TGIF: Art After Hours During EXPO
BY MIA DIMEO
Art After Hours, happening Friday evening, September 18, lets Chicago galleries show their best stuff to those riding EXPO CHICAGO’s art week wave. Exhibition and performance spaces around the city will have special events and extended hours from 6-9 pm, with free shuttles running between Navy Pier and multiple gallery districts. Listed below are a few highlights, from Michigan Avenue to Rogers Park, to try to catch while out and about in search of great art.
• Far Out Females: Mid-Century Chicago Surrealism
Not far from the action on Navy Pier, the first in a series of exhibitions on Chicago-area 20th century artists, Far Out Females celebrates the work of Gertrude Abercrombie, Macena Barton and Julia Thecla, who created dreamy images in Chicago between the 1930s and the 1960s. Expect stark interiors, cats and other creatures and uncanny portraits.
• Shana Moulton: My life as an INFJ
For more contemporary surrealism, go to Garfield Park’s Julius Caesar. Shana Moulton, best known for her long-running performance and video series featuring her alter ego, “Cynthia,” will exhibit new work, confronting a range of anxieties with droll, psychedelic imagery.
• Theory of Forms
The inaugural show for this highly anticipated new space grapples with the Platonic philosophy of the same name through the voices of eleven artists working in sculpture, painting and installation.
• Nathaniel Mary Quinn: Back and Forth
Nathaniel Mary Quinn uses a clever illusion of collage, playing with style and proportion in his faces and figures in an effect that recalls the work of Hannah Höch and Frances Bacon. In addition to a range of historic imagery and source materials, Quinn’s upbringing at a Chicago public housing facility informs these intimate works.
• The Annual
Revamping and renaming its affordable art satellite exhibition, CAC’s aptly named annual aims to connect emerging collectors with local artists. Claudine Isé and Alexandria Eregbu will curate works by Alfredo Salazar-Caro, Susy Bielak, Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera, Chelsea Culp, Danny Giles, Esau McGhee and many more in CAC’s West Loop gallery space.
• La Palette: The Chicago Palette
Connecting the head to the hand, neurobiologist Dr. Stephen Sheldon photographed the palettes of prominent Chicago painters for five years, gaining insight on the creative process. Photos of the palettes of Roger Brown, Michelle Grabner and Ed Paschke and other artists sit alongside their finished pieces, near the recreation of Ed Paschke’s studio, on permanent display at EPAC.
• Joseph E. Yoakum: 1886 - 1972 Spiritual Unfoldments
Driven to recall scenes from his past (both real and imagined) by a voice in his dreams, self-taught landscape artist Joseph Yoakum’s prolific catalogue was created only a decade before his death, beginning at age 76. These expressionistic vistas, or “spiritual unfoldments,” as he called them, continue to reverberate a curious and powerful energy. Tired of the art world? Enter here.
More info on Art After Hours, including shuttle schedules and a list of participating art venues may be found here.
Info on EXPO Chicago and EXPO ART WEEK may be found here.
Image at top of page: Kiam Marcelo Junio, detail of Dona Nobis Pacem III (Kleshas), 2015, Archival inkjet print, 24 in. x 36 in.