By GINNY VAN ALYEA 

Friday, November 3 will be a big opening night around the city, as many galleries open major shows that will be their final exhibitions of 2017.  The busy night also coincides with the 24th edition of SOFA, which will be taking place on Navy Pier all weekend. Following the end of the fair's show on Friday, art lovers are encouraged to go out into the city's dozens of art spaces to see what is new in area galleries. Free shuttles take people between SOFA, the MCA and River North, but openings are happening in multiple neighborhoods. Some hightlights are listed below, and our full calendar may be viewed here. Note that there are several tours and artist talks also happening on Saturday, November 4. 

See you in the galleries! 

 

Traduttore, Traditore

On view at Gallery 400 through December 16

Artists: Bani Abidi, Arturo Hernández Alcázar, Carlos Arias, Luis Camnitzer, Alejandro Cesarco, Bethany Collins, Brendan Fernandes, Dora García, Emily Jacir, Katia Kameli, Harold Mendez, Paulo Nazareth, Sherwin Ovid, Michael Rakowitz, Raqs Media Collective, Emilio Rojas, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, Edra Soto,and Stephanie Syjuco

Traduttore, Traditore brings together a group of artists from around the world who employ processes of translation to expose, question, and challenge global circuits of economic and cultural capital.

 

John Kiley and Dante Marioni – Collaborations, and John Kuhn – Astral

A unique collaboration between two masters, plus new work by a renowned glass artist. Exhibitions run through December 23 at Ken Saunders Gallery

 

Unison & social distortion

Exhibition on view through November 23 at Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC) in the West Loop.

The Chicago Artists Coalition is pleased to presents Unison, a BOLT Residency exhibition featuring a new series of sculptural photographic work by Mayumi Lake. Unison, features the artist's interpretation of the mythic heavenly flowers or Housouge, bright and bold mythical flowers, believed to bloom through the afterlife. 

CAC also presents social distortion, a HATCH Projects exhibition featuring new works by Rebecca Himelstein and Joseph Wilcox. The work presented considers data, systems of comprehension and context as one. Two artists inspired by theories, respectively manifest interpretations of their studies.

 

Leeah Joo: Knots and Loose Ends

Exhibition on view through December 16 at Andrew Bae Gallery

Kurosawa’s film Dreams has a scene where a beautiful snow spirit drapes a fallen hiker with layer upon layer of shimmering fabric. Despite their warmth, these blankets of snow, and fatigue and slumber must be shaken off for the hiker to survive. Joo says that her recent paintings explore different connotations of drapery as a subject and she looks to this film as inspiration for many shapes and draped forms in her work. 

 

Tanya Aguiñiga – Reindigenizing the Self 

On view through December 31

The works featured in Reindigenizing the Self at VOLUME Gallery are the result of Aguiñiga’s own explorations into identity, driven by Latin and Mesoamerican Surrealism. Fully tapping into her Mexican heritage in both material and ideological explorations, Aguiñiga digs deep and ponders the resulting questions with a nod to Mexican surrealism and the sometimes absurdist explanations of the Popol-Vuh (the Mayan creation myth).

 

Vale Craft Gallery – 25th Anniversary Exhibition

On view through December 30

Vale Craft Gallery will mark its 25th anniversary with a show celebrating gallery artists, and including jewelry, ceramics, glass, fiber, metal, wood and mixed media art by gallery favorites from the past 25 years.

 

Neil Goodman - Twists and Turns: New Sculptures

On view through December 30 at Carl Hammer Gallery

This well known sculptor has a show of new work.

 

Concrete, Paper, and Plastic: 3 artists, 3 works

Aron Packer Projects at Chicago Gallery News through December 22

Work by Anthony Adcock, Michael Dinges and Brian Dettmer. 

 

Faith Wilding: un-natural Parables 

On view at Western Exhibitions until December 22

Aa two-part solo exhibition by pioneering feminist artist Faith Wilding. In Gallery 1, the gallery will present Natural Parables, a body of work last exhibited in 1985; large watercolor/drawing hybrids paired with oil-on-panel paintings shaped like pods. In Gallery 2 will be a new series of mixed-media watercolor paintings, Paraguay: Republica de la Soya, that reflect on the artist’s recent on-the-ground research into her birth country’s ongoing ecological crises.

 

David Kroll: Bouquets 

On view at Zolla/Lieberman until December 21

Kroll's hyper-realistic paintings are like modern Dutch still lifes that reveal internal memories realized, and they are of private memories trapped, as if in amber, within a time of glowing solitude.

 

Top of page image: Tree of Life, Faith Wilding