response spoke for the audience, “I think one of the reasons why I find your art so important and so gorgeous, but also so heartbreaking is because it reverberates with the transient nature of our own life, because it could so easily be forced to come apart.”She went on to comment that part of what she loves about Sze’s work is how she actively compels viewers to care about what they are seeing. Through questioning how it is constructed, how long that process took, what is looks like from one side and then another, viewers are part of the conversation. They are being asked she says, “to gently to care for this work forever.” Or as long as we are each here.&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092762/kcmbxxopyptbfwaalli8.jpg"><figcaption>Sarah Sze Shorter than the Day, (powder coated aluminum and steel, 48' x 30' x 30,' 2020) Commissioned by LaGuardia Gateway Partners in partnership with Public Art Fund for LaGuardia Airport's Terminal B Photo: Nicholas Knight, courtesy of the artist; LaGuardia Gateway Partners; Public Art Fund, NY.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Sze has a new permanent monumental work on view at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. She said she’s always getting messages from friends and family who take selfies near the work when they pass by. She also points out that while the work may look delicately suspended, it really is not. “The most fragile thing we have,” she says, “which I think is important for people to understand, is technology. The technology we have in public space as opposed to governmental space, it's already outdated. Think about how for museums, what they have to change all the time are the light bulbs, the cameras, the film. Now they have to tend to videos. They are [surprisingly] the most ephemeral things.”We tend to think about videos that last forever – a moment captured and then shared digitally seems like it may never be erased. But installed in a museum or public setting, video and technology must be maintained and cared for in order to last. Sze made a surprising point in the 21st century, that paper is more durable than one would think, and that we also have centuries of experience preserving it. In the same vein, the work at LaGuardia may look fragile, but it is created to last, with images printed on metal and its structure crafted from industrial materials. This deceptive and chaotic digital and analog mashup, Grynsztejn points out, is actually what we all have been enduring for the last 15 years. Sze’s work shows where the physical and the digital are interchangeable and equivalent and here to stay. She is revealing the art history that we are all living through, whether we like it or not.&nbsp;Sze admitted that she hates her phone and her attachment to it, but she knows she cannot live without it either, a sentiment that is entirely relatable. We know the pull phones have, the damage they can do as well as the access they can offer. The personal digital relationships we all balance are both fragile, formidable and changing fast. &nbsp;Towards the end of the discussion, Sze talked about her students at Columbia University, where she is a professor. To emphasize her earlier point about how much we are accustomed to accepting digital images as reality, she talked about the disappointment many feel when they order art materials only to realize that when they arrive they are not what they expected. Often variances in color and texture leave them without the quality they expected. “They'll say, I want this to be fuzzy and red, and it's itchy and kind of purple. It's not the right thing. They're getting things digitally before they're getting physically,” she explains. It’s a lesson worth remembering.There are plenty of chances to encounter Sze’s work in person. In addition to the work at Laguardia she has placed many works in public, very deliberately as Grynsztejn says, in zones of transit, such as subway and train stations, along New York’s High Line, and as outdoor projections on museums. Each work is accessible in this way is a democratic experience, says Sze. “We can spend all the time in the world trying to get people into the museum, but it is a building with walls. To put things into the public space where people don't need to know it's art, they don't need to know who made it, they can have an experience with it. They might be drawn in. The democratization of art has always been extremely important to me.”&nbsp;More information about the artist Sarah Sze may be found at <a href="https://sarahsze.com">sarahsze.com</a> and <a href="https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/33-sarah-sze/">victoria-miro.com</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

MCA's 2024 Visionary Luncheon Honors Artist Sarah Sze and Key Museum Supporters

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/fuyvif4gggpmt3jwldnq.jpg"><figcaption>Hebru Brantley with Midnight Blue. Photo by CGN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAOn the morning of Friday, September 20 a small group of special guests visiting Fashion Outlets of Chicago in suburban Rosemont toasted THE COLLECTION’s newest permanent commission, Midnight Blue by acclaimed contemporary artist Hebru Brantley. The installation, which features one of Brantley's iconic Flyboys as well as a surface work running along an elevator stack, is the 25th work to become part of Fashion Outlet's permanent collection of public art. &nbsp;&nbsp; Midnight Blue was inspired by the world of Jazz, particularly the atmosphere created in the classic tune titled “Round Midnight and composed in the 1940s by Thelonious Monk. The song has been widely covered ever since.&nbsp;While visitors wander the mall and move between the upper and levels Brantley's art will hopefully draw their attention to something different about this shopping experience, much the way the artist's murals elsewhere around the city invite passersby by to stop for a moment. Midnight Blue aims to convey a state of being lost in the moment, carried away by the interplay of colors and shapes.&nbsp;Brantley is known throughout Chicago and around the country for his distinctive, narrative-driven work that revolves around his conceptualized characters. His art historical references include Robert Colescott, Andy Warhol, Kerry James Marshall and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and he utilizes his characters in a narrative output to address complex ideas around nostalgia, fear, safety, power, and hope. The color palettes, motifs and characters themselves juxtapose this intricacy, creating an air of innocence and accessibility around his layered and multifaceted ideas. In particular the public has come to recognize Brantly's character of the Flyboy. In his Negro Mythos series, Brantley reimagines the super heroes of American pop culture as people of color – as a quest to readdress modern mythology through his lens. Flyboy was also born from this concept. The one that is part of Midnight Blue is the second Flyboy publicly installed in the Chicago area. The first is at Navy Pier near the Chicago Children's Museum, and a third, which will actually be a (20 foot tall) Lil Mama figure, is coming soon to the city's west side, though there has been delays in unveiling it. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/ye826pi4rjd7irnfxa8g.jpg"><figcaption>Photo by CGN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Brantley himself has become a public figure, with an international reputation that has followed his beginnings in public art. Much of the work he has become known for is outside. He added, As somebody that started in public art, being able to do something in more of a controlled environment was kind of appealing. It's inside versus outside, And it's a challenge to figure out how to create a narrative around an escalator, but it's still wall space. It's just different.When I asked Brantley what he was most excited about for this particular installation at THE COLLECTION, he shared, For me, the thing that's exciting is that I haven't mixed the mediums of sculpture and painting before. I've done installations, murals, sculptures, but now this is the opportunity for that to all come together.&nbsp;As far as the concept of youth passing time walking in a mall, I wanted to know how much time Brantley had spent in malls growing up. While he did mall walk like many kids, he also recalled that he always had two jobs as a kid, and his first was at Water Tower downtown. I've been known to snack and spend a lot of time at the food court when it comes to malls, he admits. That's basically the kitchen, right? It's like when people come to someone's house – the part of the house they spent the most time in is the kitchen. The heart. Brantley wanted his work to be where people would be taking a break and socializing. And for Brantley, Midnight Blue's addition to THE COLLECTION feels good. This is coming home, so to speak, he says. It's really cool.Details on Hebru Brantley and Midnight Blue at the Fashion Outlets may be <a href="https://www.fashionoutletsofchicago.com/TheCollection-HebruBrantley">found here</a>#&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092761/v8250c8qjjysrpvozuwl.jpg"><figcaption>Photo by CGN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Hebru Brantley's Midnight Blue Joins Fashion Outlet's Permanent Art Collection

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/l8gdzdtuuibog3l7i0vo.gif"><figcaption>The top floor of Bob Buford’s home is devoted to art. Pictured from left to right are works by Martin Kippenberger, Laura Owens, Peter Halley, and Marc Camille Chaimowicz.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEACGN has been interviewing art collectors for well over a decade. To date we have profiled over 30 collections in print.&nbsp;When CGN was founded in 1982, it was created as a resource for collectors and a guide to area gallery openings. Over time CGN has evolved to be a resource for many players in the art world and beyond. After CGN Publisher Ginny Van Alyea took over from founder Natalie van Straaten in 2007, we began to conduct a series of interviews with many art community leaders, from dealers and artists to curators and local collectors. Some collectors have professional lives unaffiliated with the art world, while others see collecting as a natural extension of a profession they love. A few are anonymous. All have art collections that are lovingly built and cared for, and we are grateful for their generosity and candor.By building a catalog of collection profiles, we aimed to share the range of collecting experiences, practices and focuses, hopefully inspiring others to build their own art collections in their own unique way.&nbsp;You can read past interviews on <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/interviews">chicagogallerynews.com</a> any time, but we wanted to gather our collector profiles in one place and encourage you to revisit each one or read them all for the first time. These collections are proof of Chicago's deep, rich, long collecting history, and CGN's interviews are a means of recording that history for generations to come.&nbsp;&nbsp;2012<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2012/1/collector-conversations-deone-jackman">Collector Conversations: Deone Jackman</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2012/9/collector-profile-marilyn-larry-fields">Collector Profile: Marilyn + Larry Fields</a>&nbsp;2013<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2013/1/collector-profile-anne-and-mark-siebert">Collector Profile: Anne and Mark Siebert</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2013/8/collector-profile-an-eye-for-the-outsider">Collector Profile: An Eye for the Outsider</a>&nbsp;2014<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/1/collector-profile-eileen-and-peter-broido">Collector profile: Eileen and Peter Broido</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/4/collector-profile-janis-kanter-and-tom-mccormick">Collector Profile: Janis Kanter and Tom McCormick</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/8/collector-profile-linda-and-paul-gotskind">Collector Profile: Linda and Paul Gotskind</a>&nbsp;2015<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2014/12/a-classic-setting-for-eclectic-art">Carlos Martinez: A Classic Setting for Eclectic Art</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2015/5/ellen-and-richard-sandor-s-art-obsession">Ellen and Richard Sandor’s Art Obsession</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2015/9/helen-zell-s-old-fashioned-approach-to-collecting-contemporary-art">Helen Zell’s Old Fashioned Approach to Collecting Contemporary Art</a>&nbsp;2016<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2015/12/an-art-world-figure-howard-tullman">An Art World Figure: Howard Tullman</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2016/4/nancy-and-bob-mollers-down-to-earth-collectors">Nancy and Bob Mollers: Down-to-Earth Collectors</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2016/8/collector-jason-pickleman-s-creative-life">Collector Jason Pickleman’s Creative Life</a>&nbsp;2017<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2016/12/young-couple-eyes-chicago-s-future">Young Couple Eyes Chicago’s Future: Jessica and Tim Canning</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/4/in-search-of-the-eclectic">Sally Schwartz: In Search of the Eclectic</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/4/the-personal-art-of-collecting">The Personal Art of Collecting: Christopher Slapak and Michael Robertson</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/8/collector-irving-stenn-jr-a-lifetime-of-relationships-through-art">Collector Irving Stenn Jr.: A Lifetime of Relationships Through Art</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/9/seth-stolbun-today-s-collector">Seth Stolbun: Today's Collector</a>&nbsp;2018<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2018/5/building-a-home-for-art-reviving-an-industrial-space-in-ravenswood">Building a Home for Art: Reviving an Industrial Space in Ravenswood – Brian Westphal and Michael McVickar</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2018/10/collecting-stories-sebastian-campos-artistic-admiration">Collecting Stories: Sebastian Campos' Artistic Admiration</a>&nbsp;2019<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2019/5/stewards-of-art-and-history-the-expansive-collection-of-lee-wesley-and-vicki-granacki">Stewards of Art and History: The Expansive Collection of Lee Wesley and Vicki Granacki</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2019/9/collector-robert-buford-embracing-the-connectivity-of-art">Collector Robert Buford: Embracing the Connectivity of Art</a>&nbsp;2020<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2020/5/art-dealer-ann-nathan-the-perpetual-collector">Art Dealer Ann Nathan: The Perpetual Collector</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2020/5/behind-the-orange-door-the-thoma-art-foundation-builds-a-collection-to-share-with-the-world">Behind The Orange Door: The Thoma Art Foundation Builds a Collection to Share With the World</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2020/8/a-collector-s-personal-focus-discovering-the-value-of-engagement">A Collector's Personal Focus: Discovering the Value of Engagement</a>&nbsp;2021<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2021/8/stewards-for-generations-the-neal-family-s-influential-support-for-black-artists">Stewards For Generations: The Neal Family's Influential Support for Black Artists</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2021/6/91a62c27-f078-4b58-977c-464ef44cc966">Vibrant Art Enlivens a Home: Collectors Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson</a>&nbsp;2022<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2022/5/chris-craft-a-collector-discovers-friends-and-history-through-art">Chris Craft: A Collector Discovers Friends and History Through Art</a>&nbsp;2023<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2023/4/the-art-dealer-as-collector-and-connector-william-lieberman">The Art Dealer as Collector and Connector: William Lieberman</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2023/9/building-a-next-gen-collection-zach-smith">Building a Next Gen Collection: Zach Smith</a>&nbsp;2024<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2024/4/a-living-collection-sundeep-mullangi-and-trissa-babrowski-support-their-city-through-art">A Living Collection: Sundeep Mullangi and Trissa Babrowski Support Their City Through Art</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2024/9/nurturing-a-garden-of-art-michelle-edwards-tends-to-her-collection">Nurturing a Garden of Art: Michelle Edwards Tends to Her Collection</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

CGN's Collectors: A Recap of Collector Interviews

<html><head></head><body>A tip from a friend during a spring trip to Cambridge introduced us to a collection of everlasting flowers.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/u0iutjlvr87gy4a5m2sa.jpg"><figcaption>An apple blossom detail. Photo from HNHM website</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEADuring a trip to Boston earlier this year, my family and I knew that since April can be a harsh month on the East Coast, we would do well to sightsee indoors. While visiting Cambridge friends suggested we make Harvard University’s Museum of Natural History our first stop. Even with the clear preview of what we were going to see – “the Glass Flowers” – we had no idea that this sprawling antique collection, located on the second floor of a quiet academic museum, would be a spring explosion that would trick the senses and also give us a science lesson. The floral models on display looked so realistic that my husband asked the security guard where the glass ones were. She responded that at least half of visitors to the exhibit ask the same thing.&nbsp;The internationally acclaimed Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants was made by Leopold (1822-1895) and Rudolf Blaschka (1857-1939), a father and son team of Czech glass artists over a period of 50 years, from 1886 through 1936. During that time the Blaschkas produced 4,300 glass models that represent 780 plant species of flowering and nonflowering plants represented by nearly 850 life-sized models and over 3,000 highly accurate enlargements that detail plant anatomy and morphology, including many paper-thin crosssections, each with a label indicating the magnification level. A single hair of a Butterfly Flower from Chile, the “Schizanthus pinnatus”, was magnified 600 times, with the model measuring a couple of inches.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/mqenhakbdxleq3kkvz2d.jpg"><figcaption>The collection is displayed in rebuilt, original historic wood and glass display cases. Photo by CGN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Today the models make up one of Harvard University’s most famous treasures, equal parts artistic marvel and gift to science. We spent around 45 minutes peering through the exhibition’s display cases, and after we left, despite now trusting my eyes to believe the flowers were in fact glass, I wanted to know a little more about how these crystalline botanical studies were created. The Blaschkas, first working in the 19th century, came from a Czech family of jewelers and glassmakers that could trace their profession as far back as the fifteenth century. To create the models the Blaschkas, working out of their studio near Dresden, Germany, would usually heat the glass to soften it and then shape it into a particular flower. In other cases they would blow glass into hollow shapes or components. To add the correct pigments, colored glass was used for many, while other early creations were “cold painted” – a process that uses a thin wash of colored ground glass or metal oxide(s) and heated until the material fused to the model. Later versions created by Rudolph after his father’s death used glass enamels for color instead of paint.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/ntx3eqow22lq78xnpipe.jpg"><figcaption>Several examples of both life-sized models alongside magnified plant sections. Photo: CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;A Harvard Professor and founder of the Botanical Museum, George Lincoln Goodale, saw a need for life-like, long-lasting representatives of the plant kingdom for teaching botany. Mrs. Elizabeth C. Ware and her daughter Mary Lee Ware financed the creation of the collection and presented it to Harvard University as a memorial to Dr. Charles Eliot Ware, Class of 1834. The synthesis of a gifted family of artists as well as professor’s vision and a benefactor’s generosity ultimately cultivated a marvelous historic collection of plant models that have significantly contributed to scientific study and to an appreciation for art and science. There is much to behold and to learn for all ages during a visit to the Glass Flowers.&nbsp;&nbsp;Harvard Museum of Natural History • 26 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138<a href="https://hmnh.harvard.edu/glass-flowers">hmnh.harvard.edu/glass-flowers</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Harvard’s Glass Flowers

<html><head></head><body>*This feature and is from CGN's fall 2024 magazine. To subscribe to the print edition <a href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com">click here</a>.*&nbsp;This fall we will move through a warm and busy September season opening into a crisp but fleeting October, followed by frenzied holidays and the end of year crush. Following are a few places to visit for the first time or to return to, hopefully they are reminders of just how fabulous Chicago itself is as well as how wonderfully close it is to so many regional art destinations. These exhibitions, installations and events, are down the street or within a day’s drive, each worthy of an adventure this fall. – GV&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/doodfj7a3riou2n4hhkk.jpg"></figure>Grand Rapids, MIAn annual celebration of autumn, Mums at Meijer Gardens, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, is the largest of its kind in Michigan, featuring expansive chrysanthemum displays, fall foliage and family-friendly activities. Don’t forget to see the world-class collection of sculpture on site while you’re there.&nbsp;October • <a href="https://www.meijergardens.org/mums/">meijergardens.org</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/vpoolqlc9kfxahu9tdqy.jpg"><figcaption>Stanley William Hayter, Flux, 1969, Chazen Museum of Art permanent collection &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Madison, WIMadison’s vibrant arts scene shines against a backdrop of fall foliage, when the trees around the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus and Lake Mendota provide a picturesque setting for just about anything. Take a walk or bike through the UW Arboretum, and don’t miss the long-time Madison arts tradition that is the free fall Gallery Night on October 5, organized by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. While you’re there the University’s Chazen Museum of Art boasts an impressive collection ranging from ancient to contemporary works.&nbsp;• <a href="https://arboretum.wisc.edu">arboretum.wisc.edu</a>&nbsp;• <a href="https://www.mmoca.org">mmoca.org</a>• <a href="https://chazen.wisc.edu">chazen.wisc.edu</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092761/tq8abbllaecjqdr6oa7p.jpg"></figure>Chicago, IL – South LoopThis fall, find a blue-skied morning when the leaves are changing to visit Grant Park in Chicago’s South Loop and wander into a forest of 106 towering figures made from cast iron. Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz created the installation, titled Agora–meaning meeting place in Greek–for the City in 2006 as part of her ongoing artistic exploration of the image and meaning of crowds. The work is meant to be walked through, as it imprints a special magnificence as well as somberness that can only be experienced by standing among these headless figures, especially as the seasons change.&nbsp;South Michigan Ave. and Roosevelt Rd.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092762/hfgul6sceuivztbsciem.jpg"><figcaption>Deborah Maris Lader during construction on Wing, at 4883 N Lincoln Ave. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Chicago, IL – Lincoln Ave. North Arts DistrictChicago Printmakers Collaborative turns 35 this fall and is thrilled to introduce its new Co-Director, printmaker/glass artist/educator Lauren Steinert, formerly of Tuscon, AZ, where she ran the printmaking program at Pima College. Lauren will work together with Founder/ Director Deborah Maris Lader through March 2025, after which she’ll take the reins of the world renowned community printmaking workshop and nurture it into its future iteration. The CPC will continue serving the needs of area printmakers, and classes and gallery hours resume in full tilt in September, along with events like Open House Chicago (Oct) and the 35th Annual Small Print Show (Dec). Lauren’s glass experience will likely bring fresh programming to CPC, including workshops in vitreography and other multi media print processes.Amidst all of this activity, outgoing Dir. Deborah Maris Lader has built an addition, called “Wing”, which will house her studio and feature an arty storefront facing Lincoln Ave., anchoring the new Lincoln Avenue North Arts District (LANA). Deborah’s studio will debut during Open House Chicago (Oct 19-20) and then be open by appointment and feature its own programming and printmaking demonstrations.&nbsp; •&nbsp; <a href="https://chicagoprintmakers.com">chicagoprintmakers.com</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092763/ac38orxbiuf1dqnoa9bs.jpg"></figure>Three Oaks, MIThree Oaks, Michigan is known for its creative community as well as its scenic lakeside location just an hour and a half from Chicago. One gallery that opened a couple of years ago on the main street is arbor3 arts, a space that celebrates female artists while offering affordable art and programming for the Three Oaks community.&nbsp;On September 25 at 11am Chicago-based photographer Jessica Tampas, who exhibits with the gallery, will lead a workshop on how to take dramatically better iPhone photos. The class runs for one hour and will be held on the gallery’s outdoor patio, where the lighting (and likely fall foliage) is perfect.The class is $65/per person.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.arbor3arts.com">arbor3arts.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Sightseeing In Search of The Season’s Colors

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/mbokkwjpqthbgesukcs9.jpg"><figcaption>Lynnea Holland-Weiss, Embrace, 2022, Acrylic Mural on Drywall, 25’ x 20’. Photo courtesy of Nic Lehoux Architectural Photography. From the permanent collection of the MetroHealth Glick Center in Cleveland, OH.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By LAURA M. METTAMI left Chicago in 2015 after working in the River North gallery district for ten years with Chicago Gallery News. Fresh out of college and immersed in Chicago’s art community, this was a pivotal time in my life. I loved the city’s public art and world-class museums, and I got to know many wonderful people and artists from the gallery world. Season after season, year after year, I felt the excitement of opening nights in the galleries and the buzz of crowded art fairs.&nbsp;Art had this power to connect the community and bring people together. To excite and to move people. After working in other industries over the past few years, I recently found my way back to the arts. While the setting is different, I’m witnessing the same powerful impact that the arts can have on people in the environment of care.&nbsp;I’m proud to work with the Gifts of Art (GOA) program at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center. Home to one of the largest healthcare complexes in the state, Michigan Medicine has been a premier site of groundbreaking medical and technological advancements since it was founded in 1848.&nbsp;Michigan Medicine’s Gifts of Art program was designed as an innovation in healthcare delivery as part of the new University of Michigan Hospital that opened in 1986. One of the first and most comprehensive arts in health programs nationwide, GOA’s programming aims to transform the hospital experience in support of health and wellness for patients, guests, faculty, caregivers, and learners.&nbsp;GOA’s multifaceted programs include rotating art exhibitions in nine separate gallery spaces, concerts and performances, and one-on-one bedside visits from artists and musicians. Our Art Cart program offers a lending library of art prints for patient rooms, and we maintain the Friends Meditation Garden as a tranquil space in the hospital courtyard. Michigan Medicine staff is encouraged to participate in an annual employee art exhibition, hospital-wide art projects and drop-in workshops. We reach the greater community through programs such as the Life Sciences Orchestra, our symphonic orchestra for members of the U-M life sciences community.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/mhmu4buz9znm1mydey8q.jpg"><figcaption>Gifts of Art Gallery featuring photography by Takeisha Jefferson in Michigan Medicine’s University Hospital, Ann Arbor, MI.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<blockquote>The arts and humanities give expression to that aspect of human health not readily accessible or quantifiable. They reinforce and encourage the presence, in a health care setting, of communication, courage, hope, understanding, compassion, humor, acceptance, and peace.”&nbsp;- Ralph Snyderman, MD, Former Chancellor for Health Affairs, Duke University Medical Center</blockquote>&nbsp;The World Health Organization’s research supports the role of arts in the environment of care and recognizes its positive impact on holistic health and wellbeing. We witness this firsthand when we hear touching stories from families recounting the rich impact that GOA has had on patients. We also see a ripple effect when we meet people who want to give back after being on the receiving end. Creating art is a means to express ourselves as well as provide a sense of control and autonomy. Neuroscience research on mental health, cognition and development is plentiful and shows that listening to live therapeutic music can reduce stress and promote emotional healing while stimulating the brain and long-forgotten memories.&nbsp;Elaine Sims, Director of the Gifts of Art program, elaborates on why art in hospitals has such a profound effect, “We might say it’s&nbsp;because art in healthcare has a job to do. It is not intended to merely hang on the wall and look pretty. It is a workhorse whose job is to distract, engage, comfort, calm, maintain a presence, provide clues to social support, and help retain personal identity.&nbsp;Some permanent pieces stand the test of time, but additional energy, pleasure and surprise comes from art that is ever changing. In this environment, art is a powerful presence and is experienced quite differently than when viewed in a museum or gallery. The relationship between the viewer and the art object is more visceral, immediate, and intimate.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/msbae4fyrpcubuefzczh.jpg"><figcaption>Pictured here is a bedside art watercolor kit and one of GOA’s bedside musicians playing harp in the background. GOA’s bedside art and music services provide an intimate experience for patients and guests right in the hospital room.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Recognizing New Needs in HealthcareThe arts in health field has evolved over the past several decades and continues to grow. The Society of Healthcare Arts Administrators was founded in 1989 during the first convocation hosted by the Cultural Services Program, Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC. This original group of arts administrators and practitioners was born out of a need for peer support and inspiration from other institutions. After several name changes over the years (from Society for the Arts in Healthcare; Global Alliance for Arts in Health; Art and Health Alliance) this organization ultimately disbanded in 2014. The National Organization for Arts in Health (NOAH) was formed in 2016 and picked up where the previous arts in health organization left off.&nbsp;NOAH provides leadership for organizations such as GOA with a research-based focus on arts, health, and wellbeing, and a mission to unite and advance the field. NOAH produces professionalization resources, member support, and guidance intended to define industry standards and ethical practices. Annual conferences are held throughout the US as a chance for participants to connect and learn about emerging research and topics; this fall Houston, TX, will host. I attended my first NOAH conference last fall in Cleveland, OH, where I toured two impressive examples of robust arts in health programs.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092761/hwqerskvm3adjvwhpstc.jpg"><figcaption>A captive audience enjoying a musical performance from the Gifts of Art program at Michigan Medicine in the late ‘80s.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Cleveland Clinic boasts more than 81,000 caregivers worldwide in 23 hospitals and 276 outpatient facilities, with around 14 million patient visits per year. Cleveland Clinic Arts &amp; Medicine was created for the purpose of integrating the visual arts, music, performing arts and research to promote healing and to enhance the experience of patients, families, visitors and caregivers. Cleveland Clinic’s contemporary art collection creates a museum-like environment, which viewers can interact with through their custom art and architecture app, AR+, that allows exploration of their flagship locations.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092762/fu9j5rhsiu1sxlc79ty3.jpg"><figcaption>Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin, 2014, fiberglass-reinforced plastic and urethane paint. Gift of Robert M. Kaye; © Yayoi Kusama; Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York / Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo and Singapore / Victoria Miro, London / YAYOI KUSAMA Inc. On display in Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;“The artwork at Cleveland Clinic humanizes spaces that can feel unfamiliar or overwhelming,” says Ellen Rudolph, Senior Director &amp; Curator for the Cleveland Clinic Art Collection. Rudolph continues, “Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin,&nbsp;for example,&nbsp;has become iconic within the collection. Located in the Miller Family Pavilion entrance, it is a welcoming beacon when you enter the hospital and the sculpture also serves as an important wayfinding tool and meetup spot.”I was moved by the poignant large-scale mural in MetroHealth’s Glick Center in Cleveland, OH. Linda Jackson, Director of the Center for Arts in Health at MetroHealth provided more insight, “Embrace is about empathy, support, hope and lifting each other up, physically and emotionally. It is about encouragement and getting through whatever life brings us, together. There is a sense of tenderness and patience in the faces of these figures, as they are in motion, adjusting to one another and moving as one. The warm and cool color combinations within the bodies emphasize the emotion but also allow room for the figures to become whomever the viewers see them to be. It invites the viewer to relate to what they might be experiencing and reflect on our collective humanity, on healing, and what brings us together.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092762/bzmizgftcxazvvfi6ino.jpg"><figcaption>The University of Chicago Medicine’s permanent art collection in the Center for Care and Discovery includes work from well-known Chicago artists including Michiko Itatani and this piece, Untitled, from her Cosmic Theater series.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The MetroHealth System’s Center for Arts in Health integrates the visual, performing and therapeutic arts in its hospitals, clinics, schools and neighborhoods for the benefit of patients, families, caregivers and the greater community. Uniquely embedded within MetroHealth’s Institute for H.O.P.E.™ ensures the arts play a valuable role in addressing the social determinants of health. Innovative programming and partnerships with artists, arts organizations, academic institutions and community-based organizations are strategically aligned and employed within their walls and in the community.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092763/hxacbsgazdcijyvdxchr.jpg"><figcaption>Snow City Arts music workshops focus on the gratifying experience of creating music, regardless of skill or exposure level. Photo by Jaclyn Silverman.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Chicago’s Snow City Arts is an arts in health organization that brings art education and programming to children and youth in local hospitals including Rush University Children’s Hospital, Ann &amp; Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Children’s Hospital University of Illinois, and Cook County Health. To enhance their arts and education offerings Snow City Arts has a long history of partnerships with cultural organizations including the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Columbia College Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago, the Old Town School of Folk Music, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and more. Their team empowers and encourages children and young adults through programming in visual arts, media arts, music, creative writing, theatre, and dance.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092764/ipxwdfgu3h0cex8yrole.jpg"><figcaption>University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra with Nicholas Bromilow, the Drs. Spindler &amp; Juran Music Director, May 2024. Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The University of Chicago Medicine’s (UCM) Healing Arts Program was developed as an extension of UCM’s commitment to excellence in patient care, research and education, and offers artistic and aesthetic opportunities for its patients, guests, and UCM staff. The program’s mission is to enrich lives, assist and support the healing process, and reduce the stress and anxiety associated with healthcare environments. Healing Arts coordinator, Monica Hork explains, “The ability to comfort, console and sustain is one of the most enduring qualities of the arts. They can give voice to our deepest fears, our feelings of loss, and our hopes for the future.”Enhancing the environment of care through art is also an important consideration for medical staff. The topic of burnout has become more widely acknowledged over the years, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. Chronic stress, PTSD, and high levels of emotional exhaustion or depersonalization contribute to burnout - these stressors are also an occupational hazard that many healthcare workers struggle with. Art interventions benefit patients and guests, but they also benefit the tens of thousands of caregivers working within the facility. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092765/ngvtysqnpyucvfyzzoeo.jpg"><figcaption>Saraswathi Ranganathan performing Indian veena instrumental music in the University of Chicago Medicine’s Sky Lobby.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Hospitals can be hard places to be. When you or a loved one needs care and the future is unknown, feelings of isolation, helplessness and uncertainty can quickly become overwhelming. Our sense of identity can fade when the ground feels unsteady. In challenging moments like these when we feel weak or lost, there’s something transcendent about experiencing music or art. The arts can mitigate stress, provide levity, build resilience, and remind us of our humanity. Much like public art which can be impactful after just a fleeting moment when we pass by a beautiful mural or eye-catching installation, experiencing art in the environment of care has the same meaningful potential to shift our focus, lift our mood, and linger in our minds long after the encounter.#&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092766/uljivx4dvqkjz2kjqmyd.jpg"><figcaption>Jaume Plensa, Cleveland Soul, 2007, steel and stone. © Jaume Plensa; Courtesy of Jaume Plensa and Galerie Lelong &amp; Co. Photo by Thom Sivo. On display in Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

The Healing Power of Art: Art’s Impact on Healthcare

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092759/jgpjvy9blxlixd2h6fuj.jpg"><figcaption>Photo courtesy of Jonathan Worcester</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By BIANCA BOVA&nbsp;In 2008, the artists Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam acquired the Waupaca County Poor Farm in the rural environs of Little Wolf, Wisconsin. In addition to their respective practices as artists and careers as educators, the couple was, by then, well known for their long tenure as the proprietors of The Suburban, the storied backyard gallery space in Oak Park, Illinois (which later followed them to its current location in Milwaukee, Wisconsin). The Poor Farm was to become, Killam said at the time, The Suburban’s “rural cousin.”&nbsp;The Waupaca County Poor Farm was established in 1876. Its poor house, which still stands on the property, once housed Wisconsinites who, considered public charges unable to support themselves, were sent there and provided barebones room and board in exchange for their labor on the land. It operated as such in tandem with the larger American Outdoor Relief system–prevalent throughout the Midwest at the time–and shuttered when the system was discontinued with the advent of the Social Security system in the late 1930s.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/q69pplh2ldeaoljkaivt.jpg"><figcaption>Poor Farm Artist Residents. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Worcester</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Once they came into ownership of the 2.7 acre compound, Grabner and Killam set about making the necessary renovations, which included the removal of decades worth of junk from the building (ten dumpsters worth, to be exact), the addition of a new roof, and an overhaul of its heating and plumbing systems. While conditions may still seem austere by comparison to some other artist residency centers, those who stay have access to a kitchen, a bathroom, a space to sleep in the 2,500 square foot dormitory, and, of course, to workspaces. If they stay inside, they may at any time find themselves in the company of the colonies of chimney swifts and brown nose bats that the building by circumstance serves to shelter. Those so inclined are welcome to camp outside on the grounds, if preferred. This primitivity offers fidelity to the history of the property, which remains intact to the point of still housing a jail cell in the building’s fieldstone basement, and whose back acreage is still graced by a cemetery alongside the cornfields.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092760/lz8oj8zjjian4fbic6pi.jpg"><figcaption>Exterior view of the Poor Farm with a resident tent out front. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Worcester</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The Poor Farm as an art space has always been billed as an experiment, and it remains true to form as such without ever having sacrificed a sense of overarching structure. Exhibitions are mounted on its ground floor, as well as in the small upper story bedrooms. Since its inaugural exhibition in 2009, the space has played host to shows honoring art historian, poet, and artist Moira Roth; an iteration of Keil Borrman’s Bunker/Repository comprised of an installation designed to hold preserved foods made in collaboration with farmers in Wisconsin and New York State, as well as a seed library, and facilities for fermentation; a historical survey of Gretchen Bender’s video works, including the re-staging of the video performance Total Recall, which later traveled to The Kitchen, New York; and Model Home, an exhibition paying homage to Michael Lesy’s sinister 1973 volume Wisconsin Death Trip, among many others.&nbsp;While the artists whose works have been included in the last 15 years of exhibitions are far too numerous to name in their entirety, notable among them are: Nelly Agassi, Gregg Bordowitz, Assaf Evron, Francisco Goya, Sky Hopinka, Dorothea Lange, Louise Lawler,&nbsp; Miller + Shellabarger, the Denmark-based multi-dependent exhibition phenomenon Piscine, Cauleen Smith, Faith Ringgold, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung. &nbsp;&nbsp;<blockquote>“The Poor Farm attends to the idea and truth of art even more than my combined energies as a studio artist, professor, critic, and curator.”– Poor Farm Co-Founder, Michelle Grabner</blockquote>&nbsp;A commitment to openness of form has allowed for a wide range of more amorphous projects to gain a foothold at the Poor Farm as well. It serves, for one, as the home of the David Graeber Institute, an organization devoted to the recognition of the American anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber’s (remembered as one of the leading figures of Occupy Wall Street movement) research and scholarship on debt and the wealth gap. The Institute is comprised of a space that is dedicated to the discussion of inequities, social welfare, and the history of the Poor Farm/Poor House system in North America.The Open Fund, a Milwaukee-based utility conceived of to support ephemeral art-makers and social platforms founded in 2016 is another close collaborator of the Poor Farm. The Open Fund Artist Project Grant supports visual artist initiatives that are experimental, collaborative, and public oriented in a manner unique to individualized communities as well as the culture at large. Intended as an experiment in durational cultural investment, it foregrounds the importance of place and alternative economic exchanges. Funds awarded to recent grantees yielded the presentation of creative and experimental work via film screenings, exhibition series, pop-up presentations, zines and media, educational models, and civic sites in addition to other inventive models of artistic engagements. In 2024 with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Re-granting Program as well as the Ruth Foundation for the Arts the Open Fund was able to award grants for visual arts projects at both the $5,000 and the $10,000 level, for a total potential of $120,000 in funds distributed.&nbsp;Through the first decade of the Poor Farm, Summer School, a project led by Minneapolis-based artist and educator Aaron Van Dyke was also on site. Gathering artists and engaging in dialogues around art making, teaching, and learning, Summer School aimed to be “an antidote to the shortcomings of formal education, stressing openness, experimental forms of education, and educational and artistic agency,” according to its founder. Over the course of its tenure, faculty and students from University of Wisconsin, Madison; Minneapolis College of Art and Design; the School of the Art Institute Chicago; University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Northwestern College, Minnesota; Columbia College, Chicago; and St. Cloud State University, Minnesota all participated.&nbsp;Since 2018, the Poor Farm has been committed to hosting a long-term research residency known as Living Within the Play. Directed by Mark Jeffrey and Kelly Kaczynski of Chicago, the initiative explores, per its directors, “the contingent nature of hosting and gathering, the fleeting and the reverberating, particular to the moment of temporary, intentional assembly.” In addition to the various lengths of group and independent residencies the project hosts at the Poor Farm, an annual summer sister-residency is now on offer in the Umbrian hill town of Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy, where Grabner and Killam maintain another property.&nbsp;Closer to home, mainstay Wisconsin artist, dealer, and curator John Riepienhoff’s Beer Endowment series, now well-known for apportioning the profits of beer sales to help support artist-run organizations, inaugurated their partnership with Milwaukee’s Company Brewing with the production of Poor Farm Pils. It remains the oldest and best selling beer in the series.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092761/utkhbiho7m2qncppnkv5.jpg"><figcaption>2019-2020 installation view from Sky Hopinka and Living Within the Play</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;In addition to the residencies, exhibitions, and programming taking place throughout the year, the Poor Farm operates its own publishing imprint, known as Poor Farm Press. The Press has produced exhibition catalogs including Tracking the Thrill: Gretchen Bender; Sky Hopinka; and All Over the Map, the lattermost a catalog documenting a festschrift exhibition celebrating the work and professional achievements of the art historian Moira Roth. Additional publications of note include MOTHERNISM, a work of literary nonfiction by Lise Haller Baggesen examining the intersection of feminism, science fiction, and disco, co-published with Green Lantern Press, and ON PTG, a volume published in conjunction with the College Art Associations annual conference, with papers by Rebecca Morris, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Sabina Ott, Peter Halley, Thomas Lawson and others. Poor Farm Press has also produced two attendant publications, Can I Come Over to Your House?, a sprawling 1,200 page review of the first ten years of exhibitions and programming at The Suburban, produced in collaboration with designer and artist Jason Pickleman, and Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Original Jokes about The Suburban and the Poor Farm by Artists Who Have Exhibited There, produced in conjunction with a project at Yale School of Art. Forthcoming from the press is Wisconsin, What a Joke: The Indignity of the Cheesehead State, an artist publication that examines Wisconsin as a traditionally progressive pioneer turned riotous partisan fighting ground. Believing in the power and inherent truth of the joke, the publication is a collection of insights, critiques, and observations on the State’s troubling identity.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092762/xqzgbrrlq6cdaxn3d0ti.jpg"><figcaption>Poor Farm Artist Residents.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;It is perhaps the complete lack of delimitation on the space’s use by its stewards, and their laissez-faire approach to its day-to-day goings on that sets the space apart the most dramatically from its peers. &nbsp;“The Poor Farm attends to the idea and truth of art even more than my combined energies as a studio artist, professor, critic, and curator,” notes Grabner.&nbsp;Those visiting in 2024 will be treated to a two-person exhibition of new works by Katharina Grosse and Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, as well as continuing iterations of Living Within the Play. While the works on view are reason enough to make the roughly three hour drive from Chicago, and the proliferation of tangential projects make for a compelling backdrop to any visit, the property itself remains a worthwhile destination in and of itself. By maintaining an uncompromising commitment to foregrounding the history of the site by way of leaving all that can safely be left in its original condition where it lays at the Poor Farm, Grabner and Killam pay deep respect to a dark remnant of our country’s history that in less earnest or sincere hands might have been at best forgotten, and at worst intentionally eradicated in the name of moving on.&nbsp;In Grabner’s words, “Today the Poor Farm is a perpetual site of humility, wild imaginings, and the perennial unmaking of the instrumentalizing values that underpin many aspects of contemporary transactional culture. Today’s Poor Farm is intentionally the unsettled ‘other’ that lives in opposition to the out-come driven moral values that produced the Poor Farm System.”If there is a unifying facet to all that its proprietors have done across the many and varied projects they have touched throughout their shared and respective decades-long careers, it is perhaps this: with an unflinching gaze, they have looked upon our collective Midwestern past for all its hideousness and all its heart, and met it with unwavering commitment to acting as a resource for those who continue to be drawn to excavate meaning from it. Nowhere, perhaps, can this be felt more keenly than on a warm summer’s night, camped out on the grounds of the Poor Farm, beneath the dark and star-filled sky in Waupaca County.<a href="http://poorfarmexperiment.org">poorfarmexperiment.org</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092763/xn1kkni116jc8pvpoj5k.jpg"><figcaption>Photo courtesy of Jonathan Worcester</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

The Poor Farm: Creative Experimentation Mines History In Rural Wisconsin

<html><head></head><body>By GINNY VAN ALYEAI’ve been giving myself a bit of a history lesson–something I tend to do when I’m on deadline and have time-sensitive things to do. At press time Chicago is preparing, or bracing, to be on the world stage when the city once again welcomes the Democratic National Convention (this is the 26th political convention held here–the first was in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was nominated). Tens of thousands of people will come to the city, while the world watches. History will be made, but many ask, will it be 1968 again?&nbsp;I was not around yet in that pivotal year in our country’s history, but I have started to consider that so much of what we recognize as the significant foundation of Chicago’s art scene today came about in the ensuing 56 years. The sparks of AfriCOBRA came to life in 1968. The Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 1967, mounted a 1969 exhibition, featuring the work of an ever-growing group of artists labeled the Imagists, “Don Baum Says ‘Chicago Needs Famous Artists’”. Hairy Who artists Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson had their first solo shows in 1970 at Phyllis Kind Gallery. Roger Brown followed in 1971. Other groups of artists founded the ARC Gallery in 1973, and Chicago Artists Coalition in 1974. In 1978 the main branch of the Chicago Public Library became the Chicago Cultural Center. That same year the city passed the Percent-for-Art-Ordinance, which stipulated that a portion of construction and renovation costs for municipal buildings and public spaces be allocated towards original art. It’s why Chicago has such a remarkable public art collection today–just one reason we’re a popular city for hosting conventions of all types. Art Expo debuted in 1980 and reinvented the way people encounter, consume and sell contemporary art, and throughout the rest of the ‘80s the city’s gallery scene took off, and held on. In 2024 it’s already been two decades since the opening of Millennium Park, a monument to the power of public art and one of the country’s top ten tourist destinations. Soon, the Obama Center designed by architect David Adjaye will open next year. So no matter who is watching Chicago, we know it’s change and creativity that keeps our city moving forward, true to its hardworking roots.&nbsp;This is CGN’s 42nd fall magazine. It’s filled with highlights from an arts calendar bursting with exhibitions and events, from downtown to downstate as well as into Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana. Chicago may lie at the center of many things, sometimes more conspicuously than others–politics, Lollapalooza, NASCAR–but in the spirit of a changeable year it’s worth studying what has come before, all that we have done already, and what will come next. Even if we don’t know what to expect from anything else.&nbsp;Keep an eye out for CGN's fall issue, covering September-December and out later this month in time for the new fall art season. Our cover interview is with artist Caroline Kent. We also include interviews with collector Michelle Edwards, young artist Georgie Miller, dealer Tom McCormick, dealer Carl Hammer, a profile of Wisconsin's Poor Farm, Mark Ballogg at Alma Art and Interiors, the state of art in healthcare, fall calendars, new galleries, and much more!&nbsp;&nbsp;If you'd like to subscribe <a href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com">click here.</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1731092758/b96kxgc2fncukt7tiqzm.jpg"><figcaption>Fall cover featuring Caroline Kent</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Fall 2024 Publisher's Letter

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419401/w6puqqipds09cvyepknr.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEALast week Jessica Cochran and Angie Lennard hosted a lively launch for their new print/publishing venture, called Process/Process&nbsp;The launch party took place in West Town at 1821 W Hubbard, where Process/Process will operate, with many area collectors, dealers, curators and artists in attendance. Five new print collaborations were also on display. As Cochran shared with CGN, "We are going to be working with artists to make and sell limited edition prints, and our inaugural portfolio (half of which just debuted) features Michelle Grabner, Candida Alvarez, Kay Rosen, Alberto Aguilar, and many others." She cited Chicago's Anchor Graphics as a model for what Process/Process hopes to do.&nbsp;Process/Process invites artists to make new artworks that adapt the material, aesthetic, and critical possibilities of printmaking. By moving the ideas and processes that drive an artist's practice into the realm of the printed edition, Process/Process enables artists to develop exploratory new works. All projects are close collaborations between the artist, Angee Lennard, printer, and Cochran, partner.Upon producing and publishing new editions with artists, Process/Process places them into private and public collections.&nbsp;View the full portfolio <a href="https://process-process.com">online</a>. Works are also available for sale on their <a href="https://process-process.com">website</a>, and viewings can be arranged by appointment. Process/Process also offers boutique contract printing and art advisory services.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419402/daxyueq5cghte76fzttf.jpg"><figcaption>Candida Alvarez, Adjust your eyes, 2024, Lower right, Screenprint with debasement on Arches 88, 12 x 14" (paper), 4 7/8 x 6 7/8" (image)&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419403/dy8drwjafkqfmuf5eaur.jpg"><figcaption>Alex Bradley Cohen, Place #1, 2024, Etching, 11 ⅞ x 15 ¾ (paper), 8 ⅜ x 12 inches (image). Edition of 20 plus 2 AP. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419404/ui1pdjn7tjsw8ccjp69g.jpg"><figcaption>Kay Rosen, Parts of Speech, 2024</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419405/cgpyjmt8dht9cyosohfz.jpg"><figcaption>A work by Michelle Grabner</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Process/Process: A New Print/Publishing Venture with an Eye on the Future

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419395/qdoy2rglttzuxrsocsxf.jpg"><figcaption>Moises Salazar Tlatenchi – "'In Your Light' highlights how nature is a safe space for LGBTOIA + members. As many queer people may feel unsafe or anxious in public city spaces, nature and green spaces will always be a haven for the LGBTQIA+ community."</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAWhen my children were very young we spent many hours at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. It was a wonderful destination for busy little people where we could engage their senses and put them in touch with nature in the middle of the city. A favorite spot in the museum was always the Butterfly Haven, where my daughter could stand still and just wait for a butterfly to land on her for a few moments.&nbsp;During a walk around Lincoln Park one morning last week I came across the Flight of Butterflies exhibition on the grounds near the Museum. On view through fall 2025 the exhibition stars nearly 2 dozen works around the museum and the surrounding park plus another 10 or so placed downtown. These works, like the natural creatures that inspired them, will not stay put for long. Soon they will migrate around the city. &nbsp;A map on the museum's website shows where each work will end up so you can <a href="https://naturemuseum.org/exhibits/flight-of-butterflies">follow their journey</a>.&nbsp;This city-wide exhibit merges nature, art, and storytelling as a call to action for wildlife conservation. Local artists adorn butterfly sculptures with original designs, expressing their unique connections to nature.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419396/ewp2gkxx9aroayg4cbcp.jpg"><figcaption>Leonard Surajaya – "This sculpture is adorned with the eyes of my family and friends in both Indonesia and Chicago. Connecting communities in mv hometown and mv new found home, I set forth a vision of diversity and pride in belonging to our home on earth."</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The list of artists who have collaborated on this exhibition, creating uniquely beautiful creatures that stay put for more than a moment, features many familiar Chicago names, from Candace Hunter, to Leonard Surajaya, Rubén Aguirre, Yvette Mayorga and CGN's spring 2024 cover artist Salvador Andrade Arévalo, as well as many others.&nbsp;The Nature Museum supports global conservation of tropical butterfly habitats through partnerships with butterfly farms through the <a href="https://naturemuseum.org/exhibits/judy-istock-butterfly-haven">Judy Istock Butterfly Haven</a>. The museum says that this project amplifies their institutional mission to create positive connections between people and nature, and illuminates their vital conservation stories, and Flight of Butterflies brings the delight of art and nature to the public.&nbsp;April 2024 – September 2025Through July 2024: On Nature Museum Grounds + Michigan Avenue<a href="https://naturemuseum.org/exhibits/flight-of-butterflies">Details</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419397/jsvebf3iwvellhiemskb.jpg"><figcaption>Ariée Carter – "My nature is wonderful. lt's comfortable like my dresses. I created Junona. She is inspired by Christian Dior. She is friendly, courageous, kind, and gentle. When people see her, I want them to think about flowers and the sparkles in the water."&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419398/tmfmoigdy0khvly8ltgo.jpg"><figcaption>Melanie Vazquez – "This sculpture pays tribute to Mexican culture and honors my roots through nature's interconnectedness.Inspired by papel picado, each delicate cut-out symbolizes nature's essence, evoking growth, vitality, and spiritual harmony. Through this piece, I celebrate life's beauty, reflecting on nature's enduring spirit in my origins and heritage."</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419398/sbjlyi77bn3y3vrfikrc.jpg"><figcaption>Liz Flores – "My butterfly is an exploration of home and bow we all search for a place to exist. Each part of the butterfly wing contains a figurative element, bridging nature and people. It celebrates the act of migration. the search for something better, and nature's quest to not only survive but thrive."</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Among the Butterflies in the City 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419391/syjg7s8qhlkvuxzoawvy.jpg"><figcaption>Terry Evans, 2004 Opening of Millennium Park</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;This summer Millennium Park celebrates its 20th anniversary. In honor of this milestone, CGN is strolling the paths of well-known and hidden treasures to reexamine a park that is much more than what it seems.&nbsp;By MARY DE YOEIf you moved to Chicago in the last 15-20 years, it is likely unfathomable to imagine a time when downtown directions were not centered around relation to “The Bean.” The 33-foot tall, 66-foot long stainless steel Cloud Gate by British artist Anish Kapoor became an instant touchstone and meet-up spot. Equally difficult to imagine is a downtown summer day without children splashing through Crown Fountain. These works, along with the curling steel of Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion are the gravitational pull of Millennium Park, which in addition to these monumental pieces also boasts one of the city’s best galleries.Millennium Park is the product of a partnership between the City of Chicago and the Millennium Park Foundation, which was established in 1998 to support the vision, design, and construction of the park. The idea was to create a “world class arts and culture space.” Many artists, designers, and architects were involved in the plans for the park. As a result the park, which houses permanent and temporary installations, is an aggregate of styles and voices.One of the most prominent voices is Spanish artist Jaume Plensa who designed Crown Fountain, which sits at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street. Two enormous towers bookend a wide shallow reflecting pond. At all times of the year, the facades are illuminated with video of the faces of Chicagoans. For the project, the artist photographed 1,000 Chicagoans representing Chicago’s vast demographics in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. During the summer months, water falls from the tops of the towers into the pond and flows from the open mouths of the faces on the screen.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419392/evhjd8f2hewyqrhmbu0n.jpg"><figcaption>Anish Kapoor, Cloud Gate. Photo Patrick L.Pyszka, City of Chicago. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419392/ks2dviu1vgjtj1ysb1ba.jpg"><figcaption>Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate under construction. Cloud Gate was created by using computer technology to cut 168 massive stainless-steel plates into precise shapes which were then pieced together like a puzzle and welded shut. Once fully assembled, the 12-foot-high central arch provided a “gate” to the concave chamber on the underside of the sculpture prompting Kapoor to formally name the piece Cloud Gate. A network of two large internal rings connects a truss that allowed the sculpture to be assembled and direct the weight to two points at the base. The stainless-steel skin was attached to the internal structure with flexible connectors that allow it to expand and contract in response to the extreme weather conditions in Chicago. Cloud Gate measures 33 feet high, 42 feet wide, 66 feet long and weighing 110 tons. Photo info courtesy Millennium Park Foundation.&nbsp; &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Considering the piece on the upcoming anniversary, Plensa said, “Obviously, I am thrilled by the way that the city has embraced the Crown Fountain [...] How beautiful it is to see the piece changing throughout the seasons. Every time I visit Chicago, I can see how much my original idea to create a gathering place, continues its purpose to bring people in to share the dreams of a community.”Paul Gray, Principal at Gray, which represents Plensa shared this about the origins of the fountain: “Crown Fountain was born as a patron’s challenge and an artist dreaming “what could a fountain be?” In his first days considering this question, Jaume Plensa focused on water[...] After also considering what artists who came before him had done across time, he settled on a few principles; his fountain should allow us to realize the widely shared dream of walking on water, his fountain should allow water to do as it does in nature - fall, his fountain should invite people into its beating heart, his fountain should depict not gargoyles or idealistic maidens, but real people, and his fountain should use media of our time.”&nbsp;<blockquote>Every time I visit Chicago, I can see how much my original idea to create a gathering place, continues its purpose to bring people in to share the dreams of a community.”Jaume Plensa</blockquote>&nbsp;Some temporary exhibitions in the park have followed a similar approach to media. For instance in 2012 the artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero of Luftwerk created Luminous Field in the ATT Plaza (also known as, “where The Bean is”). Accompanied by music composed by Owen Clayton Condon, for 10 days the project illuminated the ground beneath the sculpture with projections that video-mapped the tiles of the plaza creating a grid-like pattern of shapes and colors, which were reflected - quite stunningly - on the bean’s surface.At the north and south ends of the park the Boeing Galleries present rotating exhibitions. Tucked deeper into the park, away from the high-activity zones, these spaces offer surprising and unexpected encounters. Most recently, the galleries featured the work of two Chicago-based artists, Edra Soto and Christine Tarkowski.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419393/ltt97quf2xfyhizninvy.jpg"><figcaption>Edra Soto, Screenhouse. Photo by Georgia Hampton &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Soto’s elegant Screenhouse–a 10-foot structure of concrete blocks, which closely resembled what its title suggests–examined the decorative screens, known as “rejas” and “quiebrasoles,” which are ubiquitous in Soto’s birthplace in Puerto Rico. Tarkowski’s work, titled When we call the Earth by way of distinction a planet and the Moon a satellite, we should consider whether we do not, in a certain sense, mistake the matter. Perhaps - and not unlikely - the Moon is the planet and the Earth the satellite! Are we not a larger moon to the Moon, than she is to us? asked viewers to traverse heavy boulders beneath dozens of hanging objects made of colorful hand blown glass.When We Call...., shared Tarkowski, [is] a physically processional experience for the viewer, where one travels within the work, sandwiched between the earth and the sky, the concrete monoliths and the ethereal glass objects. The concrete sculptures may seem old and stony, are obviously man-made as re-creations or possibly a dislocated hunk from a larger whole originating elsewhere…. And the glass shapes miraculously floating overhead in their intentionally unnatural color palette. Their shapes are ambiguous but suggestive of a plastic bag caught in the trees, or perhaps rocks used in ornamental landscaping.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419394/iuycztjl6t65nj7hlgjd.jpg"><figcaption>Christine Tarkowski, When we call the Earth by way of distinction a planet and the Moon a satellite, we should consider whether we do not, in a certain sense, mistake the matter. Perhaps - and not unlikely - the Moon is the planet and the Earth the satellite! Are we not a larger moon to the Moon, than she is to us?&nbsp; &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Since opening, the Boeing Galleries, which rotate approximately every 18-24 months have exhibited work by more than 10 contemporary artists from Chicago and around the globe including Jean-Luc Mylayne, Chakaia Booker, Jun Kaneko, Yvonne Domenge and a special 10th anniversary exhibition of four sculptures by Jaume Plensa. Plensa’s 1004 Portraits, comprised of four cast iron and resin sculptures of young girls, “continues the story of the original 1,000 portraits of Chicago residents that illuminate the Crown Fountain every day.”&nbsp;“As part of Millennium Park’s [...] 20th anniversary and in partnership with the Millennium Park Foundation,” said James Castillo, Director of Public Art at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, “we look forward to seeing new public art installed in the Boeing Galleries, including an augmented reality exhibition featuring talented Chicago artists,[...]. Millennium Park has become synonymous with world-renowned public art, and we are delighted to see new artists sharing their work with the public.”#&nbsp;To read more about Millennium Park's 20th Anniversary celebrations and events <a href="https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/millennium_park.html">click here</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

20 Years of Drawing the World to Chicago Millennium Park

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419385/iwrcaw2spo8cswvtvaom.jpg"><figcaption>The main entrance to the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art features a work by Jaume Plensa (Spanish, b. 1955), Endless, 2023, Stainless Steel, 432 inches, Gift of Charles S. Hayes ND’65</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Located at the University of Notre Dame, and featuring a tower of stainless steel by Jaume Plensa, the Raclin Murphy is part of a growing arts center in Indiana.The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art opened in late 2023 at the University of Notre Dame and is part of a new arts district on the south end of campus adjoning the greater community. Newly built, but in a classical tradition, the museum offers 23 themed galleries and a collection of more than 30,000 works of art, one of the oldest and largest academic troves in the country. The Raclin Murphy will also host rotating exhibitions. At 70,000 square feet, the $66 million museum is the first phase of what is ultimately to become a 132,000-square-foot museum complex. &nbsp;Nearby is the nine-acre Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park, which celebrates the natural environment of the region with an array of native plantings and grasses. An outdoor extension of the Museum that is open year-round, the park contains major works by Deborah Butterfield, Anthony Caro, Beverly Pepper, and George Rickey, among others.&nbsp;A 36-foot commissioned sculpture by Jaume Plensa, titled Endless, welcomes visitors to Raclin Murphy, a soaring signal of this new institution’s commitment to contemporary art and all that it can do to foster creativity and culture at Notre Dame and well beyond.&nbsp;100 St. André Way, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556<a href="https://raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu">raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

Raclin Murphy Museum of Art and Jaume Plensa Work Are Part of New Arts District in Indiana

<html><head></head><body>Here is a glimpse at what’s new and notable in a few area spaces, from River North to the Chicago suburbs, this year. –CGN&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419385/la5eaubwphlhuuqbijvt.jpg"><figcaption>Dugald MacInnes, Detachment, 2026, Scottish slate, 16 x 16”</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The Gallery of Contemporary Mosaics (GoCM) exhibits internationally renowned masters, emerging and established contemporary mosaic artists. Affiliated with The Chicago Mosaic School, GoCM provides a space for artists to exhibit as well as create in a state of the art facility. In addition to a storefront gallery, you’ll find a shop onsite with small works of mosaic art as well as mosaic-making kits and supplies for artists of every level.&nbsp;1127 W. Granville (Edgewater)<a href="https://www.gallerygocm.com">gallerygocm.com</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419387/sqnbn9chnb4bojlpa8z3.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;SoNa Chicago opened in May 2023 just “South of North Avenue” (SoNa) on Ashland Avenue. The gallery features a wide variety of art – paintings, prints, sculpture, photography, collages, ceramics, jewelry and textiles– and has a programmatic focus on Chicago artists. SoNa frequently hosts gallery talks and weekend receptions.1527 N. Ashland (Wicker Park/Bucktown)<a href="https://sonachicagoart.com">sonachicagoart.com</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419388/nefbuuhxehhmvp7rztno.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;Gallery Victor, founded by Victor Armendariz, opened in 2017 after Armendariz had been a director at Ann Nathan Gallery for many years. Today the gallery is a River North anchor, having recently expanded into the corner space at 300 W. Superior. The gallery offers work by established and emerging artists and focuses on figurative art, Realism and Studio Furniture. Prior to opening his eponymous gallery, Victor worked alongside Ann Nathan at her gallery down the street for many years. Nathan just passed away on May 5.&nbsp;300 W. Superior (River North)&nbsp;<a href="https://www.galleryvictor.com">galleryvictor.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Gallery Drive-Bys: Spring 2024

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419385/amo974hluj9b48g4afmh.jpg"><figcaption>An aerial view of Field Rotation, 1981, by Mary Miss (American, b. 1944), earth, wood, steel, water. Commissioned by the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park (NMSP), GSU Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Collection of the NMSP.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;One of the land artist’s monumental works is a short drive from Chicago at the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAThe artist Mary Miss is one of a group of artists who came of age during the late 1970s and built careers on the idea of incorporating or creating elements of landscape for their sculptural compositions. One of Miss’s earlier signature installations is located on the campus of Governor’s State University at the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park (theNate) in University Park, IL.The work, titled Field Rotation (1980-81), mines a broad spectrum of art historical references while being a wholly original creation. The work is so large it can be fully appreciated only by viewing from the air, though it is also an adventure to explore while climbing on its ladders or running through its carefully spaced posts. It’s a work that also changes with each interaction as well as the seasons.&nbsp;At its center, a mound has been constructed with a sunken gravel garden in which a three-tiered set of platforms preside over moats which fill temporarily with rainwater. Steel ladders on the north and south walls grant access. Associations with cliff dwelling Native American Indians’ pueblo architecture can be made. Two steel towers inside provide counterpoint to the primarily wooden structure. The perimeter outline of the retreat is based on 18th century military European fortification plans.Outside, 125 wooden poles – menhirs – radiate in eight lines, pinwheel fashion. The elevation of the tops of these poles is constant, highlighting and contrasting with the gentle slope of the Midwestern landscape. A steel tower asserts modernity.&nbsp;*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419386/uj5rcimur2zd85caylok.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;At the end of 2023 another significant work by Mary Miss, Greenwood Pond: Double Site, installed at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, made national headlines when it was revealed that the work had long been deteriorating and had reached such a state that it was estimated it would cost the Art Center $2 million to repair it. An <a href="https://desmoinesartcenter.org/news/open-letter-from-director-kelly-baum/">open letter</a> from DMAC Director Kelly Baum shared that despite fundraising campaigns over the years and studies commissioned to examine the stability and safety of the piece, the work has been battered by the environment. “Age and climate have finally won” Baum wrote, “Reasonable maintenance is no longer sufficient.” DMAC stated they will partner with the City of Des Moines to safely dismantle Greenwood Pond: Double Site, beginning with the most hazardous areas, and to restore the impacted section of Greenwood Park.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419387/ihsmncczdix2zcyux9qd.jpg"><figcaption>The artist Mary Miss</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;That works like those created and installed by Miss require significant maintenance and funds over the long term is not a surprise. The staff at theNate is paying very close attention to Field Rotation in order to responsibly preserve the work so that it is not ravaged by Midwestern winters. Jeff Stevenson of theNate shared that the sculpture park is about to embark on a campaign to raise $150,000 for the conservation costs that needs to be addressed, and fans of the installation are aiming to call attention to the urgency of protecting Field Rotation. Venture to see Field Rotation for yourself and spend some time considering its various vantage points as well as the characteristics of each corner and post. The quick escape from the city into a swirling field is a little bit of a shock to the system, but it’s a healing one that is guided by an artist’s hand. Nothing lasts forever, but important works of art and architecture that exist in our midst are worth appreciating and preserving for current as well as future generations.&nbsp;&nbsp;Updates:&nbsp;• In April 2024 <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/2024/04/04/greenwood-park-des-moines-artist-mary-miss-lawsuit-to-stop-demolition-dm-art-center/73207382007/">Mary Miss filed a lawsuit</a> to stop the dismantling of the work at the DMAC, claiming that the Greenwood Pond: Double Site's planned demolition violates the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 – an act that empowers artists to legally defend and protect their own "recognized stature" works art from destruction. Miss's suit also claims that DMAC violated its contract with her by failing to properly protect and preserve the work.• On May 3, 2024 it was <a href="https://www.artforum.com/news/federal-court-bars-des-moines-art-center-destroying-mary-miss-land-art-installation-553807/">announced</a> that in a response to the lawsuit federal court issued a preliminary injunction to stop the order to dismantle Greenwood Pond: Double Site at the Des Moines Art Center.• <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/arts/design/temporary-injunction-iowa-artwork.html">A Land Artist’s Work Evades Demolition</a> via NYT&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419388/ktbquwcgaegabcui1mrm.jpg"><figcaption>A view into the inner sanctum of Field Rotation. Photo by CGN.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419389/cuejsbwa2ejaqnfangi3.jpg"><figcaption>The CGN interns on a field trip a few years ago; Photo by CGN.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;theNate&nbsp;Governors State University&nbsp;1 University Parkway University Park, IL 60484<a href="https://www.govst.edu/sculpture/">www.govst.edu/sculpture</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Mary Miss @ theNate

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419377/l6keseaatlhm5qixocci.jpg"><figcaption>EXPO 2024</figcaption></figure>By BIANCA BOVAWhen the news broke last July that Frieze had acquired The Armory Show and Expo Chicago, speculation (as it tends to in the art world) ran rampant. How long had the deal been in the works? How much did the art behemoth pay for the Chicago fair? Would they rebrand it, change dates, clean house and build a new team? And the rhetorical (and perhaps most frequently asked) question: who would have guessed that Tony Karman could keep a secret?&nbsp;While the price tag or the mechanics of the deal may never be found out, last weekend the art world finally had a look at what the fair is developing into under its new ownership. The changes spanned nearly every aspect of the fair, though many admittedly may have been apparent only to those who have attended regularly over the preceding decade. The most striking difference was in Expo’s floorplan. In the prime real estate of the fair’s center core, where blue chip and mega galleries including David Zwirner, Gagosian, Hauser &amp; Wirth, and Matthew Marks (all notably absent from the exhibitor list this year) could once reliably be found, there is now Exposure, the fair’s dedicated section for galleries ten years or younger. While 2024 Exposure curator Rosario Güiraldes secured a robust exhibitor list that included stalwarts like 56 Henry, The Hole, and Marissa Newman Projects–galleries that undoubtedly benefited from no longer being relegated to the fair’s periphery–the overall effect of the section’s centralization was that of passing through the doors to Expo but somehow finding oneself at NADA instead. As Expo moves into a second decade, in some ways it also manages to feel more youthful.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419378/d8syyhvrzppxt3ifbp7v.jpg"><figcaption>Chance the Rapper was once again past of a /Dialogues program during Vernissage, with standing room only. Photo: CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;The makeup of the exhibitor list seemed to shift overall in 2024. It wasn’t just the mega galleries that stayed away this year, the number of Chicago galleries participating in the primary section of the fair seemed to dwindle as well. Especially notable was the absence of GRAY and of Kavi Gupta, both of whom had for years occupied significantly sized booths on the fair’s interior. While local dealers may have taken a step back, the fair continues to globalize its selection. This year’s Selection Committee (composed of John Corbett, Jim Dempsey, Leslie Hammons, Rhona Hoffman, Miles McEnery, Monique Meloche, and Nick Olney) welcomed galleries from the Canary Islands, Tel Aviv, Busan, Seoul, and Mahshahr, among other international locales.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419379/bi8wjhlwv8zoznact9a2.jpg"><figcaption>Voluspa Jarpa (b. 1977, Chile) Desclasificados (Declassified), 2016. Digital print on backlight film. This expansive installation by Voluspa Jarpa (NOME Gallery, Berlin, Booth #320) &nbsp;reflects more than two decades of research into declassified CIA documents that chronicle US interventions in Leftist regimes, primarily in Latin America. Part of In/SITU at EXPO Chicago 2024. Photo: CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Additional changes included the absence of longstanding beverage partner Ruinart, and their waistcoat-clad champagne servers, along with the cafes that once dotted the fair’s perimeter offering up made-to-order fare from Hannah’s Bretzel and Eataly. Sure, one could still find their way to the food counters at the show floor’s entrances, but that boxed lunch and drip coffee served from a samovar courtesy of Levy (Navy Pier’s in-house catering partner) personally didn't cure the fair fatigue the same way an overpriced prosciutto and asparagus sandwich and a complimentary cappuccino from the Nespresso bar in the VIP lounge used to.&nbsp;On the subject of lounges, the Anchor Lounge, a space dedicated each year to guests of Presenting Sponsor Northern Trust, was relocated for the first time to a vacant restaurant space on the pier just west of the fair’s West Entrance, while the sponsor’s exclusive programming space, the Exchange Stage, remained on the 300 level of the exhibition hall along with the VIP lounge. This–compounded by a notable reduction in wayfinding aids and general signage throughout the hall and along the exterior of the pier–created what felt like an odd circulation of heavy back-and-forth foot traffic at the fair’s west end that would periodically bottleneck the back aisle. Whether these changes, along with the relocation of the Exposure section, are deliberate recalibrations under Frieze, or are simply the side effects of the unfortunate absence of Expo’s long-time designer Jason Pickleman (who helped usher the fair into existence, after serving as the designer of its predecessor, Art Chicago), remains to be seen in future editions. Either way, the result was an atmosphere that felt discernibly less polished than in years past.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419380/ylovxxncteyauqya0h0s.jpg"><figcaption>Bert Green Fine Art was part of Editions and Books at EXPO. Photo: CGN.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;None of these transitional effects managed to diminish attendance. The fair reported a total of more than 35,000 visitors to its eleventh edition, comparable to previous editions. By Saturday the robust headcount was unmistakeable, and crossing from one side of the fair to the other was a considerable challenge, as more and more people rambled among the booths.&nbsp;Across the 170 exhibitors that participated, the trend of bringing large scale, two dimensional, primarily figurative works endured, as it seems to have since the online art sales boom of 2020. Whether this is related to the logistics of transporting and installing these works, their status as more imminently salable via PDF than their sculptural or installation-based counterparts, or simply the market forces at work today is difficult to discern. The Books &amp; Editions section of the fair was also more established within the fair, with several participating galleries very pleased with their booth traffic and sales of affordable works.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419381/rdwclemxp95hejdazopz.jpg"><figcaption>Artist Michael C. Thorpe had a solo exhibition at Anthony Gallery. Photo: CGN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Chatting with dealers in the fair’s final hours on Sunday (none of whom, unsurprisingly, wished to be identified on the record), the question of how the fair had gone was met, in most cases, with a shrug.&nbsp;“It was fine.” “I sold enough, but of course, I wish I’d sold more.” “I sold work to the same people I always sell to here.”&nbsp;Collectors, similarly, seemed satisfied, and many could be spied getting their artwork removal passes checked by security agents at the exits, cash-and-carry acquisitions tucked under their arms, or trollied alongside them. One such collector, Zach Smith, noted, “I picked up a small painting by Ellen Birkenblit from Corbett vs. Dempsey’s stellar booth. I have been following her career for years but was waiting for the right work for me. It has a mysterious noir vibe that appeals to me and of course Ellen’s formal painterly techniques are as good as it gets. The energy that Expo generates every year is so special for Chicago and this year was no different…same great people, galleries, and experiences as always from my perspective.”Another local collector, Chris Craft, excitedly shared on his way out on Sunday afternoon that he and his wife had just purchased four works by various artists at EXPO.So long as the collectors continued to find work worth acquiring, and the dealers sold enough to turn a profit on their booths, perhaps it's best to chalk up the 11th edition’s changes and challenges to having been a natural part of a growth year under new leadership. If there is any single certainty about Expo’s future under Frieze, it’s this: next year, all eyes will be back on the fair to see what its first full edition conceived post-acquisition will look like, and undoubtedly, next time around they will look with a less forgiving gaze.#The last day to view this year's fair online is April 19, 2024EXPO CHICAGO returns in 2025 later in the spring, from <a href="https://www.expochicago.com">April 24-27</a>.&nbsp;</body></html>

Frieze's 2024 EXPO CHICAGO Sees Challenges and Changes 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419368/wvcqninnyvc1km868cxu.jpg"><figcaption>Soccer Club, Prairie, and Osmos booths</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By BIANCA BOVAOperated by the Julius Caesar artist collective (presently comprised of artists Josh Dihle, Tony Lewis, Roland Miller, and Kate Sierzputowski) and hosted at Irving Park event venue Color Club, Barely Fair is a miniature art fair presenting works at 1:12 scale. Exhibitors are given 20 x 20 inch booths, organized in “aisles” along several tabletops, to mimic the floorplan of a standard art fair. Though diminutive in size, the fair, now in its fourth edition, is considerable in its scope; in 2024 it plays host to thirty-six galleries, project spaces, and curatorial projects, including spaces from New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo, Ireland, Toronto, Montréal, Buenos Aires, and Belgium, among others.&nbsp;When the fair first launched in 2019, it was clever in concept, sharp in execution, and read as a deliberate send-up of an art fair circuit that had, by then, ballooned to a reported<a href="https://magazine.artland.com/from-antiquity-to-modernity-how-art-fairs-became-a-cultural-mainstay/#:~:text=From%20Antiquity%20to%20Modernity%2C%20How%20Art%20Fairs%20Became%20A%20Cultural%20Mainstay&amp;text=With%20almost%20300%20occurrences%20around,considerable%20industry%20on%20its%20own."> three hundred fairs</a> a year globally. Five years and four editions later, Barely Fair comes across as something more precious; less tongue-in-cheek industry critique than self-serious fair attempting to imitate the manner of its life-size counterparts. While there have always been booths that indulge, experiment with, and skirt the prompt, the tactics now seem shopworn. One large painting that fills the entire volume of the booth–check. Scaled down 1:12 works that are simply miniaturized versions of the artists’ standard works–check. Inclusions of twee furniture and/or tiny gallery goers, egregiously elaborate installations that often spill over the open top of the booth, aggressively minimal booths the likes of which you would never see at a real commercial art fair–check, check, check. Perhaps the limits of the model have been reached, or perhaps inviting exhibitors of its concurrent full scale citymate EXPO to participate results in the small fair becoming an afterthought for some dealers.That said, much of the work on view in the fourth edition still delivers on its own merits. Patient Info’s decision to recreate the entirety of their gallery, replete with its iconic medical chaise and sink, has a great deal of charm, while Amanda Ross-Ho’s graphic t-shirt installation in ILY2 pokes gentle fun at her monumental garment installations inspired by Katherine Hamnett’s quintessential ‘80s slogan shirts. Nearby, in Chris Andrews’ booth Bea Fremderman’s nervous, Gober-ish fish tin (ham can?) installations toy with scale in a more subtle and passive manner.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419369/o72lbbwcmhhaybwzawdf.jpg"><figcaption>Mini gallery goers at OCHI &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;A few galleries took greater risks, yielding varying rewards. It’s difficult to see Soccer Club Club’s fish tank installation (replete with at least two rather lethargic fish, at the time of this report) as anything other than gimmicky, while Devening Projects’ fluorescent pattern-drenched booth playfully showcasing the sculptures of Alberte Tranberg and Christopher Michlig delivers on every level, satisfying the tenet of scaling the works appropriately while making no sacrifices in their value as objects.&nbsp;When galleries play it too straight, they tend to bypass the format’s potential altogether. Corbett vs. Dempsey’s booth of seven small paintings hung 2-3-2 in a single line across the booth’s walls feels disappointingly void of any real intentions; a stark contrast to their booth across town at EXPO, which was brimming with giddy energy in the form of small scale Ellen Berkenblit’s, glitter-drenched Gabrielle Garland’s, and a just plain strange Roger Brown bearing a shelf full of monstrously large taxidermy seagulls.&nbsp;By way of programming, Barely Fair will once again host Minor Matters, a “small symposium on the economies of scale.” While the symposium is scheduled for the afternoon of April 20th, a list of speakers and panel subjects was not yet available at the time of this report. If the format remains unchanged from the inaugural event in 2023, I encourage other institutions (small and large themselves) to sit up and take note of a lesson learned: thirty minutes is plenty for most any panel discussion.&nbsp;While it still makes for an entertaining stop on the ever-expanding itinerary of satellite events surrounding Expo, Barely Fair risks being reduced to a mere novelty if nothing changes in the years to come. Nevertheless, without fail it upholds what may be its greatest virtue: it's still an art fair you can see in one day.&nbsp;&nbsp;Barely Fair runs through April 21&nbsp;<a href="https://www.barelyfair.com">barelyfair.com</a>COLOR CLUB, 4146 N. ELSTON AVE., CHICAGO, ILADDITIONAL VISITING HOURS16 – 19 APR, 1 – 6 pm 20 – 21 APR, 11 – 6 pmBARELY FAIR is host to MINOR MATTERS, a small symposium on the economies of scale, on Saturday, 20 APR from 2-5PM. For more information on last year's symposium, visit the MINOR MATTERS page <a href="https://www.barelyfair.com/minormatters-1">here</a>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419370/x2hg4psek8hcqkb5gam0.jpg"><figcaption>Installation view of the fair&nbsp; &nbsp;</figcaption></figure></body></html>

A Visit to Barely Fair During Art Fair Weekend

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419368/ckvupfpikfudirbqyuwd.jpg"><figcaption>Pictured from left: a post by Manish Nai; right of the fireplace is a work by Michael Rakowitz. In the fireplace is a neon installation by Jason Pickleman. Painting above the fireplace by Hugh Kappel. Sculpture by Jeffrey Gibson. Table, Yves Klein.</figcaption></figure>CGN recently interviewed collectors Sundeep Mullangi and Trisssa Babrowski about their passion for art and for supporting local artists and art spaces. In addition to sharing the story of their own collection, they offered some advice to anyone interested in starting their own collection. &nbsp;To read the full interview <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2024/4/a-living-collection-sundeep-mullangi-and-trissa-babrowski-support-their-city-through-art">click here</a>.– GV&nbsp;&nbsp;By Bianca BovaCGN: What advice do you have for those who want to begin collecting?&nbsp;Sundeep Mullangi: Understand that if you’re interested in collecting art, no matter who you are, there is an entry point for you. There is no set pattern or formula because it is so personal to each individual.&nbsp; For us and many of our friends, art collecting is an integral part of our whole life. General curiosity is so important. If something catches your attention, follow it, regardless of if it’s something you can acquire. Go figure out what this individual artist is trying to do, and then see how they are doing it, and then understand how that fits in their practice. Once you do that, you’re going to be hooked, you’re always going to want to look at more, to learn more.&nbsp;Trissa Babrowski: Be fearless. Trust your instincts. There is no wrong way to approach collecting, there’s really no wrong answer. Artists and galleries, especially in Chicago, are very open to engaging with people at all levels of experience and understanding of art.&nbsp; I find people are very much interested in having conversations, developing connections and relationships, and helping you to expand your knowledge base. Just go in, be open to learning,&nbsp; and be open to talking to people. And always, always go with your gut – if you respond to a piece, if it feels right, then it probably is.#&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419369/bz21zbjqqw6opaneyipc.jpg"><figcaption>A painting by Judy Legerwood (left). A spill painting by Tony Tasset (right) &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419370/i8rxxpejfqhfey0hn0oe.jpg"><figcaption>This miniature duet by Lilliana Porter is mounted between two door frames. Trissa says every time she passes it she considers the figures having a conversation. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419370/ibfuutx2c12rkauksa0q.jpg"><figcaption>Works from Amanda Williams's Color(ed) Theory Series</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Collecting  Inspiration: How to Find What You Want to Live With

<html><head></head><body>Entering its eleventh year as a leading international art fair, EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art will host 170 leading international exhibitors for its 2024 edition in Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, presented alongside one of the highest quality platforms for global contemporary art and culture.&nbsp;The exposition draws upon the city’s rich history as a vibrant international cultural destination, while engaging the region’s contemporary art community and collector base. The 2024 edition of EXPO CHICAGO will present various programs and events throughout Chicago during EXPO ART WEEK (April 8–14, 2024).&nbsp;Following are some programming highlights to watch for both onsite and throughout the city this April.– GV&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419359/k5fayiguooqaigyo3o4f.jpg"><figcaption>Chance the Rapper. Photo: Courtesy of Keeley Parenteau.</figcaption></figure>Presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), /Dialogues brings together leading curators, artists, designers, and arts professionals for a series of panel discussions. A keynote discussion with Chance the Rapper, Asma Naeem Ph.D. (Baltimore Museum of Art) and Nate Freeman (Vanity Fair) on hip hop and its contributions to contemporary art takes place Thursday, April 11, 7-8pm.&nbsp;Throughout the run of the exposition, visitors attending /Dialogues programs and film screenings will be able to lounge within the Soho House Snug, a community area provided in collaboration with Soho House Chicago.View the full <a href="https://www.expochicago.com/programs/dialogues">/Dialogues lineup here.</a>&nbsp;*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419360/h5lccyps6zkixavm9yi0.jpg"></figure>New Monuments | Chicago by Brendan Fernandes is a public intervention at the General John Alexander Logan Monument in Grant Park and part of <a href="https://www.expochicago.com/programs/in-situ-outside">IN/SITU Outside</a>. Envisioned as the first in a series of interventions engaging monuments internationally, it features a sculptural installation composed of scaffolding surrounding the monument, marking the space as “in transition”; a durational performance on April 12 from 7:00–10:00pm; and public hours on April 10–13 from 11:00am–5:00pm, during which audiences are invited to respond to Fernandes’ prompt about their visions for new monuments. Responses will be displayed to illustrate this communal moment of self-expression, social engagement, and critical dialogue around the history and current state of monuments in Chicago, and beyond. &nbsp;Performance on April 12 from 7:00–10:00pmPublic hours on April 10–13 from 11:00am–5:00pmLogan Monument in Grant Park, S. Michigan Ave &amp; E. 9th St.&nbsp;*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419360/suo28knji8xtbs1ag1sf.jpg"><figcaption>Charles Arnoldi, Ellipse II, (2020), Edition of 30, Wood Block. Sheet Size: 129cm × 115cm. €3,750.00</figcaption></figure>Exhibiting as part of <a href="https://www.expochicago.com/exhibitors/expo-editions-books">EDITIONS + BOOKS</a> at EXPO this year, Stoney Road Press was established in Dublin in 2001 and is known for collaborating with Irish and International artists in the production of fine art prints, exhibiting them at international art fairs with the assistance of Culture Ireland.Editions + Books showcases a cross-section of established and emerging artists. From limited editions to publications, the exhibitors offer a diverse array of print media and object-based practices that span across photography, sculpture, and monographs, and other multiples.&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419361/h5tvjlxrne4uu4jlnkpd.jpg"><figcaption>OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project, 2024. Judy Ledgerwood, Jaywalking, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery.</figcaption></figure><a href="https://www.expochicago.com/programs/override">OVERRIDE</a> | A Billboard Project is a citywide collaborative public art initiative between EXPO CHICAGO and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE)&nbsp;in collaboration with the Chicago Digital Network&nbsp;to exhibit artwork on all CDN billboards and&nbsp;City Information Panels "CIPs" in the Central Business District from April 1—21, 2024. Participants included both emerging and established artists from Chicago and around the world. Placing artwork within this public context and the broader presentation of billboard advertising, OVERRIDE takes its name from industry terminology referring to the continuation of an outdoor advertising program beyond a contracted period. Fully integrated into the language of advertising and local familiar signage, each of the works included within the OVERRIDE program present the opportunity for local and international artists to intercept and push the boundaries of how visual culture is disseminated in our increasingly image-based environment.Building upon the City of Chicago and DCASE’s longstanding commitment to public art, OVERRIDE provides EXPO CHICAGO a key opportunity beyond Navy Pier&nbsp;to showcase works by leading international artists in neighborhoods throughout the city.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419362/m20djbmu6vqumkvplxeb.jpg"><figcaption>Eddie Martinez, Half Stepping Hot Stepper and Untitled, on-view April 5–August 25, 2024 at Compass Rose | Navy Pier as part of <a href="https://www.expochicago.com/programs/in-situ-outside">IN/SITU Outside.</a></figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;For tickets <a href="https://www.tix123.com/tickets/?code=EXCH24&amp;_gl=1*1lv5t2k*_ga*MTI1Njc3OTk3NS4xNzA5MDA2OTQ2*_ga_9F4GPT8QEV*MTcxMTcyNTM0OC4yMi4xLjE3MTE3MjUzNzQuMzQuMC4zMjk2ODE5NTc.&amp;_ga=2.59521325.1691843750.1711725349-1256779975.1709006946">click here</a>Hours and tour times are below.&nbsp;VIP PREVIEWTh, April 11 | 12:00noon – 9:00pm – By Invitation OnlyOPENING NIGHT OF EXPO CHICAGOTh, April 11 | 6:00–9:00pm&nbsp; –&nbsp; Limited AvailabilityGENERAL ADMISSIONFriday, April 12 | 11:00am – 7:00pmSaturday, April 13 | 11:00am – 7:00pmSunday, April 14 | 11:00am – 6:00pmTOURSGuided tours led by museum educators and other arts professionals. 60 minutes. +$30Friday April 12 @ 1:00pm and 3:00pmSaturday April 13 @ 1:00pm and 3:00pmSunday April 14 @ 1:00pm.&nbsp;• Also: Art Encounter’s International Highlights tour explores work by leading artists from Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa as well as New York and Los Angeles. 90 minutes. +$40&nbsp;<a href="https://www.expochicago.com">EXPOCHICAGO.COM</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

When the Fair Comes to Town: EXPO Chicago and Beyond

<html><head></head><body>&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419359/qkm1lpyxkbom2yzu3auv.jpg"><figcaption>The spring/summer 2024 cover of CGN featuring art by Salvador Andrade Arévalo&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>I don’t know what I would do without lists. When it comes to meeting CGN’s deadlines or navigating the logistical obstacle course that is raising two children, lists keep me focused and comforted by organization. I am always updating my lists, segmenting themes, using up notepads and Post-Its, crossing things off or starring critical follow-ups.&nbsp;I find listmaking essentially task-oriented, but that’s where it ends. For instance, I love nothing more than a weekend without to-dos that leaves time for my family and me to make spontaneous plans and discover something new. My thoughts about lists made me consider how magazines and websites have long leaned on publishing their own lists as a way to boost sales, from the top 100 songs of all time, to the 10 best things to do in two days. Lists may offer choices among an overwhelming array, but they can end up obscuring the rewarding discoveries you may find if you let yourself explore on your own. Especially because CGN is focused on supporting and engaging with a creative community, we aim to be a circular resource, not a linear one, a guide that shows you but does not dictate.&nbsp;When I went to summer camp as a kid we heard, “There are no rules, just guidelines.” And there are no rules or lists in this issue of CGN either. We feature 80 pages of insights and information, guided by our seasonal calendars and arts listings – in no particular order (other than sometimes chronological or geographic). There are too many upcoming art events to count, as of press-time, with more added throughout the summer.&nbsp;In this issue, in addition to dozens of exhibitions, we preview the return of EXPO CHICAGO, as well as shows by artists like <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2024/3/plastics-and-flowers-the-art-of-salvador-andrade-arevalo">Salvador Andrade Arévalo</a>, whose work you will want to know. Read how veteran artist <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2024/3/phyllis-bramson-and-david-leggett-brewing-something-new">Phyllis Bramson</a> is shaking things up and exhibiting alongside a younger counterpart, David Leggett. Lucca Colombelli shares his big plans for his gallery Povos. Artist Suzette Bross details how her organization is bringing artists into Chicago Public Schools. We also highlight how Millennium Park has transformed Chicago’s modern reputation as a center for art since its opening 20 years ago.As you explore art this season–at art fairs, after hours, auctions, solo exhibitions, benefits and more–consider the advice of collector Sundeep Mullangi, “If you’re interested in collecting art, no matter who you are, there is an entry point for you.” Enjoy this issue and go out and find what’s on your list, if you even make one. Give yourself credit that you can discern what it is that you like and would like to follow. &nbsp;– Ginny Van Alyea, CGN Publisher&nbsp;To subscribe to CGN and receive a copy of the spring/summer magazine by mail please <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/magazine">click here</a>.&nbsp;Read our spring cover interview <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2024/3/plastics-and-flowers-the-art-of-salvador-andrade-arevalo">here</a>.&nbsp;</body></html>

Spring 2024 Publisher's Letter 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419346/oiq7rpi3lr9opix7ac5r.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419346/slzobnjp8ssgt0omotdr.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAThe Museum of Contemporary Photography's (MoCP) annual benefit DARKROOM took place last month on February 29 – Leap Night 2024. &nbsp; Leap Night proved to be a record-breaking year for MoCP with 400 people in attendance and $325,000 raised. Hosted at the Columbia College Student Center in the South Loop, the purple-lit evening offered VIPS and all attendees a chance to bid on an impressive variety of artworks and experiences for the <a href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=f27f772860&amp;e=d76e1da35a">auction</a>, sponsored by Freeman’s | Hindman.&nbsp; The evening honored two Chicago icons for their contribution to the city&nbsp;and beyond. MoCP honored its esteemed colleague, professor, and distinguished artist&nbsp;Dawoud Bey the Silver Camera Award. VIP ticket holders were treated to an engaging conversation between Mr. Bey and MoCP Executive Director Natasha Egan. Bey also received an actual silver camera - an Argus c3 rangefinder Leica, the same camera he had in 1979. Bey shared with guests that the gift of the Leica was "completely and totally unexpected. My life as a photographer began with a little rectangle brick of a camera. This is a wonderful completion of a moment."&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419347/kdqhzdo5n5q4xq8jyrii.jpg"><figcaption>Dawoud Bey and his silver camera</figcaption></figure>*Artist, designer, and cultural provocateur Jason Pickleman and JNL Graphic Design was MoCP's DARKROOM Honoree, with JNL cofounder&nbsp;Leslie Bodenstein accepting the award after sharing a video tribute of JNL's outstanding design work from over the years. In particular JNL has designed much of MoCP's signature materials, just one of the many, many ways Pickleman has supported the arts community and its institutions through award-winning design. Bodenstein had the crowd cheer into her phone so that Pickleman, who was at home due to his health, could hear the enthusiasm in the room as his award was presented.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419348/zpu0zcocfhuc6h8i4kxy.jpg"><figcaption>Lelie Bodenstein holds the phone up for the crowd to cheer for Jason Pickleman</figcaption></figure> Eszter Borvendeg and Lincoln Schatz co-chaired DARKROOM along with this year's <a href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=e5c4fd2ac9&amp;e=d76e1da35a">Benefit Committee.</a> Event proceeds support MoCP exhibitions, education, and community engagement programs. The public is invited to continue supporting this year’s DARKROOM with a gift to MoCP through this <a href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=e0d2e388fe&amp;e=d76e1da35a">link</a>.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419349/fefppjhvdtxlw1x4gwga.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;Photos by Julie Lucas, Columbia College Chicago Staff Photographer.&nbsp;</body></html>

MoCP's 2024 Leap Night DARKROOM Honors Dawoud Bey and Jason Pickleman

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721419359/lc5yiulndtzrkqueiojn.jpg"><figcaption>Above: Left: David Leggett, High Vibration Plates Only, 2024, acrylic, collage, and felt on canvas, 28 x 22 in / 71.1 x 55.9 cm. Right: Phyllis Bramson, Basic Truths about Romantic Conditions, 2023, mixed media, collage, and paint on paper, mounted on panel, 48 x 36 in / 121.9 x 91.4 cm</figcaption></figure>By JACKIE LEWISArtists Phyllis Bramson &amp; David Leggett have collaborated at ENGAGE Projects this spring to exhibit Double, Double Toil and Trouble! With a familiar title served up from the cauldrons of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Bramson and Leggett visually recontextualize the phrase through their individual usage of collage, shared comedic relief and maximalist painting.&nbsp;Bramson shared with CGN, “It was my idea to show with David Leggett. I had seen his exhibitions when he used to live in Chicago. Now he is in Los Angeles. I felt people know a lot of my work; I wanted to shake things up!”&nbsp;The exhibition calls on and highlights taboos and dares to platform subjects that are usually kept out of sight or only superficially examined. Leggett’s paintings recycle media familiar to the masses, with his work highlighting the importance of humor in dealing with the reality of mundane life. Through hyper-modern collage aesthetics and traditional symbolism, Leggett touches on themes from hip-hop to art history, sexuality, racial divisions and the self.Considering Leggett’s work, Bramson says, “I find his work to be elegant, well composed and tightly crafted, and I certainly try to do the same. We both use irony, humor and ‘inappropriateness’ – David uses Fat Albert and Black Bart to craft a narrative, and I utilize Orientalism, which I can trace back to my childhood.”“I take many of my cues from standup comedians,” Leggett explains, “which I listen to while in my studio. Humor and the use of color are two tools that I employ to bring the viewer in.”Bramson, whose résumé has a few decades on Leggett’s, wields comedy as well, as she is a self-described “painter-comedian”. She admits, “In the studio I don’t practice good behavior. I maim. I raid. I give myself freedom.” &nbsp;It’s the intersection of bold commentary on every day life and collective memory that makes Double, Double, Toil and Trouble! a unique chance to witness a visual conversation between two artists at different stages in their careers. For Bramson, “We have a fair amount in common, yet still are quite different. David’s bite has sharper teeth! So while we are not to be looked at as all that similar, we both have something to say about the human condition, collaging and sharing the use of specific ideas about ‘beauty’.”Mar 22–Apr 27 • ENGAGE Projects • 864 N Ashland Ave. (60622)<a href="https://www.engage-projects.com">engage-projects.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;This preview is featured in the spring/summer issue of CGN, out April 1, 2024. To subscribe to receive a print magazine by mail please <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/magazine">click here</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>