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Michael Ashkin
Andrea Rosen Gallery
ByLily Faust
Before the spread of globalization that we take for granted
today, and
before and during technology and industrialization, there
were adjnabis
roaming the world. Adjnabi, a word derived from the Arabic
and used
throughout the Middle East to mean foreigner or stranger,
is a polite way of
identifying the other. Adjnabistan, whose colloquial use
in that part of the
world implies a distant, usually non-Muslim place, is also
the name Michael
Ashkin gives to a shadow homeland, whose tumbling topography
is placed as a
tableau for the viewer¹s survey.
In this bird¹s-eye-view of a shantytown, the view
is oddly familiar and
bleak. At first glance, the depopulated, tree-less cluster
of geometric
structures brings to mind satellite images of desolate towns
in any luckless
part of the world. The dust-colored pieces, all within the
same narrow range
of monochrome, punctuate the white gypsum tabletop like
shacks in a ghost
town. The ensemble of vertical, horizontal and diagonal
shapes carry a
chaotic yet sensible, even poetic relationship to each other.
Clustered
around no obvious life force, the rectangular boxes represent
the simplest
of dwellings in a dystopic environment.
Looking closer, the viewer takes note of mundane items
used in this
panoramic vision: small-size shipping boxes and packaging
cartons for
manufactured goods, (by-products of commerce and industry)
and slender
wooden sticks, scattered around like joists at a construction
site.
Corrugated cardboard pieces mimic corrugated sheet metal,
depicting lean-tos
on shacks, or serving as temporary walls separating households.
Here are the
simplest of dwellings, with a single opening for a window
or a door, known
to mushroom into existence overnight in metropolises in
developing nations.
In approximately the same proportions as actual trailer
homes or abandoned
shipping containers, the homes in Adjnabistan appear to
represent a
fictional ghetto of industrial/urban blight.
Where Adjnabistan is does not matter as much as that it
exists. It is a
generality, a region where the other lives. On this tabletop
of dense
activity, Adjnabistan could be in the industrial zones,
or trailer parks of
New Jersey, the artist¹s home state and, the focus
of his earlier
exhibitions on the Meadowlands.
Addressing broad economic and political issues, the work
tangentially
articulates thoughts on wealth and power, housing and community
building.
Pointing to a universal experience of struggle and neglect,
Michael Ashkin¹s
Adjnabistan posits a meditation on a marginal community
at the far end of
exclusion.
His model town appears to be a metaphor for a level of
civilization that is
stifling, punishing and oppressive. Adjnabistan appears
closer than
Afghanistan, situated on white gypsum board, barren as a
desert, in spite of
the presence of a dry riverbed in its midst.
Through 6/18. ¶
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Audrey Nervi
Stellan Holm Gallery
ByNicollette Ramirez
Audrey Nervi¹s exhibition, All The Same, suggests
a return to socially
engaged art. She is part of a group of young people called
³Travelers,² that
travels the world, setting up in government sponsored parks
with music,
dance and art, to protest against the spread of corporations
and their
negative impact on the environment.
Despite the pedantic theme, Nervi manages to get her message
across without
being didactic. In her sensitive paintings she offers a
window into a youth
culture that is more provocative and resonant than other
young, hyped
artists such as Ryan McGinley and Elizabeth Peyton.
Her triptych, Coming From Out Of Space, was developed from
Nervi¹s own
experience in Tchekie. In this work we get a close-up view
of life as a
traveler, we see her tent, it¹s tattered covering flowing
in the wind with
the sky behind it; another canvas shows the alien-reptile
painted face and
torso of one of the travelers standing in front of an RV.
The third is a
panoramic scene of an RV, a tepee set up on the golden grass
in the distance
and the green forest in the background against the grey
sky.
In recording the life of a generation that, in this moment,
is still the
counter-culture, Nervi reaches into the past and conjures
up a Warholian
world of pop, while foreshadowing the future where the counter-culture,
more
attuned to the environment, might one day come to define
the mainstream.
Her watercolors on tracing paper capture the pop (corporate)
elements of the
cultures through which she has traveled. Utilizing tracing
paper, she
outlines the forms of corporate images, and then fills them
in with
watercolor; thereby subverting ads for chocolate, biochemical
suits,
politicians, airplanes and a dissected map of the world.
This show works as
a kind of travel log that allows the viewer to live vicariously
through the
artist, seeing the things she¹s seen and done in the
small corners of the
earth.
Through 7/2.¶
Ed Note: The Holm Gallery is located at 524 West 24 Street
in Chelsea, New
Yok. Tel. 212.627.7444
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Marvin Bileck and Emily
Nelligan
Allexandre Gallery
ByJoel Simpson
Monochromatic gems by the late Marvin Bileck and his wife
Emily Nelligan
present two stunningly complimentary perspectives on nature.
Bileck is all
line and Nelligan is all tone. Taking to the woods, with
its infinity of
shapes, Bileck extracts a few poignant lines, distilling
an overabundance of
form in the natural setting into almost dreamlike evocations.
An otherwise
blank sketchbook page is divided by an irregular pencil
scribble, that, on
closer inspection reveals itself as the exquisite profile
of a fallen tree.
Elsewhere are rocks, grasses, fallen branches, bushes,
low-lying plants and
knots of trees. The drawings offer varying degrees of activity,
but his most
powerful ones are the sparest. As Picasso profiled a satyr,
Bileck captures
a tree trunk. And when he uses ink in a miniature of standing
dead pines on
an island, he reveals the similarity between tree branches
and the paths the
ink follows along the capillarity of the paper fibers.
Nelligan, in contrast to her husband, offers up atmospherics:
lowering
clouds, fogs and gloomy seascapes. Sometimes the viewer
cannot quite make
out the seascape; the fog is too thick, and the work becomes
an exercise in
tonal masses. She captures the light patterns on the water,
the cloud
patterns and the water spilling over rocks. In some you
can practically feel
the rain.
Through 6/17. ¶
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The Way to China is the Way to America
Plum Blossoms Gallery
ByGu Huihui
The Chinese adoption of Western painting ideas and styles
goes back to the
latter part of the Qing Dynasty, when Giuseppe Castiglione
worked as a court
painter, creating the fine, detailed gongbi style that came
to represent the
official court style. During the same time, the Eight Eccentrics
(the name
refers to their artistic style rather than personal attribute)
identified
themselves both politically and artistically as being opposed
to the Qing
court through their highly individualistic, pure ink paintings
that depicted
miscellaneous or banal subject matter. These two styles
would combine in the
Shanghai school, the first truly modern art of China developed
in the mid to
late 19th century. Beijing-based Ji Dachun, one of the two
Chinese artists
featured in this exhibition, The Way to China is the Way
to America,
reconnects with this artistic tradition which had been disrupted
by first
the Western Painting movement and then the social realism
imposed by
Communist China.
Ji Dachun¹s acrylic on canvas paintings are slightly
larger in scale, but
the same dimensions, as typical easel paintings. In composition,
they recall
traditional Chinese paintings in that the figures are set
against a white
background with no realistic setting; this a Chinese custom
dating back to
3rd century A.D. He handles the paint as though he were
using ink instead of
acrylic, thinning out the paint for his sinuous lines and
light washes
rather than building up the surface. In Turning into a Butterfly,
Turning
into a Crane, a snake-like tree branch dominates the top
half of the
composition, recalling the birds and flower paintings that
abounded in the
Shanghai school ‹ fresh, spontaneous looking, even
eccentric. The branch
sprouts colored pencils, pins, a light, cigarettes, a pen
knife ‹ referring
to the studio practice (think Philip Guston) ‹ and,
most unexpectedly,
teeth. A left hand, presumably the artist¹s, cartoon-like
in form but
meticulously and finely painted, with each hair on the arm
visible (gongbi),
thrusts from the bottom of the canvas and pinches a pencil,
as if it had
just drawn the tree branch. The form of the tree is calligraphic,
though in
style it is more graphic and modern. However, it retains
an instantly
recognizable Eastern sensibility. There are splashes of
paint on the
otherwise highly controlled surface (the Eight Eccentrics
utilized splashes,
drips, accidents ‹ long before Pollack and other Western
modernists). The
subject matter is partly about studio practice, partly autobiographical,
and
all the while relating to Chinese artistic heritage. And
yet, the meaning
remains just out of reach and so, despite its lightness
and irreverence, the
work remains mysterious.
The hand that appears to have drawn the tree branch forms,
together with the
pencil it holds, the shape of a crane. Cranes are traditionally
auspicious
animals, being the symbol of longevity. Yet, nothing resembling
a butterfly
can be seen in the painting; perhaps the title refers more
to a literary
idea. The tree branch is organic, yet it is also a construct
created by the
artist. There is an old Taoist proverb: a sage dreamt he
was a butterfly,
but upon waking realized he could not be sure he was not
a butterfly
dreaming that he was a man. Here, both the uncertainty of
existence and the
concreteness of art making are captured within a seemingly
light-hearted and
whimsical painting.
And yet, this type of painting represents only one half
of Ji Dachun¹s
recent body of work.
The other paintings are more contemporary and Western,
although he continues
with the same set up ‹ a main figure or two isolated
against an unpainted
ground. In these works, the figures are recognizable people
from Chinese or
at least Communist Chinese history. In works such as Sing
a Song For You,
the figures are even more isolated against the white of
the canvas;
formally, the background is less activated and so the figures
seem iconic
and illustrative. The result is that the painting feels
more Western than
Eastern; it has more in common with Pop Art than traditional
Chinese art.
Much of this work is overtly political ‹ hilarious
with overtones of moral
fairy-tales, such as Lenin choking a goose. As such, it
may be more easily
accessible to the visitor who knows some Chinese art history.
Nevertheless,
the paintings: Turning into a Tree, Family Book and the
aforementioned
Turning into a Butterfly, Turning into a Crane reward the
determined viewer
with the artists¹ deep and resonating sense of his
historical and spiritual
underpinnings in the past.
5/6 through 6/4. ¶
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Olga Hubard
Galeria Ramis Barquet
ByMary Hrbacek
In a series of subtle organic images informed by strong
conceptual
underpinnings, Olga Hubard allows her choice of delicate
materials to convey
her artistic intentions in gently flowing rhythms. Employing
biomorphic
patterns that are painted on layered, transparent vellum,
she evokes a
convincing visual code for unconscious thoughts, fleeting
impressions,
memories and vague reflections.
Close scrutiny of the work Untitled, (Reviews), reveals
a series of nine
grided segments of cut-out art reviews that suggest the
importance to the
artist of a meaningful engagement with the world beyond
the studio. Hubard
also uses an expanse of pebbles, repetitions of leaves and
blurred
stick-like marks that are obscured by new fragmentary forms
that result from
the overlapping paper. She expands her metaphors with cryptic
mazes and
round white-capped shapes that resemble human body parts.
The depth and complexity of overlaid designs suggest internal
subatomic
forms. When painted, the sheer paper shrinks and wrinkles,
yielding a
fragile hand-made quality. Hubard's use of natural elements
indicates an
affinity with the works of Terry Winters, but her gossamer
materials and
subtly intricate creative methods mirror the processes of
nature, enhanced
by a personal conceptual structure that is both poetic and
original.
5/5 through 6/17. ¶
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Jo Ellen Van Ouwerkerk
Woodward Gallery
ByJoel Simpson
These strangely evocative works, prints and canvases by
Jo Ellen Van
Ouwerkerk entitled Somewhere in Time, offer pre-Raphaelite
photo-realist
female nudes, many within gently surrealist settings. The
images draw the
viewer¹s eye and hold our attention. Tangibly sculpted
monochromatic bodies
stand out against colored backgrounds. Their vulnerable
faces make mute
appeals, some distracted, some mildly reproachful, all self-contained.
In Dancing Skeletons, for example, two nude women sitting
closely in a brown
dinghy stranded on the sand, gaze out at the viewer. One
wears a straw hat
with candles around it, and a multi-colored shawl. On the
sand skeletons and
one large spider dance among palm trees, while two segmented
worms emerge
from the side of a boat. The meaning is not immediately
apparent, but the
fascination is unmistakable.
In Birds Flying Backwards, a purple taffeta-clothed figure
with hair like
Emily Brontë sits hunching over to the right of the
frame, while
backward-flying doves surround her head. In Girl with the
Black Mask in the
Red Room the bare-breasted half-figure tilts her head, covers
one eye with
her left arm, and appeals the other eye. Many of the images,
including this
one, are framed in Mexican style tin with repeating designs
and stylized
skeletons, creating powerful ensembles that seem almost
haunting.
Through 6/30. ¶
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Andrea Hersh
Gallery Boreas
ByJessica D. K. PARK
In this solo exhibition of Hersch¹s recent paintings,
drawings, and
collages, we are treated with a welcome respite from the
abundance of photo
realistic paintings that dominate the New York art scene
at the moment.
From the nurturing, graceful arms of Lapael¹s Madonna
to the plump legs and
buttocks of Fra Filippo Lippi¹s cutest baby angels,
Hersh utilizes bits and
pieces from bodies and draperies of Renaissance master paintings,
and turns
them into entirely new anthropomorphic forms; she sometimes
uses found
images for inspiration.
Her figures, which are lumps of tangled legs, arms and
other bizarre
elements, wobble as if falling apart in any moment, yet
the bundle seems
fairly tight and manages to balance as well. For example,
in Self-Posed, the
figure stands on a tiny ball, by the tip of a toe, supporting
lumps of
dizzying body parts. Yet, it seems at ease, like a baby
cupid landing softly
upon the top of a fountain, ready to shoot an arrow. Of
course, there are
obvious differences. Instead of the lovely face of an angel,
a leg sticks
out from an upper body and a bizarrely arranged arm replaces
an angel's
gracefully lifted leg in order to balance. A fingertip that
appears in the
middle of the torso parodies the angel¹s motion of
flipping an arrow, while
the puffed white fabric which the lifted arm on the left
holds parodies the
angel¹s wing.
Hersh¹s whimsical imagination is reminiscent of Hieronymus
Bosh¹s fantastic
creation, yet her playful attitude and simple rendering
of familiar scenes
reminds us of Pieter Brueghel¹s peasants. A sugary
color scheme adds all the
more to the innocent, child-like atmosphere, as if displaying
the artist¹s
pure joy and admiration for observing the highest form of
paintings; or
perhaps a jealousy towards these impossible-to-imitate master
painters.
On the other hand, Hersh¹s drawings and preparatory
collages evoke a
different atmosphere. Despite the smaller scale, as compared
to the
paintings, the spontaneity of the artist¹s imagination
comes through
stronger in these works. Especially in her collages, there
is a sense of
vulnerability and uneasiness. It seems that for Hersh, painting
is an act of
meditation whereby everything gets worked out and smoothed
over by the time
it reaches the surface; but in these smaller works we see
what¹s really
going on inside.
5/6 through 6/12. ¶
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Art Creates Communities
Bohen Foundation
ByJoyce Korotkin
In the shadows and on the platform of a curiously clean
but otherwise
seemingly authentic subway station below ground at the Bohen
Foundation, a
performance by numerous adolescents, replete with a guitar-playing
mendicant, charmed onlookers. Not your usual subway audience
of jaded,
harried commuters during rush hour, these were museum curators,
critics,
collectors and parents who had come to Art Creates Communities:
Project in
Chelsea, the inaugural exhibition of More Art, a non-profit
organization
founded by the exhibition¹s curator, Micaela Martegani.
Martegani invited seven prominent contemporary artists
to work with the
ethnically and economically diverse student population from
the Clinton
Middle School for Writers and Artists (PS260) in New York.
Each one worked
with a group of students using a contemporary medium in
modern artistic
expression that includes painting, photography, video, comic
book and
performance art. Anna Gaskell¹s group made a video
loosely based on the
children¹s game "telephone," that examined
the role individual
interpretation plays in miscommunications. Luca Buvoli¹s
students created
comic books with original characters; the students own invented
alter egos
enacting virtual dramas.
Also engaged in the workings of the imagination was Matthew
Waldman¹s group,
whose young participants photographed local sites in a mythical
search for
the hiding places of urban "fairies." The resulting
digitized photograph was
altered with the students drawings of fairies, and printed
as duratrans on
illuminated plexi. Other groups drew upon the grittier realities
of urban
life. Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset¹s group
created the live performance
played out on the subway platform of their installation,
End Station, that
explored the excitement and fear engendered by a typical
experience in a New
York City subway while waiting for a train that never arrived.
Gary Simmons¹
students worked with his well-known medium of erasure, creating
a layered
message produced as a billboard displayed in the Chelsea
streets; a poignant
work that echoes the way in which the home-grown Chelsea
neighborhood has
been erased by the gentrification of its freshly minted
art world status.
Acting as advisor for the project, Tim Rollins, an artist-educator
widely
respected in both the art world and in educational circles
worked with
students to create watercolors based on William Shakespeare¹s
magical flower
from A Midsummer Night¹s Dream. The students¹
watercolors were painted over
Shakespeare¹s text, torn from books and transformed
into painting surfaces.
Those who work with young students are well aware of the
stunningly
perceptive and professional quality work they can produce.
This exhibition
gets everything right in this regard.
The Clinton Middle School is located in the heart of the
Chelsea art
district. This project fosters an important link between
the relatively new
art community and the young people who actually live here.
5/19 through 6/11. ¶
Ed Note: the Bohen Foundation is located at 415 West 13
street. Hrs Tue-Sat
12-6. For info please contact: micaela@moreart.com
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Variations on Nature
Alpan Gallery
ByLily Faust
The three artists in this show conjure unique interpretations
of nature,
examining particulars within the logic and formal mass of
organic bounty. In
Greg Martin¹s photography, as in his C-print, High
Point Mountains, the raw
energy of tangled, leafless branches are portrayed against
the tight,
vertical geometry of tree trunks. With the lines of branches
slashing in
every direction, Martin¹s image captures the fluid
chaos of nature; yet the
viewer gets the sense that the artist is equally interested
in depicting the
grand patterns of a natural order that is difficult to decipher
due to its
scale and complexity.
Taking up a large section of the gallery is Lucy Hodgson¹s
sculptural
installation, titled Mitochondrial Drift. It rises from
the floor like a
hybrid plant, entailing twin forms of contiguous ess-shapes
encased in clear
vinyl, the work bears an odd resemblance to natural forms.
Lengths of
tendril-like shapes, cut out of wood, reach the ceiling
and the walls,
recalling cell structures that endlessly link and replicate.
The work can be
interpreted as a drawing in space, defined by tenuous lines
that generate
overlapping configurations. Animating its surrounding space,
the
installation brings to mind cyclical and incremental movements
found in
nature.
Anne Raymond¹s painterly abstractions are based on
formal components of the
natural landscape. There is something tender about these
depictions of
place, painted as if the landscape is an intangible process,
a memory rather
than a fact. In Point, the earth¹s density is felt
through the weighty ochre
tones that blend into the light of the water and the sky.
Through
atmospheric color that heightens the landscape¹s formal
elements, the
composition evokes a mood akin to being there. This focused
group show
reminds us, once more, that interpretations of nature can
yield
extraordinary results.
Through 8/2. ¶
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Anja Huwe: Conde Nast Building
And Other Public Works of Art
ByNicollette Ramirez
In the Lobby of the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times
Square, Anja Huwe¹s
exhibition of dot paintings breaths life into the otherwise
grey, tomb-like
interior of the giant office tower, designed by architect
David Childs and
company, that signaled a corporate ³clean up²
of the once chaotic
crossroads of the world. Working with the meticulous precision
of a surgeon,
Huwe paints a layered spectrum of color that is at once
jarring and pleasing
to the eye. Coming from a musical background, she seems
to have
unconsciously imbued these works with a a harmonious rhythm.
Several of Huwe¹s paintings are grouped in diptychs
and triptychs. One of
these triptychs, entitled Camou Red, Camou Yellow and Camou
Green, is
painted on a black background with the red, yellow and green
dominating the
clustering of dots on each self-titled canvas. Umlaut, one
of the larger
works in the show, alternates the dots to create a range
of patterns that
suggest galaxies, or perhaps strands of DNA on the background
of black.
This show is good example of a trend underway to bring art
out to the
public; moving it beyond its traditionally sanctioned home
in galleries and
museums. Before this show, Huwe exhibited in the Gallery
Lobby of another
Durst building in New York, located on Sixth Avenue between
44th and 45th
Streets. This democratization of public art is welcome,
not only to the
artist who gets a different and wider audience, but also
to an audience that
may not have been exposed to the idea of art for art¹s
sake.
Other examples of public art which can be seen this summer
in New york
include Julian Opie¹s LED rendition of a man and woman
walking, located near
City Hall on Chambers Street; the colorful cartoon-like
elephants on Fifth
Avenue and 60th Street by Chinatsu Ban, which will be on
view through
September, 2005. For a full list of public exhibitions sponsored
by NYC
Parks and Recreation go to
http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_things_to_do/attractions/public_art/public_ar
t_list.htm.
Through 6/6. ¶
Ed Note: The Condé Nast Building is located at 4
Times Square, on 42nd
Street and Broadway. For more information, please visit
ww.anjahuwe.com
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Bill Burke
Howard Greenberg
ByJoel Simpson
During the 1980s and 1990s, photographer Bill Burke took
it upon himself to
visit the once war-torn regions of southeast Asia, having
escaped the
military draft of a previous generation himself. What he
found were
societies still undergoing the pain of recovery, with visible
scars of war
in the former colonial buildings, and psychological scars
evident in the
faces people today.
The colonial architecture presents a particularly poignant
case. Decaying
corniced French villas, crumbling and boarded up art nouveau
style auto
dealerships, an abandoned United States consulate, slated
for demolition,
seen presciently through a piquantly damaged negative; these
are the
settings for the preoccupied survivors, piecing together
a recovering
normality. Cyclists rush by, as gordian tangles of telephone
and electrical
wires frame the cityscape. In the Cambodian countryside,
adolescent Khmer
Rouge soldiers display their AK-47s and tattoos.
Burke made the images on large format Polaroid negatives,
which he prints in
their entirety, with protruding paper edges. He writes the
titles directly
on the prints, giving the works a rough hand-made look,
analogous to the
hastily improvised cultures he was photographing. The images
constitute
tributes to the determination of people whom they show,
who reconstruct
their lives against the imposing backdrop of decaying monuments
to ³the
powers that be² ‹ no more. Some of these buildings
are slated to be razed,
some have been recycled and others are simply left as part
of the landscape
to complete their decay in the sub-tropical climate. In
this regard, we are
not far from Clarence John Laughlin¹s Ghosts Along
the Mississippi, the
somewhat romanticized depiction of the ruins of ante-bellum
plantation
houses. There, though, the style was neo-classical. In Burke¹s
photographs
the style is more Renaissance/19th Century and on through
Art Deco.
Ironically, the building he presents that is in the best
condition is a
1960¹s monstrosity, with cantilevered proboscis: a
lighting shop in Phnom
Pehn.
Through 6/18.
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Jeffrey Hargrave
The Phatory LLC
ByChris Twomey
The raw underbelly of racism in America is given an un-sanitized
treatment
by Jeffery Hargrave, whose provocatively titled The Nigger
Inside Me, an
exhibition of self-portraits in paint, effigies and a photo
installation,
takes on ghosts from the past as well as lingering, menacing
demons.
Unlike his black contemporaries such as Ellen Gallagher
and David Hammons,
whose social commentary is derived from controlled elegance,
Hargrave¹s work
speaks without the filter of sanitized refinement, and this
gives this show
its punch.
Forceful brush strokes seem to tear through a handful of
small canvases,
creating the artist¹s likeness as a pickaninny, contorted
into a caricature
of a caricature. This alter ego, with its black silhouette
cartoon
treatment, complete with bulbous nose, and shining orb-like
eyes, becomes
the player upon which we witness the forced social paradigm
of "nigger."
Psycho-sexual self-loathing is concurrent in Hargrave¹s
identification with
the aggressor in paintings of supplicating black men fornicating
with white
men. Huge black penises thrust through the canvas frame
and through the red,
raw, bloated "nigger" lips of his alter ego; the
collective stereotype of
black sexual prowess is brought front and center. Conversely,
the bloated
red lips also become the defining ³v² mark of
the vagina, and the main color
splashed onto the splayed silhouette of a prone women, ready
for the
ravaging. The rough hewn painting style works like a racial
slur.
In a wall installation, which is comprised of snapshots,
drawings, and
paintings on paper, Hargrave presents a kind of free-form
visual diary; this
work notes the artist¹s friends, current events, and
personal details.
Images are montaged in a loose but smartly ironic style.
The black face of
the artist (presumably), stares out at us, and we are startled
to see that
his face has been painted in black face paint, darker than
his original
color. Photographs are pinned over drawings, and visa versa,
some depicting
a confident white adolescent which may be super imposed
over a throbbing
black phallus, or the same individual, now with his own
huge and imposing
erection.
The push and pull of attraction, hate, and the sexualization
of power
parlayed between black and white, becomes more poignant
as we view pictures
of what appear to be the artist as a child, his innocence
intact, juxtaposed
with the uneasy reality of the same grown-up self, caught
between these
definitions.
Riveted by the repulsion of stereotypes and not-so-tired
clichés that
Hargrave excavates and examines, this edgy show serves up
a cathartic
experience for both viewer and artist alike.
Through 6/4. ¶
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The Chicago Art Fair Wars:
Round One
ByMichael MacInnis
How could it be that one of the most talked about fairs
in the art world,
Art Chicago, appeared poised for extinction this year? The
short answer is ‹
appearances can be deceiving.
A surprisingly effective disinformation campaign driven
by the fair¹s rivals
and fueled by the personal animosity of a small cadre of
Thomas Blackman
haters managed to dupe even those whose who should know
better than to
follow rumors that Art Chicago was finished.
Indeed, a freshly minted replacement, Chicago Contemporary
& Classic (CC&C),
had been rushed to the fore ³to fill the gap²
and an unfortunate, scandalous
rip-off called Nova (Young Art Fair) was briefly touted
as an answer to Art
Chicago¹s alternative Stray Show. Initially embraced
by CC&C, the Nova fair
quickly became an embarrassment when it was learned that
its organizers,
Michael Workman and Tom Burtonwood, accepted exhibitor payments
for booths
in a building venue that never materialized. Likewise, the
fair¹s
³Professional Preview Day² never happened; instead,
exhibitors were
re-directed to an improvised tent that would eventually
(after permits were
secured) serve as little more than an after-party venue
for CC&C.
The two fairs that did take place, however, Art Chicago
and CC&C, had their
own strengths and weaknesses. After interviewing exhibitors
from both fairs,
some of whom had booths in both venues concurrently, it
is clear that the
revamped Art Chicago won the first round in this hopefully
short-lived
Chicago art fair war. While the CC&C fair looked nice,
the energy and
attendance buzzed through Art Chicago.
And what about round two? Don¹t count on it. The success
of CC&C presumes
the demise of Art Chicago. ³We submitted a proposal
[for CC&C] under the
assumption that Art Chicago was no longer in existence...²
‹ explains CC&C
Director, Ilana Vardy, to Ruth Lopez, in an interview published
a week
before the fair in Time Out Chicago. Looks like that assumption
proved to be
somewhat off the mark. Art Chicago is already accepting
applications for
next year¹s show, scheduled for April 28 - May 1, 2006.
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