<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418918/wzsiisrlugmblo8empe6.jpg"><figcaption>An-My Lê, November 5, Sugar Cane Field, Houma, Louisiana, 2016, Inkjet print</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIWho are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? These are just some of the existential questions tethered to creatives in any age, but this summer, as part of the upcoming multi-site exhibition Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, 29 artists add another question to the enduring list: Are we paying attention?The exhibition materializes as we emerge from isolation (and general art deprivation) to once again encounter artists’ creative solutions to contemporary issues. Abigail Winograd, MacArthur Fellows Program 40th Anniversary Exhibition Curator, spoke with me about some of the collaborative efforts involved in the project. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418918/jmuc7te15wjmeb2j8kbl.jpg"><figcaption>Jeffrey Gibson working in the studio. Photo courtesy of the artist. Gibson's exhibition <a href="http://www.newberry.org/sweet-bitter-love-exhibition">Sweet Bitter Love</a> is on view at the Newberry Library thru Sept 18 &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: 29 artists, 19 exhibition venues, and over a dozen research partners and community partners — in only three short years? Can you tell me more about Toward Common Cause and how the initiative unfolded?&nbsp;Abigail Winograd: Three years ago the MacArthur Foundation invited me to propose an exhibition to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Fellow’s program. The invitation included an open-ended proposal to present a theme. I made a selection of artists and proposed an exhibition that uses the “commons” as a thematic umbrella to look at four areas of inquiry: human society and communication, the natural environment, the built environment, and identity and representation.&nbsp;The show was a response to what felt like, at the end of 2017 and start of 2018, a moment in which we were, as a society, grappling with the realization that what we had thought was common ground or a common understanding, was being called into question.&nbsp;CGN: One of the first exhibitions to open is Much Unseen is Also Here, which runs from June 3–August 29 at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP). Can you tell me more about the process, and some of the conversations you had with the artists An-My Lê and Shahzia Sikander and the curators?&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418919/zuptqecte5rejno7lzma.jpg"><figcaption>Shahzia Sikander, Promiscuous Intimacies, 2020, patinated bronze, 42 x 24 x 18”, edition of 5 with 2 APs. © Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Jason Wyche, New York, Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>AW:&nbsp;In the past couple of years, my conversations with artists An-My Lê and Shahzia Sikander involved thinking through their identities and representation as women of color in this moment in history. It developed into a conversation about their relationship to America and American-ness. That was happening in the midst of debates about monuments; the whole world, it seems, has been experiencing this moment of iconoclasm. After the murder of George Floyd, we see monuments literally being pulled off their pedestals because we’ve reached this moment of reckoning.*Both artists were already questioning the role of monuments through their own media and practice—An-My Lê through a 19th century photography apparatus, and Shahzia Sikander through mixed media (drawings, video installations, and patinated sculptures).Since 2015, An-My Lê has been working on a large-scale photography project, The Silent General in which she explores the complicated relationships to landscape, war, and history. As part of her project, she documents the decommissioning of the statues of General Robert E. Lee and General P.G.T. Beauregard Monuments (2017) from their established locations to the Homeland Security Storage in New Orleans, where they were ultimately withdrawn.Shahzia Sikander was interested in monuments from another angle. In 2017 she served on the Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments and Markers in New York City, which exposed her to ongoing discussions and competing public opinions surrounding the role of monuments. This culminated in an anti-monument, such as her Promiscuous Intimacies (2020 patinated bronze sculpture) depicting Greco-Roman Venus and the Indian Devata. An anti-monument cross-examines the social tenets underpinning monuments: its historical and classical implications, material structure; the power structures they inherently reveal along with the histories they conceal. Bringing these two bodies of work together into MoCP’s space crescendos into a duet of artistic practices that interrogate how –and whose—history is portrayed.When Winograd conceived the idea three years ago, she could not divine that the project would coincide with a pandemic. If anything, the work by the MacArthur fellows gained another level of urgency. She felt deeply grateful to forge relationships with participating artists who were already using their art as a platform to confront realities and injustices in the world. “In this fraught moment, working with this cohort of artists and spaces is an unimaginable privilege. It’s been all a very humbling experience,” she says.&nbsp;“It’s also been special for me to work on one of the largest exhibitions I’ve ever done in my hometown. It really took a village.” Chicago was the natural choice for the exhibition, not least because it is the home of the MacArthur headquarters, but also because of its wealth of art schools, ethnic diversity, and working-class roots.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418920/qciw9woeygiyxlbixl5w.jpg"><figcaption>Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Well 35°58’16”N -106°5’21”W (Santa Clara Pueblo, NM), 2014. Pictured: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Courtesy of the artist. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: What is Chicago’s role in this project? Does the initiative underscore the city as an exhibition space?&nbsp;AW: From the beginning, what we hoped to do was try to make the art available to as broad an audience as possible, which means lowering barriers of access. We thought about where museums and cultural resources are located and how we can integrate alternative venues to diffuse art across the city.We are collaborating with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) for one of the exhibitions. This is the first time the CHA has participated in a contemporary art exhibition. After the last year, we all need more art in our lives. The CHA is another chance to work with organizations that don’t normally participate in these projects.*Due to the number and breadth of the exhibitions distributed across the city, it is impossible to look forward to just one. The fellows in the initiative – such as Jeffrey Gibson, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Kara Walker, and Kerry James Marshall, to name a few – field a spectrum of social, environmental, and political issues in their practice. Toward Common Cause exposes where we are left vulnerable as a society and allows us to reflect and take the necessary steps to move forward.&nbsp;Are we paying attention? If so, how can we unearth common ground? &nbsp;For more information visit <a href="http://towardcommoncause.org">TowardCommonCause.org</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

Seeking Common Cause: The MacArthur Fellows Program at 40

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418907/fultlgrl9lpfjfu2qdsb.jpg"><figcaption>A bright painting by the artist Federico Herrero has served as Gary’s Zoom background since last Spring. Displayed on the custom sideboard, from left: Lynda Box by Haas Brothers; Giolight lamp by Johanna Grawunder. On the right wall, clockwise from left: Jake Troyli, Beverly Fishman and Wendy White.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAVisiting the home of an art collector has, for me, always been a very personal as well as in-person endeavor. Requesting that someone let me invade their privacy and ask that they divulge what they buy, from where, and why, is an intimate thing – one I feel better about doing face-to-face, in order to find out what collecting art is like for Chicagoans, as well as to show how it is never the same thing for anyone.&nbsp;This past year has taught me to rethink how I do a lot of things, and collector interviews have not been spared the increased distance that so many of us have experienced. But clearing hurdles has meant meeting opportunities.Despite the apparent challenges, connecting with collectors Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson was a pandemic delight. Already Zoom experts, having attended dozens of art events virtually for a year, Gary and Scott and I met from our respective homes and offices, sharing screenshots and Instagram stories to keep the interview going in a way that would not have happened previously. It also allowed me to sit with and study Gary and Scott’s collection for a couple of weeks, enjoying it fully and for repeat visits. While this interview format may not be needed forever, I was surprisingly grateful for it this spring.&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418907/lnspewzs9jwn3tmbrfyz.jpg"><figcaption>Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson at home. Pictured: a sculpture by Neil Goodman</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Gary and Scott’s fondness for color is apparent in their home and their art collection. An abundance of saturated, modern hues – which touch most surfaces in their three bedroom River North condo they’ve inhabited for 15 years – dominates a variety of objects, from the orchids, to the linens, to the art. In particular they both love orange. Bold pigment serves as bait, luring the couple to the thing they first admire and then get hooked on, while unifying their taste and lending a vibrancy and sense of fun to the space.Amidst all the first-impression giving colors, I notice a range of artwork and mediums on display in each room, from mid-career contemporary artists who are Chicago-based, to those with international profiles: constructions by Theaster Gates and Nate Young, a text painting by Mel Bochner, an edition of America: A Hymnal by Bethany Collins, photographic portraits by Ayana Jackson, Ian Michael, Hellen van Meene, and Carrie Schneider, among others. Quite a bit of sculpture – pieces by Neil Goodman, Chris Garafalo and Kennedy Yanko – and ceramics, not to mention artist books, are also placed on nearly every available surface.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418908/xczvxzc0nn4mm8g6d2rz.gif"><figcaption>Photograph by Carrie Schneider; An American Hymnal by Bethany Collins; ceramics by Noah Singer and Jessie Mott. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Though the walls are not yet full, the art, particularly smaller works, has tripped onto tables and sideboards, floating shelves and nightstands. I can imagine reaching for a drink and picking up a four-inch wire sculpture instead, or looking into a corner to discover a glazed piece by Anders Herwald Ruhwald. If I need to iron a shirt, perhaps I can borrow (kidding) a Roger Brown painted 1930s iron, featuring ship passengers visible through yellow-lit portals. I realize a guest can’t see, or appreciate, all the art in a single visit.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418909/zxjvrbx395vq8hwszwwb.gif"><figcaption>Pictured: Robert Bernier, Ricardo Homen, Joel Ross, Norman Zammitt, Chris Cosnowski, Edie Fake, Jeroen Nelemans.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418910/lx9wooluzhffcxf5rrrs.jpg"><figcaption>Photograph by Izima Koaru, and ceramics by Carolyn Ottmers. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;I asked Gary to give me an idea of the scope and scale of the collection, as I was interested in just how many pieces they had acquired to date and if they considered a focus for their lively assemblage.&nbsp;“We should be a bit more organized,” Gary admits. “We have every invoice of every piece we ever purchased, but we just never made one of those lists for when people come over. It’s taken us a while to think of ourselves as collectors.”&nbsp;Gary and Scott’s reluctance to admit they are collectors sounds familiar. One by one works of art are purchased and then carefully installed. Invoices are filed, and eventually careers are followed, museum donations are made and gifts are promised. Yet many resist the designation of ‘collector.’ It sounds so obligatory. Gary estimates they now have about 80 works in their condominium – he suspects they may be out of room – with another 32 in his Gold Coast office, where he is the head of Sotheby’s Chicago location.&nbsp;Yes, they are definitely collectors.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418911/lq8ggsni1vs6huwixlsw.jpg"><figcaption>Works on display at the Sotheby's Chicago office, where Gary works</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Gary explains that his very first personal purchase was when he was just ten years old. Having saved some money, he tagged along with his art loving parents at the Beth-El Synagogue Art Fair, found something priced under $500 and convinced his parents he would pay them back the difference. This piece, a 1920’s Belgian poster, was purchased from a dealer Gary would later do business with. &nbsp;Having more or less been a part of the professional art world since he was in graduate school, Gary remembers that on a trip to New York in 1986 – with Lori Kaufman, a great friend and mentor and part of Hokin Kaufman Gallery, where he had his first art world job – he went to visit Marlborough Gallery. It was there he pointedly asked what he could afford, and was told he could buy two Alex Katz prints for $300 each, unframed.&nbsp;He bought them on the spot and still has them on display today.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418912/v3htbckiwaqdsshpp5ba.gif"><figcaption>Metzner's pair of prints by Alex Katz</figcaption></figure>*&nbsp;Scott and Gary began buying art together years ago. Though they got their starts in different ways and at separate times, they have jointly amassed a collection of artists with diverse backgrounds, and they enjoy keeping things varied. As a couple they have adhered to the sage advice to buy what they like, and they have come to enjoy the communal nature of collecting art, soliciting suggestions from colleagues, curators, and advisors. While Gary’s auction background means he is often giving advice to clients, he and Scott rely on shared insights and often check out galleries or auctions to see what might catch their eye next.&nbsp;Scott recalls he has always loved art and he has regularly visited museums around the country ever since he was young. When he began working at the University of Chicago hospital, following graduate school in Boston, and was commuting to Hyde Park from the North Side, he says he was living near art rather than with it. For awhile he was focused only on starting out in an intense career that left little time for anything else. It took meeting Gary to really introduce him to the art world in Chicago.&nbsp;While one was the first to bring the other along, today they both cite local museums as doing an incredible job helping them learn about art. The couple spent their 20’s regularly visiting the Smart Museum in Hyde Park, and today they are formally supportive of most of the museums in the city. They credit these museums, and other area spaces, with hosting high-quality, amazing programming even during the pandemic, something they appreciate as a great source of information as well as activity when they could not be together in person with other collectors and artists. &nbsp;In return for what they’ve learned from these institutions, they also actively give back. Gary is on the board of the Driehaus Museum and Depaul Museum of Art, and they are both a part of Emerge at the MCA, as well as the Society of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. This June they will co-chair the Chicago Artist Coalition’s virtual Work-in-Progress benefit.&nbsp;&nbsp;*Learning about and acquiring art takes a great deal of time, focus and resources. I wondered if they had sold any works in the collection either to adjust their focus or to make more space at home, and of course I was curious if Gary had sold personal pieces at auction.&nbsp;“We sell very little,” he says. “I know I sell people’s art for a living. I guess if we finally run out of space and there are artists that have a market to resell, we could, but not all do.”&nbsp;Charity auctions have been one outlet for deaccessioning while benefitting a good art cause. “We have donated quite a few works this way. It’s a great way to help museums and organizations.” Gary says they have also started to designate some pieces as promised gifts to area museums. He likes that the work will end up being shared with the public some day, but for now they can still enjoy them at home.&nbsp;For the most part, works stay in the collection. Gary credits his Sotheby’s colleague, Helyn Goldenberg, with encouraging him to make something new work. He shares, “She always says, ‘Don’t worry about space. You will find room if you really like it.’ I don’t know how, but it always seems to work.”Gary has held a prominent position with Sotheby’s since 1997 (his 25th anniversary at the auction house is this July). Locally he has a reputation for actively supporting galleries. I asked him what he thought about that old sticking point that auctions and galleries are in competition with each other, particularly now that there is more overlap between the two markets, due to the pandemic and the absence of in-person art fairs and large market events. &nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418913/rljg3jejojd1zw4mka2g.gif"><figcaption>A work by Ian Michael centers a wall in Gary and Scott's home, flanked by a piece by Lui Shtini hanging above a pair of small scale pieces by Elizabeth Wilde (left) as well as a painting by Alex Katz (above right) and Walter Spindler's 1894 drawing for the set of Izeyl, starring Sarah Bernhardt</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;He responds, “I think it’s so important to support the local art scene and galleries in general. They make a huge effort to put on exhibitions. Yes, they are for sale, but the effort going into these shows demands they be seen. Scott and I have spent much of the pandemic going to galleries on Saturdays. It’s been masked and safe, and with museums closed [this winter], it was a great activity to do together. I feel one of the things the pandemic has done was to bring galleries, museums and auction houses together to help each other and collaborate. With all the art fairs on hold, Sotheby’s started the Gallery Network last summer as a place for galleries to sell works online to the Sotheby’s audience. Again, it was a way to help each other.”When the fairs do come back, it can’t be soon enough. “We have traveled to Miami many times, and we have never missed an EXPO CHICAGO, ever,” says Gary. “Tony Karman is the king of hospitality. I think we have bought something each year. When we attend an art fair outside Chicago, we end up hanging out with our Chicago gallery friends there too, and we usually buy something as well. It sounds funny, but I think it’s because dealers often bring the best works to a fair, now even a virtual fair.”Clearly art is a social, as well as professional, focus for Scott and Gary, but for now the big art parties are still in the rearview mirror. Gary says it’s hard to recall the last in-person event they went to because they’ve been busy toasting and connecting online. They have also been meeting with co-chairs to plan Chicago Artist Coalition’s June benefit, as well as brainstorm with another area organization to host an event in the fall.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418914/my1c9lmlpuzmaykb33yo.gif"><figcaption>One of Gary and Scott’s newest acquisitions is Black Rice, by Ayana Jackson, purchased from Mariane Ibrahim Gallery. Shown at right: Leaf Face by Brian Bress. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;While ready for a return to in-person, they’ve managed to engage well with virtual talks and events. Gary recalls a Zoom talk he and Scott attended where collector and MCA board member Helen Zell spoke with MCA Director Madeleine Grynsztejn last year. Zell said one of the most rewarding things she has enjoyed about collecting is the relationships with artists. For Gary, “We hadn’t really done that, or at least made a point of it. We love the dealers, but now [during COVID] we’ve had more time to directly connect with artists online, in galleries, or even just on social media. It’s sort of just been happening, and it’s great.”&nbsp;Devoid of an in person social calendar, Gary and Scott have made the effort to buy art throughout the pandemic. Says Gary, “It’s been great to support galleries at a difficult time.” In fact they began buying when the March 2020 lockdown went into effect, acquiring a work by Andrew Holmquist from Carrie Secrist Gallery. Next they selected a piece by Ian Michael, a new artist at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery. As we were on the phone coordinating the interview, they were arranging for delivery of a bright new Beverly Fishman sculpture from Kavi Gupta.There is still one piece, at least, on the way, which Gary confesses he snagged from the Sotheby’s Christo auction in Paris. He says he can’t say any more, or it will ruin the surprise: it’s for Scott’s Birthday this summer. He assured me, “Let’s just say we will have room for it.”&nbsp;Indeed, with a home and art collection that is certainly full, but not yet overflowing, Scott and Gary have focused their collecting enthusiasm on local artists and galleries, supporting so many while adding to the vibrancy of their day-to-day life in a challenging but also suprising year.&nbsp;#&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418915/bdopwlxfmacltk8aegk3.gif"><figcaption>Roger Brown</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418916/ccialkfvapg0ihadtfxw.gif"><figcaption>Andrew Holmquist, above a work by Liliana Porter</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Vibrant Art Enlivens a Home: Collectors Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418894/m4hvbuup0lnxp9qikg98.gif"><figcaption>Anywhere But Nowhere, installed at the Arts Club of Chicago, April 2021. Photo Credit: Michael Tropea; Courtesy The Arts Club of Chicago &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By JACQUELINE LEWISAs The Arts Club prepared this past March to open its third exhibition since the arrival of the pandemic, Anywhere But Nowhere, by 2017 Turner Award nominee Hurvin Anderson, I sat down with the club’s Executive Director and Chief Curator Janine Mileaf to discuss Anderson’s new works, the artist’s ongoing barbershop theme, as well as the challenges involved with successfully mounting an international exhibition during the time of COVID-19.&nbsp;I was also fortunate to connect with Mr. Anderson for this interview, and he graciously added deeper insight to this exhibition in regards to his identity as a British-born artist, one step removed from his familial homeland in Jamaica.&nbsp;CGN: How did the Arts Club begin collaborating with Hurvin Anderson?Janine Mileaf: This exhibition has been on the books for quite some time. It was supposed to take place about a year ago, but the pandemic postponed it. I had met the Hurvin Anderson and did a studio visit in London a couple years a year ago, after which I offered him a show here. He graciously accepted.&nbsp;CGN: Can you give us an overview of the exhibition?&nbsp;JM: The exhibition includes two series coming together: brand new paintings on the subject of Jamaica and its sites of tourism, as well as ongoing work regarding barbershops. Hurvin’s barbershop work is very well known – it’s been going on since 2005 – but he’s made brand new, significant work in that series.By bringing the Jamaica and barbershop series together, he’s considering both his ongoing, formal aesthetic approach, while also thematically linking the two.&nbsp;The barbershop series has to do with the Jamaican diaspora in Britain. Hurvin is a UK–born artist with Jamaican heritage. While growing up in Birmingham, he went to barbershops with his dad. They were a sort of cultural, makeshift space that became a Jamaican hub for him. So they are a closed, interior space of Jamaican gathering within the UK. In contrast the Jamaican spaces depicted in Hurvin’s new paintings are all exterior landscapes. He wanted to bring together these two worlds and explore how they mirror each other in this new exhibition.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418895/hoq5xz6hasglc37tyspg.gif"><figcaption>Hurvin Anderson, Jungle Garden, 2020, acrylic, oil on linen, 71-1⁄4 x 59-1⁄8 in. Courtesy de Ying Foundation Photo: Richard Ivey</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How do the works depict the dualities of development and dereliction surrounding the Jamaican tourist sites? Can you explain how they happen simultaneously?JM: That was actually the impetus for this series of works.&nbsp;Hurvin took a bunch of photographs when he went to Jamaica in 2017. He was struck by the sites where he would see giant construction projects adjacent to places that were falling apart. There was this investment in the new without care for the existing. It struck him as problematic, so he focused on it visually.In the paintings, you don’t necessarily see the cranes and the active building, but you see a hotel site that’s built in limestone. He focuses on this perforated stone wall covered in foliage, and you cannot tell if it’s being built or torn down. There’s this constant need for redevelopment, growth and construction, but at the same time there’s neglect and decay.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418896/gfay0iidn9jqz2m4gj2w.gif"><figcaption>Chalet 1, 2019, ink and pencil on cartridge paper, 10-1⁄8 x 14-7⁄8 in (25.8 x 37.7 cm) Photo: Ben Westoby</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What does the title “Anywhere but Nowhere” mean?JM: The title itself comes from a KC White reggae song of the same name. There are a lot of musical references in the titles of Hurvin’s works. But he’s also referencing the specificity of place – a kind of familiar view that is not specific in terms of its locale. A lot of Caribbean touristic sites are kind of treated in this same way.There’s a monumental landscape painting in this show titled No One Remembers, and for Hurvin, it’s extremely specific in terms of Jamaican context. It’s a combination of abstract planes and signage. To him it’s the visual imagery you see all over Jamaica. For someone familiar with that it would be very recognizable.Anywhere but Nowhere is also wrapped up in a concept of utopia Hurvin is playing with. There is this value placed on a homeland by those who are part of the diaspora, so he has a romanticized Jamaica that he’s never really lived in. He’s a foreigner there, yet he has this very close connection. There’s a paradise people get in their minds, including him, that doesn’t really exist.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418897/qcmm3ct8bv3yzifqtrhs.gif"><figcaption>No one remembers, 2021, acrylic on paper laid on Dibond, 59-1⁄8 x 354-3⁄8 in. (150 x 900 cm) Photo: Ben Westoby</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How does Anderson’s British Nationality and experience intersect with his Jamaican roots in this exhibition?JM: I actually spoke with Hurvin today, and he said that a goal of his is to merge them. In this exhibition they are still two separate things, but both are equally part of him. He wanted to see them together for structural and thematic reasons, but I think they still do remain separate.There’s a utopian view of both places: this internal community in a broader place like the UK, and then this image of a paradise that’s externalized in the Jamaican scenes. He plays them off each other conceptually.&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418898/xlal1xuxcxv0tsmumv64.gif"><figcaption>Hurvin Anderson, Photo Credit: Sebastian&nbsp; Nevols &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Mr. Anderson, will you please share your experience as a British citizen visiting your familial country of Jamaica?Hurvin Anderson: In this body of work I’m offering a representation of Jamaica as told to me through two generations of the diaspora. Although based on photographs of a real location on Jamaica’s North Coast, these works are also creations of my imagination and born of a powerful oral history.&nbsp; As such, I am always one step removed, trying to understand the visceral pull of a homeland I’ve never known but that has been so richly described. The Jamaica of people’s memory dominated conversations in my childhood, so representing these conjured images on the canvas is, I suppose, a way of filling a loss or void. Life in Jamaica was not my experience, but in recreating a version in my own language I can, in part, relate or share in it.&nbsp;The retelling of stories from Jamaica mythologised the country of my parents and siblings’ birth. On a visit in 2017, my mind was full of descriptions of the charm of the place while physically confronted with the beauty yes, but also the reality of economic hardship.&nbsp; The abandoned hotels became a metaphor for me for these mixed feelings of grandeur and loss, of a garden of eden, a lost city and the pain of nostalgia.&nbsp;&nbsp;* &nbsp;CGN: Since the artist is based in the UK, and international travel is difficult during the pandemic, did the Arts Club have to employ new ways to collaborate on this exhibition?JM: Happily I had been to Hurvin’s studio long before the pandemic, and he had basically sketched out the entire exhibition. We were lucky in that way. He just had more time to work on it.This morning we were looking at floor plans to figure out exactly where things would go, and we have FaceTime check-ins scheduled over the next couple days. We’ll do a little with the exhibition, show him virtually, and then repeat the process.Normally he would be here at this point. We’re hoping that he may still come in person this summer for a closing event. That would be nice. We’re all working on getting vaccinated, and travel may be possible, so we haven’t written that off yet.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418899/lkkzxlhrxs5hkjqv0jjn.gif"><figcaption>Hurvin Anderson, Flat Top, 2008, oil on canvas, 98-3⁄8 x 81-7⁄8 in., Collection Thomas Dane, London Photo: Hugh Kelly &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Do you think that technology like this could allow for even less separation and lead to a more interconnected, global art experience?JM: I mean, you can get things done, depending on the planning, but the richness of the artist’s presence is very much missed.&nbsp;CGN: How is The Arts Club approaching exhibiting art during an ongoing pandemic?JM: We were closed, then open, then closed, and then open by appointment. Now with Hurvin’s exhibition, I believe that we will be able to open at regular gallery hours. We are always watching and will respond based on the city’s guidelines.Unfortunately we cannot have a live opening, but we have been doing some public, mini tours instead of a big tour, as well as a public Zoom talk in April. In June we will have an open house with tours. Over the summer and depending on regulations, we may have another talk or event.&nbsp;CGN: What aspects of the exhibition are you most excited for people to experience?JM: I am excited for people to experience the tactile qualities of the art that you just cannot get on a screen. The scale and the embodied relationship between the viewer and the painting is also very important in these works, as well as those physical textures. There is also this structure under his paintings that reveals itself gradually, making time extremely important for his works.&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurvin Anderson: Anywhere But Nowhere, Thru August 7, 2021 at The Arts Club of Chicago • artsclub.org&nbsp;</body></html>

Hurvin Anderson's Artistic Translations at The Arts Club of Chicago

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418870/w6u7nxqhsbzsniasqkak.png"><figcaption>Victoria Fuller in her studio.</figcaption></figure>By CGN StaffIf you have taken a walk around Chicago in the past decade and noticed any whimsical public art, there's a good chance you have stumbled across a work by Victoria Fuller. &nbsp;A graduate of SAIC and a Chicago-based artist for several years, Fuller has spent her career working in sculpture and painting. Following a year in lockdown, this spring she is the featured artist in Ephemera, a show at The Art Center Highland Park that begins in May. We asked Victoria a few questions about how she got started as an artist, what challenges and opportunities she's experienced in recent months, and what might be next.&nbsp;CGN: What was the first piece of art (or artist) that really mattered to you? Do you remember how old you were?&nbsp;Victoria Fuller: I was 5 years old, on the Pennsylvania farm I grew up on, when a friend and I disturbed a swarm of bees. I remember our babysitter first put mud on our bee stings, and then she said that when a bee stings you, their stinger comes out and they die. In my 5-year-old mind, I worried about the dead bees. I imagined that their souls would become angels in heaven, so I drew a picture of a bee with a halo. When my father asked me about it, I responded it was a “Bee Angel.” He was enchanted with the idea, so he turned it into our Christmas card that year.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: At what point did you determine you wanted to be an artist? When did you choose to pursue sculpture?VF: My grade school art teacher sat me across from another student and told us each to draw a portrait of the other. I had never done that before. When I was finished I was astonished to see the image I drew looked just like my classmate. My parents encouraged my talent, and the first art award that I won was for a decorated Easter egg. By high school I decided I wanted to major in art at college. At the University of Denver, I took classes in painting, ceramics, sculpture and printmaking. A visiting installation artist assigned us to find man-made objects in hardware stores and make art with them. That was when I was introduced to the concept of found object art and the artist Marcel Duchamp.&nbsp;After two years at the University of Denver, I moved to Aspen and continued to paint, make ceramics, dabble in paper making, and take classes at Anderson Ranch Art Center. While completing my college degree through the University Without Walls program through Loretto Heights College, I did two semesters at The San Francisco Art Institute. There someone stole one of my paintings in the storage racks. The attendant shrugged his shoulders and said, “Perhaps a student who couldn’t afford materials took your painting and painted over it.” Discouraged, and not feeling it was safe to store paintings at school, I started experimenting with sculpture. Now, I do both painting and sculpture in a variety of materials and forms, as well as work with found and appropriated objects.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What prompted you to pursue an MFA?&nbsp;VF: After getting married and divorced, and living in New York City for a year to seriously pursue my career, I returned to Aspen for a short period. Then I decided that if I was to be taken seriously, I should get an MFA. At that point I was 39 years old, and I was accepted at SAIC. I wasn't accepted at some other schools, but ultimately I was glad because I felt out of place on those campuses. When I came to Chicago, it felt right. I loved the Art Institute, and some of my art heroes from the “Harry Who” movement were here. Later I had the distinct pleasure to have had Jim Nutt and Barbara Rossi as graduate advisors.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418870/hlvlpwzowes6ba7m9hle.png"><figcaption>Many Suns Exhibition, Sunflower Sun, Sperm and Egg Sun, Rubber Glove Sun, Sunflower Pollen</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Do you have any advice for current MFA students or to recent graduates?&nbsp;VF: When I entered graduate school, I had had a career in art for several years and was able to discern and trust my own judgments about what worked and what didn’t in making my art. After starting school, I lost that innate sense of knowing my decisions because the teachers and students would question and criticize my choices – which is what happens in critiques. You look at aspects of your work you may not have considered. However, it took me a year and a half to once again trust myself when making my work. I guess my wisdom would be to take critiques with a grain of salt. Listen to what they say, consider it, but if you know what is right for you, stand up for yourself and continue on your path. If you know you are making the right choices, then continue. For those who have recently graduated, I would say that networking with fellow artists and people in the art world is very important. Those connections will help you get into shows and advance. Go to art openings (someday) and network on social media.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out?VF: I didn’t know anything about the business of art, and it was not taught in art school at that time. I wish I had known more about that. I really didn’t know about the networking either.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: You received an individual artist grant from DCASE in 2019. Was there a specific project you worked on as a result of that?&nbsp;VF: Yes, I created an inflatable sculpture called Bring Back the Extinct Northern White Rhino. It’s a life size replica of a rhino, 13’ x 5.5’ x 4,’ made of vinyl, with a hide of printed faux wrinkles and texture. It inflates and deflates repetitively on a 3 minutes cycle, continuing until the gallery space closes.&nbsp;When deflated, we are reminded that it is extinct; when inflated, it references the magnificence of the species when it was alive and the attempt to bring it back through “artificial reproductive techniques,”&nbsp;via frozen sperm and eggs implanted in a closely related subspecies. The inflation and deflation are also like inhaling and exhaling lungs, symbolizing the breath of life. &nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Have you ever been walking and happened upon one of your own works on display?&nbsp;VF: I haven’t had that experience, exactly, but one of my artworks, Directing Traffic, made of highway signs, is along McCormick Blvd., just south of Skokie Sculpture Park, in Lincolnwood. I did encounter it when I went on a group bike ride. We stopped and took pictures next to it. I guess I felt proud to show it off to people.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418871/gsegfdvbrisxdpftozco.png"><figcaption>Peanut Plant, Going Nuts, and Going Nuts (closeup)</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What has been your most enjoyable project or commission?&nbsp;VF: I love all of my artworks, they are like my children, but making Shoe of Shoes, was my first large-scale public artwork, and I learned a lot from it. It was fun to see my concept of a giant shoe made from around 2,000 cast aluminum shoes become a reality. I first showed it at Navy Pier, and then it went to St. Louis, where it was in a show at City Museum, called The Really Big Shoe Show. Then it was purchased by Brown Shoe, also in St. Louis. They have since rebranded to Caleres Shoes. Shoe of Shoes sits outside of their headquarters.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Almost one year into the pandemic, what do you miss? Have you experienced anything positive or surprising?VF: I miss going to art openings and talking openly without wearing masks. I miss getting together with friends at a restaurant and gathering at people’s homes for parties.&nbsp;I guess the silver lining is that I have a lot of time to myself, without much interruption, to work on art. I admit the time leading up to the elections in the fall was distracting, and I was glued to the TV to see what was going to happen, and then the horrible insurrection at the Capitol happened. I didn’t get much artwork done during that stressful time.&nbsp;But overall this year has been good for me. I have been in several online shows, and I was juried into the Rockford Midwest Biennial and the Evanston and Vicinity Show. I was honored to have been awarded the Dean Alan Olson Purchase Award by the Rockford Art Museum and I won Best of Show at the Evanston and Vicinity Show, tied with another artist Annie Zirin.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What are you working on now?VF: I am working on a series called On the Brink, revolving around the threatened circumstance of many of the animals on earth, that are either extinct, nearly extinct, or endangered. The human species should be included in that category, given the state of the planet and the situation of pollution, plastic waste and climate change. I am presently working on making Sea Turtle hatchlings and their eggs, as part of an installation that I plan to do with sand.&nbsp;I will also be the Featured Artist at the Highland Park Art Center's Ephemera: The Power of Impermanence exhibition which will run from May 7-June 12, including the Center's annual benefit on May 8. I will guest jury the show and will feature some of my favorite works focusing on systems of man and nature and the impact of that nexus. Pieces will include my Many Sun Series as well as Bring Back the Extinct Northern White Rhino mentioned previously.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Artist Q&A: Victoria Fuller 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418803/grf4y22mbjrc1aypu6sl.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Caroll, Cooking the Goose, Digital Photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIIf you’ve ever felt like you’ve walked in on a crime scene when looking at some of Patty Carroll’s photographs, you are not alone. Carroll, influenced by bright, vintage colors and British interiors, is guilty of one thing: framing it on the room. &nbsp;Before many of us were stuck at home, Carroll was already reflecting on what it means to be surrounded by so much stuff, whether it be items that act as an extension of our selves, or the media and the politics we consume on a daily basis. Her latest book Domestic Demise catalogs women being ‘done in’ by their physical environment, possessions, labels (or lack of thereof) and, unsurprisingly, their impeccable taste in drapery.These past few months have set the stage for her photographs. At the start of pandemic, Carroll had to put her art on hold for personal health reasons. Now fully recovered (and her sense of humor unscathed) she has since been conjuring images of women bombarded by reality and putting the pieces together.I visited Patty Carroll at her studio to talk about her women and how recent events have crept into the foreground of her photography.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418804/vjt5sb9r5dydmihrwflw.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, the artist hiding in the drapes herself</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What’s a typical day in the studio look like now? What are you working on?Patty Carroll: I had this idea about having patches or pieces together, so before we got to the studio, I had bought these carpet tiles and brought back these wallpaper books to start building the scene. Shopping and acquiring the right materials are a huge part of the process. Then, my assistant and I cut out pages from the wallpaper books that we thought would work together. At one point I decided that we need a lamp and a square chair, so I brought one back from Indiana and spent most of the day covering that and the lampshade. I also had to find a dress for her to wear….it takes a couple of days.&nbsp;CGN: How has your art practice changed over the past couple of months in light of the pandemic?&nbsp;PC: It didn’t change my practice as much as it changed my perspective on work. I’m still using my woman who is alone in her house, but now she is kind of a metaphor for all of us who are stuck in our houses. The woman is dragging herself around her house, depressed, or watching TV all the time; whereas people are obsessed with cooking, cleaning, and sort of confined doing. The fact that I was working [on these themes] before COVID-19 was kind of fortuitous.&nbsp;My work took on a different meaning when we all became confined. For example, I have a gallery in Houston, and because times were hard, we were offering things at a discount. We sold a couple, but my perspective was that it suddenly became too close to home. I mean, if you are already feeling claustrophobic the last thing you want is to look at is a picture about a woman being claustrophobic.&nbsp;CGN: Interior lives have been very prominent in your work. How did you get to this point?&nbsp;PC: First of all, I love color. The whole work I did for at least three quarters of my career was outside, in the world of tacky, wonderful places. I took many photographs of Fort Lauderdale, Miami and cheap little motels that reminded me of the places we stayed at when I was a kid.&nbsp; &nbsp;Then, it developed into this whole series of photographing&nbsp; hot dog stands, which started in Chicago. I had no studio experience and all of this work was outside, in the world, and seeing what the world had to offer – in as much color as possible.&nbsp;Once I got into studio work (Spirited Visions: Portraits of Chicago Artists. Photographs), I was more interested in who the artists were in their work, not who they were in reality. I was trying to photograph someone’s inner life.&nbsp;Like many photographers, I began photography to try to get away from home. Then, my husband and I came back from England. It was like literally coming home—physically, mentally, spiritually. I was trying to figure what is home and where is it and what does it mean—and how do we express that. It was a round circle. It is really hard to figure out when you are a photographer, because you are confined to reality.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418807/yfhhz5irg8nk82wwxdmi.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Protected, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How do your recent photographs, including those from your book Anonymous Women: Domestic Demise, evolve from your earlier series, Anonymous Women: Reconstructed, Anonymous Women: Draped?&nbsp;The Anonymous Women series started out with the idea that the home is an integral part of every woman’s identity. She was behind the drapes for the first part of the series.&nbsp; She was very alone, hidden, and so she was anonymously making this home. At the same time, she was getting entangled in the process.After that part of the series I wanted to introduce stuff, because all women have objects that are important to them—cooking utensils, art, red balls, you name it. People have all kinds of things that they need to surround themselves with as part of their identity.As I kept adding items (fabrics, furniture, appliances), I realized the figure was very stiff. I thought about how the combination of activities and obsessions in the home and decorations and stuff can overwhelm anyone. This last part of the series is all about that: taking an activity like reading or moving furniture that engulfs the woman and really ‘does her in.’CGN: Was that what sparked the decision to make short videos of the draped woman performing impossible tasks?&nbsp;It coincided with two things: the first was that Photoshop introduced video editing, and the other thing was that I was feeling that they were so stiff and the whole idea was just kind of heavy. There’s only so much you can do with a model. The second thing was the time my niece was in town and I told her to get behind the drape and turn the lamp on. She couldn’t find the knob to turn the lamp on because, obviously, she couldn’t see behind the drapes. I thought, “That’s the point!” It was hilarious to watch these women in whacko situations fail because they can’t see what they’re doing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418808/hqpmpnumrnhrk57gdimh.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Political Party, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: In what ways does your Woman, the faceless mannequin in the pictures, address current events? What is, to borrow your phrase, ‘doing her in’? &nbsp;I did a few photographs, such as Campaigning and Cocktail Party, for my Red, White, and Blue series that were about patriotism, and democracy—how the lack of democracy is doing us in. The obsession with all of the politics is just making us crazy. That’s one theme.&nbsp;I made a couple of Pride pictures in June. Then, in July—we were all wearing masks and cleaning everything all the time and I thought I should just do a picture about protecting ourselves: Protected. Plastic seems to be the material of choice these days. I still want to do one with bandages and stuff, but I haven’t gotten to that yet. It was too close to all my physical illnesses (laughs) and having skin glue and stuff on bits of me. And I thought, “I can’t quite do this yet.”&nbsp;*&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418809/tzrb9qcubfprxyvwlgge.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Pieces, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;In Carroll’s latest picture, Pieces, the recurring lone woman is slouched in a chair, obscured by scraps of wallpaper samples and mismatched fabrics. In true Dr. Frankenstein-like spirit, Carroll explains, “I wanted to work on pieces to bring her to life.” She continues, “Every time we turn around there seems to be something new and awful happening.” In Pieces, Carroll’s departure from her usual highly saturated color scheme speaks to our political reality: “It feels like people are so upset with the way things are going that a neutral environment seems natural. With that, I’m piecing together life.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418810/j7idtl28rbtftkpeepoo.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, News, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418810/juefqdcwpdxi9iuvbgtr.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Planty, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418811/nhedexgbapmwt8o1cfcv.jpg"><figcaption>Patty Carroll, Toasty, digital photograph, 2020</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Patty Carroll: Investigating Domesticity

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418803/dflh9rxdog8an2ddhxkm.jpg"><figcaption>Bey’s Southern Exposure series begins with this image of Pride Cleaners, built in 1959 at 79th and St. Lawrence.&nbsp; &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By JACQUELINE LEWISLee Bey is an author, lecturer, photographer, and writer. A South Side native his passion for Chicago stands out in every aspect of his career. Formerly an architecture critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Bey’s knowledge of Chicago, its culture, and its buildings reveals a deeper understanding of the city for anyone who appreciates the vast array of the city’s experiences.&nbsp;Most recently, he published Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side, which captures the South Side through a series of photographs and stories shining light on the beauty and relevance of the area’s architectural footprint and reminds everyone, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot, that Chicago is more than just the North Side and Downtown.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418804/xhlehzfcnblurf1ierne.jpg"><figcaption>Photographer Lee Bey</figcaption></figure>CGN: Can you tell us about your new book Southern Exposure? What drew you to this specific subject matter?&nbsp;Lee Bey: Southern Exposure is kind of a hybrid. It begins as a memoir and family history of a South Side native and resident. Then it expands into a broader story about the history and architecture of the South Side. Stitching it all together are photographs of South Side architecture and public landscapes. Being a South Sider is what drew me to the subject matter, and my desire as a native son was to tell a different story about the South Side. Too often, the only story we hear is the narrative that the South Side is just a violent ghetto for the rest of the city to avoid. Especially at this moment we’re in now. I wanted my book to say, “Yes, there is that. But there is architectural beauty — some of the best buildings and spaces you’ll see anywhere in this city — that’s been overlooked.” I also wanted the book to make the reader confront the racist housing and lending policies that have robbed black folks on the South Side — and the West Side too — of its wealth and contributed to, if not created, problems we see there.CGN: What do you think are some of the factors that cause Chicago, and beyond, to overlook the South Side?LB: In the book, I say outright that it’s race. “Nothing to see here. Just Black people. And it’s unsafe. Besides, anything really important is on the mostly-white north side or downtown.“ That’s been the mindset for 70 years or more. And it’s widespread. I was at a speaking event in Indianapolis last year, and one of the sponsors, when he found out that I lived on the South Side, that I didn’t just write about it, asked me, “Are you afraid to live there?” I said no. But I thought, “Indianapolis is more dangerous per capita than Chicago—what are you talking about?”&nbsp;Those of us who live on the South Side, we’re not overlooking or not recognizing these well-known architecturally rich places and spaces. We appreciate what’s there. While doing the photography for the book, I’d be out early in the morning or before sunset, and folks would often come out and tell me a little something about the building I was photographing, its official history or even the off-the-books history that was made when the neighborhood became a Black neighborhood. So, we know. It’s others who don’t, especially those who have made architectural, urban planning and preservation policy over the last few generations in Chicago.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418805/fohkt5idq55es0vtfpn1.jpg"><figcaption>Lavezzorio Community Center, 7600 S. Parnell, Studio Gang, 2008. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Do you believe that the architecture of an area reveals a deeper story regarding the community it inhabits?LB: It really does. And too often. That connection makes the story of architecture far more rich. The book talks about the historic architecture of Bronzeville, and they are fine buildings like the former Eighth Regiment Armory, for instance. But when you also understand these buildings marked Black people’s arrival in Chicago during The Great Migration—and these are places where we made history—it adds another dimension to the building’s story, other than cornices, arches, and window openings.CGN: What photograph from Southern Exposure has the most personal meaning?LB: That’s a tough one! I’ll have to go with Pride Cleaners at 79th and St. Lawrence. I put Pride in the book because it is a spectacular example of modernist architecture that I bet most people outside the South Side haven’t seen. I’ve loved the building since I was a kid. What makes this personal is while I was writing the book, my cousin McKinley — who was like a little brother to my late father because they were close in age — told me, in the 1960s he and my father would stand in the parking lot of that building and try to figure out how that tilted concrete roof was held up. It’s a story I never knew. The book covers how my father turned me onto architecture, but the fact that he and my cousin were both fascinated by the same zany dry cleaners made me love that building a little bit more.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418805/fqgyzduv9ogig9r69ubz.jpg"><figcaption>Victoria Soto High School, 5025 S. St. Louis, Wight &amp; Co. 2013. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Where did you grow up, and how has it shaped your view of Chicago?LB: I was born on the west edge of South Shore, at 73rd and Kimbark, then we moved to the Avalon Park neighborhood a little further south. It shaped my view in that my introduction to architecture wasn’t the famous downtown buildings or the Gold Coast high rises, but the churches, school buildings, and housing across the South Side. Oak Woods Cemetery is in the book because I saw it as so beautiful and park-like as a kid. That was before they put that thick concrete fence around it that blocks views from the street. Chicago Vocational High School is [in the book] because it’s a magnificent Art Deco building, but it’s also my alma mater.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418806/zgvuxjf41gqpak45l45h.jpg"><figcaption>St. Gabriel Catholic Church, 600 W. 45th, Burnham &amp; Root, 1888. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Most of your work is Chicago based. What about this city most specifically captures your creative energy?LB: It’s the contradictions about this city that energize me, frustrate me, and anger me. The city will give you the John Hancock Building, still one of the finest looking skyscrapers in the world, then in the same breath, give you the troubled public housing towers of the old Cabrini Green or Robert Taylor. The city historically holds out opportunities and then keeps them away from black people. Here Martin Luther King was hit in the head with a brick in 1966. And yet this is the same city that raised up Barack Obama, Quincy Jones, Curtis Mayfield, John H. Johnson, and sent Carol Mosley Braun to the U.S. Senate. It elected an openly gay married black woman, Lori Lightfoot, as mayor—judging her solely on the merits of her performance as mayor, not her sexuality. It’ll build a landmark quality building in one generation, then tear it down in the next. That roiling stew of conflict, contradictions, and inequalities is reflected in the city’s built environment. As a photographer and a writer who wants to use architecture as a medium to something about all that, it’s an endless well of inspiration.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418807/eixxo8v9ijyubhu0t67n.jpg"><figcaption>Liberty Baptist Church, at 4849 S. King Dr. &nbsp;© Lee Bey.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How did you initially get into photography and journalism?LB: I didn’t develop an interest in photography – other than appreciating a fine photo now and again – until I was about 32 or 33, and I bought a used 35mm Argus C-3 for $25 because I liked its 1950s design. I wanted to take pictures of my young daughters, who were then about 3 and 5. And when my youngest daughter came a couple of years later, I photographed her too. But I was around buildings all day as Sun-Times architecture critic, so I’d shoot buildings, just because I was there. Then I started to like it. And something was born. I got interested in journalism when my high school English teacher, Mr. Doyle, told me I was a good writer. The story is in the book. When he said it, that was transformative. I thought “Yes, journalism. Hell yes.” And the march began.CGN: Are you currently working on any other projects?LB: I’m fascinated by the architecture of churches and houses of worship—that comes across a bit in Southern Exposure—so I’m beginning to document more of them. I’m also looking at buildings that didn’t make it into Southern Exposure simply because I ran out of time. In my perfect world, I’d like to do a significantly expanded second edition of the book, doubling the number of images and stories.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418808/hozxgtvsrip8babne2h4.jpg"><figcaption>D’Angelo Law Library, University of Chicago, 1120 E. 60th St, Eero Saarinen, 1959. © Lee Bey. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: Is there anything else you would like to tell me about yourself or your art?LB: In the moment we are in with the pandemic and the civil unrest, art and artists become even more important. Sometimes it’s art as a balm – the inclination of ‘Let me go to this museum or gallery or pick up this book because I need to see beauty now.’ Art can also be a way to make sense of our times. To give voice — or provide an alternate voice — to what we are feeling now. And art can also exhort. Mayor Lightfoot hadn’t even taken her oath of office yet when I turned in my last chapter of Southern Exposure to my publisher, but I tell the mayor directly in the book that now is the time for her administration to stand up for the South Side and the West Side. That Chicago can no longer call itself a world-class city if it continues to let these parts of the city just drift.&nbsp;The mayor and her wife Amy both have of the book. And the mayor also has about a dozen big framed images from Southern Exposure hanging in the reception lobby of her office. So anyone who comes there to meet with her has to face the architecture of South Side. I take all that as a good sign.&nbsp;You can purchase Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side through the <a href="https://lee-bey.squarespace.com">Northwestern University Press</a>.&nbsp;</body></html>

Lee Bey: Illuminating The South Side's Overlooked Beauty

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418797/eytkqn9kjwugonrudfmc.jpg"><figcaption>Suzanne Lovell’s design for the St Regis Institution in Manhattan. Billy Cunningham photography. Pictured on left: artwork by Kara Walker &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By ANNA DOBROWOLSKIContemporary design professionals usually waste no time deflating that old adage that your art should match your drapes. Chicago-based, internationally known designer Suzanne Lovell is no exception. In fact, she is uniquely capable of helping clients not only find the art for their homes but to advise them on contemporary artists and elements of the market. Her own firm, which she founded in 1985, now has a division devoted to fine art, run by colleague Kristin Murphy Romanski. Lovell wrote the book, literally, on living with art and design: Artistic Interiors: Designing with Fine Art Collections, was published almost a decade ago, in 2011. Its main theme is how central art is in her own design work as well as in life at home. In a time when all of us are spending a great deal of time at home, and nowhere else, this has never been more apparent. So, what is Lovell doing to continue to bring art to her clients as well as to stay abreast of the contemporary art world? We had the chance to ask her recently.&nbsp;CGN: What comes first, the design or the art?Suzanne Lovell: Architecture comes first. Then, the moments of pause are the moments for art to create magic.&nbsp;We start with a conversation about what the client owns or would like to acquire, and we create the architectural language and experience of space to best enhance their experience with their artwork. That’s why we merge in the collecting of art very early in the process, because we are either taking their art, and including it in their environment in appropriate ways, or helping them think about the art that’s going to be in the magic of their home. Once they realize that we are doing that expression of them, they want it echoed in another part of their home.&nbsp;Design and furniture support those spaces and their function. Sofas are an afterthought.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418798/hbhot8etalljgzscjqar.jpg"><figcaption>A North Shore residence designed by Lovell. Tony Soluri Photography</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418799/wncs6a0dfx1vtgmkgm0b.jpg"><figcaption>Hanging in Lovell's studio: Marina Abramovic’s The Kitchen VII -Homage to St. Therese. Mark La Rosa Photography</figcaption></figure>CGN: Do you have an example where you designed a room that best showcases the art? What is the relationship between the art and the space?SL: There’s no question we adjust the architecture to accommodate the piece of art first. We always highlight the key opportunities for art as we start conversations about collecting with context and placement. In the case of the Manhattan installation in the St. Regis Institution, we preserved the Beaux-Arts architecture, because that was the right thing to do. We ended up expanding the width of the mill work panels of art to showcase a Kara Walker piece. As an architect/designer, you are referencing and respecting the history [of the building], but you are also putting into the history the contemporary story and message.&nbsp;CGN: What sets your art advisory business apart, especially up against the stereotype of decorating with art?SL: Definitely our approach toward research, our intellectual formation of why certain collections come together for certain clients, and our constant exploration/travel to view art all over the world. We feel responsible to the art community that supports our efforts to educate our clients as on every piece of art we suggest they might like to collect, and why. It is definitely NOT about decorating.Kristin’s helped us reach a certain level in the art world in terms of understanding art. That’s a very difficult world to be very welcomed into, particularly when you’re a decorator and architect. We strove really hard for that not to be the reference. While we feel responsible to our clients, the galleries realize we have placement and we have intelligence, and so they want to help us collect the pieces of the great artists that they represent.&nbsp;CGN: Can you share some tips for successfully mixing contemporary art in with a range of tastes and styles?SL: I’m absolutely a firm believer that you collect what you strongly believe in. I don’t like the statement “buy the art you love.” It is not like that. Rather, “What are the expressions of “you” in the artwork that you are collecting.” In other words, collect what you feel strongly about as it will always find a place in your definition of home.CGN: Globally, the concept of ‘home’ has drastically changed. How would you define the experience today?&nbsp;SL: We are very conscious of the fact that people all need and want a more relaxed, easy and happy environment, because they are there all the time. Space is important and each individual in the family needs to be considered as the function is now required to be for 24 hours a day. More natural materials that share the hand of craft is certainly coming into our work. We enjoy the maker and his or her story as it engages with the world of art in an honest extension of creativity.CGN: How does that translate into your work and the materials you use?&nbsp;SL: The home will always be for me, as Louis Kahn said, “The room is not only the beginning of architecture; it is an extension of self...a choosing conscious individual.”CGN: What art currently hangs in your studio?&nbsp;SL: We have art by Jimmy Robert and Greg Stone, and, from my personal collection there’s also Marina Abramovic’s The Kitchen VII -Homage to St. Therese.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418799/yujbn57uwoddxrg0nxgp.jpg"><figcaption>An example of how Lovell integrates artwork into an important&nbsp;collection is a pair of early 20th C. dioramas with Jeff Koon’s ceramic Puppy (1998) resting upon one of a pair of sideboards designed by Suzanne Lovell Inc. and hand-built by Frank Pollaro.</figcaption></figure>CGN: How has your business changed since the pandemic? What are you working on now? &nbsp;SL: We have of course gone to a remote existence as a team. That has been quite an adjustment as we all know that creation is a physical endeavor. It is something that you just can’t get over the machine. Being in the office is super important, and yet we are staggering our returns to the office to inspire the wonderful work we are engaged in currently.&nbsp; At the same time, we’ve challenged ourselves to create a three-dimensional space to help clients visualize the space.We are busy in Naples, in New York, in Glencoe and in South Carolina with clients that we refer to as patrons as our engagement with them is often for multiple homes.&nbsp; Managing their art works and the moving and installation thereof, not to mention the cataloging, is very integral to the service we provide.CGN: Can you tell me about some of your most recent fine art acquisition/art restoration projects?SL: We installed a phenomenal Cecily Brown triptych for a client in one home and a wonderful Renoir in another of their residences. Another one of our most enthusiastic moments was a trip Kristin and I made with a client whom has become a strong collector of Joseph Walsh’s work. We went to Cork, Ireland to visit Walsh, who is bringing together makers in Ireland and raising them up. His furniture is known to be “beautiful enough for a blind man to see.”&nbsp;I also think the most exciting placement we have ever made, is certainly the large Kara Walker that we installed in Manhattan.CGN: How do you and your team approach a project? What do you look for/what kind of conversations do you have when visualizing a space?SL: We talk about how they wish to use this particular piece of property. We discuss imagery that connects to those definitions. We make an effort to understand what their dream is of this location. I like to say it is about them, and my responsibility is to create the most perfect version of that dream, professionally. As a team with the patron, we spend a lot of time at the beginning of every project selecting the architectural materials that are the backbone of the residence’s definition. Wood and stone, walls and floor, the surrounds are the core issue of any design. This is the palette to which one adds.&nbsp;</body></html>

Suzanne Lovell: Bringing Art History Home 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418797/vik7nje5nwlzqdbx0t1b.jpg"><figcaption>Navy Pier, Chicago Photo Courtesy of Choose Chicago. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEATony Karman has been the man of September since he went out on his own in 2012 to found the international art fair <a href="https://www.expochicago.com">EXPO CHICAGO</a> and moved the exposition it from its traditional place on the spring calendar to the start of the fall cultural season. His bold move aimed to take advantage of Chicago’s lakeside setting during one of its more temperate months and to align the fair with the major gallery and museum openings of the year, unifying the various events to usher in the beginning of the international fall art season and appeal to travelers seeking a global cultural hub.&nbsp;This past spring, six months away from opening the 9th edition of EXPO CHICAGO on Navy Pier, it became apparent to Karman that plans for this fall would not move forward. I spoke with Karman in August to find out what he and his fair team have been working on and observing in the art world during a time they otherwise would have been pulling all-nighters to prepare for tens of thousands of fair visitors.&nbsp;Update: EXPO CHICAGO announced <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2020/9/expo-chicago-announces-new-fall-2020-programming">new virtual and in-person programming</a> for fall 2020 on September 9.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418798/pfyxh7us4fswyvi7red5.jpg"><figcaption>Tony Karman</figcaption></figure>CGN: First, please share the latest updates on EXPO CHICAGO – the path to deciding to move this fall’s fair to spring 2021. &nbsp;Tony Karman: The path was abundantly clear back in April that we could not move forward for a fair this September, and we reviewed options with Navy Pier to choose the April 2021 dates. I am proud of our statement that we made in partnership with our exhibitors and that we were able to take the lead in announcing the date shift early on, as it was clear that moving ahead with our old dates was not possible. Making that decision was actually a very easy one, as it was most responsible thing to do for our exhibitors and for the safety of our patrons. We remain in constant contact with our Selection Committee, our dealers, our partners from around the world, and we are consistently monitoring global issues so we can adjust again if we have to. &nbsp;CGN: What has EXPO been focusing on recently?&nbsp;TK: Adjusting to, and preparing for, April 2021 has kept us very busy as we have shifted many procedures while consistently communicating with galleries and developing new initiatives for the local cultural community and our broader international partners.&nbsp; We developed our bi-weekly Online Dispatch, maintained THE SEEN online, created dine&amp;, a virtual culinary and talks program, and we are planning to launch a series of both virtual and in person events this September and October.&nbsp;CGN: What have you observed from other fairs around the world as they have had to pivot too?TK: There is no question that all fairs, like galleries, have moved quickly to supplement their online platforms with viewing rooms and digital initiatives. We were in discussions with a developer for an online viewing room and we stepped up our plans to launch an online initiative, as that is now a basic component for any fair to be able to offer.&nbsp; The challenges of this time provide a unique opportunity to rethink much of what we have developed in the past and has forced us to look to expanding the company outside of producing one art exposition a year. I would anticipate that many others are doing the same.&nbsp;CGN: How critical do you think the lurch to online marketplace and viewing rooms will be long term?&nbsp; &nbsp;TK: Extremely critical. Although, nothing can replace seeing and experiencing artwork in person along with the “magical” interaction and exploration that can only happen when people gather, there is no question that virtual experiences that are offered by fairs and galleries will only increase in importance. Online sales for galleries have continued to grow and I don’t see that trend slowing anytime soon. Our plan is to stay on top of the curve and continue to invest and innovate in this area for the future.&nbsp;CGN: What could the fall season in Chicago mean without an art fair – the negatives as well as the possibilities?&nbsp;TK: Sadly, we were poised to have even another breakout year in 2020 with several new galleries planning to participate and programming to be announced. However, we cannot dwell on what could have been but continue to move forward and focus our attention on servicing the local and global arts community whenever we can take place in 2021. ‘September in Chicago’ was our tagline, and I am grateful that over that last nine years, we contributed to the opening of the season. However, for decades the April/May calendar slot was Chicago’s, and if that is where we land, I think we will contribute as much or more to the spring openings. &nbsp; &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418799/dhuutf41fjhnejwriszw.jpg"><figcaption>EXPO CHICAGO, Vernissage 2019</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What are your expectations for the fair landscape in 2021, and for the art market post (or amidst) the pandemic? &nbsp;TK: My expectations for 2021 are a bit guarded as we have seen the constant uncertainty throw out all notions of a global art fair calendar out the window. Everyone is adjusting and resetting their priorities, and given that the playing field has leveled a bit, I feel strongly that we are in a great place to emerge even stronger than before. We are nimble as a company, we benefit greatly from the support of the local cultural and hospitality community, Chicago is home to world renowned institutions, artists and galleries, and our city’s geographic location is a distinct advantage for us to welcome the U.S. and the world when appropriate.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: What about more recent cultural and societal conversations as they relate to the art community? &nbsp;TK: Artists and the arts have always been at the forefront of driving societal change, provoking us to both “see” and to reflect on the numerous issues that we face. There is no question that we live in a most profound era, and I feel that the artwork of this time will continue to be driver of change, and that the cultural community will be even more critical to helping us as a city and nation to rebuild. &nbsp;CGN: I know you’re an optimist. How do you think Chicago can be even more relevant in the new commercial and cultural landscape we are all encountering and for art fairs of the future? &nbsp;TK: That I am. As I said earlier, challenges also offer great opportunities. For the exposition we must be resilient while staying active in our programming and be nimble to adjust to the shifting calendars. In regard to the broader city, we should be very proud that there remains an intense focus on Chicago’s artists, galleries and institutions. The collective of this attention should serve us all well as we work together to rebuild the ecosystem and once again welcome the world.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

EXPO CHICAGO’s Tony Karman on Fall Without a Fair

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418356/lejc9vv9xieri2aooifq.jpg"><figcaption>Pictured from left: Eric Fischl, The Chair, the Bed, Getting Ready; sculpture by Cuban collective The Merger; two photographs by Katy Grannan; Julian Schnabel, Winnie Fung &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>By GINNY VAN ALYEAWhen an art world colleague mentioned one day that a favorite client of his had an extensive, private collection of art not often shared with the public, I was intrigued. I never tire of profiling collectors and how they assemble personal outlets for creative passion. It’s truly one of the highlights of being the publisher of CGN. The difference right now is that due to COVID-19, I would not be able to see this collection in person. Like so much else these days, this collection would have to be experienced virtually – emailed images digested from my laptop. While that sounded discouraging at first, it allowed for a more lingering, ultimately still first hand look at one man’s devotion to a top notch collection displayed over five locations, including two residences in Chicago, a suburban office on the North Shore, and two homes in California.&nbsp;The collection contains approximately 120 works of art, and currently nothing is hidden away in storage. It spans mediums, from figurative paintings to multimedia works, as well as from collage to sculpture, but the collector, who opted to remain anonymous for this interview, says that most of the art may be classified as post-1980 work by American and European contemporary artists. Adding to the range and eclecticism of the collection are antiquities, fossils, Chinese cloisonné, medieval reliquaries, textile garments, and original comic book art. And while I was unable to see the collection first-hand, it may be viewed by private appointment.The collector’s interest in art was piqued in college, and over time, he discovered he wanted to be surrounded by art. As he found his personal focus, he has approached art collecting as a life-long education in creativity and deliberate engagement.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418357/b1noe8zot6y3nctaz2qq.jpg"><figcaption>Wall artworks left to right: Jan De Maesschalck, Homesickness; Elliott Hundley, Still Life with Sculpture; a Ming Dynasty cloisonné basin with mythical beasts. &nbsp;Items on table include sketchbooks by Joanne Greenbaum and a Kate Gilmore's video, Anything…</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Initially what helped you learn about art? &nbsp;Collector: Like many humanities majors at liberal arts colleges, I took a few art history classes, one of which was a fine arts course titled Twentieth Century Painting, which the students jokingly named “Spots and Dots.” Although this was during the late 1970’s, the art I surveyed in the course seemed to end abruptly at 1960’s minimalism. I wondered what important art had been produced in the intervening decade, so I asked a friend, an art history major, what she knew. Her response was memorable: “Not much…Some guy crucified himself on a Volkswagen.”My interest in art generally, and more specifically contemporary art, began with that college course, despite where its coverage ended. After graduation I took a job in banking in Los Angeles.&nbsp; On the weekends I would go to museums and galleries, just looking and learning.CGN: When did you get started enjoying art and then collecting it?&nbsp;Collector: My interest in collecting art really began when I happened to see the photos of Henry Geldzahler’s New York apartment in the September 1982 issue of Architectural Digest.&nbsp; Several qualities about that apartment appealed to me. For one, the art was displayed informally. Until then I had thought art was only displayed in ornate frames and in fancy, decorated homes, but here was art almost haphazardly arranged, with pieces placed on floors and in bookshelves. Second, there was a lot of art in the small apartment. He had artwork everywhere – on walls, atop tables, and in every corner. Finally, he had two artworks by young, then-unknown artists that really knocked me out: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Geldzahler had just acquired the paintings at the P.S. 1 Queens exhibition New York/New Wave. I thought, if art this novel and exciting is being created now, then I want to start a collection. Basquiat and Haring were already priced out of my reach, so I started looking at local LA artists.&nbsp; Shortly thereafter I acquired my first painting, a small work by artist Jeffrey Vallance. I got a cash advance against my credit card to buy it. The painting is still displayed in my Chicago condo.CGN: You own a wide range of art, from large-scale work by internationally known blue-chip names to smaller-sized pieces, many by Chicago-based artists, among others. How do you manage the installation of such a blend of work? &nbsp;Collector: I don’t think about how a work will be displayed when I purchase it, and this indifference has led to some interesting issues. I purchased a Paul McCarthy work, Bavarian Deer, a few years back. I knew it was big, because part of its impact is its scale – the artwork is a small 1960’s postcard image of a deer, blown up to monumental proportions. It wasn’t until the work arrived in Chicago though, that I realized it wouldn’t fit in my building’s elevator. My art installer, Dennis Callahan, arranged with the building to ‘ride the elevator,’ placing the work on top of the elevator cab and riding with it. Then we decided to hang the work in front of a window, which was the only space for it in the condo.&nbsp; Installed it looks amazing: a nostalgic image of innocence, enlarged to nearly billboard-size.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418358/cjgidyvhdkwmal3whani.jpg"><figcaption>Left: Jared Joslin, Panther and Zebra. Top right: Tony Fitzpatrick, Chicago Harlequin; Bottom right: Tony Fitzpatrick, Woman on the Beach</figcaption></figure>CGN: Do you look for conversations between the works?Collector: I sometimes arrange works thematically. For example, in my office I have two drawing collages by Tony Fitzpatrick, purchased from the artist. While I was visiting with Fitzpatrick, he mentioned a Chicago artist in his own collection, Jared Joslin. So I purchased one of Joslin’s works, Panther and the Zebra, and it is installed next to the two Fitzpatrick pieces. &nbsp;CGN: How would you describe the focus of your collection now?&nbsp; What’s it like to live among this mix of art that so many only see in a museum?Collector: The focus of my collection now is 1980’s American Contemporary.&nbsp; Initially I approached collecting the way most consultants advise: buy what you like. For me, though, this was unfocused, because I found that I liked a lot of art. So I needed to narrow my range, and when I looked at my collection I decided that the works that meant the most to me were those made by American artists prominent when I first became interested in art in the early 1980’s: Julian Schnabel, Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, Robert Graham, Robert Therrien, Jim Dine, and others.&nbsp;Art of the 1980’s has a vibrancy, and that energy spilled over into music, fashion and performance. I think the influence is ongoing.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418359/gher1q1ju8aojidmgpiz.jpg"><figcaption>From left to right: Paul McCarthy, Bavarian Deer; Liz Deschenes, Blue Wool; On floor: Ursula von Rydingsvard, Lucretia; Math Bass, Scottie Dog &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: You’re still an active collector today. How do you learn about and discover art now?&nbsp;While my 1980’s focus continues, I have added a handful of works each year from current artists, purchased from galleries. Most recently, I’ve acquired two Jan-Ole Schiemann paintings from Nino Mier (LA) and Kasmin (NY), a Jenna Gribbon work from Fredricks &amp; Freiser (NY) and a Paul Sietsema work from Matthew Marks (LA).CGN: Where do you primarily buy art – through galleries, auctions or art fairs?Collector: For works from the 1980’s, I am primarily purchasing at auction.&nbsp; More current works I purchase through galleries, and occasionally at art fairs.&nbsp; I go to very few fairs, only Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and EXPO CHICAGO.CGN: Your focus, once you decided on one, is very personal.&nbsp;Collector: I love living with these works, and spending time with them. 20 years ago, the comedian Steve Martin displayed his art collection in Las Vegas, and he wrote and narrated the audio tour guide. A point that he made was that an artwork succeeds when you can stare at it for hours and find meaning, but you know in the end you’ll never fully understand it. He said it better, and funnier, but that’s the gist, and I agree with him.One issue I am conscious of is that private ownership of art deprives the general public of viewing those works.&nbsp; But I don’t think it applies to the works in my collection. I tested my hunch a few years ago by offering to have my estate leave my collection to a well-known modern art museum, which shall go unnamed. The museum agreed to accept the collection, but only if they were free to sell any or all of the works.&nbsp;Thus, the market has spoken: my art works are very meaningful to me, but they are not necessarily rare, and their private ownership does not deprive patrons of the ability to view works that might be deemed enormously important.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418360/xsvdhaztu85cm7zlcrij.jpg"><figcaption>Jim Dine, Alone at Night, each panel signed, titled and dated 1991 on the reverse, oil on 2 joined canvases, in artist’s frame, 86 1/8 by 147 3/4 in.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: What do you think about art for investment?Collector: When it comes to art, one needs to be agnostic as to intrinsic value and investment potential. I don’t think about art as an investment, except to the extent that I do insure the collection and try to keep track of its value for that purpose. Over the past 40 years of collecting art, I’ve certainly purchased works that have increased in value, and conversely some of the works I’ve purchased probably have very little resale value.&nbsp;I guess the way I look at the value of art can be summed up by a story about a recent acquisition. Many years back, I asked an artist – who happened to live next door to me in LA at the time – the price of one of his works, a favorite of mine. The price he named was more than I could afford then. Recently, I finally acquired that work from that same artist through a NY gallery for 30 times the price the artist stated so long ago. It doesn’t bother me that I had to pay so much more for it now, I’m just happy to have it in my collection. I ended up sending the artist an email congratulating him for holding the work so long, and in the process earning a ten percent annual compounded return for 38 years!<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418360/nhjjyl5oivnap0kafijn.jpg"><figcaption>Robert Longo, Untitled (Two Women)</figcaption></figure>CGN: What would you tell a visitor about your collection, as well as about collecting in general?Collector: Since my collection is so varied, I would speak about each work individually rather than the collection as a whole. In fact, rather than speaking I would hand the visitor an information page I’ve prepared for each of the works. It includes information that would typically be shown in an auction catalog, for instance: date created, media, and provenance. I have tried to include, in a condensed version, thoughts and ideas on the artists, and sometimes specifics about the actual artwork in the collection, on a page that the visitor can read while looking at the work itself. I re-read these notes myself from time to time.As far as collecting in general, I would suggest buying what you like; but, again, at least in my case, it helps to have a focus. You might build a collection around a certain time period, a genre, or different stages in a single artist’s life and work. I would also advise finding out as much as you can about the artists in your collection, including auction notes, criticism, films, and interviews. For example, to fully understand a Schnabel plate painting I think it’s crucial to watch Michael Blackwood’s important 1982 documentary A New Spirit in Painting. Likewise, my Eric Fischl painting The Chair, The Bed, Getting Ready had much greater resonance for me after reading his autobiography Bad Boy. I would also recommend three great books on how to view and understand modern art: Robert Hughes’ The Shock of the New, Leo Steinberg’s classic Other Criteria, and Calvin Tomkins’ amazing book The Bride and the Bachelors, which I keep coming back to, and have now read several times. Also, go to galleries and speak with the representatives.&nbsp;I never understood Nan Goldin’s photographs until her work was explained to me by Mike Davis at Matthew Marks. Once decoded, I fell in love with these photographs, and recently added Goldin’s 1991 photo Guy at Wigstock to my collection.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418361/c2c3dqdf7qwwaqdq8mg3.jpg"><figcaption>Nan Goldin, Guy at Wigstock</figcaption></figure>CGN: What kind of conversations have started about the art in your collection?Collector: Almost everyone that visits the collection tells me which work is their personal favorite. Some tell me which is their least favorite! Now, when I have visitors, I do ask them which is their favorite, but I also ask them: Why? What do you like about your favorite work in the collection? What are the qualities of the work that make it your favorite, or least favorite? I enjoy this discussion and have learned from it too. And I do ask people to take their time while visiting the collection. There is a terrific article written by art historian Jennifer Roberts titled The Power of Patience. In it, she argues, convincingly to my mind, that collectively we have lost the ability to focus in a slow, engaged way – what she calls ‘immersive attention.’ Its only at this slow-paced, immersive engagement with the work that I believe art truly reveals itself.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

A Collector's Personal Focus: Discovering the Value of Engagement

<html><head></head><body>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418339/fbsw91z0ffsyqc9cxpuj.jpg"><figcaption>Yvette Mayorga, Portrait of the Artist’s Parents (After Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter Francois Boucher, c. 1760) 2020, acrylic piping on canvas, 48” x 60,” diptych &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ALISON REILLYTreating paint like frosting on a cake, artist Yvette Mayorga pipes saccharine landscapes onto canvases. Littered with pink cars, empty Cheeto bags, smiley faces, and references to ICE and Homeland Security, her paintings tell a truth that may be hard to stomach: the American dream is making us sick. Mayorga has been working with these motifs for several years, but the ongoing pandemic confirms what she has hinted at all along—that the promise of a better life in the United States may come with a number of severe consequences. Mayorga’s paintings, featuring fluorescent colors and soft textures juxtaposed with military figurines and blurred faces, are jarring portraits of America in 2020.&nbsp;Over the past few months Mayorga has been preparing for a number of exhibitions including LatinXAmerican at Depaul Art Museum, which opens in January 2021 and ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21 at Museo Del Barrio in New York. She was recently selected as a finalist for the 2020 Artadia Chicago Awards.&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418340/vpbefdfwagadtbenlwuu.jpg"><figcaption>Yvette Mayorga in her studio. Photo by William Camargo</figcaption></figure>CGN: First, how have you been doing these past several months, and where are you working from?Yvette Mayorga: It’s been difficult to see my community and family members be put at a higher risk due to COVID-19. I had the privilege of shutting down my studio at MANA and being able to work from home for most of quarantine, but of course many essential workers didn’t have that choice and continue to be put at risk. Once the guidelines were lifted a bit in July, I returned to my studio while practicing social distancing and safety guidelines. It’s definitely been a lot of ups and downs and check ins with friends and family to make sure everyone is holding up and remembering we are strong as a community.CGN: How has your practice changed since March when the stay-at-home orders were put into effect?YM: Quarantine has affirmed what some of us have already known—that there is still work to be done in rewriting Art History due to COVID-19’s disproportionate effect on people of color and immigrant communities. I plan to continue to share the untold stories in my work with frosting through my feminist perspective.CGN: What is a typical day in your studio like?&nbsp;YM: A typical day in my studio includes an iced coffee, playing some Buscabulla, and beginning by catching up on some art admin emails/inventory/contracts for the first hour, then I do any research/source image printing related to the work I’m working on, and then I begin mixing my colors for piping. Some days my order of doing things changes, but usually it’s in that order, because it makes me get emails out of the way so I can focus on my favorite part, which is the creating.CGN: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist?YM: It’s something that my intuition has always told me to follow, although during high school I did consider different creative career paths, such as fashion design or interior design, but I was always pulled towards painting. I definitely think growing up with siblings who were great at drawing and were always being creative around our house made me think there was a possibility in art. It also helped that my high school art teacher gave me advice and tools to think about art as a career, because I didn’t know anyone who was an artist—and that’s really integral to seeing yourself in a field—if you don’t know anyone doing your dream job, it takes more of a risk to follow it.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418341/ddjbbqos0kmwsybl915i.jpg"><figcaption>American Urn, (After Madame Victoire vases at Château de Versailles,) 2019, acrylic piping on canvas, 48”x 60” &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>CGN: I read that you initially used baking frosting in many of your paintings and sculptures but have since changed to acrylic to ensure the longevity of your work. How have other aspects of your practice changed over the past several years (conceptually or physically)?YM: I used to source frosting from bakeries who had buckets of leftover frosting that was going to be discarded. I really enjoyed seeing all the different colors and decorations mixed in the tubs that gave me small glimpses of maybe who those cakes were being made for that weekend. Most of my “Monuments” series are made with real frosting, and, of course, frosting decomposes after a certain amount of time, so I went back to paint but with a more sculptural approach, where I used traditional baking tools to do the painting. That was more exciting to me than traditional painting—I think it’s the sculpturally-inclined part of me that loves to see texture and relief on any substrate.&nbsp;Conceptually my work continues to naturally evolve as one research topic leads me to another and another and so on. The content is all pertaining to one grand idea, but the idea is so complex and has so many layers I still am barely touching it—that, to me, is exciting.&nbsp;CGN: How did you decide to incorporate confections, cake decorating, and pastillage into your work?YM: I first wanted to address the decadence attributed to the American dream and consumerism, while referencing my mother’s labor – in the ‘70s she worked decorating cakes at Marshall Field’s. I began using real frosting to reference both themes, and now I am also incorporating references to the Rococo style—everything is tied to ideas of labor, gender, architecture, and colonialism under the big umbrella of American idealism that is placed on immigrants.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418342/beomtzzfbxurmc7vckvc.jpg"><figcaption>Vase of the Century</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Tell me about your experience growing up in Moline, Illinois? How has that informed your work?&nbsp;YM: My experience growing up in Moline was mostly great. It’s a small city where everyone you go to kindergarten with you also go to high school with. I grew up surrounded by my family and a tight knit community. I also felt like I partially grew up in Zacatecas and Jalisco, Mexico where my family and I would travel to every summer until I was about 18 years old to visit my grandmothers. I think the experience of being in two countries as a child really gave me a transnational perspective that allowed me to understand my parents’ stories of growing up in Mexico and to shape my understanding of my identity. I am grateful for my parents to have given my siblings and me that experience, because it has made me who I am today.CGN: What impact has Chicago had on your formation as an artist? What is your relationship to the city?YM: Chicago was where we would visit my aunt as a child and also a place filled with memories of my parents’ time here in the seventies, as it was one of the first cities they immigrated to. There is a lot of my familial labor history embedded in the South Side of Chicago that reminds me of what it must’ve been like for my parents to begin their life here. As an artist, it’s where my community is.CGN: I was looking at your Instagram and saw an adorable little puppy. Can you tell me about your dog?YM: Roco (Rococo) is our new family member, she is a Victorian Bulldog. My partner and I decided it was time for a happy addition during quarantine, and she’s really brought us light during difficult times.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418342/amv2ny6qgmckyf0m9wtd.jpg"><figcaption>High Maintenance, 2019, Installation, 41’ x 25’ x 10’ Tube Factory, Indanapolis, IN</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418343/tajxbnk7aylh070xhriq.jpg"><figcaption>Monochromatic Dreams, installation</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418344/cnusmofqjcu25kz8cdwn.jpg"><figcaption>Detail of shoes in installation</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;This interview is featured in the fall 2020 issue of CGN. To receive a print copy, <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/print-subscriptions">please subscribe</a> for $20/year!&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418345/rpgttrqhgn5epcd0lyb6.png"></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Yvette Mayorga: Artistic Confections Add New Layers to Art History

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417634/ztcr9ndhyabqf1a5ei6v.png"><figcaption>May's Heroes for Heroes design by David Lee Csicsko</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEADavid Lee Csicsko, an internationally recognized and celebrated designer and artist currently living and working in Chicago, has engaged in a wide variety of projects at nearly every scale during his 30 year career; from small privately commissioned prints to to his more recent explorations of the possibilities inherent in working with stained glass and mosaics at large scales. These monumental projects have included work for hospitals, universities, elementary schools, churches, and various private homes. He was even one of the artists who designed the Obama White House for Christmas in 2012.&nbsp;This weekend his artistic touch is about to be all over another special event, the first-ever virtual Scottish Highland Games to benefit the oldest nonprofit in Illinois, the <a href="https://www.chicagoscots.org">Chicago Scots</a>. And for the past few unusual months, he's been making his distinctively colorful, graphic portraits available to the public in the name of a good cause through the sale of specially editioned, and hotly anticipated, history-themed t-shirts, masks, and more.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417635/ryeurs0dv0r1owqu9naq.jpg"></figure>Csicsko has been working with the Chicago Scots since the spring to support staff and residents of the organization's Caledonia Senior Living in suburban North Riverside, a noble effort considering how severely senior care facilities have been impacted by the ongoing pandemic.&nbsp;In March in the early weeks of lockdown, while working on a design for the Chicago Scots to celebrate Tartan Day, which was coming up on April 6, Csicsko asked friend and Chicago Scots president Gus Noble, what/whom he thought Csicsko should feature in the design. Noble suggested featuring Scottish King Robert the Bruce (remember Bravehart?), since 2020 marked the 700th anniversary of Robert's signing of the Declaration of Arbroath (asserting Scottish independence from the English on April 6, 1320). When Csicsko asked how things were going at Caledonia Senior Living because of the virus, Noble responded that the campus was in an advanced state of lockdown, but that residents and staff were holding up very well due to the work of Caledonia's incredible staff. "They are heroes," Noble said. To recognize that heroism in the face of COVID-19’s challenges, Chicago Scots had begun to raise much needed funds to buy PPE, as well as to give each member of the team hero pay, meals, treats, and groceries to save trips to the store – anything to support these frontline workers and to encourage them for the lives they were protecting, especially when many of the elderly residents were cut off from visiting family members.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417636/qzzvyzhg3kigil6ndbv2.jpg"></figure>Csicsko has designed popular t-shirts and products for Chicago's Fine Art and Classical radio WFMT's fundraisers in the past, so Csicsko and Noble decided to team up to expand the ways in which funds could be raised for Caledonia's staff, they decided to call it “Heroes for Heroes”, incorporating the Tartan Day design for t-shirts, face masks, mugs and other items featuring Robert the Bruce to support Caledonia's heroes. The campaign expanded to do limited releases each month and to add new designs as well as celebrate the 175th Anniversary of the Chicago Scots this year. Now Chicago Scots features a different Scottish Hero each month. April’s hero was the Bruce, May’s was Mary Queen of Scots and, like his Red Red Rose that’s “newly sprung in June,” June's hero was the bard Robert Burns. July's hero was Neil Armstrong (in keeping with the society's mission that all they welcome everyone who is Scottish by birth, by heritage or simply by inclination, as Armstrong was American with Scottish heritage.) August is yet to be revealed.&nbsp;Noble says they have some terrific Scottish heroes waiting in the wings to make their appearance in the months ahead, and fans of Csicsko's work as well as the Chicago Scots have indeed been collecting the eagerly awaited new releases each month as well as guessing which ones will be next.&nbsp;Csicsko says he likes to work in a&nbsp;series, "I love when I can dig in and explore the subjects, from composer portraits,&nbsp;architect&nbsp;portraits, people in science and now important historical figures from Scotland. I love doing visual research, and adding accessible&nbsp;symbols to help tell more of the story."&nbsp;To begin he says he first does a quick pencil sketch and then draws on the computer. For him, "It's very satisfying&nbsp;to take a historic figure and make them become relevant&nbsp;to today's audience. With all the Scottish Heroes, it's fun to add a tartan when ever&nbsp;possible. I mean, why not?"<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417637/cjwog72rgtroay4anjpt.png"><figcaption>Csicsko in his studio</figcaption></figure>Csicsko's designs are helping to make tartan go beyond its standard association with Christmas time and tourists. Csicsko's aesthetic and striking use of color and pattern is distinctive, and each project he engages in is entirely unique. Through his work, Csicsko celebrates the diversity and richness of the human imagination, and expresses the joys of life through his dynamic use of color, bold graphics and playful patterns. Lending his talents to this latest project is just one more way, among many, he supports a greater need in a way that spreads joy and color through art.The&nbsp;COVID-19 challenges are significant but Csicsko has stayed busy, and he is thinking of others as well as new ventures. On Facebook&nbsp;he is currently making new free, shareable coloring pages. As of July he had over 150 original new pages.And he's also designing a line of smart looking masks.In addition to his fine art, David's projects include creating the mosaics at the Belmont 'L' station, designing the Obama White House for Christmas, illustrating the much loved children's book 'The Skin You Live In'. &nbsp;His designs for the fun, reusable shopping bags for Mariano's have become collected and spotted around&nbsp;the world. &nbsp;He has had exhibits&nbsp;LUMA Loyola's Museum of Art, and the&nbsp;Alliance Française de Chicago. His output ranges from the Chapel stained glass windows at the Robert and Anne Lurie Chicago Children's Hospital, to windows for colleges&nbsp;and churches. Mr Csicsko has as&nbsp;volunteer created graphics for the Dame Myra Hess Memorial&nbsp;Concerts and Groceryland a Charity Food Source for the needy.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417638/p2eixhgghfjaugj8isot.jpg"></figure>To purchase an item to support Caledonia House <a href="https://chicagoscots.itemorder.com/sale">click here</a> (deadline: July 31 for July's Hero)To learn about Chicago Scots click <a href="https://www.chicagoscots.org">here</a>To learn about David Lee Csicsko click <a href="https://csicsko.com">here</a> or follow him on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/david.csicsko">Facebook</a><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417638/lvnh2yljmf9qkkdjgnsg.png"></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417639/ptptk1ug3odzbvq9bv61.png"></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Artist David Lee Csicsko Lends Graphic Talents to Benefit Healthcare Heroes

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417668/waotohsf9xnhvlja4mea.jpg"><figcaption>Homo-entanglement, installation view, by Miller &amp; Shellabarger, February 28 until the gallery had to close to the public due to COVID-19.</figcaption></figure>Name of gallery: <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/western-exhibitions">Western Exhibitions</a>Number of years in business: 16How did you begin your career?I was an artist working a stultifying day job, working for the admissions office of an art school. I’d be on the road 5 days of week (at least!) from fall into the early spring, and when I’d get home I had no desire to coop myself up in the studio. I needed to be around people, especially other artists, leading me to meet up with them in their studios or in bars, discussing their work and the art issues of the day.&nbsp; This day job also led me to pack as much as I could into a day off. When I lived in New York, a day off might be a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and I’d spend the entire day in a different gallery district, going to see everything.&nbsp; What inspired you to open a gallery?Looking back at both the gallery hopping and studio visiting, I can see now I was developing my eye and my empathy for artists’ needs, while at the same time growing less and less interested in my own artistic practice. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Chicago had a robust apartment gallery scene and I watched my artist friends exhaust their opportunities at all these spaces without getting a sniff from commercial galleries, so eventually I thought I’d open a space to show their work, despite the fact that I ZERO experience with galleries.&nbsp;I never showed with a commercial space, never interned nor worked for one, I didn’t have an art history or arts administration degree, nor did I have a wealthy benefactor. But I did have an eye. And being an artist myself, I knew of their travails, needs and concerns. So when I was offered a raw space to open a bricks-and-mortar gallery (after putting on shows nomadically for two years) for $350 a month, I thought “I don’t have $350 extra a month, but there is no way to get a space for cheaper than this.” I took the leap in 2004.Is there a unifying element in your program or artist representation?Personal narratives, unique cosmologies and world views; LGBTQ artists and issues; Feminist art/fighting the patriarchy; pattern, decoration and surface concerns; works on paper (especially drawing); and artist books.How are you connecting with collectors and artists right now? Have you added to or increased your digital outreach?Shelter-in-place has been a sensitive time, and most people have had bigger concerns that buying art. That said, we do have rent and bills to pay and payroll to meet! So if collectors and curators do reach out to me (and thank God a few have), they will have my full attention. We updated our Artsy page, hoping to attract those eyeballs, and have amped up our content on Instagram, offering in-depth stories each day about individual art works in our Miller &amp; Shellabarger show. Upcoming shows will be featured too.Which exhibitions did you have to postpone or adjust due to COVID-19?We pushed back two shows:<a href="https://westernexhibitions.com/exhibition/visionaries-voices/">Visionaries + Voices at Western Exhibitions</a> was rescheduled for June 6–July 11, 2020, online and by appt. in the gallery.&nbsp;<a href="https://westernexhibitions.com/exhibition/downtown-nyc-1980s-selections-from-the-barry-blinderman-archive/">New York in the 80s: Selections from the Barry Blinderman Collection</a> has been pushed back to January 8, 2021.What percentage of your sales have previously been online vs in person (including art fairs)?&nbsp;50/50&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/western-exhibitions">Western Exhibitions&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;</body></html>

CGN Art Dealer Q & A: Scott Speh, Western Exhibitions

<html><head></head><body>By GINNY VAN ALYEAStuart Dyer is an old soul, who has had an eye for hunting treasure for as long as she can remember. More than 10 years ago she turned her personal passion into a full time profession when she founded Ladybug Vintage. She shared some of her own secrets of sourcing and collecting with CGN.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418782/ykq8n0hhb3p14nsnxuoh.jpg"><figcaption>Stuart Dyer at home. Photo by Frank Ishman</figcaption></figure>Please tell me how you came to do what you do? What were some of your earliest creative inspirations and influences?I started Ladybug Vintage in 2009. It is a vintage jewelry and accessories business which focuses mostly on the international glamour and country club chic eras of the 1960s and 1970s. From as far back as I can remember, I have been an avid fan of vintage. My interest started when I would spend time with my grandmother on Sundays. She had a huge jewelry box filled with vintage costume and real jewelry pieces, and I would spend hours trying everything on. I never got tired of it! I also loved watching old movies with her from the 1940s through the 1960s, and I quickly became obsessed with the clothing and jewelry featured in the films. My interest in vintage expanded further when I would accompany my mother to flea markets and antique shows where she would look for British antiques and Chinese export pieces. I wanted to collect something too, so I would look for things I could afford with my allowance. No one really wanted Vintage clothing and costume jewelry then.After college, I moved to New York City, took night classes at Parsons School of Design and then worked as a clothing designer. During this time, I started acquiring vintage pieces to use as design inspiration. After working&nbsp; in fashion for 15 years and moving to Chicago, I decided to turn my passion for vintage into a business and started Ladybug Vintage.We have talked to a lot of art collectors over the years for CGN – often it’s a long time before they even realize they have a collection. Please talk about what it means to buy things that you love with an eye for selling them to someone else.I have always bought what I love, whether its vintage jewelry, vintage clothing, art or antiques – now I continue to do the same thing on a bigger scale. I find if I stay true to what I love, the pieces I acquire work together even if from different eras, creating a cohesive collection that appeals to my buyers.Are there any secrets to finding a vintage treasure among a lot of...junk? Do you have favorite sources or sites?I think the secret is experience. I have been acquiring vintage for so long I can usually rather quickly spot what I am looking for. When I arrive at a booth at a flea market, I’ll scan the space to get a sense of what is there, and then focus. Since I mostly look for jewelry and accessories, I start where smaller pieces are kept.My favorite sources always change. It is a game of chance. One time I could go to a thrift shop and find a treasure trove, and the next time I go back find nothing. The same can be said about the other places where I like to search, such as auctions (both live and on-line), flea markets and antique malls. I look for vintage wherever I happen to be, even when travelling.I know you have an art history background and I read that you are also a life-long lover of antiques.I am! I have many collections. In addition to vintage jewelry and accessories, I collect mid-century modern furniture, vintage Limoges dishes, antique botanical prints, colorful 1960s and 1970s graphic art, Murano glass and paperweights.Are there certain designers or categories you recommend new collectors, or anyone with a level of interest in vintage clothing and jewelry, should look to collect?&nbsp;I recommend that people collect what speaks to them and what they find beautiful or interesting, because the value of things comes and goes. I suggest you do research to develop an eye for what you like and become familiar with signature pieces, designer’s marks, etc. That being said, high-end designer pieces from Hermes, Chanel, Dior and Gucci, tend to hold their value.What are some challenges to being a professional ‘collector’?The biggest challenge is to not become a hoarder – ha! Besides that, I find that it can be a challenge to buy things that are only in good condition, are of high quality, and to truly stick to pieces that I love. I have learned the hard way not to buy something just because it is a bargain.&nbsp;</body></html>

Stuart Dyer’s Game of Chance

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418223/borw3cejnunsc96qxfbr.gif"><figcaption>Carl and Marilynn Thoma with Robert Wilson’s 2013 digital animation LADY GAGA: Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere and Andrés Solano’s 1776 oil on canvas painting Portrait of Ana Josepha de Castañeda y de la Requere, 2019. Courtesy of the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, photo by Tira Howard.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ANNA DOBROWOLSKITucked away in a warehouse in the heart of the West Loop, the Orange Door hosts a mélange of Japanese woven bamboo baskets, 17th century Spanish colonial art, a sonar-activated windmill and a mirrored infinity chamber. It can take some effort to gain access to an eclectic art collection in the best of times: like an art speakeasy, the Orange Door, an exhibition space operated by the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, is typically open to educational groups, curators, and art aficionados by appointment only. Luckily, in the middle of a pandemic, the barriers separating us from the collection just got lifted.In early March I was able to connect with Marilynn and Carl Thoma to discuss how they first got into art collecting. Since graduating Stanford business school in the 70s, the duo has amassed over 1,400 works of art, making them a fashionable power couple for whom art is not just business but a lifestyle. Carl Thoma heads Thoma Bravo LLC, a private equity firm he cofounded in the 1980s; and Marilynn Thoma actively serves on the boards of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chicago Humanities Festival, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Together in 2014 they established the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, which is dedicated to visual arts and philanthropic pursuits. Today they fund research into art scholarship, novel educational programs, and conservation.Orange Door first opened in Chicago out of necessity, as the Thomas needed a home base from which to make art loans nationally and internationally. Currently, some of the art they have collected is on loan at the MCA, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, with another 17 across the Midwest. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, they also run a separate facility called Art House, which houses one of the largest digital collections open to the public year-round.Each year the Thomas utilize Orange Door’s space to curate an exhibition featuring new Digital Art acquisitions and select artworks from across their collections. In September 2019 they hosted “Infinity Clock: Artworks on Time” and “The Algorists: Historic Computer Art.” The latter highlighted software-assisted work (namely, computer drawings on paper) created by artists such as Peter Beyls, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnar, Frieder Nake, Roman Verostko, Harold Cohen, and Mark Wilson. It is quite a treat to interact with these digital installations in person: however, when galleries are shut down to the public and exhibitions are either postponed or cancelled, we turn to our screens to access and engage their work.How do we experience and collect art today? In this interview, the Thomas discuss their journey into the world of art collecting in the digital age.&nbsp;Anna Dobrowolski: What set off the spark in 1975? What was the first piece that started the Thoma collection before it became a foundation in 2014?Carl Thoma: Marilynn and I were both just out of graduate school when we began to collect art. Our interest was heavily centered around California Impressionism and the Taos Society of Artists, leading us to purchase paintings by artists including Redmond Granville, Joseph Henry Sharp, and E. Martin Hennings. Today we continue to collect artwork from across the American Southwest—both historic and contemporary.AD: When you aren’t splitting time between Santa Fe and Chicago, do you have any favorite places or galleries you love to visit?CT: It is hard to narrow down the list, but three art destinations we love to visit are Currents New Media festival in Santa Fe, Art Basel Miami, and the Prado Museum in Madrid.AD: What do you look for when considering a work of art to add to your collection?CT: At first it was a subjective decision—we buy what we like to look at. As we became more knowledgeable, we went deeper into a given period or movement and discovered ever more movements and artists. Because we make loans to museums, we also consider what a piece contributes to the history of art in general and how it might relate to other artworks.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418224/xxxman2zfshtu7mhqisb.gif"><figcaption>Marina Zurkow, Mesocosm (Wink, TX), 2012,real-time generative software animation on monitor.© Marina Zurkow, courtesy of the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, rendering still by bitforms.</figcaption></figure>AD: How has your taste changed or solidified over the years?CT: We have always been decisive, and we have learned a great deal from a handful of seasoned advisors. Over the years, we have been increasingly drawn to works that embody color, strong compositional design, mastery of the medium, and historical importance. Through the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, we have also become increasingly dedicated to expanding scholarship and collection conservation.AD: Can you tell us more about those initiatives and collections? How do they challenge or shape our perspectives?CT: We support initiatives and collect works of art that encourage reflection, demonstrate innovation, and encourage deeper questions. For example, in 2019 the Foundation’s inaugural Bold Initiatives grant was given to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago to support their OPEN HOUSE initiative. They are taking bold steps to enable greater visitor engagement. This includes making the museum accessible to all facets of the community—not just those who live nearby, who have visited a museum before, or who feel comfortable in such a space. We are helping to fund an onsite educator whose job centers around visitors: understanding their needs, asking questions, helping them to grow and learn in a conducive environment. This commitment to making art more accessible is mirrored in our public exhibition space Art House in Santa Fe, which presents highlights from our collection of Digital Art to a community with deep and rich cultural and artistic histories. We aim to bridge the gap between something familiar, like landscape painting, and something new. And we encourage visitors to ask questions about the art and dive deeper into how these connections across time and place affect them.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418225/xrxnrd7elcnsoebnkx6m.gif"><figcaption>Installation view: Earth Algorithms:Landscapes of the Digital Age featuring art works by Lee Nam Lee, SyōruHonda, and Elias Sime. Installed at ArtHouse, Santa Fe, 2019. Courtesy of the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma ArtFoundation, photo by Eric Swanson.</figcaption></figure>AD: Many of the digital works in your collection incorporate some kind of interactive element. I’m intrigued by some featured pieces such as Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Please Empty Your Pockets, Jennifer Steinkamp’s Bouquet 1, Guillermo Galindo’s American Dream Flag / Bandera del sueño americano, or Lynn Harshman Leeson’s Deep Contact. In these examples the viewer is engaging with the subject through a screen, which seems to be one of our primary options when looking at art lately. What makes these installations significant today?CT: These pieces are all very different, but what unites them is that each artist pursues an innovative technological idea to completion. In some of the examples you cite, the artists are at the forefront of digital art. Never before have such complex programmed works been viewable within art galleries. This represents a major shift in the experience of art, including interactivity.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418227/rn0ul8zq55sn7zdnlcwe.gif"><figcaption>James Turrell, Ursa Minor, MediumElliptical Glass, 2019, LED light, etched glass, shallow space. © James Turrell, courtesy of the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, photo by Pace Gallery</figcaption></figure>AD: How does your digital and electronic art collection speak to the idea of art making in a time where everything seems so readily accessible? Can you talk a bit about the shift into collecting Digital and Electronic Art?CT: My business is rooted in investing in new technologies, so collecting digital and electronic art came naturally. Our Digital Art collection mirrors my interest in systematic approaches, scientific thinking, innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology that shifts the trajectory of human experience. Over the years, I’ve found myself considering the role that new technologies play in the evolution of artistic creation and how the artworks we collect inspire an expansion in our understanding of media in contemporary culture.AD: Which piece is your most recent addition? How does it connect to the others?CT: Our most recent acquisition is James Turrell’s Ursa Minor, Medium Elliptical Glass from 2019. He is a key figure in the Light and Space movement. It never seemed practical to own one of his seminal works from the 1960s, which are complicated to re-create. The piece that we acquired uses LEDs with a computer program to simulate the effects of the artist’s enchanting Skyspaces. &nbsp;Art Collecting: A Family AffairAD: From your perspective, how has the practice of art collecting changed?CT: Over the past five decades, collectors have seen an increase in the number of opportunities to purchase. Almost daily, we receive digital images of pieces that are on the market. This increase in opportunity to purchase is especially true with digital artwork, which, like prints, may come in multiple editions.AD: According to a 2017 interview in Albuquerque Journal, your daughter, Margo, is an art professional. What have you learned from her in terms of art and business?CT: Margo has taught us a great deal about modern and contemporary art and Japanese bamboo sculpture. She works closely with some of the foremost scholars and advisors in the field of Japanese bamboo, whose research has informed the scope and shape of our collection. As a gallery director, she has also provided a view into the inner workings of the art market.AD: Do you notice a shift between people wanting to own art and people wanting to experience it? How do you think millennials and younger generations will go about art collecting?CT: Yes—and this is due in part to the fact that it is not necessary to own a work of art to connect with it and explore it from the comfort of your home. While nothing compares to experiencing an artwork in person, it is easier than ever to research and access art through online sources. More artworks are available to be seen as pieces in museum storage become uploaded and shared.Today, artistic masterpieces have the power to impact broad audiences: scholars advancing study of the field, casual observers perusing our collections online, emerging collectors looking for inspiration. Collecting art and sharing it with the world ensures its preservation for future generations to enjoy. &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418227/lk1gfyerzkya5tne4uz1.gif"><figcaption>Installation view: The Algorists: Historic Computer Art installed at Orange Door, Chicago, 2019. Courtesy of the Carl &amp; Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, photo</figcaption></figure> &nbsp;</body></html>

Behind The Orange Door: The Thoma Art Foundation Builds a Collection to Share With the World

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418768/gzadqe35cw2uonxjmeaz.gif"><figcaption>Nathan has made many artist friends throughout her life, one of them was The Rev Howard Finster. Here Nathan is pictured with him on a visit to his Georgia studio.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAWhen I first started working for Chicago Gallery News in 2002, my daily errand visits to galleries near our River North office offered insights into the fabric of the city’s art community as well as one on one encounters with those who had played key roles in shaping its history. At the time, not all information was relayed digitally; hand deliveries of everything from magazines to maps to ad files were necessary tasks. Natalie van Straaten, CGN’s founder and my boss at the time, would ask me, after my visits, whom I had seen, and what impressions they had made on me: Who was kind and welcoming? Who may have been prickly or brusque? Many of my encounters had been shared by previous employees and interns.&nbsp;A telling factor as to the character of a dealer was often how they would treat the lowest person on the totem pole (me).One of the most welcoming figures was Ann Nathan. By 2002 Ann had been in the art business for many years, having opened her gallery in the 1980s, growing and expanding despite major challenges. Though she could have dismissed me as a young person who knew little about art or the area, she showed curiosity and was gracious with me. I found her to be a little bit of a mystery, but she was as intriguing and inviting as her expansive loft space on West Superior Street.Ann Nathan Gallery closed in late 2016, but Ann has not stopped working. Last fall I called her daughter Betsy, also a dealer in art and antiques at PAGODA RED in Lincoln Park, to ask if I could visit Ann at home. I was invited to join Ann and two of her daughters – Susan as well as Betsy – in October. Though Ann did not know me as well as she once did, we ended up spending the better part of an afternoon revisiting her many stories while touring her vast, eclectic collection of art. Sitting together in her living room, overlooking Lake Michigan, it’s clear that art, in particular the way it connects Ann to creative people, has always kept her going and continues to today.*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418769/usaycny6kkgqwngxebx9.gif"><figcaption>Nathan’s living room displays an eclectic mix of contemporary art, antiques and furniture.pictured Above: Ed Paschke; Center wall: Sangram Majumdar; right side: Enrique Santana</figcaption></figure>Soon after I arrive for our meeting Ann draws my attention to a coffee table, a low, large, heavy piece. As we sip ginger tea, Ann points out that the table is all hand crafted, encouraging me to reach out and touch the top – made partially of concrete or cement and ceramic tiles, as well as the bottom – composed of wood. Measuring 4’ by 4’, Ann and her husband Walter commissioned the table from artist Michael Gross. It was the first table he ever made, and one of many works that the couple would collect, adding a functional piece to their home while also directly supporting an artist. “I liked it because it’s beautiful, and it works,” explains Ann. As Betsy looks over the table, she reminds her mom, “It has a date. You will see our dog at the time – Willy Smith –&nbsp;and see here, it says Walter and Ann.”Ann’s aesthetic preferences as well as practical criteria are evident in many of her home’s works of art and unique objects. When I ask how she began collecting art, together with her late husband, Walter, she remembers, “I loved it. We both did.” Their shared creative pursuit complemented a busy life managing dual careers as well as raising four children: Susan, Richard, Nina and Betsy.In the employment agency business for over 27 years, eventually running multiple agencies, Ann tired of that work. It was the ceramicist Ruth Duckworth who encouraged her to try her skills elsewhere when she suggested she move into a 200-square foot Ravenswood studio in the artist’s pickle factory. Ann opened Objects around 1986. It sounds like it was purely by chance that Ann’s gallery career came to be. Ruth mentioned to Ann, “You know what, I have a little room up at the top of the stairs that I don’t know what to do with. Why don’t you do something with it?”Though the space was tiny, Ann’s own eclectic taste – even now her home is filled with a distinctly personal mix of handmade furniture from Africa alongside contemporary art, antiques and folk art – was well suited to a gallery program. She showed jewelry and ceramics – small, functional objects, and she had to be creative with every inch of space, including pedestals that opened up and doubled as storage space.Eventually, a friend of Ann’s, Chicago real estate developer David C. Ruttenberg, encouraged Ann to relocate from the north side to River North, nearer to downtown. She made the move and remained there until the River North fire in 1989 forced her to close briefly. She reopened in a large ground floor space on Superior Street as Ann Nathan Gallery. Around the same time Ann and Walter also moved from suburban Glencoe to downtown. She summarizes, “We were ready for a change.”*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418770/jj4yfhfoxn8d1x1u68cg.gif"><figcaption>Nathan’s office tells the story of some of her earliest collecting</figcaption></figure>In order to fully understand the origins of what set Ann on her art journey, we get up to go into Ann’s home office. Betsy hints, “It will bring it to life when you’re in that room. You will really be immersed in that moment from the beginning.”As we prepare to move rooms, Ann directs that I should take my ginger tea. She warns that the office could be a mess. It is not. In fact, it strikes me as amazing and transportive – a space that reveres her past and the artists who have been a part of it. At the center of it all is the art of Howard Finster, the Southern&nbsp;Baptist&nbsp;minister from&nbsp;Georgia whose own&nbsp;folk art&nbsp;sculpture garden&nbsp;contained over 46,000 pieces of art. One wall of the office is dedicated to Finster’s art, and hanging in the middle is&nbsp;a photograph from the 1980s of Ann with the artist, in Finster’s famous garden.Susan explains, “This is really where it all began.” Up on the shelves are many carved, wooden, black figures, sometimes called Dancing Dans, that were collected one by one in junk stores. Ann interjects that they were not popular or even collected at the time, but they were considered primitive art, made by totally unknown artists. When I ask if these would be considered Outsider art, Betsy corrects me. “The Outsiders, even though they’re untrained, actually develop their own names in the world, they become known. And these artists are totally unknown.” Ann was taken with these innate efforts at expression, and they set her on a path of seeking out figurative art long before she would start her gallery.As we identify the art on the shelves and walls in the office and end up back at the Finster wall, I get more of the story of how Ann first went down to find the eccentric artist. Ann first travelled to Georgia with Susan – probably in the early ‘80s – in a rented station wagon, which they filled with art and drove back to Chicago. “We had to [drive],” Says Susan. “How else were we going to get all the stuff back?” Ann would take her children with her on many subsequent visits – Finster used to say, affectionately, “Sister Annie’s here,” making her sound like a nun but perceiving her as a kind of angel, drawn to his created world. He believed his garden to be a holy place, with folk art as a medium to communicate God’s word. Ann was a divine visitor.Before the gallery Ann had many art adventures with artists as well as her family. The beginning of it all seems to spring from her perpetual search for figures, like the ones lining the office shelves today. She also sought out tramp art – works made by travelers out of cigar boxes and other things on hand. All over, says Betsy, they would hunt for objects that cost just 50 cents to two dollars. If she heard something could be found, she would go to that junk store and buy it, all along making connections with local sellers.*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418771/ahhm3wea2bna2q9dxxgi.gif"><figcaption>Works shown include a work on paper by Ed Paschke, a painting by Red Grooms, and a silhouette by Kara Walker</figcaption></figure>Ann forged partnerships with many artists over the decades, such as Jim Rose, another Wisconsin-based furniture artist, and she also came to showcase work by Outsider and self-taught artists like Lee Godie. A focus of the work in Ann’s home is on figurative art from many different periods as well as styles.Wandering through the other rooms of Ann’s apartment, it feels like I’m along on a visit with old friends. Some of the most eye-catching pieces are also large in scale, filling the wide, high walls with colorful people and scenes. A distinctive painting of a crowded street at rush hour by Red Grooms from 1964 was the first major piece Ann and Walter purchased. Nearby is also a work by Jacob Lawrence, as well as a more recent silhouette piece by Kara Walker. Adding to the depth of the collection is a trove of African objects, figures and masks as well as various pieces from Asia, revealing how global Ann’s taste is, spanning genres, mediums, time periods and cultures.As we move from wall to wall Ann recalls a story of the time when she came across a pair of unusual, older tables during one of her excursions. Her first thought was that she should put them on hold and come back with Walter before deciding to buy them. “Well, there they were,” she recalls, “I went to a junk store and I saw them there and they were for sale and I said, ‘Would you hold these for me? My husband would have to see them.’ So I left, and on the way home I thought to myself, he’ll never go there. He’ll never go to look at them. So I turned the car around and I went back and bought them.” Since she had two of her children with her in her station wagon, she told them they’d have to make room for the new cargo. Susan adds, “We somehow or other had both tables in the car and we had to drive home with the back open, holding on.”<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418772/gd2gf0ruzlb4k5jzaigg.gif"><figcaption>Artifacts and figurines from Africa and Asia are displayed throughout Nathan's home</figcaption></figure>Years of acquiring such furniture as well as art has meant&nbsp; Ann developed a savvy habit of using clever storage – I notice that she has few tables. Instead she favors 19th century Chinese and Tibetan trunks, scattered wherever they are needed. In addition to complementing the eclectic art, they double as attractive hide-aways. I sense each piece of furniture and work of art has a purpose as well as a story behind it - discovered by Ann along the way through life and brought back home to live among a new family. A variety of scales, materials and periods all blend to comprise a warm home filled with characters who keep Ann company every day. In the dining room is a table made by ceramicist Arnold Zimmerman. Ann’s kitchen cabinets are lined with a collection of moonshine face jugs from Georgia made by the Meaders family of potters. Additional folk art pieces hold many special glasses and dishes, and shelves display a collection of fish and bird decoys.*<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418773/onfsjmzjp1fqbsgul9mq.gif"><figcaption>The Nathans photographed in the ‘50s by Art Shay for LIFE magazine</figcaption></figure>When we move into what was once Walter’s office, my attention turns to a couple of black and white photographs hung above one another on the wall. They are from a photo shoot with LIFE magazine in the late 1950s. Pictured are Ann and Walter with their three children – Susan, Nina and Richard (Betsy was not yet born). The photographer was Art Shay. Shay had been dispatched to cover a story about mothers who worked. “She was an anomaly,” explains Betsy, “because women at that time did not work. And nobody could believe that a married Jewish woman was working, with three children at home.” Though they sent Shay to do the shoot, LIFE never actually ran the story.Ann and Shay managed to reunite nearly 50 years later in Chicago, and Shay personally found the original photos of the Nathans and gave them to Ann. With the reconnection came a show of Shay’s work at Ann’s gallery. Ann remembers thinking, “Let’s do it. Let’s have a show.” By then Shay was in his 90s, but he was equally excited to work together again. The two were friends until Shay passed away in 2018 at 96.It’s been several years since Ann closed her space in River North, but she continues to be active with the art closest to her every day. Though her children visit frequently they comment that on nearly every visit they notice that the art and furniture has been moved around within the apartment. Ann enjoys exercising her curatorial skills each day in order to see things from a different perspective. Much like when she was in the gallery, things are taken out and put away, or they are displayed in new locations. Nothing has to remain the same. Just like in the ‘50s Ann is a woman who never stops working. She loves to observe and enjoy the art around her every single day.&nbsp;</body></html>

Art Dealer Ann Nathan: The Perpetual Collector

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418768/jiyjenxhbad0hvyqylki.gif"><figcaption>Ebony G. Patterson . . . while the dew is still on theroses . . . , Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, February – July 2020. © Ebony G. Patterson. All work courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By ALISON REILLY“Be kind to yourself,” Ebony G. Patterson tells me as we end our conservation, “I have so many friends who are teachers, and when I talk to them, they feel like they’re working more now than they were before the moment of COVID-19. So much more seems to be asked of them. I was saying to a friend of mine yesterday that those days of absolutely nothing are very important. Take them when you feel them. Be kind to yourself.”<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418769/iuahfbjmsbtuz4fwysgc.gif"><figcaption>Ebony G. Patterson, ...three kings weep..., 2018 (still), edition of 3, three-channel digital color video projection with sound, 8 minutes 34seconds. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.</figcaption></figure>Patterson, an artist who has become known for her large-scale, multi-layered, intricate installations, admits that she also needs to dedicate time to the act of self-care. Before the stay-at-home order was in place in Chicago, she was working towards two upcoming exhibitions, one as part of the 2020 Liverpool Biennial and the other at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, which was scheduled to open in May.“I’m somebody who moves a lot,” Patterson says, “and in moving a lot, what happens when you’re asked to remain still? In a capitalistic system, we’re so used to doing that the act of not doing makes us feel guilty. There is value in recognizing that it is okay for you to just be. You don’t have to somehow find some kind of activity. You don’t have to behave as if everything is normal, because it’s not normal. There’s nothing normal about this moment.”Early in March, as her scheduled exhibitions were postponed, she was still able to work in her studio. “I was going every day. I would get there about 10:30, I’d work all day until about 9:00, 10:00, and then I’d come home. My assistant, who comes a couple days in the week, we’d check in with each other. We both agreed that we were fine and that when the stay-at-home order came down that’s when we would shift gears and start working from home. Up until then, I was in the studio figuring out problems. I would listen to Jamaican radio in the morning, listen to a book, watch some Judge Mathis, and then go home.”While many artists, galleries, and museums are searching for new ways to stay connected online, for Patterson, it was important to take a break from social media. “I found it to be incredibly triggering,” she admits. In a conversation about the difficulty she was having in shifting from working in the studio to working at home (and staying productive), a friend encouraged her to lean into the way that she felt. “I’ve been trying to listen to myself, my body, my mind, rather than fighting it all. The first thing I did when I decided to lean into it was to just get off social media. I found it a lot easier to cope. But still, there are tough days, and I have to find ways to lean into those moments. That’s the honest-to-God truth.”Patterson splits her time between Chicago and Jamaica, where she was born and maintains close ties with friends and family. “I live in a dual experience. While I’m watching what’s happening on the ground in the U.S., I’m also watching what’s happening in Jamaica. The differences in terms of the leadership, here nationally versus what was happening in this tiny but mighty country of mine, it was like night and day.” But she has serious fears about the economic fallout of her home country, because of its dependence on outside resources, including the tourist industry, “Watching the shift in terms of&nbsp;borders shut down had me worried, and in many ways, it flashed me back to 2008.”<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418770/cpiktiwei7e6rxhbf2ck.gif"><figcaption>Ebony G. Patterson, ...buried againto carry on growing...(detail),Museum of Arts and Design, NewYork, 2015-16. Photo by ButcherWalsh. Courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.</figcaption></figure>Her recent exhibition, …while the dew is still on the roses… opened in late February at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, and while it is now closed to the public, she was able to attend the opening. In it, Patterson built an immersive environment for viewers by installing fabric wallpaper as a backdrop for her tapestries, sculptures, and portraits. Visitors walk through an enveloping garden-like space with poisonous silk flowers hanging from the walls and ceilings.Patterson has been exploring the relationship between death and gardens for many years, notably in her 2015 exhibition Dead Treez. At that time, she notes, “I was thinking about bodies that were deceased—that had died violently. I was looking a lot at images that were circulating through social media, images of violence that were shared continuously. And I was thinking about the spaces that these bodies were often dumped, that somehow the land became a way of concealing the secret of some act of violence. Quite often the body was a person of color, a working-class person.”<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418771/zz4mexs2fssdnwh2sg9y.gif"><figcaption>Ebony G. Patterson . . . while the dew is still on the roses . . . , Speed Art Museum, June 21, 2019 – January 5, 2020. © Ebony G. Patterson. All work courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago. Photo by Sarah Lyon</figcaption></figure>The interaction that Patterson develops with her audience is crucial to her work. For Dead Treez, she exposed viewers to a contained but dangerous landscape by creating poisonous gardens within several large vitrines, but for …while the dew is still on the roses… she wondered, “What if I could get the audience to walk through the grave? The garden as the grave—how could I present that experience within the show but also as a way of anchoring all the works within the exhibition? The larger work is the installation of the garden and then there are 13 individual works that rest within that.”Visual appeal is key to the success of Patterson’s work. Her shiny, glittery, decorated surfaces attract the attention of the viewer. “I recognize that we’re visual creatures first,” she says. “We like to look at pretty things. The prettier the flower, the more likely it will attract the bee.&nbsp;But what’s inside is what ends up holding the viewer. In many ways, the effectiveness of the surface and its tactility become a ploy to visually trap the viewer.”Beneath the superficiality of the exterior, Patterson embeds macabre objects, like a dismembered manicured hand or a lone high-heeled shoe. “Is it still beautiful? Is it?” she asks, “I never say it’s so simple. I’m still working on it.”Recently, given the abrupt change of pace in her schedule, Patterson has been reflecting on her own work habits.“The last two days, I kept saying to myself, you need to give yourself the same care you give to your work.&nbsp;You must learn to give yourself the same care. At the end of the day, what does it matter if you’re making all this stuff and the thing that makes the work happen is in total disrepair? I’ve been trying to learn that care.”<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418772/ifuzsjt0e1sgenkefaum.gif"><figcaption>Ebony G. Patterson, Swag Swag Krew from the Out and Bad series (2011-2015), Dead Treez, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, Nov 10 – Apr 3, 2016.&nbsp; Courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago. Photo by Butcher Walsh.</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;</body></html>

Ebony G. Patterson: The Interactivity of Visual Appeal

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418761/rtbebdd2zjzcfn1o1qml.png"></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEADealer Patrick Hull, like so many of his colleagues, had been preparing for an upcoming exhibition for months. <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/vertical-gallery">Vertical Gallery’s</a> 7th anniversary exhibition was set to open Saturday, April 4. By mid-March it was becoming very clear that plans would have to be suspended or changed significantly.&nbsp;The gallery’s Saturday night openings on Western Ave. are consistently popular – in COVID-19 terms, they’re crowded. So Hull made a decision to come up with a 3D virtual exhibition in 48 hours and launch a digital preview for his collectors. He told me, “I feel like I missed two days of my life, but during these difficult times I’m trying to find new ways for collectors to experience our gallery, especially for our anniversary!” Hull got it done. He sent the collector preview on April 1 and within two days, he says, he had sold over half the show before releasing it on the gallery’s website for the April 4 “opening” as planned. I asked Hull to share insights on how he put together his digital plan and how he thinks it will continue to be useful to the gallery and its artists long term.&nbsp;Please share some background on what prompted you to dive into launching a digital preview and virtual opening for your latest anniversary show?We’ve published work for sale on our website since we opened seven years ago, so launching digital previews with the ability to purchase artwork online was not new for us. We tried virtual walkthroughs twice before, in 2016, but it did not work out quite the way I wanted. I’ve always kept it in the back of my mind to try again: we have collectors around the world, and I wanted to give them another way to view work. But there were issues with the overall 3D quality, and it takes a lot of extra planning to get it done in time for an opening.When the quarantine went into effect in Chicago [in March], I knew people would not be able to visit the gallery for a while, but I still wanted them to see our 7-Year Anniversary Show, so I called my friend with the 3D camera and asked him to come over and try what we did years before again. We’d learned quite a bit about the best way to use the 3D technology the first time around — such as spacing of the camera photos; gallery lighting — so we had a great starting point. I am really pleased by how this new walkthrough turned out. You can see it on verticalgallery.com&nbsp;What were your primary goals for approaching this new frontier?<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418762/qsu4ekpjigq51uzv3mwa.png"></figure>Purchasing artwork online can be a difficult decision. Our primary goal was to give collectors the closest experience to seeing a show in person — i.e., the ability to walk around and look at artwork from various angles, just as you would in the gallery. We still have conventional static images on our website, but the 3D walkthrough offers a more interactive viewing experience and a more accurate feel of what a piece looks like in person. It really helps to understand the scale of the work.We also wanted to show our artists that we are still working hard on their behalf. Many of them have seen projects and commissions postponed or cancelled, and we wanted to maximize this exhibit’s potential to help them sell their work.&nbsp;Do you think you’ll use this approach even after the public can return to the gallery some day?Yes! The response has been great. We’re already planning a walkthrough for our next show in June, featuring Chicago artist Joseph Renda Jr. We will evaluate it on a show-by-show basis moving forward.&nbsp;What has surprised you the most?Maintaining both the physical space and the virtual space is definitely keeping me busier than expected! In the days since the physical space closed, phone and email inquiries have doubled. We also have had many more inquiries from outside the Chicago area, and we’ve been asked for more detailed images on specific works as a result of the 3D view. We’re learning about other new technologies as well, and will be trying some new video projects in the future.<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418763/vcqyu36htq6wcyp7bztp.png"></figure>&nbsp;I think you’ve set a standard for how local galleries can approach this time and maintain a global reach, but I also think you’re giving the public as well as artists dynamic new means of engaging with art. Can you share some collector as well as artist responses to what you’ve done?Thank you! I appreciate that. It’s a challenging time for everyone.Our artists have been very supportive and pleased with our approach. Many of our artists are showing in Chicago — and some in the USA — for the first time. In fact, when we planned this exhibit, many agreed to show with us because we could introduce their work to a new market. It’s unfortunate that people cannot experience the show in person, but I feel that we’ve given artists and collectors the next best option. We are very excited to re-open and have people back in again, and we sincerely appreciate everyone’s support during this time.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Vertical Gallery's Digital Embrace:  How Patrick Hull Sees Art Online Long Term

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418736/ipnvvaoyr1c9ef5dfooa.jpg"><figcaption>Kimberly Oliva, gallerist and curator (left) and Pinar Aral, art handler and installer (right).&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>During this time of Covid-19 social distancing, we figured this would be as good of a time as any to reach out to gallerists and ask them a few questions about their thoughts on the current times, best business practice, and career history. If you have followed CGN for a while then this will come to you as a follow up from our Q&amp;A series from 2017. &nbsp;We hope you enjoy!&nbsp;Number of years in business: 4&nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418737/ckx2jo9akuvd8um1mi6c.jpg"></figure>How did you begin your career?&nbsp;I began as an antiques dealer in the Aughts. I always loved preserving the past and finding clients for vast art, jewelry, lighting and sculptural objects I would source. In 2016 I opened an arts gallery in Logan Square to feature fine contemporary Chicago artists.&nbsp;&nbsp;What inspired you to open a gallery?I have been exhibiting at Randolph Street Market for 15 years. The art gallery was an extension of my knowledge of pop ups, event planning and client sourcing. I wanted a building with a ground level exhibition space for Chicago artists.&nbsp;&nbsp;Is there a unifying element in your program or artist representation?Local artists.&nbsp;&nbsp;Which exhibitions have you had to postpone or adjust due to COVID-19?We have had to adapt our March and April season to the new virtual advertising of exhibitions.&nbsp;&nbsp;What percentage of your sales have previously been online vs in person (including art fairs)? &nbsp;<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418738/izop5qupdbllr1pmtzk3.jpg"></figure>I have always sold online (from the early eBay days).&nbsp;&nbsp;Do you want to share any silver linings, insights or anything else with readers, collectors and fellow dealers?I have a very grassroots organization and exhibition schedule. Community continues to still be key. Support your artists and they will support your gallery.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/oliva-gallery">Oliva Gallery</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

CGN Art Dealer Q & A: Kimberly Oliva of Oliva Gallery

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Art Dealer Q & A: Emily Rapport of Eat Paint Studio TEST2

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417720/p3ecaczcfwhmsjuz7cx6.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;During this time of Covid-19 social distancing, we figured this would be as good of a time as any to reach out to gallerists and ask them a few questions about their thoughts on the current times, best business practice, and career history. If you have followed CGN for a while then this will come to you as a follow up from our Q&amp;A series from 2017. &nbsp;We hope you enjoy!&nbsp;Number of years in business: 7How did you begin your career?My career was totally self started. I had zero gallery experience and knew very little of the professional art world. My only experience at that point was having felt unwelcome and unable to afford anything in the galleries I had visited in NYC, LA, Miami etc.&nbsp;An art opening wasn't something I thought I would ever be invited to, let alone produce.&nbsp;What inspired you to open a gallery?&nbsp;I became increasingly interested in what I saw on the streets, I found myself stopping to watch murals being painted. Day by day I was making connections with the artists painting in public and getting to know them on a first name basis. Naturally, I started asking them how/where I could buy their work. Their answer was always the same... "Umm, Nowhere really". I sensed that we were on the brink of a big change.&nbsp;The way people my age appreciate art, the way we discover art, the possibility of us affording art and, of course, the glaring omission of this type of artwork in galleries. I felt the desire to provide a legitimate and respected platform for the artists deemed "street" or "graffiti" that perhaps wouldn't be found in a "traditional gallery". I felt connected to the art I saw on the streets, which in turn connected me to the city, the neighborhood, the artists themselves...The natural progression seemed to be how to take a piece of that feeling home, inside. It was all so simple yet it hadn't been done.&nbsp;Is there a unifying element in your program or artist representation?&nbsp;We absolutely are characterized by showcasing artwork from "street/graffiti" artists in a non intimidating atmosphere. Where, not only can you ask questions and take pictures but, you can actually afford the art! With price points starting at $20 - we offer a range of items from prints and pins to originals and everything in between. Our motto is BECOME A COLLECTOR.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417720/ozdf43oxqtr2y6nyrdii.png"></figure>&nbsp;How are you connecting with collectors and artists right now? Have you added to or increased your digital outreach?&nbsp;We pride ourselves on our connection to our collector base. We are very active and accessible on social media @ChicagoTruborn. Our entire collection can be viewed online at <a href="https://shop.chicagotruborn.com">shop.chicagotruborn.com</a> and we post multiple pieces daily on instagram and facebook that can be purchased directly from the post!&nbsp;We have always offered complimentary in store (curb side) pickup and nationwide delivery and will continue offering that during the self distancing quarantine.&nbsp; Also, we'd like to note that our artists are still hard at work. This is their full time job - this is our full time job - the show must go on. We've received a number of new works that have been listed online as a response to keeping the local economy and small businesses like ours afloat. We are all feverishly trying to support the businesses we know and love. That being said -- we are NOT asking for donations. Rather, if you are willing and able to shop with us, you can take solace knowing you did your part to support this woman owned small business and you get a beautiful painting in return!!&nbsp;Which exhibitions have you had to postpone or adjust due to COVID-19?&nbsp;Our next scheduled opening April 4, "All Possible Outcomes" features the amazing Karl Jahnke and we've made the decision to stick to the schedule. While our audience may not be able to attend the opening at the gallery - we will be hanging the show and offering virtual tours. Karl has been painting for months and his work deserves to be seen and honored. All work will be available for purchase online!<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417721/p9r0fombsvxl0enubbrd.jpg"></figure>What percentage of your sales have previously been online vs in person (including art fairs)?&nbsp;We maintain a healthy balance of online/instore purchases. We're 50/50 but have always been dedicated to providing a smooth and easy online experience. Our website is very up to date and we will continue to ship out artwork throughout this time.&nbsp;Do you want to share any silver linings, insights or anything else with readers, collectors and fellow dealers?&nbsp; If there's one silver lining about #staying home, it's that an entire creative renaissance is on the horizon. Artists are hard at work drawing inspiration from current events. The work coming out of this period will forever stand as a Mile marker in history. We rely on artists century after to century to depict contemporary life... We've already listed and sold work from many artists who have been painting and expressing themselves while in quarantine.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417722/ihowv2fgzaqadpud4pfj.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

CGN Art Dealer Q & A: Sara Dulkin of Chicago Truborn

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417598/pzmzfzlypaejpq2xtmmh.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;During this time of Covid-19 social distancing, we figured this would be as good of a time as any to reach out to gallerists and ask them a few questions about their thoughts on the current times, best business practice, and career history. If you have followed CGN for a while then this will come to you as a follow up from our Q&amp;A series from 2017. &nbsp;We hope you enjoy!&nbsp;Number of years in business: 49<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721417599/etifucn3ifkjfphdcfrn.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;How did you begin your career?&nbsp;Graduating from University of Kansas in 1971 with a printmaking degree I had become obsessed with antiques collecting and old stuff in general. I landed a job with a dealer in old master, modern and contemporary prints, The Lakeside Studio, based in Lakeside, Michigan (John Wilson, the studio owner, later started the Chicago Art Expo.) They did not have a gallery location but rather did one-day presentations on college campuses from coast to coast, and my territory was everything east of the Rocky Mountains. I drove over 84,000 miles in 18 months and visited what seemed like every college and university campus there was. I also had appointments at major museums along the way such as MoMA, the Whitney Museum and the Library of Congress. Everywhere I went people were kind and open, interested and eager to see our inventory of 16th to 20th century prints. I wrote hundreds of invoices and collected hundreds of checks, all of which had to be mailed each evening back to Lakeside. I also started collecting 19th century prints. After my second year on the road I couldn't face another motel room and I quit to go get my MFA, (and begin selling off my collection). That job was the only one I ever had and it set my sail for the rest of my life as a dealer.What inspired you to open a gallery?I always dealt privately from home and at fairs, but I never really wanted a gallery. It seemed like too much responsibility, but I still always mused about it. When I turned 50 my wife, Janis Kanter, said: "Get a gallery or don't get a gallery, but stop talking about it!"Is there a unifying element in your program or artist representation?I have to like the work, like the artist, and feel a fighting chance of selling it.How are you connecting with collectors and artists right now? Have you added to or increased your digital outreach?Over the past two decades, as the gallery scene in Chicago has shrunk we have certainly seen an uptick in our online on out-of-state sales. I still really value the local collectors and consultants we work with, but one can't stay in business just dealing locally.Which exhibitions have you had to postpone or adjust due to COVID-19?John Santoro, new paintings.Janice Biala, paintings from 1952-1962.What percentage of your sales have previously been online vs in person (including art fairs)?&nbsp;I can't name an exact number, but I have always felt that well over 50% of our business is to people who do not reside in the Chicago area.Do you want to share any silver linings, insights or anything else with readers, collectors and fellow dealers?My personal silver lining is just having been in the ball game for so long. One builds a reputation and inventory along with far flung relationships and a degree of financial security with the passage of so many years in business.&nbsp;My other advice might be to always make people happy they shopped at your place.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/mccormick-gallery">McCormick Gallery</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

CGN Art Dealer Q & A: Tom McCormick, McCormick Gallery

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418602/nystzkkupop8izuqxrll.gif"><figcaption>Brown utilizes Instagram as a tool for collecting tableaus for clients and followers</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;By GINNY VAN ALYEAJenny Brown once had the most glamorous internship you could have, back in the late 1990s: a stint at Sotheby’s in Chicago. Every day, she remembers took the train downtown from Lake Forest, looked forward to her sushi lunch break, and she didn’t get paid.&nbsp;For some today the lack of pay might cause a millennial mutiny, but at the time, something more scandalous, and worthy of a top secret all-company meeting – including interns – was the corporate announcement that Sotheby’s would soon launch a website.Brown remembers, “Everyone was like, ‘Oh my God! That’s so tacky! Sotheby’s needs a website? Really?’”With an art history major and a minor in classics, she relished the chance to be in the city every day. Working in the different auction departments, writing catalogue descriptions, and just being around an endless array of beautiful things was a creatively fulfilling proximity Brown has managed to string out and develop for 20 years. Today she has her own interior design firm, <a href="https://jennybrown.com/">Jenny Brown Designs</a>, based in Chicago.Though her time in the auction world was brief, it was the first of several steps that helped Brown hone a multifaceted professional role in a creative world.The summer after interning at Sotheby’s, Brown worked for art dealer Robert Henry Adams in his eponymous &nbsp;River North gallery on Franklin Street. She recalls “That was a different experience, since they weren’t dealing with contemporary art and they were focused on Chicago artists and mostly art from the early 19 century. He was just such a lovely person, and working for him gave me exposure to the art world and being in that neighborhood. I would run all over as the errand girl, and I lived for it.”Two decades later, Brown regularly exposes her own two young boys to art in Chicago and during family travels. The effort continues, to an extent, where her design projects are concerned. “I encourage clients to look at art that’s original and that they like, and I love to do it together. Since I know it’s personal, sometimes the art comes after a project is finished, when the client is on their own. There’s an old saying that you don’t want to match your art to your curtains.” Ultimately art in a home can work best when it’s not part of a check list for a design project.*Brown says she’s always been interested in precious objects as well as art, and each of those summer jobs opened up the world a little more for her, carrying her from hobbies to a profession. “I have always loved bring creative – I would spend all my money as a kid on crafts, for instance. Then I would go around to garage sales and street fairs when I was a little older. And even now I still stash all sorts of things, until I know where they will go, though I hesitate to amass inventory.”From lingering in random stores to driving around and pulling over for used furniture, developing an eye by looking for surprises has always been fulfilling, Brown admits. Behind-the-scenes access to livable spaces, as well as a desire to fine tune personal surroundings, inspire Brown’s treasure hunts.Thinking about her earliest jobs, Brown says, “Growing up I loved babysitting, because I liked kids, making money and going around to see houses. I loved seeing how people live and visiting new places. You never know what is going to stay with you.”&nbsp;While she was studying art history in college, as well as living abroad, in each place she was rearranging her bedroom. “I would put the desk here, and the sofa here, and I’d go out and get a tapestry from Urban Outfitters.” She enjoyed figuring out a space. “I had all these sketches back to when I would set up my dorm room, so I started to realize this is what I could do.”&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418603/zmjx15oxv6kuftxrpcy2.gif"><figcaption>While she doesn’t advocate art matching the curtains, Brown often cleverly coordinates her own outfits to interiors and houses in her Instagram posts</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Brown’s professional ah-ha moment came when her mother rented an apartment in Chicago. Able to spend more time in the city, she recalls, “I’d go on gallery walks, or I’d pop into these little home stores – there were so many then – and I remember buying these marble coasters and thinking how good they looked with a certain table.”Her former co-workers had sneered at decorators. “It was like they were the devil. People would say they didn’t appreciate the art, or that they just wanted it to match something,” she explains. Brown was not discouraged, as she began to realize that because she loved bringing objects and spaces together, it could be her profession.In high school Brown read that Bill Gates started subscribing to Forbes when he was 15, so she sent away for Architectural Digest. When she wanted to move to San Francisco after college, she flipped through the pages of an issue of AD, sent her resume to the California firms listed in the back and landed a job.&nbsp;Her first day of work was September 10, 2001. Two years later a round of layoffs left Brown with an opportunity to return home, where she would encounter her next major break: the chance to work for designer Alessandra Branca’s firm in Chicago. Coming from the West Coast, where many major companies were run by men, entering Branca’s 100% women-run, black and white toile covered office excited Brown. The initial disappointment of leaving San Francisco gave way to the joy of a new life in Chicago.After more than six years working for Branca, where Brown gained invaluable exposure working for such a highly respected name in design, she was ready for another step after her first son was born in 2010. “It was too much to go back to work right away, but in the back of my mind I was always thinking this would be a good job to do on my own. If you have the experience and are a self starter, there are so many benefits. It’s been very rewarding.”&nbsp;As for what’s next Brown says, “I like keeping my business small. Right now my boys are still little, so let’s see where it goes. 10 years from now, who knows?”Follow Brown on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jennybrowndesigns/">@JennyBrownDesigns</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</body></html>

Designer Jenny Brown's Creative Discernment 

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418602/zdtjn2ht2dpv4gsvev3b.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 ALYEAWhen I took the elevator to collector Bob Buford’s apartment, I thought it was to the top of the building, since that’s where the floor numbers stopped. I soon learned that a series of opportunities over nearly ten years gave Mr. Buford access to several units above as well as next to the main one, ultimately creating a four story home in the sky, with 360° views of Chicago and Lake Michigan.Housed throughout this spacious urban refuge is a top tier art collection. After my arrival, I expected to start talking about how Bob first became interested in art and when he began to actively collect it, but as we walked through the apartment, passing dozens of paintings, through a library, by a wine cellar, into an office, we were distracted by what could be described as a “Lollapalooza Study Center.” The four-day music festival had just ended a few days prior, and Bob was at the center of all of it.Headphones still on the table, Bob admits, “I listened to nearly a thousand cuts before I went, plotting out each day of the event.” Bob’s methodical approach to navigating a sweltering, jammed music festival quickly revealed to me how he approaches something he is passionate about, filtering through a copious amount of information in order to explore more deeply what he likes. In the case of Lollapalooza, Bob made a loose plan that allowed for him to have fun putting himself into the world of the typical Lolla fan while learning as much as possible.Grabbing a binder filled with program sheets in plastic sleeves, Bob showed me the band line-ups for all four days, as well as the worksheets, heavily marked up in pencil, he spent 50 hours creating, indicating all the bands and the songs he listened to. He would assign a pre-grade to each band before attending the festival, and then an updated, final rating after he saw them perform.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418603/zwqacnvailbmdialxptp.gif"><figcaption>Buford is pictured in front of a framed triptych by Joan Mitchell (American, 1925–1992), Parasol, 1977, Oil on canvas, in 3 parts. Purchased through Sotheby's.</figcaption></figure>Whether it’s Lollapalooza, wine, or art Bob relies on extensive, personally conducted research to inform a sort of predictive analysis of his interests. By investing time and attention up front, he confidently lays out a plan. At Lollapalooza, his pre-grades determine which bands he will see and the route he needs to take to efficiently get there. To follow up, his summary of the event informs his music library and future concert attendance.When I asked if he applies this approach to art buying, he takes me to a closet lined with auction catalogs, each of which is flagged with dozens of page markers to indicate where his notes are.“When the auctions come up, especially during the big weeks, I’ll have several catalogs spread out in the kitchen.” Bob explains that, much like his pre-concert strategy, he always has an auction game plan: “I make a worksheet that will have a list of estimated values, preferences, and little notes.” Then he documents which auctions take place in the morning, afternoon and evening and at which houses (Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, for instance) so if he’s able to attend in person, he is prepared as the auctions unfold. On top of that, he plots which works of art he’s interested in. Eventually he records which pieces he purchased on the bottom of a summary sheet.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418604/ga1st0rkbooplq4padc8.gif"><figcaption>Bob’s library displays a trove of art books and catalogues related to the art in his collection. paintings pictured from left to right: Sam Gilliam, Fernand Léger, and Hans Hofmann</figcaption></figure>The first painting Bob ever bought at auction, in 1998, was by French artist Edouard Cortès, a Post–impressionist painter who painted European street scenes in the rain and at night. As he began to live with art, his knowledge of and appreciation for it grew.Over the next couple of years, Bob’s interest in art continued to grow, as he acquired additional 19th Century European and American paintings. From there he embraced Post–Impressionists, like Henri Lebasque and Henri Martin, as well as Fauve and Neo Impressionist works. He acquired art by German Expressionists, like Erich Heckel, and by Cubists, such as Jean Metzinger. In each area he was drawn to color, texture and vibrant presentationsAs we move more quickly through the apartment, the list of artists who are part of Bob’s collection grows more impressive and more modern. Everywhere there is color – in paintings by Kenneth Noland, and Larry Poons; on a large canvas by Helen Frankenthaler; and a vibrant Fauve by Kees van Dongen. The 1988, 12-part series entitled AIDS, by the activist Canadian trio General Idea, hangs in a row facing a brilliantly blue Lake Michigan. On another level is a print by Andy Warhol, with another Ellsworth Kelly print nearby. We stop to admire a stunning blue, geometric woodcut by Richard Diebenkorn, which Bob says his ex-wife, Tish, encouraged him to purchase in 2000 at Art Chicago, the predecessor to EXPO CHICAGO. He says while he was drawn to the blue palette, Tish saw much more in the work, which ultimately piqued Bob’s interest in more contemporary art.<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418605/xz0xnly6z5n2i0dr3at8.gif"><figcaption>From left: Adolph Gottlieb, Beverly Fishman, Thomas Houseago, and Kennth Noland</figcaption></figure>Moving upwards through the floors, we see a few more sculptures. In a room with a pool table, a series of glazed, ceramic bottles by Michael Kaysen, purchased from 65Grand Gallery on North Avenue, are placed just a couple of feet from a striking round closed pot by Toshiko Takaezu. Tucked into an alcove is a pair of red and green, port-and-starboard-like vertical rectangles by Anne Truitt.As Bob rattles off more names of artists and galleries, he refers to professional-looking gallery labels placed next to each work, sometimes pausing to tell me a story about the art, such as the time a chunk of thick oil paint fell off of a Hans Hofmann, and it required attention from a conservator. There is so much to see and appreciate, it feels a little like dashing through a museum before closing time.The art in Bob’s home seems imbued with life, so much so that just because something is put away or moved to another location does not mean it’s forgotten. Much like the wines in his expansive cellar, the art in Bob’s collection continues to mature. The prospect of a new phase is part of the fun. Says Bob, “To make sure you catch it all, the process involves awareness, education and motivation.”The depth and significance of Bob’s collection today hides the fact that, as he says, the art world once passed him by, without anything more than a peripheral awareness. 30 years ago, he recalls, he used to feel as if he was an outsider among people speaking a different language.However, once Bob purchased a few of pieces of art and lived with them, he recalls, “The door opened a little bit, I was allowed to come in. And it wasn’t so dangerous, though the learning curve was steep, and never ending.”<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418606/knhwt4b776g2dcpdbsaa.gif"><figcaption>Edouard Cortès, Boulevard Montmartre</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;Bob’s “Art 101” was 19th century European art, but his art buying continues to span a mix of periods, artists and mediums, eluding classification as a whole. For him, “It’s just opened up more rooms. I open up the door and go, ‘Whoa, this is nice. I want to know more.’”His curiosity piqued, he doesn’t hesitate to look for help understanding what is new for him. As Bob started to immerse himself in contemporary art, just a few years ago, he learned more and added to his collection. As new art continued to come home, he bought reference books to accompany the works and kept flagging the pages of auction catalogues. Constant communication with his friends in the art world has helped him learn holistically.With a growing knowledge and education, his earlier focus shifted forward in history into American post-war and contemporary art. As Bob’s awareness grew, so did his confidence and his exposure to a wider range of art.When I ask Bob how much of his collection has been acquired at auction, he says the majority. “The specialists at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips, and Leslie Hindman have all been so informative and helpful. That’s how I learned. They’ve each become as much a partner and a consultant as salesman.”As Bob got his feet wet at auctions, he credits a few key friends, including his ex-wife Tish, Bill Gross of 65Grand Gallery, and associates at local museums, with advising him about acquiring work and helping him test drive an expanding body of knowledge.Bob is drawn to auctions because there’s a clear market history, and, as he puts it, the option to work with the houses on the buy side as well as on the sell side, should the need arise. “If you buy auctionable wines and you decide you don’t care for a particular region of the world of wine any more – for instance, you’re done with Bordeaux – you could consign it with Hart Davis Hart [a Chicago-based wine auction and company], sell it and even receive a return on your initial investment.” Bob’s experience with wine collecting made him realize the same could be true for art.Bob says he hasn’t reached the point where he’s outgrown a work of art and wanted to sell it. Instead, he relocates and rehangs art as needed, or whenever a new piece arrives at home. Often a newcomer alters the dynamic that familiar works create with one another. Sounding as if he’s talking about children he says, “It’s almost like they’re competing with one another for space on the wall. When art gets put in storage, you can hear whether it’s upset or not. It can’t stay there too long.”<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418607/btw2omd8o48lgsgwzwmr.gif"><figcaption>A trio of prints by Francis Bacon hang near a 12-part series entitled AIDS, by the Canadian artist collective General Idea</figcaption></figure>–I started to think about Billy Beane, who scouted for and managed the Oakland Athletics baseball team in the late 90s and became the inspiration for Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball and the follow-up film. Beane avidly mined statistics to identify undervalued ball players and ended up finding value others didn’t see. To me, while Bob is clear he’s not looking to profit from art collecting, his serious study of works coming up for&nbsp; auction is representative that, in addition to listening to the advice of friends and art colleagues, by assembling much of a star collection on the secondary art market, not only is some risk mitigated, but there is a corresponding resale market that helps Bob find and preserve value on his own terms.–Living with art is also social for Bob. His love of wine, and the space and versatility of his home, means he entertains often. With nearly floor to ceiling windows, two levels even have temporary or pivoting walls that allow for flexible exhibition space as needed.Whether it’s art, wine, food, music or travel, people from all walks of life can be connected. “All of a sudden, the door opens again, and a conversation begins. Art transcends all the professions,” says Bob. “It can fit in with people of every political persuasion, business background and age. No one’s excluded. Remember I mentioned I was afraid to walk in a room because I wouldn’t belong? It’s just the opposite, this is the most welcoming room you’ll ever get into.”&nbsp;</body></html>

Collector Robert Buford: Embracing the Connectivity of Art

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418602/aypu3heubjoue7njcomg.gif"></figure>&nbsp;By ALISON REILLYPhyllis Bramson is a veteran of the Chicago art scene, an accomplished arts educator, and a damn good painter. A self-described child of the 1940s and 50s, Bramson’s parents were avid collectors of Asian and erotic art, which greatly influenced her aesthetic vocabulary. This September, she has three exhibitions opening respectively at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Elmhurst Art Museum, and The Suburban, which speaks to the depth of her connections to the city and her continued influence on contemporary art. Recently, I had the opportunity to ask her about her studio practice, her definition of Chicago Imagism, and her painting techniques. Bramson also reflected on her relationship with the late Jim Yood, the beloved Chicago art critic and writer. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. &nbsp;Chicago Gallery News: What is your studio like?&nbsp;&nbsp;Phyllis Bramson: My studio is located in Greektown in Chicago, where I live during the week. &nbsp;It is not far away from downtown. I love urban life, access to galleries, and the School of the Art Institute (where I now advise graduate students). Before that, I&nbsp;taught for 23 years at the University of Illinois, Chicago, in their studio arts program. When I was there I&nbsp;just walked through an alley, because the building I taught in butted up&nbsp;against the building I still live in! CGN: How would you describe the pace that you work at in your studio? What is a typical day&nbsp;like?&nbsp;&nbsp;PB: I am essentially in my studio six days a week.&nbsp;A typical day is not a typical day. I&nbsp;don’t often know what is going to happen in a given day. A certain email, for example, can change everything, and that has been happening lately. Right now I have a lot to do, so I feel like&nbsp;I am constantly trying to play catch up with my work, and most important, there is a&nbsp;personal demand that I constantly&nbsp;progress with my practice.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418603/d4dscyqkaog1nqv2lo6g.gif"><figcaption>We All Share the Same Breath (Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs), 50" x 60", Mixed Media and Collage on Canvas, 2019&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: You have organized an exhibition at the Elmhurst Art Museum called&nbsp;What Came After&nbsp;that opens this September. In addition to your own work, the exhibition will include Nicolas Africano, Susanne Doremus, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, Richard Hull, Michiko Itatani, Paul Lamantia, Robert Lostutter, Jim Lutes, Tony Phillips, David Sharpe, Hollis Sigler, Ken Warneke, Margaret Wharton, and Mary Lou Zelazny. As an artist, why is this exhibition important to you, and what do you hope to achieve by bringing this large group of painters together?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PB: The idea for this exhibition started when I began to notice that the Hairy Who, as a group, was getting a lot of well-deserved notice.&nbsp;Attention then spread to the Imagists, because in some articles and exhibitions, I would be mentioned as an Imagist, along with artists such as Robert Lostutter, Richard Hull and Paul Lamantia. However, while there was this intermingling of terms, which I willingly accept, there was another group of artists from essentially 1978–1998, sometimes&nbsp;referenced as the&nbsp;“Chicago School”&nbsp;that was part of the Chicago art scene as well. One of their main champions was the art writer and critic James Yood. He loved the figure and all of its modifications, making him an advocate of this period.&nbsp;When I decided to organize this exhibition, I immediately called Yood asking if he would co-curate and write an essay for the program guide and catalog. It was very sad for me when he passed away [in April 2018], because I will always wonder what the show would have looked like if he had been a part of it.&nbsp;Thus, the exhibition, program guide and&nbsp;catalog are in memory of Yood.&nbsp;The purpose of the show is not to downplay the importance of the Hairy Who or the Imagists (some of the artists in this exhibition take on the mantle of Imagist), but rather to point out that there was a group of artists that made up an informal collective of like-minded painters. &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418604/gw8h6wqrke1hh6vcoccd.gif"><figcaption>Hollis Sigler's painting, Comes the Day of Reckoning, is part of the exhibition Bramson curated for Elmurst Art Museum</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How did your friend and colleague Jim Yood influence your art practice?&nbsp;&nbsp;PB: He was a friend, but more so he was an ally who&nbsp;completely supported my work.&nbsp;He wrote articles that helped me place language with what I was painting.I wasn’t the only one he supported. During the eighties and nineties, he was a big supporter of many others who worked&nbsp;figuratively,&nbsp;particularly in the Midwest. That admiration was manifested in exhibitions that he curated, reviews he wrote for national publications and in his public lectures. He genuinely loved the eccentric figure and a kind of iconographic irreverence.&nbsp;CGN: How would you define Chicago Imagism?&nbsp;&nbsp;PB: I think Chicago Imagism carried on the&nbsp;tradition of the marriage between fantasy, funk and surrealism—a desire to delve&nbsp;into a unique narrative style using intense color and stage like&nbsp;theatrical representations and quirkiness.The problem, it seems to me, is that there are the original Imagists, but now that label can often apply to anyone using the figure in an eccentric and&nbsp;constructed narrative manner. I have often joked with others, “Imagism, the term that ate&nbsp;Chicago art!” &nbsp;CGN: Can you tell me about your upcoming exhibitions at both Zolla/Lieberman Gallery and The Suburban?&nbsp;PB: The Zolla/Lieberman exhibition is the result of the show that I have organized at Elmhurst Art Museum. I hope the Elmhurst show has some sort of impact on public awareness of my art and its context from another time. It made sense to simultaneously have a show of newer work at Zolla/Lieberman, since they represent me; even though the paintings in that exhibition have gone through significant changes since the Elmhurst Art Museum exhibition.Then Michelle Grabner asked if I wanted to show at The Suburban in Milwaukee, with Matt Morris. It was a total surprise, because my work is quite different from art one might see there. While Matt’s and my work is visually very different, I can see why we were&nbsp;put together. We both deal with an eccentric view of romanticism and high kitsch. It’s amazing all three&nbsp;exhibitions are opening this September!&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418606/k7kjbdwujdip2smolzzc.gif"><figcaption>Decoys, 84” x 72”, o/c, 1989, Courtesy of Zolla/Lieberman and Phyllis Bramson</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: Many different kinds of characters appear in your paintings. Do you work with a cast of characters, or do you invent new personalities for each painting?PB: It often does feel like I have a cast of characters, but I&nbsp;don’t&nbsp;always look at it that&nbsp;way. Recently during a studio&nbsp;visit a curator mentioned that all of my figures’ faces looked alike, they all shared the same smile. What&nbsp;I should have mentioned to her is that I am very interested in older&nbsp;Chinese propaganda posters where everyone – the farmworkers, the&nbsp;peasants – shares the same smile. It is a false face, as their lives were so conflicted. In my paintings the smiles are presented in the same way. There is such difficulty in the world, and my figures represent that same smile as the painted figures in the posters, implying that all is well and good…when it isn’t!&nbsp;CGN: You have called yourself a tourist, but would you go further and define yourself as a voyeur?PB: The term voyeur is probably more appropriate&nbsp;because I am that&nbsp;way in life. I look and look and look at people. I try to figure out what&nbsp;they are thinking, and when they are with another person, what is that relationship about? I find myself constructing&nbsp;narratives about their lives, it is almost as if I am spying on people and placing an invented narrative onto them. Sometimes the strangeness of all those bodies honestly&nbsp;frightens&nbsp;me. &nbsp;CGN: You use various techniques like collage, painting, and assemblage in your work. Which one are you most interested in at the moment?&nbsp;PB: At the moment, I would like to reduce the&nbsp;amount of collage and concentrate more on paint, how it looks, and how it can be manipulated.&nbsp;I say that as I start a new body of work, but collaging might annoyingly push itself forward once again. &nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418607/evkhthbvzgmh4sdnpuqo.gif"><figcaption>'Won't You Love ME?', 36 x 36 in, mixed media and collage on canvas, 2019 &nbsp;</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;CGN: How do you define success as an artist?&nbsp;&nbsp;PB: That’s so complicated.&nbsp;First of all, I&nbsp;want my work to mean something to myself and those around me. I want to be good – beyond good. I think no matter what an artist states, most would want at least a taste of a high-end career. How many&nbsp;artists get such status? In the long run, you probably shouldn’t base your career on much more than the love of a studio practice and most importantly the grit of it all, because you will eventually&nbsp;either give up or become a very bitter artist. &nbsp;CGN: Do you have a favorite gallery or museum in Chicago?&nbsp;&nbsp;PB: I am not going to answer that. But&nbsp;I will tell you that one of my favorite artists in Chicago was the late Henry Darger. And I will&nbsp;mention galleries that no longer exist but had a strong influence on me when I was younger. They were Frumkin Gallery, Dart Gallery (which represented me) and the Phyllis Kind Gallery (who also represented me). To their credit, there are many, many galleries existing today in Chicago that show artists whose work makes me envious as hell! Seeing such an exhibition sends me sulking back to my studio…I better get&nbsp;better!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.phyllisbramson.com/">phyllisbramson.com</a>&nbsp;</body></html>