art pilsen

A LINE DESCRIBING ETERNITY // new work by JOSEPH RYNKIEWICZ

2012-02-27T14:29:00.003-06:00

A LINE DESCRIBING ETERNITY
new works by JOSEPH RYNKIEWICZ
MARCH 11-12, 2012

Opening Reception: Sunday, March 11, 4-8pm
Open Hours: Monday March 12, noon-4pm

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street

Long Life Is In Store For You (detail), 2011, Impression of a Redwood tree on paper, 30x40"

A Line Describing Eternity explores the ephemeral, knowing that sensations can never accurately be conveyed. Through subtle gestures and their resulting artifacts Rynkiewicz attempts to actualize the immaterial with objects, embracing the tension between the two. Much like drawing an endless line, these works aim to picture that which cannot exist.

JOSEPH RYNKIEWICZ is an artist and freelance photographer living in Chicago. He received his BFA in Photography from Columbia College in ’07. When he’s not picking up freelance work or working as Exhibitions Coordinator at Marwen you can find him slinging cocktails as one half of the arts commerce project Hornswaggler Arts.

More information about Joseph Rynkiewicz can be found at www.josephrynkiewicz.com

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

Prima Sakuntabhai @Cobalt Studio/ Reception Friday, March 2nd 6-9pm

2012-02-22T13:18:00.000-06:00

Prima Sakuntabhai
3/2/12-3/18/12

RECEPTION

Friday, March 2nd

6pm-9pm

Cobalt Studio
1950 W. 21st St, Storefront
*Right off of Pink Line Damen Stop

Sculpture/Installation/Photography work by

Prima Sakuntabhai, March 2012

The Mayan temple of Chichen Itza in Mexico is one of the examples of ancient constructions which strove to render a perceptive experience. During the spring and the autumn solstice, the sun casts a form of a serpent on the steps leading to the top of the pyramid. Mathematics and engineering serve the religious purpose of provoking awe.

21st century Chicago, a widely-spread urban architecture of parking lots also
becomes a field of experimentations with perception. The Traders Self Park on Wells
Street, facing the Willis Tower, is composed of two identical buildings linked on the
4th floor by a bridge.
The particular location offers, not the view of the landmark
tower but a construction site that marks the end of the Loop. It is scaled, not to
human but to vehicles, an uninhabited space whose function is only at the service
of technology. It epitomizes the metropolis culture that has developed since the
urbanization imposing a structural similitude between major cities.

The locations or sites, whether actual or imaginative offer parallel constructions
which distort a former view of the space. I either borrow the architectural
vocabulary or create an incision into the space of what is balanced, ordered,
constructed by subverting objects such as tires or mirrors.

My concern for rational, scientific questionings, rendered physical through art
forms may relate to the fact that having no homeland, drifting between Thailand,
England, France and now the United States of America, I seek not diversity but
unity that holds Mankind, a common drive of humanity. In the mental construction
of geometrical space, Man appropriates it for himself and takes profit to build
spaces for his own purposes. At the same time, vehicles, from cars to trains are the
expression of a profound desire to breach the distance in a territory that do not
match his scale. They say that the 20th century has been about the conquest of space
and the 21st century concerns itself with time.
PRIMA (Primsuda Sakuntabhai) 13th March 1989, Bangkok. Studies at the School of
the Arts Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL APART

2012-02-21T19:48:00.000-06:00

EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL APART
new works by ERIN WASHINGTON
MARCH 2-9, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday March 2nd, 7-10pm
Open Hours: By Appointment

The Plaines Project
1822 S Des Plaines Street, Chicago 60616

ACRE and THE PLAINES PROJECT present an opening reception on FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012 from 7-10pm at 1822 S Des Plaines St, Chicago 60618. ACRE has partnered with THE PLAINES PROJECT to host EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL APART: new works by ERIN WASHINGTON, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents.

EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL APART
Embracing materiality and labor, Erin Washington examines themes of vulnerability and permanence. Questioning how time structures transition in ephemera, EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL APART features mixed-media paintings and sculptures which unravel time through the performance of their belabored making, and their subsequent degradation. Washington employs fugitive and charged materials (fire, ash, moss, bones and saliva) to depict natural phenomenon. Colors fade or pigments are burned: the objects emulate the cycles they describe. The artists’ actions and products are in a constant state of flux, highlighting the disharmony between meaning, beauty, and a fundamentally messy universe. However, the temporality of the work’s making counters ambivalence; the immediate process and present-ness the work demands eclipses uncertainty... for the moment.

Dead Alive Found object installed at ACRE, dimensions variable, 2011

ERIN WASHINGTON, Continuing Studies and Special Programs Faculty at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2011-present). BA, 2005, University of Colorado, Boulder; MFA, 2011, School of the Art Institute Chicago. Exhibitions: NEXT fair, Chicago; Zola Lieberman, Chicago; Julius Caesar, Chicago; Heaven, Chicago; No Globe, NY; Murdertown, Chicago; Zrobilli Gallery, Chicago; School of Fine Arts, Xochimilco, Mexico. Bibliography: Time Out Chicago, Make Space, Composite Magazine.

More information about Erin Washington can be found at www.erinwashington.com

THE PLAINES PROJECT, established in 2006, is a collectively run alternative space which seeks to provide artists, musicians and cultural organizers with a venue to exhibit, perform, and hold events that strengthen social bonds, nurture creative practices, and encourage important cultural and political conversations. It is the goal of the Plaines Project to accommodate Chicago’s creative communities by providing an open, safe, and supportive atmosphere that is constantly redefining itself in relation to those who utilize and occupy the space.

More information about The Plaines Project can be found at:plainesproject.wordpress.com

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

I'M WATCHING THE SUN COME UP NOW

2012-02-21T19:46:00.002-06:00

I'M WATCHING THE SUN COME UP NOW

new works by AIDAN FITZPATRICK

MARCH 4-5, 2012

Opening Reception: Sunday, March 4, 4-8pm

Performance at 5:45pm

Open Hours: Monday March 5, 11am-3pm

ACRE Projects

1913 w 17th Street, Chicago 60608

ACRE Projects hosts an opening reception on Sunday, March 4th, 2012 from 4-8pm at 1913 West 17th Street, Chicago, IL. ACRE Projects is proud to present AIDAN FITZPATRICK : I'M WATCHING THE SUN COME UP NOW, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of solo exhibitions by 2012 ACRE summer residents.

I'M WATCHING THE SUN COME UP NOW features a photography and audio installation exploring the nature of perception and the passing of time. Fascinated by the complication of past and present, Fitzpatrick photographs transient moments in which she isolates the mystery that makes up our lives. Conscious of the passing of time and the experience of the present, she investigates the reality of days that quickly and almost immediately vanish as we make revolutions around the sun. This collection of days is documented through fleeting clarity and recognition, emphasizing our own internal experience and the way we find ourselves sharing this subjective experience with others. In addition to photographs, Fitzpatrick presents an audio piece that is created from cassette tapes that were recorded by her grandmother in Chicago and mailed to her while she lived as a child in Virginia.

Fog on the First Day, 2011

AIDAN FITZPATRICK is a photographer and teaching artist living and working in Chicago, IL. She received a BFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2009 where she was awarded the Presidential Scholarship. Her work investigates issues of perception, loss, and mysteries of the natural world. She teaches through CCAP’s Arts Integration Mentorship Project, the Lill Street Art Center, and After School Matters at Gallery37.

More information about Aidan Fitzpatrick can be found at www.aidanphotography.com

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

Artist snapshot: Alex Cohen

2012-02-17T21:23:00.005-06:00

Alex Cohen

Standing with a plastic red cup in hand, a furry winter hat and a shirt adorned with a flock of flamingos,Alex Cohen is hard to miss.

The 22-year-old student at the Art Institute was the embodiment of everything that last week’s “Short Court: Tropical Aesthletics” stood for – funky art, indoor summer sports and sand galore even as a blizzard raged on outside Antena Gallery.

Cohen, whose friend Chris helped to curate the event, was invited to take part in the show, which displayed work by some of the city’s young and up-and-coming artists. Inspired by ancient totem poles, Cohen’s work was in keeping with the show’s tropical theme and result was an impressive life-sized cardboard installation that instantly dominated the room.

The Pilsen Project caught up with Cohen to talk art and the inspiration behind his work.

Where did you get the idea for the piece?

I was thinking tropical and I was also thinking about totem poles stacked on top of each other so that was the tropical lure.

What art do you interested in?

All the different types: figurative, non-representational, just everything really.

What’s your favorite medium?

I like to use acrylics, any water-based mediums and ceramics.

What was it like to create the piece?

It was a lot of fun. I went to the Field Museum to look at their totem pole and I drew inspiration from that.

Check out the rest of Alex Cohen's work here.

- Irish S.

http://thepilsenproject.blogspot.com/

Artist Snapshot: Jeriah Hildwine

2012-02-17T21:21:00.004-06:00

Jeriah Hildwine | photo by Irish S.

We took a few minutes to chat with Chicago artist Jeriah Hildwine: a figure artist, outdoorsman, self-professed "nerd" and wearer of excellent kilts.

Hildwine, a native of San Diego Calif., has not lived in Chicago for a very long time, but he found very quickly that Chicago was an ideal place for a young artist.

“It’s fantastic,” Hildwine said of the city. “There is no better place to start your career [than Chicago].”

And he has been busy since arriving. Hildwine paints, writes articles for various arts publications, and teaches drawing and painting at various schools around the city. He says that while Chicago does not have the best market to sell art, “opportunities for…do-it-yourself stuff [art showings, galleries, etc.] are everywhere”, creating a strong network for local artists.

For his own art, Hildwine draws inspiration from a number of places, though one love of his actually does not play a huge role.

“I love the outdoors,” he said. “But it doesn’t feature in my art.”

Instead, Hildwine likes to focus on pop culture, particularly “nerd culture”: Dungeons and Dragons, horror and action movies, and similar. He likens artists and nerds to the archetypal “band and theater geeks” of high school; that, by stepping outside of the mainstream culture, they are in fact shaping it.

“There is something to be said for the outsider culture,” he said of his inspirations.

Eventually, Hildwine hopes to maintain a gallery in Chicago and live and create art somewhere outside the urban jungle, where, as he puts it with a grin, he can “live in the woods… and raise goats.”

For now, though, he is happy to be in the city he says is “absolutely a great place to be an artist.”

For more about Jeriah Hildwine, click here

Katherine H.

http://thepilsenproject.blogspot.com/

Artist Snapshot: Saul Aguirre

2012-02-17T21:20:00.002-06:00

Artist Snapshot: Saul Aguirre

Saul Aguirre | Photo by Irish S.

We took a few minutes at "Short Court" to speak with Pilsen artist of many mediums, Saul Aguirre.

Aguirre has been quite a force in the Pilsen art community since arriving there, and is currently helping to organize a show for some local artists in New York this summer.

"I've been making art since I was young," Aguirre said of how he got his start in art. If he had to fix it to a number, he believes he started creating when he was around seven years old, a young boy in Mexico City, Mexico.

In 1986, Aguirre moved to Chicago, where he has lived ever since. It was here where Aguirre "really opened doors" to his art career. He went to the Art Institute, where, as a student, he "was almost like being an apprentice."

"I would ask, 'how do you use that?'" Aguirre said of the various tools and media his teachers used. "'What is that?'"

Now , Aguirre does it all, a "multidisciplinary artist," who likes to work with all kinds of media. He uses his art to express ideas about the current social and political landscape, and to "visualize what's going on in the world," Aguirre said.

Aguirre has maintained an active presence in the local Chicago art community since moving into the Pilsen neighborhood. Chicago, he feels, suffers a lack of recognition by the larger art world. The more conservative tastes of collectors who are used to art-producing giants like New York City and Miami mean that they are not buying from Chicago artists as much.

"For an artist to be here and work [only on art] is hard," Aguirre said, "there is no support system."

As such, the artists have created their own support system, and are working to bring the rest of the world up to speed on the kind of art Chicago creates. It is up to the community, Aguirre believes, to decide to put Chicago on the map as an artist's city.

Until then, Aguirre continues to do what he loves best: creating art, and helping build the art community.

"I am not exclusive," he said. "I am for the community. Anyone needs me, I'm there."

To learn more about Saul Aguirre, or learn more about his upcoming projects, clickhere!

Katherine H.

ACCIDENTS OF GRAVITY @ ACRE PROJECTS

2012-02-14T19:26:00.001-06:00

ACCIDENTS OF GRAVITY
new works by MICHELLE ANNE HARRIS
FEBRUARY 19-20, 2012

Opening Reception: Sunday, Feb 19, 4-8pm
Open Hours: Monday Feb 20, noon-4pm

ACRE Projects
1913 w 17th Street, Chicago 60608

ACRE Projects hosts an opening reception on Sunday, February 19, 2012 from 4-8pm at 1913 West 17th Street, Chicago, IL. ACRE Projects is proud to present MICHELLE HARRIS: ACCIDENTS IN GRAVITY, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of solo exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents.

ACCIDENTS OF GRAVITY is an exhibition of prints and sculptures invoking anxieties over trauma and loss, both past and present. On the wall are a series of wax transfer prints based on a photographic series destroyed in a house fire. The prints distort the original works into variations of black and white noise or static suggesting deteriorating vision, fading memories, and absence. The theme of gravity as a force is approached both in the physical sense and in describing the weight of experience. On the floor, an arrangement of objects pairing found and raw elements collected while traveling, sit precariously on top of minimally constructed tables. The materials of wood, porcelain, stainless steel, and coral are repeated as variable elements that present a range of relationships from the intended to the actual function, signifying the roles of observer, collector, and traveler.

Elkhart 02.20.2002, 9x12, silver gelatin print

MICHELLE ANNE HARRIS, Associate Professor Photography and Art Education (2011). BFA, 2008, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; MFA, 2010 Cranbrook Academy of Art Bloomfield Hills, MI. Exhibitions: Roots and Culture Contemporary Arts Center, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; Buckham Gallery, Flint.Publications: Shots Magazine; Chicago Reader. Bibliography: Hour Detroit, Art Beat; James Madison University Literary and Arts Journal. Collections: Marriot Inc., Sherine Marzouk. Awards: Community Arts Assistance Program Grant, Steketee Scholarship, Ox-Bow Residency Program.

More information about Michelle Anne Harris can be found at www.michelleanneharris.com

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

AUNTIE EM'S MOBILE HOME

2012-02-14T19:23:00.002-06:00

AUNTIE EM'S MOBILE HOME
new works by MAGGIE HAAS + TJ PROECHEL
FEBRUARY 25 - MARCH 17, 2012

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 25, 6-9pm
Open Hours: Saturdays noon-5pm or by appointment

SLOW
2153 W 21st Street, Chicago 60608

ACRE and SLOW present an opening reception on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012 from 6-9pm at 2153 W 21st Street, Chicago 60608. ACRE has partnered with SLOW to host AUNTIE EM'S MOBILE HOME: new works byMAGGIE HAAS + TJ PROECHEL, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents.

AUNTIE EM'S MOBILE HOME

There is the bleak and the before.

A place in between. Until it gets better. We know the assumptions that go along with the trailer park. Perhaps they just moved into the smaller apartment, or have a home whose toilet functions only by pouring a bucket down the hatch to imitate a flush. They may still host a really awesome dinner party. Even trashy homes embellish; there is decor. There may be pejorative terms like lipstick on a pig, but there is something about improving upon the meager, the ugly and the compromised. Finding beauty where it is. Or making beauty with what you have.

Stories have a way of beginning with few resources, uncertain characters, and unremarkable ethics. There are certain kinds of stories that begin with a character’s hard work. Perhaps the hero will find something from within that will drive her toward a cause, a choice. The act of deciding will better the circumstance. Perhaps the outcome is less clear than better. Good guys enter the adventure out of desperation as often as by choice. Surviving the eye of a storm. And the after.

TJ Proechel and Maggie Haas both tell stories that leave out trivial things like the plot, or even distinguished characters. There are whispers of getting things done—accomplishing. There are raw spots and signs of struggle, and limitation. Subjects are vaguely old school, but could just as easily be the hipster re-make. Theirs are stories of our times. Ultimately relatable, but not triumphant or redeeming.

TJ and Maggie enter the fray at different points—Maggie is perhaps more interested in compromised normalcy, coping with uncertainty and failure. TJ flirts with becoming a criminal or superhero, maybe both at the same time.

images by Maggie Haas(top) and TJ Proechel(bottom)

MAGGIE HAAS works in drawing and sculpture, with an interest in objects and spaces that provoke a conflation of the functional and the ornamental. She emphasizes the transitory value of both everyday things and art materials, constructing objects and environments that appear to make and unmake themselves. She holds an MFA from California College of the Arts, and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. She lives and works in San Francisco. She has exhibited and curated projects in Pittsburgh, Boston, Berlin and the Bay Area.

More information about Maggie Haas can be found at maggiehaas.com.

TJ PROECHEL is a Minneapolis based photographer. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, he graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008. Proechel draws from his personal experience working as a foreclosure contractor to create work that explores themes of loss, identity and fraud within the context of foreclosure crisis. His most recent body of work, Finding Adam Buroughs, documents Proechel’s efforts to track down a man who conned him and several others out of a large sum of money, while working on a foreclosure renovation. Proechel’s work has been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and on NPR’s On the Media. In 2012 his work will be shown at Alice Austen Museum and the Beijing Film Academy.

More information about TJ Proechel can be found at tjproechel.com.

SLOW is an alternative exhibition venue for contemporary art. Not quite an apartment gallery, not commercial. Art that leans away from hipster toward introspective and vulnerable (read slightly nerdy).

More information about SLOW can be found at paul-is-slow.info

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

Anthony Marcos Rea: The Ones I Remember

2012-02-06T10:09:00.000-06:00

Reception// Saturday, February 11th, 2012 // 6pm-9pm
Cobalt Studio// 1950 W. 21st St, STOREFRONT, Chicago IL
Cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com

My artwork extends itself from an internal investigation of memories, male role models and the location of men in both urban and rural spaces that influenced how I perceived what it means to be a man. Through photographic portraiture I have attempted to catalogue the locations where I witnessed these men (together) in working-class, cultural and queer groups. By merging these sites of contention I am attempting to recreate the ongoing tension between my desires in men as a queer man of color and the vulnerabilities within my identity developed by these early constructions of masculinity.

Anthony Marcos Rea, 2011
http://anthonymrea.com/home.html//

say it three times fast

2012-01-31T19:51:00.000-06:00

say it three times fast

a book launch party
& artists’ reception to celebrate pilsen creativity and resistance

featuring soundscapes by (((Sonorama)))

friday, february 10, 2012

8 pm

harbee liquor and tavern (since 1878)

1345 W 18th Street

Chicago IL 60608

eric garcia, painting
historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about national inclusion and personal accountability

thelma uranga, photography
documents and examines cultural identity and its relation to familial ties. this body of work explores the connection between her family in chicago and the border towns of mc allen, tx and reynosa, tamaulipas.

nuco villanueva, painting
features popular themes such as el día de los muertos, luchadores, and old school american tattoo culture; proprietor and founder of studio one tattoos

paloma martinez-cruz, author
disrupts euro-based notions of knowledge with the new book women and knowledge in mesoamerica: from east l.a. to anahuac (university of arizona press, 2011)

GROUND: new works by REBECCA BEACHY

2012-01-25T20:13:00.001-06:00

GROUND

new works by REBECCA BEACHY

FEBRUARY 5-11

Opening Reception: Sunday, February 5, 7-10pm

Open Hours: Saturdays 12-3pm

Roxaboxen Exhibitions

2130 w 21st Street, Chicago 60608

ACRE and ROXABOXEN EXHIBITIONS present an opening reception on SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 2011 from 7-10pm at 2130 w 21st Street, Chicago 60608. ACRE has partnered with ROXABOXEN EXHIBITIONS to host REBECCA BEACHY: GROUND, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of solo exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents.

GROUND

With formal and ephemeral gestures of processing and repair, Rebecca Beachy’s sculpture recasts narratives of animal bodies as use objects: deer ground up by hand and returned to the site of collision as highway dust, repairing cracks in the asphalt; a muslin pillow accumulates the down from birds that collided with windows; the stain in a copy paper box is the evidence of having held an injured duck. The work, concerned with the damaged interstice between the wild and human structures, articulates physical engagement as an ethical gauge, positioning meaning as resting first in the material and the concrete. This sculptural presence is used to foreground questions regarding humans as animals, especially the question of the human relationship with gravity and mortality, and hopes to show the complexities in the interconnections between animals, people, and the ground on which both meet, collide, and dwell.

REBECCA BEACHY (b.1982) is a Chicago based artist, born and raised on a farm in Colorado, who works primarily in sculpture and installation. She is a recent recipient of both an MFA in Studio Arts and an MA in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work has been shown in numerous locations including Edinbugh, Scotland, Dallas, Boulder and Chicago with recent and upcoming exhibitions at Gallery 400, SHOP (Southside Hub of Production), Roxaboxen and Eel Space in Chicago. She currently has an essay published in the latest edition of Puerto del Sol. Most recently, Beachy has been raising chickens and apprenticing as a taxidermist for the Chicago Academy of Scientists at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

More information about Rebecca Beachy can be found at www.rebeccabeachy.com

Roxaboxen Exhibitions is an artist collective run gallery and work space in the heart of Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. We are dedicated to displaying work of awesome artists we encounter, providing a space for creative community collaborations, as well as distributing/acquiring ideas and information.

More information about Roxaboxen Exhibitions can be found at www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

SUNDAY Jan 29: THE SLOW CLUB // new works by ANNA CAMPBELL

2012-01-23T16:46:00.001-06:00

THE SLOW CLUB

new works by ANNA CAMPBELL
JANUARY 29-30, 2012

Opening Reception: Sunday, Jan 29, 4-8pm

Open Hours: Monday, Jan 30, noon-4pm

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street

THE SLOW CLUB is a collection of work that investigates lost queer spaces. Objects and ephemera, including bar mirrors and matchbooks, provide traces of real and imagined histories, encouraging viewers to reconsider their relationship to a recent and radical past. Concurrently with the exhibit at ACRE, elements of The Slow Club will be on view at Parlour on Clark, re-situating the work into the context of a queer social space. Parlour is open 3pm – 2am Sundays, and is located on 6341 N. Clark St 60626.

ANNA CAMPBELL received her M.F.A. in art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her B.A. in studio art from the College of Wooster. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan and teaches courses on sculpture, installation and curating at Grand Valley State University. Her research focuses on queered representations of heroic masculinity through video, sculpture, and installation art.

More information about Anna Campbell can be found at www.annacampbell.net

Chuck Jones @ SLOW

2012-01-20T22:58:00.001-06:00

NOT COOL OR STOIC

new works by CHUCK JONES + MATTHEW SCHLAGBAUM

January 27-February 18 , 2012

Opening Reception: Friday Jan 27, 6-9pm

Open Hours: Saturdays noon-5pm

Slow

2153 w 21st Street, Chicago 60608

ACRE and SLOW present an opening reception on FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2012 from 6-9pm at 2153 w 21st Street, Chicago 60608. ACRE has partnered with SLOW to host NOT COOL OR STOIC: new works by CHUCK JONES and ACRE resident MATTHEW SCHLAGBAUM, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents.

NOT COOL OR STOIC

Colored theory. Not color for color’s sake, but named colors for linguistic associations.

Matthew Schlagbaum begins with greyscale, a faux grisaille, and slips in a technicolor magic schism. Unlike the filmic precedent, Matthew is invested neither in generating delight, nor affirming faith in humanity or individuality. More like Matthew is illuminating the shameless manipulations that drive familiar stories.

Glittering gold. Black and white and read all over.

Chuck, a gorillalike hulking man always decked out in Carhartts and work shoes, spins a yarn with earnest ennui. Deeply sentimental moments become meditational gems. But his laser focus meanders—the moment was truly heart-felt, but Chuck is open enough to respond just as deeply to the next. Follow his lead and you may end up with your emotional guard puddled around your ankles, not knowing the differences between true grit, heart-strings, or even what is funny.

Chuck and Matthew both reside somewhere shaken, somewhat glum. Not cool or stoic. Each embraces his own direct emotional responses, and calls upon a viewer to dive into a moment. But each is driven toward a view of reality that pulls back the curtain to reveal something as it is complete with contradictions, flaws and untidy conclusions.

CHUCK JONES was born and raised inside the beltway that circles our nation's capital, now lives and works in Chicago with his family.

More information about Chuck Jones can be found at www.babygorilla.com.

MATTHEW SCHLAGBAUM is a multidisciplinary artist currently residing in Chicago, IL. Originally from Florida, he received an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as a BFA in Sculpture and a BA in Psychology from the University of South Florida. His work investigates materiality, color, and object-ness in relation to the way in which value is assigned to concepts of emotionality, interpersonal relationships, success, and self-identification. He often implements objects and imagery considered generic or inauthentic in order to tease out the complex emotional relationship we have with these materials.

More information about Matthew Schlagbaum can be found at www.matthewschlagbaum.com

SLOW GALLERY is an alternative exhibition venue for contemporary art. Not quite an apartment gallery, not commercial. Art that leans away from hipster toward introspective and vulnerable (read slightly nerdy).

More information about Slow Gallery can be found at paul-is-slow.info

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

MR. SMITH GOES TO ROXABOXEN

2012-01-10T19:21:00.001-06:00

MR. SMITH GOES TO ROXABOXEN

An evening under the influence of Jack Smith

Friday January 13, 2012 from 7pm-11pm

Suggested donation: $9

South Side Projections and Roxaboxen Exhibitions are pleased to present a Jack Smith themed night of titillation and entertainment. We will be screening Smith's legendary and notorious film FLAMING CREATURES (1962, 43 min., 16mm) and Jill Godmilow's film of Ron Vawter's performance of Jack Smith's play WHAT'S UNDERGROUND ABOUT MARSHMALLOWS (1996, 60 min., DVD). Godmilow will be on hand to discuss Smith's influence on Vawter and the world at large. Then a performance by Chicago's unclassifiable punk-performance art-rock band ONO will conclude the evening's events.

Jack Smith was one of the most important figures in American art of the 20th century. The godfather of performance art, a queer icon, and the originator of the camp aesthetic, he influenced generations of artists including Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, John Waters, Cindy Sherman, and Guy Maddin. FLAMING CREATURES one of Smith's most famous films is a nonnarrative satire of Hollywood B movies and a eulogy to B-movie bombshell Maria Montez. Jonas Mekas, who went to jail for showing it, praised it as "a high level of art which is absolutely lacking in decorum." Onion City Experimental Film Festival programmer Patrick Friel gushes "FLAMING CREATURES is a wonderfully vibrant, messy, and lighthearted film that traffics in titillation and tease, irreverence and playfulness, and a disarmingly free-spirited and freewheeling sense of energy."

For Jill Godmilow's WHAT'S UNDERGROUND ABOUT MARSHMALLOWS, the artist filmed Ron Vawter's uninterrupted performance of Smith's one-person play of the same name, which Vawter combined onstage with a Gary Indiana play about Roy Cohn for the long-running performance ROY COHN/JACK SMITH. The performance details Smith's feud with Mekas over intellectual property: specifically, Smith feared that his most ardent champion was making illegal copies of his films. Filmmaker and educator Jill Godmilow will discuss Smith's influence and her work with Ron Vawter, using clips from her other collaboration with Vawter (ROY COHN/JACK SMITH) to distinguish the politics of Vawter's performance.

The Chicago Punk Database describes ONO as an "Industrial/Avant/Gospel/Noise Band." Since the early 1980s, founders P.Michael and Travis, with a revolving cast of musicians whose contributions kept ONO's sound constantly in flux, have outraged and entranced audiences large and small with their unclassifiable performance art rock.

Roxaboxen Exhibitions

2130 W 21st Street

Chicago IL 60608

www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

Short Court: Tropical Aesthletics

2012-01-10T19:11:00.003-06:00

Short Court: Tropical Aesthletics
Curated by Tag Team  
February 10 - March 10, 2012

Opening Friday February 10 from 6pm-10pm

Prepare for fun in the synthetic sun at Short Court: Tropical Aesthletics!
A sporting event and painting exhibition all in one! HOT!HOT!HOT!

This collision of spectacles has it all:
* Attendees can challenge a pair of professional volleyball players
for the chance to WIN $100!
* Chicago's best painters will display event-specific works on the
walls surrounding the court!
*!Muy Caliente! Imbibe exotic tropical beverages from the Cabana!
*!Muy Caliente! DJ set by wurkstep pioneers SICH MANG!
*!Muy Caliente! Sun Lamps, Palm Trees, Coastal Wildlife, Sun Block, and Sand!
The sandy lines dividing spectators, artists, and athletes will be
smoothed over by all feet that make their way to this one night event
at Antena.

Painters include: Adam Farcus, Adam Grossi, Alberto Aguilar, Alex Bradley Cohen, Angeline Evans, Brian Wadford, Caroline Carlsmith, Cory Glick, Edra Soto, EC Brown, Irene Perez, Jeriah Hildwine, Jim Papadopoulos, Kevin Jennings, Nicole Northway, Pamela Fraser, Philip von Zweck, Thad Kellstadt, Vincent Dermody

ANTENA
1765 S. Laflin St.
Chicago IL 60608
www.antenapilsen.com
antenapilsen (at) gmail.com
(773) 340-3516
Hours: by appointment only

Skill Party @ Cobalt Studio

2011-12-05T18:47:00.001-06:00

One night reception
Friday, December 9, 2011 from 7:00pm until 10:00pm
Cobalt Studio, 1950 W. 21st St// Storefront Space, Chicago

Skill Party is the result of a series of workshops exploring the space between the artist, teacher, and student, and the interaction between these modes.

It is a participatory project in which the process is as much the work as is the outcome. We are artists learning to become teachers, education researchers, and socially engaged activists working in public schools.

Collaboration, participation, and social engagement are core values in guiding our explorations. The work in the show includes collaborative art works, documentation from workshops, individual art work, and classroom work with young students.

//Mapping, Food, Fiber art, DIY, Ceramics & more//
—
Tess Hwang; Shanna Griffus; Kyle Busse; Krystal Korth; Lucy Saldana; Louie Raymo; Kelsea Cadore; Alana Wynes; Paulina Camacho; Rayshawn Nowlin; Devan Picard; Sarah Lesser; Lindsay Abramo; Jessica Rosenbaum

Questions? cobaltartstudio@gmail.com

Art Sale for Antena @ VERGE ART FAIR

2011-11-17T20:14:00.001-06:00

Art Sale for Antena @ VERGE ART FAIR  

Friday November 18 from 6pm-10pm  

Antena will participate in this December's Verge Art Fair in Miami and we are having an art sale to raise funds to pay for necessary expenses. We will have affordable art by Miguel Cortez, Saul Aguirre and others.

  For more info on Verge Art Fair: http://www.miamibeachartfair.com/miamibeachmain.html  

ANTENA 
1765 S. Laflin St.
 Chicago, IL 60608
http://www.antenapilsen.com/
 

MARK NELSON, "Reverse Engineering: Works from the Painted Desert"

2011-11-08T05:51:00.000-06:00

MARK NELSON, "Reverse Engineering: Works from the Painted Desert"

Opening Thursday, November 10 · 6:00pm - 11:00pm

CARLOS & DOMINGUEZ Fine Arts Gallery

1538 W. Cullerton Street, (2000 South, East of Ashland Ave.)

Chicago, IL

MARK NELSON, an artist and teacher, has been a resident of Chicago since 1984, when he arrived from the Republic of Panama. His work was shaped from his roots as a "gringo" living from adolescence into adulthood in a unique Latin American country where the "land divided and the world united".

His work can be found in private collections as well as a commissioned mural painting for the new U.S. Embassy-Consulate in the Republ ic of Panama in 2007. His "Gringolandia" Studio and home is located in Chicago's own Pilsen community, where he is an active and highly regarded artist. He has received numerous grants and awards as a teacher and a professional artist, including twice taking the Illinois Arts Council esteemed Fellowship.

"Reverse Engineering: works from the Painted Desert" is the latest series of works to come from two summer residencies in 2010 and 2011, during which Mark researched the landscape and indigenous history of Northern Arizona as a teacher-ranger and videographer for the U.S. National Park Service. MARK NELSON began his paintings outside of his park residence above the Painted Desert.

The Painted Desert, a carved basin of land once a river larger than the Amazon, is at the center of the Petrified Forest National Park. The park, abundant with Pueblo ruins, petroglyphs, petrified trees, and Triassic fossils, provided rich sources of inspiration to Mark, and he ventured out to other sites under the jurisdiction of the Hope, Navajo, Apache, Zuni, and 18 other indigenous nations.

Nelson attributes his greatest influence during these summers to attending the noon dance rite of Niman, by invitation of Hopi artists. Niman is a Hopi celebration of the Summer Solstice that reunites family and friends. The paintings, which MARK NELSON presents here at the CARLOS & DOMINGUEZ Fine Arts Gallery, are filled with the symbolism, landscaope, colors, and bountifulness of this region.

Not to be missed, these works of artistic vision are a cultivation of enlightenment. MARK NELSON has had a number of unique experiences which have contributed to artistic expressions like none other.

After Opening night, viewing is by appointment:

Contact: Len Dominguez at: feriadelaluna @yahoo.com

WAX / WANE new works by LIZ MCCARTHY

2011-10-27T18:26:00.000-05:00

WAX / WANE
new works by LIZ MCCARTHY
Nov. 6-7, 2011

Opening Reception: Sunday, November 6, 4-8
with a performance by MR. 666
Open Hours: Monday, November 7, noon-4

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street

ACRE Projects hosts an opening reception on Sunday, November 6, 2011 from 4-8pm at 1913 West 17th Street, Chicago, IL. ACRE Projects is proud to present LIZ MCCARTHY: WAX / WANE, (with a special performance by Mr. 666) the nextinstallment in ACRE's year-long series of solo exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents.

WAX / WANE is a collection of images exploring personal connection to the moon and its cyclical time. This body of work consists of photographs of the full moon with interpretive drawing on the surface and twelve drawings illustrating the artist’s association to each full moon that occurred this year, based on the Algonquin and Farmer’s Almanac moon calendars.

This work began as a prescribed obsession. A few years ago, after advice from a doctor to “pay attention to the moon,” Liz McCarthy began researching, contemplating, watching, and documenting the reflecting orb that punctuates the Earth’s night sky. Mimicking thousands of years of human instinct to create moon mythology, McCarthy uses photography and drawing to document her own personal relationship to lunar magnetism. In our urban society, surrounded by buildings and pavement, culture is less attached to the natural forces that have so much effect on both our surroundings and physical bodies. McCarthy seeks to emphasize the act of looking up and acknowledging the moon and its constant changing phases.

LIZ MCCARTHY is an artist based out of the Pilsen neighborhood. She moved to Chicago two years ago from North Carolina to help found Roxaboxen Exhibitions gallery and studio co-operative. She balances her art practice with her role at Roxaboxen as co-director and curator. Most of her work is made through a process of combining photography with mixed media to document her perception of time and place and its relationship to identity.

More information about Liz McCarthy can be found at liz-mccarthy.com

More information about Mr. 666 can be found at michaelperkins-mr666.bandcamp.com

This project is supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

ACRE Projects is a new space in Pilsen presenting weekly art events every Sunday evening. Each of ACRE's 70+ residents are given the keys to the space for one week to do with it what they will. Additional exhibitions will be hosted by a number of local galleries and alternative spaces.

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org.

Antena @ MDW Art Fair

2011-10-17T18:23:00.001-05:00

MDW Fall Showcase
October 21st- 23rd  at The Geolofts 3636 S Iron St.

Vernissage: Friday October 21, 8-11pm

Saturday Noon to 6pm
Sunday Noon to 6pm
$5 admission

ANTENA: BOOTH #230

Artists representing Antena: Edra Soto and Dan Sullivan

Edra Soto (b. Puerto Rico) is a Chicago based artist. In 1995 Edra received the Alfonso Arana Fellowship to work in Paris for one year. She attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she obtained her Masters of Fine Arts in 2OOO. Immediately after, she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work has been feature in New American Paintings and her show at Ebersmoore was selected Best Solo Exhibitions of 2010 NewCity Art of Chicago. Soto has lecture at El Museo de Puerto Rico, Harold Washington College and The Art Institute of Chicago among others. She is a member of the collective ED JR. with Deborah Boardman, Jeroen Nelemans and Ryan Richey. She is also the founder a fashion blog dedicated to artists with a flair for fashion called ModaMasters at modamasters.blogspot.com

Locally she has exhibited at Roots and Culture, , Longman and Eagle with Harold Arts, Ebersmoore, curatorial work for Dock 6 Design & Art Series and the UBS 12 x 12 at The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago among others. This summer, Edra completed a two-week residency at Ragdales newly renovated Meadow, granted by the 3Arts Foundation. Also this summer, she lectured at Beta-Local, an international contemporary space located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Current presentations include: CoLaboratory with ED JR. and (f)utility curated by Annie Moorse at The Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College, Core Values at North Branch Projects and New Ways: An Exhibition of Ragdale Fellowship Artists both curated by Regin Igloria. Upcoming presentations include: Archival Impulse at UICGallery 400, LIVING By Example with husband Dan Sullivan, the inaugural exhibition of The Frankin projects space at NEIUFine Arts Center Gallery and Afterimage satellite exhibition at the Roger Brown Study Collection curated by Dahlia Tulet and Thea Liberty Nichols.

Dan Sullivan was born and raised in Maine, studying in Minnesota before moving to Chicago in 1997. After years working in both the trades and the arts, Dan used his experience to found Two Lights Contracting, specializing in residential and commercial rehabs, and Navillus WoodWorks, a custom furniture and millwork business. Clients include the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Drag City Records, Renegade Handmade, and the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

Navillus Woodworks is a member of the Dock 6 Collective, showing in the bi-annual Design & Art Series as well as with the Object Society and in The Design Harvest Art Fair. Dan has worked closely with Kujawa Architecture to develop a modular shelving system. With his wife, conceptual artist Edra Soto, Dan has collaborated on sculptural pieces that have been exhibited widely in venues including Ebersmoore Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. This last year Dan has been developing the Franklin Series, a furniture line for Navillus WoodWorks, and is in the process of securing two design patents. Dan is also an active musician, playing in the bands Rabid Rabbit and Arriver. Both bands are due to release new records on the Bloodlust! Label.

ABOUT THE MDW FAIR:
Chicago: on October 21st- 23rd, The MDW Fair presents a Fall Showcase of solo and duo exhibitions curated by small not-for-profits, artist-run spaces, independent galleries, collectives and curators from around the country. This iteration of the MDW Fair runs in conjunction with The Hand in Glove Conference and will highlight innovative curatorial and administrative practices happening in independent arts initiatives. The Fall Showcase will focus on the practices of individual artists, offering the opportunity for each artist to mount an ambitious project. The Fall Showcase, like the previous MDW Fair, will also feature an independent arts publisher’s forum.

Formed in spring 2011 as a collaborative project between the Public Media Institute, Roots & Culture and threewalls. The MDW Fair was conceived as a showcase for independent art initiatives, spaces, galleries and artist groups from the Chicago metropolitan area. The initial fair, which took place April 23 & 24th of 2011, drew large crowds and press from ArtSlant, The Chicago Tribune, Bad at Sports and more as Chicagoans gathered for a special focus on the visual arts in their county.

In conjunction with The MDW Fair, threewalls & Alliance for Independent Arts Organizers will be hosting The Hand in Glove Conference on the first floor of the Geolofts. The Hand in Glove Conference is a new semiannual conference for independent visual arts facilitators working at the crossroads of creative administration and studio practice. This conference is open to people engaged in the pragmatic realities and imaginative possibilities of organizing exhibitions, re-granting programs, publications, residencies, public programs, platforms for projects, and a variety of other programming that challenges traditional formats for the production and reception of art at the grass-roots level. The Conference takes place October 20-23rd and is open to registered participants only. Visit threewalls for more information.

Participants include:
2612 Space
65GRAND
ACRE
Alderman Exhibitions
ANTENA
ANTIDOTE
Bad at Sports
Chicago Artists Coalition
BOLT Residency
Chicago Urban Arts
DEFIBRILLATOR
Devening Projects + Editions
Document
Drawn Lots
Green Gallery
Happy Collaborationists
Harold Arts
High Concept Lab
The Hills
Hinge Gallery
Hungryman
Iceberg Projects
Itsa_pony
LVL3
Trevor Martin n
Abr Gallery
North Branch Projects
Nudashank
Old Seoul
Packer Schopf Gallery
Peanut Gallery
Pentagon
Reference
Reuben Kincaid
Roots & Culture
Sixty Inches From Center
Small Space
Spudnik Press
threewalls
Uncle Freddy’s Treats
Linda Warren
Western Exhibitions
What It Is
Propeller Fund grantees 2010

Publishers and other organizations:
Alternative Press Center
AREA Magazine
CHI_art
Golden Age
Green Lantern Press
Klein Art works
Make Magazine
Neoteric Art
Proximity, Lumpen, Materiél
Quimbys
Soberscove Press

MDW Fall Showcase
The Geolofts

3636 S Iron St.

http://mdwfair.org/

see Google Map

!Action Figures!

2011-10-10T18:13:00.002-05:00

!Action Figures! explores the relationships between direct action, the figurative art tradition, kinetics, performance, participation, activism, intervention and play.

Action figures serve as symbols, icons, toys, stimulate fantasies and allow us to animate the inanimate.

Opening Friday October 14, from 6pm-10pm
Show will run thru 10/14- 10/30/11

Saul Aguirre - PerformanceCharcko & Alfredo Arcos - Video
PBR Street gang (Juan Compean/Antonio Martinez/Jose Arceo) - Sculpture
Charles Fairbanks - Video Manos/Buckius Cooperative - Videos
Micheal Flynn - Direct action/Photo
Eric J. Garcia - Sculpture
Andres Hernandez - Video/photography
Erik Howard - Community activist work/Photography
Cara Levine & Cassie Thornton - Performance/photodocument
Naomi Martinez - Figurine and sequential art
Carrie Morris - Bedaya Macbeth Puppetry installation
Daniel Pugh- sculpture/performance
Elvia Rodriguez Ochoa - Documentation of (local) direct action
Diana Solis - Drawings
Adrienne Vetter - Figurines
Build-a-Beaner Fiesta Time Exploratorium Experience (Aaron Michael Morales/Paloma Martinez-Cruz/Nuco Villanueva ) Painting/Performance
Eric Warner - photography
Wesley Wilson - Interactive game

Cobalt Studio

1950 W. 21st St, Storefront

Chicago IL, 60608

Contact Email: adi.baltazar@gmail.com
URL: http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/p/upcoming-shows.html
http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/visual-arts/node/35374

* This is an official Chicago Artist Month event.

Land and Escape New Work by Amanda Gutierrez

2011-09-29T20:39:00.000-05:00

Land and Escape New Work by Amanda Gutierrez
(Video Installation)

September 30, 6pm -10pm

The stories presented in “Land and escape”, are immigrant’s memories exposing their personal journey and adaptation process in foreign countries. Labor is the main motivation of displacement and settlement in each story. The subjects converge in places such as Askeaton, in Ireland, Oaxaca in Mexico, and Chicago in the US.

Concepts of memory, space and homesickness are intimately related in this video series. The exploration of these topics is guided by formal conventions related to documentary.

This project aims to develop a visual narrative based on a collection of audio narratives (voice over) and their connection to related landscapes, as the main source of visual remembrance. In this exploration the project confronts the narrative over its construction, creating different interpretations through formal problems and questions about the subjects motives.

Cobalt Studio

1950 W. 21st St, Storefront

Chicago, IL 60608
http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/

Mandy Cano Vilalobos

2011-09-29T20:31:00.004-05:00

Roxaboxen Exhibitions Presents:
Voces
Work by Mandy Cano Vilalobos

Opening Reception October 8th 6-8pmOctober 8th- October 29th 2011

Voces (“Voices”) is a performative installation that addresses the mass femicide of Chihuahua, Mexico. An ongoing act of mourning and protest, I silently sit to the side of the gallery, embroidering the names of individual murder victims into white blouses. Beginning with the first documented victims in 1993, every woman is commemorated with pink thread, referencing the pink crosses that have been erected and painted throughout the city by those who mourn the dead. As the shirts fill the center of the room, memorial shrines and missing person posters line the walls.

Having resided in El Paso, Texas as a child, I find a jarring incongruence between my fond memories of Juarez and the city I now hear about on the news. I remember the shock, disgust and sorrow I felt when I first became aware of the femicides in Chihuahua. The majority of victims, from low income families, are between the ages of 14 and 30. Many are raped, beaten, tortured, strangled and sometimes shot to death, their mutilated bodies discarded in the dessert, or left by the highway. The motives range from gang initiation rituals and sport killings to domestic abuse.

I have dedicated the last three years to embroidering the name of each woman and looking into the individual stories of their lives. In this way, the act of sewing has become an act of commemoration and mourning. As the needle pierces each shirt, the suffering of each woman is lamented and recorded in thread. Though their lives and bodies have been so carelessly discarded, these women are not forgotten. The time taken to hand-stitch one name is a time taken to remember one person; it is to lovingly declare, “No, you are not forgotten. I remember you. I value you.”

Voces also aims to make the Chihuahua femicides a very real and urgent dilemma to a United States audience and solicit change on both sides of the border. Regardless of ethnic background, viewers are endowed with power by mere virtue of their residency on this side of the border. They assume an implied responsibility as consumers of such companies as Alcoa, General Electric, Du Pont, Ford, Johnson & Johnson and Kenwood, US-owned corporations that continue to operate Juarez factories where many of these women are employed and often exploited – an exploitation directly linked to the social climate of the femicides. Voces presents viewers with the perspectives of those who suffer under the current system and calls them to recognize their ability to act in the victims’ favor.

Mandy Cano Vilalobos is an artist and educator based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She received her M.F.A. The George Washington University in Washington D.C., and is currently a professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids.

Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W 21st Street
Chicago IL 60608
www.roxaboxenminicastle.comGallery hours Saturdays 12-3pm

Stitch and Bitch

2011-09-08T20:25:00.001-05:00

Stitch and Bitch

Opening Friday September 23rd from 6pm-10pm
September 23- October 22, 2011

Tejer y Joder
El Stitch y Bitch (SyB) was founded in 2008 as a space for knitters, crocheters and crafters in the Pilsen, Bridgeport and Little Village neighborhoods of Chicago. Currently the group is consists of over 20 members, ages 18 and up. Over the years, the group has evolved into a collaborative art group interested in addressing handmade and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture. As DIY culture moves into a contemporary state, many members of the group have found themselves astonished and curious by the inheritance of the handmade skill or the need to carry on the tradition in an adapted manner. Tejer y Joder is a compilation of individual SyB members and independent fiber artists, all interested in the themes of gender, identity, tradition and memory. http://elstitchybitch.wordpress.com/

Artists:
Adriana Baltazar
Krissy Bodge
Julia Chau
Esmeraldo Garcia
Irasema Gonzalez
Erika Hernandez
Claudia Marchan
Naomi Martinez
Jackie Orozco
Jessica Phillips
Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa
Thelma Uranga

ANTENA
1765 S. Laflin St.
Chicago IL 60608
www.antenapilsen.com
antenapilsen (at) gmail.com
(773) 340-3516
Hours: by appointment only

UNINHIBITED PARAMETER

2011-09-08T20:24:00.002-05:00

UNINHIBITED PARAMETERS

new works by RILEY HENDERSON

Opening Reception: September 23, 5:30-10:30pm
Open Hours: September 24, noon-5:30pm

Chicago Art Department
1932 S Halsted, unit 100

The Chicago Art Department presents Uninhibited Parameters a solo show by Riley Henderson in conjunction with ACRE. An opening reception will be held on Friday, September 23, 2011 from 5:30-10:30pm at the Chicago Art Department's new 3,200 sq ft space located at 1932 S Halsted, unit 100, Chicago, IL.

Uninhibited Parameters is a body of new, largely unseen, installation, textile and photographic works by artist, Riley Henderson and co-curated by Jason Frohlichstein. This show stems from ideas and observations on race, class, and cultural difference. The artist’s aim is to relate shortcomings of the current immigration debate to a legacy of dehumanization and marginalization in the U.S, through metaphor and story. “Focusing on the way in which the current immigration debate is framed, my goal is to re-inject that conversation with ideas of humanity. Far too often, people are left out of this debate about people, which has become a very traditional way of marginalizing different ethnic groups and minorities in America. I hope to infer a broader and necessary shift in the thoughts and treatment of people in this country.”

Benito Juarez Muralists: 30 year Reunion

2011-09-08T20:18:00.002-05:00

Benito Juarez Muralists: 30 year Reunion

Friday, September 9 from 7:00pm - 11:00pm

CARLOS & DOMINGUEZ Fine Arts Gallery

1538 W. Cullerton Street (2000 South, East of Ashland)

Chicago, IL 60608

Over 30 years ago, 6 young artists in Pilsen were commissioned to create a mural on the east side of the new high school in Pilsen, Benito Juarez High School. The Mexican community had fought long and hard to have this new school built.

To reflect this struggle, the artists created, A LA ESPERANZA a large mural which evokes the struggles and aspirations of Mexican youth and families. The mural is in the finest traditions of the great Mexican muralists, Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros.

Five of the original artists are now professional artists, creating original art, sculptures, murals, and other forms of creative expression. This exhibition brings them back together for the first time, to showcase some of their current work.

JIMMY LONGORIA, OSCAR MOYA, MARCOS RAYA, ROBERT VALADEZ, SALVADOR VEGA: Each artist could easily exhibit a "One-Man" Show, but all together, that's a Blockbuster exhibit.

CARLOS & DOMINGUEZ Fine Arts Gallery is proud and honored to present this unprecedented exhibit to Pilsen and Chicago.

Food and refreshments will be provided
Information: Len Dominguez at: feriadelaluna@yahoo.com

SPLAY @ Roxaboxen

2011-08-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

Opening Reception: Friday August 26th 7-10pm
August 26th - September 18thgallery hours Saturday 12-3pm

Roxaboxen Exhibitions presents:

SPLAY: An International group exhibition that explores sexuality as a platform for self-reflexivity. Through painting sculpture, video, performance and site specific installation, each artist questioned her/his own subjectivity in the face of her/his desires. How do we understand ourselves in the flesh in the midst of the digital, where personalities and bodies are framed for market consumption, singles networks and virtual cruising? Who is the real subject? Do we elude even ourselves as the subjects of our experiences, instead in the substituting or superimposing the fulfillment of fantasy over personal satisfaction? SPLAY is an exhibition that opens up a dialogue about the place of real pleasure within the manifold real and imagined identification of sexual identity. The work in Splay is a proposition to the the viewer as the artists attempt to be seen and satiated at the risk of alienation, rejection, or humiliation. What results is a subversive play (s-play) insinuating the viewer as a participant, voyeur or longed-for other.

Artist: Madeleine Baily (Chicago), Steven Frost (Chicago), Yasi Ghanbari (Chicago), Elise Goldstein (Antwerp, BE), Rachel Lowther (Glasglow, UK), Ivan Lozano (Chicago), Brian Maller (NY), Alison Rhoades (Grenoble, France), Tessa Siddle (San Francisco), Fritz Welch (Glasglow, UK), Synvia Whitney (Seattle)

--
Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W 21st Street
Chicago IL 60608
www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

the toy formerly known as….

2011-07-28T20:17:00.007-05:00

the toy formerly known as….
featuring artists Tom Burtonwood, Joseph Belknap, Sarah Belknap, CC Ann Chen, Todd Chilton, Meg Duguid, Jason Dunda, Brent Garbowski, Jeffrey Grauel, Brad Johns, Susie Kimball, Larry Lee, Allon Lieberman, Mican Morgan and Shannon Schmidt

Saturday, August 6 · 6:30pm - 9:00pm

Slow

2353 w 21st

Chicago, IL 60608

The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". It’s our name and it’s our ideal.

LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Brick configuration and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group. © 2009 The LEGO Group. © 2009

Toys are designed to direct play, and to teach children the rules. We are directed. Play trains us. Instructions on the box; pictures of what it is supposed to look like. The rules.

But we don’t stay in those lines.

Images of play that revolve around destruction may upset the adult crowd. For adults, edgy is a value system. The best of us learn to harness the design to transcend itself. Well-designed play inspires, but the kids seem to do just fine bringing their own broken rules to the game. Perhaps the outlaw and the artist have always been linked because rules have to be broken to discover the new.

Renovation Creep: Joe Cassan, Dan Bruttig and Erin Thurlow

2011-07-19T19:28:00.001-05:00

Renovation Creep: Joe Cassan, Dan Bruttig and Erin Thurlow

Opening Friday August 5th from 6pm-10pm
August 5- September 3, 2011

Three artists, Daniel Bruttig, Joe Cassan and Erin Thurlow will be sculpting, painting and directly intervening in the space of Antena gallery for their show, Renovation Creep. Simultaneously material and ephemeral, the work here resembles the haunted, transitory nature of urban apartment dwelling.

Renovation Creeps

History: We are, many of us, temporary occupants of someone else's property. For most people who live in cities, in fact, it represents the reality of the American Way of Life far better than the well-branded American Dream of home (house) ownership. It will most likely be an apartment, a collection of rooms 'distinguished' by a patchwork of occupant-renovations, handyman quick-fixes, cheap fixtures and bad paint jobs. The typical rental is a way-station for young up-and-comers, or a mortgage-free house for the lifelong renters. From the Victorian-era railroad, to the condo-style mod flat, each is home to a succession of denizens who leave behind a particular residential stain.

Palimpsest: A raw spot remains on a surface when a thing fixed there for a long time previously, is removed. It is anti-residue; clean space on an aged plane that has evaded the ruin of time. Move a picture frame that has hung for years on the too-long-unrepainted wall, and you will expose a lighter, brighter rectangle. This sort of mark shows along a floor after walls have been torn out, fixtures have been removed, and carpets pulled back. The minor spirits that remain, remind us that the apartment has had a history prior to our brief residence. Conversely, there is an organic quality to the gradual accumulation of paint, wall paper, and hole-filler that covers the walls, obscuring the details left from a more meticulous era. It is like a moss on the forest floor, covering the duff in a soft, uniform carpet.

Patina: The cabinets, some sort of revival in nineteenth century, frontier design, now just look anachronistic; plywood and melamine surfaces tarted up with Gothic drawer pulls and moulding. Worse, the details, narrow clefts and dimples, are caked and filled with a residue of dust (90% dead human skin), cooking grease and tobacco resin. Who knows how many Marlboros, fondue parties, cut fingers and splatted Yoplait Yogurts it took to create such a

(Also note: The jerry rigged wiring and fixtures that follow a succession of handymen, do-it-yourselfers and building supervisors resembles the growth of benign tumors.)

Labyrinth: Pull back the carpet or linoleum, scrape the wallpaper, remove a cabinet hung during a cheap renovation. What do you see? Another, older pattern of wallpaper? Pristine hardwood flooring, or urine-soaked, rotting press-board. Rip open a wall and you find a door behind it. Rather than unpainted drywall, the hole in the wall reveals another wall, floral wall paper graffitid with a handwritten grocery list. 'Your' flat is a labyrinth of histories, wandered by the ghosts of those who became lost there.

-Erin Thurlow

ANTENA
1765 S. Laflin St.
Chicago IL 60608
www.antenapilsen.com
antenapilsen (at) gmail.com
(773) 340-3516
Hours: by appointment only

Is this thing on?: The art of comedy

2011-07-14T19:28:00.005-05:00

"Is this thing on?: The art of comedy"
Guest Curator: Miguel Cortez from Antena

Opening Friday August 12 from 6pm-10pm
August 12-28, 2011

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."
- Lenny Bruce

Contemporary art is too serious sometimes. This show will focus on the lightheartedness and humor in art. Most of us are part of the system and work 40+ hours a week and by the weekend we just want to unwind and be entertained. Then this show is just for you. These artists use irony, goofiness, satire, and sarcasm in their work.

Artists:
Andy Detskas
Ben Pederson
Catie Olson
Chris Silva
Darrell Luce
David Leggett
Lauren Feece
Meg Duguid
Nick Black
Nicole Marroquin
Paul Shortt
Rick Huggett
Sarah Perez

Born June 3rd, 1975, Andy Detskas grew up hopping around the Midwest, deep South and East coast. Like many artists, Andy began to work at a young age exploring drawing, painting and sculpture. Since graduating from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2000 Andy's work has varied as much as the places he grew up; exploring themes of human scale, urban ruin, defacement, landscape, ghosts, robots and typography. Andy's current body of work is focused on using discarded motel landscape paintings as a canvas for hand-drawn typography and strange comedic characters. http://andyandyandy.com/

Ben Pederson was born in 1979 in Grand Rapids Michigan and received his B.A. in Studio art from Aquinas College in 2003. He went on to obtain his M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, which he received in 2007. After graduate school, Ben moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he worked as an art handler and continued to make and show work. Now residing in Madison, WI, he has shown in Chicago and throughout the midwest as well as staying involved with shows and screenings on the east coast. http://benforceblog.blogspot.com/

Catie Olson is multi-disciplinary artist born in Decatur, Illinois, the pleasant home of two chicken cars. She received her BS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995 in Agriculture, ventured to Chicago and received her BFA at the School of the Art Institute in 2000. Catie organizes SpiderBug, a mobile short film festival, along with her husband, EC Brown. The pair also run Floor Length and Tux, an apartment art space. Catie has an animation that will be shown in the International Pancake Film Festival in Boston upcoming in July. She has shown work in Chicago including Heaven, Swimming Pool, antena and minidutch galleries. http://www.catieolson.com, http://www.floorlengthandtux.com, http://www.spiderbug.org

Christopher Tavares Silva is a multi-disciplinary artist who has been cold rockin' shit since his little monkey feet touched down on Planet Earth. Having recently returned to Chicago from a 4 year vision quest in the jungles of Puerto Rico, Chris is splitting his energy between creating collaborative and heart-warming works of art and music with his expansive band of misfit slackers - and charging ever onward with his tireless passion for data entry. Chris's work has been exhibited and published in places that would make you shit your pants, and since most of us prefer to shit our pants in the privacy of our own homes (I know - there's nothing greater) the details will be spared. It's simple - buy one of these reasonably priced pieces of supreme quality visual funk...or live a life full of regret. Pussy. http://chrissilva.com/

Darrell Luce, b. circa 1963, probably in San Francisco. Luce is the wild man of the workshop, which he joined in 1996, at the request of Alma de la Serra. He either refuses to discuss his past or concocts sly stories that in retrospect cannot possibly be true. A realist in more ways than one, Luce paints in an expressionistic style that borrows freely from old masters, publicity stills, and cartooning. His sarcastically entitled 'Life of Ignotus' series documents his skepticism with regard to Ignotus's ideas--which Ignotus fully shares. His series of paintings of de la Serra apparently documents his relationship with her, though no one has yet figured out exactly what that relationship is, since Luce never gives a straight answer and de la Serra limits herself to saying "you either trust Darrell completely or not at all."

David Leggett was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1980. He received his Bachelors of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design (2003), and a Masters of Fine Arts form the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). He also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2010). His work is influenced by relationships, both personal and cultural. Popular culture and imagery are often used in his work. He has shown his work throughout the United States and internationally. He received the visual artist award from 3Arts in 2009. http://www.davidleggettart.com/

Lauren Feece
I have always loved making things and I have spent most of my life happily tucked away in my beloved studio. It helped to make me a bit unprepared for real life but completely comfortable with life in my sketchbooks and paintings. In my youth I struck out for success in the city of Chicago. Waitressing and pursuing a career as a working artist kept me very busy. One night on my way to an art opening with friends I met a very interesting musical and visual artist named Chris Silva. I like to think in hindsight that at that moment I knew I was meeting my future husband, but even if it wasn't entirely clear back then I knew instantly I was meeting someone very special. We were hardly apart and soon we had combined our lives, our living and studio spaces. We made our first attempts at collaborative work. Life was beautiful and full of art making.

For years we put art making first and "real jobs" second. Living simply and working hard we happily enjoyed life as full time artists. Over time, our energies focused on making and selling art work for years, began to run down. We wanted to recharge so in 2006 we moved on to a new opportunity. The Silva Family property in Moca, Puerto Rico was without a caretaker and we left The Windy City to take on that job.

From December 2006 to September 2010 we learned more than we had planned on. We encountered many trials as the abandoned house became a home. We got to be more green as the well was dug and the solar were panels installed. We learned how hard it is to grow a garden in the tropics. We learned to listen to the birds, bugs, and frogs, and to see the stars again. This was a life with many new challenges, but through it we got back to art making with a recharged and refreshed perspective.

In the fall of 2010 we returned to our sweet home in Chicago. Continuing to make a life full of love, we are wiser from our travels, and more committed than ever to our human responsibility to the earth, the animals, and especially to one another.

I continue to be motivated by the challenge of being present in the moment. The paintings and drawings I make are thoughts about the nature of things, musings on the everyday, and studies of the layers of meaning just under the surface. In my work I continue to be inspired by the connection of the artistic process to ritual, myth, and meditation. My work is a dance of brushstroke, line, swirls, drips, explosions and movements of paint. As I dance, I remember life, birds, clouds, color, flowers, trees, light, lace, pattern, people, blooms, webs, waves, vines, twilight, leaves, sunrise and sunsets... http://laurenfeece.com/

Meg Duguid was raised in Columbus, Ohio, and received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA in from Bard College. She has performed and exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, the DUMBO Arts Festival in Brooklyn, and 667 Shotwell in San Francsiso. Duguid has screened work at Synthetic Zero in New York, Spiderbug in Chicago, and at the Last Supper Festival in Brooklyn. Duguid lives and works in Chicago, IL where she runs Clutch Gallery, a 25 square-inch white cube located in the heart of her purse. http://megduguid.com/, http://clutchgallery.blogspot.com/

Nick Black was born in Chicago in 1958. He has attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, DePaul University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Massachusetts College of Art. Recent exhibitions include Byron Cohen Gallery, Kansas City, Uncle Freddy's Gallery, Highland, IN, and Joymore, Buddy Space, and Klein Art Works, all in Chicago. Nick has had key works at Art Chicago, the Stray Show, Version Fest, and the New Chicagoans. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nbtoy/sets/72157607672560085/

Nicole Marroquin is an interdisciplinary artist whose creative practice includes collaboration, studio art, research, teaching, and strategic intervention. As a classroom art teacher in Chicago and Detroit, Marroquin taught and collaborated with youth on art-based action research projects. She makes art, exhibits and writes about participatory cultural production with youth and in communities. Marroquin recieved her MFA from the University of Michigan in 2008 and is now living in Pilsen in Chicago. She is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. nicolemarroquin.com

Rick Huggett
Raised in shrimpy Chagrin Falls, Ohio, the starting place for plenty of jokers including; Tim Conway and Tom Watterson (Calvin & Hobbs), I graduated from high school there and then attended Kent State University for a degree in Graphic Design. Four weeks before graduating I took a job in advertising and never completed my degree. I worked in advertising for two years before it dawned on me that I was both starving and penniless. Moved to Canton, Ohio after taking a job selling material handling systems to the steel and aluminum industries and did the 50-60 hour work week grind for the next 20+ years. During that time I acquired a wife, a house, 3 children, a dog, and a business degree from Malone University in Canton, Ohio. Now retired from sales I am currently pursuing a B.A. in Arts at Malone University with an emphasis in painting. In other words, I am a 52-year old undergraduate who will graduate in December of 2011, so long as I pay off all of my parking fines.

Paul Shortt (b. 1981) received his BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2009. He has been in numerous group shows in Chicago, Nebraska, Kansas City, and Minneapolis. From 2009-2010, he directed a monthly, year-long series of performance art at the Fishtank Performance Studio in Kansas City, Missouri, called The Paul Shortt Invitational Performances. He has participated in the Charlotte Street Foundation residency program in Kansas City, and spoken about his work at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Shortt currently is pursing his MFA in New Media at The University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and expects to graduate in 2013. http://www.paulshortt.com/

Sarah Perez
Born in the suburbs of Chicago, I lived for most of my childhood in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with my mother, father and younger sister. My entire family relies on love and humor to get through tough times, which has been a continued inspiration. I feel this evident in my work, in addition to the combination of real and surreal that creates a delicate balance in our day-to-day lives. http://www.sarahperez.net/gallery.html

----------------------
Miguel Cortez is an artist/curator living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently runs Antena, an alternative art space located in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. His artwork has been shown at Gallery 414 in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Krannert Museum and at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. Other shows include exhibits in Dallas at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery, Glass Curtain Gallery and at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. http://www.mcortez.com/

Cobalt Studio is an artist run space. Studio artists, Adriana Baltazar and Antonio Martinez work separately and collaborate on occasion to produce thoughtful public art that is meaningful for it's communities. As a project/exhibition space, Cobalt's key purpose is to provide exceptional artists, established and emerging, with an opportunity to showcase their work in a gallery-like atmosphere minus the commercial pressures and b.s.

Cobalt Studio
1950 W. 21st St.
Chicago, IL 60608
http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/

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BEN RUSSELL : US

2011-07-08T16:38:00.000-05:00

BEN RUSSELL presents
BEN RUSSELL : US

THE CO-PROSPERITY SCHOOL
HIDEOUS BEAST
POOPER & PIZZA DOG
TM SISTERS
YOSHUA OKÓN

1716 S Morgan #2F Chicago, IL 60608
July 10, 2011 - July 31, 2011
Opening reception: Sunday 4-9pm, July 10th, 2011

Private viewings by appointment*

*Two BPMs by Pooper & Pizza Dog will be performed at dusk during the opening reception.

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ABOUT THE SHOW:
Beautiful Friend, this is the end! My Only Friend, the end! Of our elaborate plans, the end! After approximately 778 days,72 artists, and 12 group exhibitions of the most contemporary of the contemporary arts, BEN RUSSELL offers you a misty-eyed finale to what has undoubtedly been the greatest curatorial collaboration this city may have ever known. What with our lease expiring at the end of July and one of our directors leaving Chicago indefinitely for Parts Unknown,BEN RUSSELL : US will be our 13th and final show. And so: in pre-memorium and now-celebration of the hyper-intellectual pseudo-aesthetic alliance betwixt Brandon Alvendia (aka Chicago's Best Artist) and Ben Russell (aka Chicago's Best Local Filmmaker) and ummm You (Chicago's Best Audience), the umpteen artists participating in BEN RUSSELL :US represent a veritable smörgåsbord of artistic alliances as drawn across fraternal, familial, romantic, pedagogical, and altruistic lines. Hand-picked for their collective sensibilities and their beguiling confidence in the generative power of directed camaraderie, these are artists that work together because they live/work/love together - they are US, plain and simple.

Inasmuch as US is "we" and "we" is BEN RUSSELL, we will exit as we entered, 25 months prior: A Lazy Sunday Opening, With Grilled Meats and Un-Meats, Libations and Fireworks and Goodwill Aplenty. A week shy of Independence Day, we will send bottle rockets to the sky while interrogating the monumental semiotics of national identification (OKÓN); we will hold hands and dive into the virtual summertime sea, hunting electric crabs and manatee-smiles (TM SISTERS). We will consume live Ham Dances (POOPER & PIZZA DOG) and roast the last marshmallows and bask in the illuminating/illuminated minimalist monolith to the challenges of communication (HIDEOUS BEAST) as our psychic hearts and Six Degrees of Separation to Everyone Everywhere are mapped out in chalk dust and memory (CO-PROSPERITY SCHOOL). From Miami to Mexico City, Bridgeport to Pilsen, and Inner to Outer Space, BEN RUSSELL : US is the US in your USA, the WE in your WE THE PEOPLE, the NOSOTROS in your NOS(O)TR(O)ADAMUS. BEN RUSSELL : US is Goodbye to our Past and Hello to our bright uncertain Future.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

THE CO-PROSPERITY SCHOOL is an Artist-Run School for and about the advancement and understanding of contemporary Chicago Art. Through guest speakers and class member presentations we shine a light on the contemporary art scene of Chicago. One of our goals is to break down the panel discussion dialogue of Chicago’s art and bring it to a more informal group discussion format in which shapers of Chicago’s Art World themselves tell of the contemporary scene. Members can discuss their own work, or the work of others. Past guests have included Daniel Tucker, Hamza Walker, Paul Klein, Duncan MacKenzie, Cody Hudson, Carolne Picard, Jason Foumberg, Carrie Gundersdorf, Tom Torluemke, Tom Burtonwood, Aron Packer, James Duignan, Nandipha Mntambo, and Barbara Koenen.

HIDEOUS BEAST is a collaborative effort between two artists, Josh Ippel and Charlie Roderick. Through organizing structured participatory events we attempt to encourage cultural activity outside the bounds of mainstream entertainment and fabricated desire. Critical of the audience as a passive participant, Hideous Beast seeks to coordinate events in which an acknowledged exchange between the event (as entertainment) and the spectator (as collaborator) can generate meanings beyond traditional formalized modes of entertainment.

It is their intent as artists and beings in common to shift perceptions of authorship and participation within the realm of constructed entertainment and art generated activities. This might change, though. HIDEOUS BEAST is always looking for others to collaborate with, both in carrying out our own projects and realizing others. Please contact them with any ideas for activities or events.

POOPER & PIZZA DOG first met in Chicago in the year 2008. Bonding over a mutual love for crude animations, fierce performances, excrement, and junk food, they hooked up and started playing together. They attended the FountainheadResidency in Miami in 2009 and performed as the double bill of "Pooper and Pizza Dog" at Locust Projects. Since then, they have collaborated on paintings, animations, sculptures, set designs, and performances to create a habitually double-featured audio visual experience. They have exhibited and performed at such venues as Art Basel's Design Miami, the MCA, Roxaboxen Exhibitions, and ACRE Projects. They are currently working on implementing live reactive animations into their performances, a website for online Art Games, Pooper's new album, and a peyote-themed amusement park.

TM SISTERS is a collaboration between Miami-based Monica Lopez De Victoria and Tasha Lopez De Victoria. They work in the mediums of video, digital video performance, VJing, collage, social experiments, zines, clothing, installations, and interactive video created along with their brother Samuel. Their do-it-yourself ethic started by being home schooled together by their parents. They were raised with intense psychological and spiritual discussions regarding behavior, relationships, creativity, and truth. The sisters’ work has been included in the international exhibitions "Uncertain States of America: American Art in the 3rd Millennium" curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Daniel Birnbaum, and Gunnar B. Kvaran, the Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, and PERFORMA 07. Their work has been seen and written about in publications like L’Officiel magazine, The Guardian, STEP Inside Design, the New York Times, Vogue Italia, and on the cover of ARTnews magazine for its 2007 “25 Trendsetters” article.

YOSHUA OKÓN was born in Mexico City in 1970 where he currently lives and works. In 2002 he received an MFA from UCLA with a Fulbright scholarship. In 1994, he founded La Panadería, an artist-run space in Mexico City; in 2009, he founded SOMA, an artist's academic/residency program. His solo exhibitions include: HH, Baró Sao Paulo Brazil, Yoshua Okón: 2007-2010, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, Ventanilla Única, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City,Canned Laughter, Viafarini, Milan, SUBTITLED, Städtische Kunsthalle, Munich, Bocanegra, The Project, NY, Gaza Stripper, Herzeliya Museum, Israel, Cockfight, Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan, Oríllese a la Orilla, Art & Public, Geneva, Lo Mejor de lo Mejor, La Panadería, Mexico City. His Group exhibitions include: Amateurs, CCA Wattis, San Francisco, Laughing in a Foreign Language, Hayward Gallery, London, The Age of Discrepancy, MUCA, Mexico City,Adaptive Behavior, New Museum, NY, Terror Chic, Spruth/Magers, Munich, The Virgin Show, Wrong Gallery, NY, Mexico City: an exhibition about the exchange rates between bodies and values, PS1, MoMA, NY, and Kunstwerke, Berlin.

ABOUT THE SPACE:
BEN RUSSELL is an art space in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Co-curated by artists Brandon Alvendia and Ben Russell and situated around the front two rooms in the apartment of its namesake, BEN RUSSELL began presenting a series of month-long 5-person shows on Memorial Day Weekend in the year 2009. Participating artists are invited to produce and exhibit work that is in accordance with the title/theme of each show, the name of which will be derived entirely from the 10 letters in the words "ben russell." Past shows have included BEN RUSSELL : RUSE, BEN RUSSELL :BLUENESS, and BEN RUSSELL : BEER. In keeping with the structural conceits of the French Oulipo language group and the spatial and material limits of what is effectively a rented apartment, BEN RUSSELL maintains a strict set of restrictions for all exhibiting artists by which:

- One artist shall produce a wall-mounted work scaled at a minimum of three quarters of the thirteen by ten foot wall.
- One artist shall produce a wall-mounted work at a maximum of one half of the opposing wall space between the two adjacent doors.
- One artist shall produce a time-based work to be presented via a CRT flat screen monitor (and associated components) with Dolby 5.1 audio in the adjacent screening room.
- One artist shall produce work to be installed in the all-weather sculpture garden.
- One artist shall produce work to be performed for the duration of 15-30 minutes during the opening.

BEN RUSSELL features a rotating roster of Chicago-based and non-Chicago-based artists and will be open for viewings one night a month and by appointment, as needed.

A call for artists: "Is this thing on?: The art of comedy"

2011-06-29T20:54:00.001-05:00

A call for artists:
"Is this thing on?: The art of comedy"
Art exhibit at Cobalt Art Studio in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, Opening in August 2011

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."
- Lenny Bruce

Art is too serious sometimes. This show will focus on what makes us laugh. Most of us are part of the system and work 40 hours+ a week and by the weekend we just want to unwind and be entertained. Artists will create work for you that is both funny, absurd and will make you think.

Acceptable formats include: video, performance, installation, audio, painting, drawings, and objects. There is no fee. email submissions with video/audio links or jpeg attachments to antenapilsen@gmail.com

Deadline: July 10, 2011

Cobalt Studio is an artist run space. Studio artists, Adriana Baltazar and Antonio Martinez work separately and collaborate on occasion to produce thoughtful public art that is meaningful for it's communities. As a project/exhibition space, Cobalt's key purpose is to provide exceptional artists, established and emerging, with an opportunity to showcase their work in a gallery-like atmosphere minus the commercial pressures and b.s.

Cobalt Studio
1950 W. 21st St.
Chicago, IL 60608
http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/

“Art & Grind: Careers and the Urban Adventure Series”

2011-06-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

“Art & Grind: Careers and the Urban Adventure Series”
June 22nd – August 17th 2011

Presented by: Pros Arts Studio and the Teen Arts Mentorship Program

Art & Grind is a series of presentations featuring Chicago-based Artists making it happen and who have knowledge they would like to share about their respective fields with area youth considering creative careers. Presenter panels will talk about their work, share successes and challenges with youth and offer words of advice to those hopping to make it happen them selves! If you’re looking for some first-hand knowledge, or just curious how they did it (and are doing it), then check out the dates and artists below and sign up for some great information!

June 2011

    “Public Painting and The Mural”
    Artists Presenters: Jeff Abbey-Maldonado, Salvador Jimenez, Ricardo Gonzalez
    Location: Dvorak Park Field House (the home of Pros Arts Studio), 1119 West Cullerton Street
    Date: June 22nd
    Time: 5pm-6:30pm

    “Street vs Studio: Artists Inspired By and Making from the Urban Environment”
    Artists Presenters: Maria Gaspar, Adriana Baltazar, Luis De La Torre
    Location: Dvorak Park Field House (the home of Pros Arts Studio), 1119 West Cullerton Street
    Date: June 29th
    Time: 5pm-6:30pm

July 2011

    “T-Shirts & Logos Made Here: Graphic Artists and Illustrators”
    Artist Presenters: Laura Vergara
    Location: Yollocalli Arts Reach, 1401 West 18th Street (across from Subway!)
    Date: July 13th
    Time: 5pm-6:30pm

    “Marking Skin: The Tattoo Artist”
    Artist Presenters: TBA
    Location: Calles y Sueños, 1900 South Carpenter Street
    Date: July 20th
    Time: 5pm-6:30pm

    “Did You Make Me Look Cute?: The Photographer”
    Artist Presenters: Analia Rodriguez
    Location:   Yollocalli Arts Reach, 1401 West 18th Street (across from Subway!)
    Date: July 27th
    Time: 5pm-6:30pm

August 2011

    “Filmmaking and Video”
    Artist Presenters: Tadeo Garcia, Arturo Lizalde, Denise Carrasco
    Location: Dvorak Park Field House (the home of Pros Arts Studio), 1119 West Cullerton Street
    Date: August 10th
    Time: 5pm-6:30pm

    “Markings on the Wall: The Graffiti Artist”
    Artist Presenters: Delilah Salgado, Miguel Aguilar
    Location: Calles y Sueños, 1900 South Carpenter Street
    Date: August 17th
    Time: 5pm-6:30pm

Meztli Summer Film, Music, Art Fest

2011-06-15T17:49:00.000-05:00

Meztli Summer Film, Music, Art Fest
Every Friday and Saturday
Starting June 17 and 18, 2011
Outdoor Film, Art Exhibition and Sale, Live Music

Please join us for the Meztli Summer Film/Art/Music Fest
Come to the kickoff event of the summer! Enjoy short and feature films, original art and crafts, and live musical performances.

The first event will take place on Friday and Saturday, June 17 and 18 from 5:00 PM – 10:30PM at 1430 W. 18th Street Lot at Pilsen Vintage. Admission is FREE. Pilsen Vintage open late every weekend this summer! Shop vintage after hours in on 18th Street. More events to follow all summer long! Every Friday and Saturday! You can’t miss it!
For more information about how to participate as an artist/vendor/musician call:

Gustavo Sanchez at (312) 480-1096 or email at meztlicinema@yahoo.com
Paul Guizar at pilsenvintagethrift@gmail.com

PLUGGED OUT: New works by Salvador Jiménez Flores

2011-06-14T22:06:00.000-05:00

PLUGGED OUT: New works by Salvador Jiménez Flores

Opening Friday June 24th from 6pm-10pm
June 24- July 23, 2011

This experimental mixed-media installation highlights the reliance of modern humanity on technological innovations. In this digital age, we have become wholly dependent on devices that can be plugged in. Our jobs, our social lives and even our food production—all aspects of our existence rely on technology.

We are so intertwined with our iPhones and Androids it is as though we are becoming like them. This hardwiring of our hearts and minds will surely rob us of our humanity.

ANTENA
1765 S. Laflin St.
Chicago IL 60608
www.antenapilsen.com
antenapilsen (at) gmail.com
(773) 340-3516
Hours: by appointment only

Summer Heat: Recent Work by Saul Aguirre and Miguel Cortez

2011-06-08T21:13:00.001-05:00

Summer Heat: Recent Work by Saul Aguirre and Miguel Cortez

Opening Friday June 17th from 6pm-10pm

Carlos and Dominguez Fine Art Gallery presents the work of Saul Aguirre and Miguel Cortez. The work includes a mixture of paintings, drawings, digital cellphone prints and installation. Both artists have been active in the Pilsen art community since the mid 90s. This is their first 2-person show in the Pilsen neighborhood.

Saul Aguirre is a Chicago Based artist born in Mexico City. He has been considered a standout at NEXT 2010 Chicago by PEDRO VÉLEZ who is an artist and critic living in Chicago. Saul used real manacles, to remind people of the reality of being picked up by the police during a live spectacle, and captivated people with his small drawings. Saul has been exhibiting Nationally and Internationally, in several Museums and Galleries since 1990. http://www.saulaguirre.com

Miguel Cortez is an artist/curator living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently runs Antena, an alternative art space located in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. His artwork has been shown at Gallery 414 in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Krannert Museum and at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. Other shows included exhibits in Dallas at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery, Glass Curtain Gallery and at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. http://www.mcortez.com/

Carlos and Dominguez Fine Art Gallery
1538 W. Cullerton Street
Chicago, IL 60608
By appointment only. For more information call: 773-580-8053
email: feriadelaluna@yahoo.com

Know Your Neighborhood Art Space: Cobalt Studio

2011-06-03T19:07:00.001-05:00

Know Your Neighborhood Art Space: Cobalt Studio
by Miguel Cortez

Pilsen has a rich history of not only art, murals, activism but also of alternative art spaces. It's the DIY model. Some artists do not wait for commercial galleries to notice them. Instead they find a way to push their art making and art curating to new levels by experimenting and organizing shows in their apartments, garages or inexpensive storefronts. Recently a lot of alternative art spaces have been opening west of Ashland Avenue and one of those is Cobalt Studio which opened after the Pilsen Open Studios in October 2010 by artists Antonio Martinez and Adriana Baltazar. I sat down with the two artists and asked a few questions:

How did Cobalt Studio come about?

Cobalt came about when we got fed up with our confined home studios and set out to split a larger space and we completely lucked out here. We ‘re a small collective of two but started collaborating with public art projects under the name Cobalt Studio.

How do the shows come about? Is there a philosophy for how you curate shows? Are these all local artists?

We had to get the ball rolling on putting shows together at first but we actively seek guest curators. Cobalt is a place for opportunity but we also want to keep pushing the bar up for ourselves and for others. It’s a process and all part of being a ‘project’. Individually we have different curating styles and goals. Adriana themes are stirred up by concepts she is juggling in her own work, mostly reflective of various sociocultural elements. Tony doesn’t need a theme to get going as he simply seeks out fresh faces and new work. Regardless of who is curating we always seek new work, in and out of the neighborhood, often pushing for work made specific to a show.

What kind of media is shown at Cobalt?

We are completely open to all media. For example our current show which features contemporary craft has sculptures made from crocheted metal and speaker wire, video, photography, sound, embroidery, painting, installation and it goes on! Our June show is a series of events ‘on the verge of domesticity’, curated by Alberto Aguilar and Jorge Lucero. The program is largely performative in media but has many interactive aspects with events like a ‘house party’, a variety of workshops for all ages, discussions, dinners, slide shows and a winning combination of Saturday morning cartoons and a community pancake breakfast.

How has Cobalt been received by the art and local community?

We have warm receptions and people always make a point to let us know how much they enjoy the space and the work we are sharing. We are friends with many of the local artists and community organizers. Our support for each other is mutual and we offer our space when it is available to help whenever we can.

What is the current show about?

Our current show, In Stitches:Smile Now, Cry Later, curated by Adriana is centered around the precariousness of our emotions and the illusions that create them, whether they are self made or imposed by others. The theme was inspired by gang lifestyle with it’s self imposed mantra “smile now, cry later” with accompanying theater masks tattoo.

Cobalt Studio is located at 1950 W. 21st St. You can see more info on their web site http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/

Trindlerschinquand: The Shed Performance

2011-06-01T19:51:00.001-05:00

Trindlerschinquand: The Shed Performance

Five Days Cheap Manufacture

Roxaboxen Exhibitions

Over five days, Adrian Schindler and Romain Trinquand will set up a working space functioning like a building site and props factory in the back lot of Roxaboxen Exhibitions. As their own employers, the two performers will be present each day on a five hour schedule. They will progressively activate the props they create by leaving the shed and engaging the surrounding rough environment, blurring the lines between working process and performative gestures.

Working hours:

Tuesday to Saturday: 10am-12am / 2pm-5pm

Trindlerschinquand will inaugurate the manufacture on June 6^th at 7pm and close the site on June 11^th at 7pm.

Trindlerschinquand is a Parisian based performance duo composed of Adrian Schindler and Romain Trinquand. Their partnership began in 2008, and they have continued to share their theatrics internationally. Their performances promote absurdity, intensity, materiality, and failure. They use their bodies as tools taken out of their usual context through raw and grotesque situations. Their performance in Chicago at Roxaboxen Exhibitions acts as a culmination of the pairs extended visit to the states. http://trindlerschinquand.blogspot.com/

Roxaboxen Exhibitions

2130 W 21st Street

Chicago IL 60608

www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

The First Annual Pilsen Coaster Show

2011-05-18T18:56:00.000-05:00

CARLOS AND DOMINGUEZ FINE ART GALLERY ANNOUNCES
The First Annual Pilsen Coaster Show
A One Night Only exhibition of Artist Inspired Coasters

Saturday, June 4, 2011
5pm – 10pm

The artists in this exhibit re-purpose the ubiquitous bar coaster into highly personalized works of art. Using the artist trading card as the springboard for the concept of the show, over 25 artists have created a set of miniature art works which will be traded and sold.

Participating artists include Patricia Acosta, Saul Aguirre, Beatriz Badikian, Adriana Baltazar, Jyl Bonaguro, Patricia Carlos, Inara Cedrins, Miguel Cortez, Tigerlily Cross, Len Dominguez, Erick Garcia, Gregorio Gomez, James Jankowiak, Antonio Martinez, Naomi Martinez, Bert Menco, Esmeralda Morales, Antonio Pazaran, Jean Parisi, Caroline Paul, Jaclin Paul, Mary Patton, Patty Peixoto, Anne Redich, Chema Skandal, Angela Scalisi, Diana Solis, Omar Valencia, Mariko Ventura, Laura Vergara, Rebecca Wolfram.

Carlos and Dominguez Fine Art Gallery

1538 W. Cullerton Street

Chicago, IL 60608

In Stitches: Smile now, Cry Later

2011-05-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

This multidisciplinary exhibit explores the temporality, influence and illusions surrounding our emotions. Some illusions we build ourselves, while others are imposed. Either way, there is an eventuality to any emotion we cling to in comfort. That eventuality is waiting for us around the corner to flip our world on it's head.

Allison Lacher . Lynnette Miranda . Raul de laTorre . Ike Floor . Liz McCarthy . Anni Holm . Kate Hampel. Jackie Orozco . Lori Endo . Jennifer Hines . Ray Arroyo . Vanessa Sanchez . Charity White . Mikey Anderson and more

*featuring contemporary craft*

Cobalt Studio

1950 W. 21st St.

Chicago, IL 60608
cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com

SYMPTOMS VARIABLE @ ROXABOXEN

2011-05-06T05:43:00.000-05:00

SYMPTOMS VARIABLE

SAIC Visual Critical Studies MFA group show

Roxaboxen Exhibitions

2130 West 21^st Street, Pilsen, Chicago

Exhibition Dates: May 6 – May 21, 2011

Opening Reception: Friday, May 6, 6-9 pm

Symposium: Thursday, May 12, 6-9 pm, Reception to follow

www.visualandcritical.net

www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

Eight artists expose and confront the symptoms of social phenomena in a thoroughly interdisciplinary exhibition, combining digital and craft works with graphic design and interaction. Symptoms, a vague term meaning simply “signs of evidence of phenomena,” is used to describe critical situations in medicine, politics, and economics. Variable symptoms occur sporadically, confusing diagnoses and complicating interventions. Symptoms in the exhibition indicate problems of taste, identity, economics, and culture, treatable through three imaginary medications:

Accumulofetishix^TM: Manages anxiety associated with advertising immersion and hyperbolic growth. Images and merchandise form an adhesive bond upon contact with computer paint tools, subcultural icons, high school yearbooks to corporate logos.

Bodacept^TM: Heals the hard to define space between the self and the other in physical space and psychological experience. Site-specific installations and projections interact with architecture and large jacquard weavings to invade and control the human body in both unusual and everyday experiences.

Placebex^TM: The Placebo category recontextualizes everyday interactions with ambient noise and decoration through interactive pieces using sound, gravel, pottery, and macaroni and cheese.

The artists are members of the 2011 Master of Arts of Visual and Critical Studies class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and will present their thesis research in a symposium on May 12 from 6-9 pm.

Participating artists include: Sara Clugage, Christine Elliot, T. Brandon Evans, Meredith Kooi, Lauren A. Ross, L.C. Parker, Jeremy Shedd, and Dustin Yager.

Artists websites: www.meredithkooi.us, cargocollective.com/laurenaross, and www.ceramicsandtheory.com

Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W 21st Street
Chicago IL 60608
www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

Daisy Chain: An Anarchic Performance Event @ ANTENA

2011-04-29T20:41:00.002-05:00

Daisy Chain: An Anarchic Performance Event
curated by Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook of Channel TWo

Opening Friday May 13 from 6pm-10pm
May 13- June 11, 2011

Adam Trowbridge makes work exploring the aesthetic possibilities that arise as communication breaks down. He invents incidents and simulations that occur slightly above the noise level, between words that organize our communities and the chaos that lies beyond them. His work was recently awarded a 2011 Turbulence commission and has been featured nationally and internationally including The Grey Market and Anthology Film Archives, NYC; Pleasure Dome, Toronto; Workspaces Ltd., San Francisco, CA; The Hyde Park Center, Chicago, IL; and festivals in France, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea, and Russia. Trowbridge is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Contemporary Practices and Art and Technology Studies Departments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jessica Westbrook’s projects explore desire, visual cues, cultural artifacts, systems, language, and contradictory sensations that vacillate between great fortune and impending catastrophe. Always semantic in nature and modular in form, she considers her productions a section of visual language culled from a complex matrix of assets, reconfigured and repurposed per space and time. She was recently awarded a 2011 Turbulence commission and has exhibited work nationally and internationally including recent and upcoming projects for: gli.tc/h/ Chicago, InLight Richmond, Nature/Nurture Kinsey Institute, Carnegie Museum, and Experimental Media Series Hirshorn Museum of American Art Smithsonian Institute. She is currently an Assistant Professor and the Director of Technology Initiatives in The Department of Contemporary Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

ANTENA
1765 S. Laflin St.
Chicago IL 60608
www.antenapilsen.com
antenapilsen (at) gmail.com
(773) 340-3516
Hours: by appointment only
------------------------------------

DAISY CHAIN PROGRAM: Friday May 13, 2011

Susan Abelson, Deborah Boardman, Paola Cabal, Lisa Cline, Charles Mahaffee, Ryan Richey
title: La La La Death
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/la-la-la-death

Put that paintbrush in the paint and spread it around like you're playing with your food. Lose all control like you're running in the nude.

J. Christian
title: Yelling Box
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/user/bonertown
http://bonertown.com/?author=1

Sheridan Cudworth
title: Two Girls, One Bowl
time: 8-8:30PM Central
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/two-girls-one-bowl

Two Girls, One Bowl is a response to the infamous Two Girls, One Cup video that went viral in 2007. In continuation of my first live-feed performance, Exhibitionist: Scud6969, I will continue to investigate the relationship between the submissive and dominant aspects of sexual assertion amongst women, men, and its integration into media.

Sheridan Cudworth assembles her life and her artworks with a raw-refined enthusiasm that is not for the faint of heart. She works in performance, which is mediated by her career as a make-up artist. Cudworth's work incorporates these elements in a highly stylized edge that challenges the viewer's perspectives of femininity. Her most recent work branches out into social media, as she has begun to produce live-feed performances.
http://sheridancudworth.com

Tyrone Davies
title: tba
time: duration
Broadcast: tba

Tyrone Davies is a conceptual artist and a filmmaker. His work explores questions of mediated spectacle and mass culture either through the reuse, re-appropriation, and re-contextualization of recorded material and industrially produced objects, or by producing wholly new material that reconsiders established assumptions about cultural trends. Film, video, installation, collage, sculpture, performance, printmaking, and painting are all disciplines that Davies works within in order to disassemble, and then reconstruct themes, messages and trends that are found within both domestic and global cultures. Davies lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. http://tyronedavies.com

Joseph DeLappe
title: Chatroulette: Discipline and Punish
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/joseph-delappe

I propose to engage in a performative reading of Michel Foucault's classic text Discipline and Punish - The Birth of the Prison whilst connected to the online video/chat site, Chatroullete. My performance will involve a four hour "professorial" reading primarily from Part Three Discipline, section 3 Panopticisim. For this performance I will read from a comfortable chair, with a bookcase in the background. I will dress appropriately to the task, in dress slacks, black sport coat and tie. I will connect to Chatroullete and proceed to read. Over the past ten years I have performed within a variety of online contexts ranging from first person shooters, to massively multiplayer online role playing games to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Chatroullete is a logical venue for performance experiments as it exists, as "a tool to meet new people with webcam and mic".

Chatroullete allows for a type of random access to a two way, voyeuristic experience, to view and be viewed. Everyone connected to Chatroulette is performing in some basic sense of the word. This type of random, real-time visual and auditory social media website is unique and will not only provide a interesting context in which to perform, but will allow for the extension of the notion of "audience" to equally function in the Daisy Chain context but also exist as a live interventionist act within the semi-public forum that is Chatroulette. I am interested in Foucalt's book Discipline and Punish specifically in relation to his focus on the creation of the panopticon as a concept. This seems wholly appropriate content to read into a context such as Chatroullete.

Joseph DeLappe is a Professor of the Department of Art at the University of Nevada where he directs the Digital Media program. Working with electronic and new media since 1983, his work in online gaming performance and electromechanical installation have been shown throughout the United States and abroad - including exhibitions and performances in Australia, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada. In 2006 he began a project dead-in-iraq , to type consecutively, all names of America's military casualties from the war in Iraq into the America's Army first person shooter online recruiting game. He also directs the iraqimemorial.org project, an ongoing web based exhibition and open call for proposed memorials to the many thousand of civilian casualties from the war in Iraq. He has lectured throughout the world regarding his work, including most recently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He has been interviewed on CNN, NPR, CBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and on The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio. His works have been featured in the New York Times, The Australian Morning Herald, Artweek, Art in American and in the 2010 book from Routledge entitled Joystick Soldiers The Politics of Play in Military Video Game.
http://www.delappe.net

Christina Houle
title: 16 Conversations with Escape Bird
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/christinasukhgianhoule

In the performance I wear a soft sculpture costume, created entirely out of trash, recyclables and the pelts of stuffed animals, and speak using gestures and nonverbal sounds as the character, Escape Bird. Conversations are scheduled with friends, strangers and art world professionals at 15 minute intervals during which I will try to communicate my intentions, goals and desires as a performance artist, as the Escape Bird.

Christina Sukhgian Houle attends Texas State University in pursuit of BFAs in Drawing and Photography, and has studied and performed comedic improvisation at The Second City in Chicago, Illinois. Her performances have been nominated for a B. Iden Payne Award, named by the Austin Chronicle as one of the Top Ten Dance Phenomena of 2010, and selected to be performed at the Southwest American College Dance Festival. Ms. Houle has toured with Salsation Theatre Company (IL), worked with Creative Time (NY) and in 2008 was a visiting artist at Spelman College (GA). Additionally, her films and art have been exhibited at Flatbed Studios, Pump Project Satellite Space, and the Southwest School of Arts and Crafts, and her poems and essays published in multiple literary journals including the Sun Poetic Times and Quirk. Most recently her video, String Theory, received an Honorable Mention in the Spring FASA Show, and in July her installation and performance art will be exhibited in a solo show at Co-Lab. When not working on her artistic practice Ms Houle studies Hakomi and yoga, and works as an assistant to choreographer, Deborah Hay.
http://christinasukhgianhoule.weebly.com/

John Kilduff
title: Let's Paint TV
time: 6-7PM Central
Broadcast: http://www.stickam.com/letspainttv

Mr Let's Paint can be seen performing live in person around the world and on his internet tv show airing Monday-Friday 11AM -12:30PM Pacific Standard Time.

John Kilduff and Let's Paint TV have performed live at the following venues: Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, MO 2009; Horse Bazaar, Melbourne,AUS 2009; Tape Space,Melbourne,AUS 200909; Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra,AUS 2009; Electrofringe,Newcastle,AUS 2009; Seriel Space, Sydney, AUS 2009; Red Rattler, Sydney, AUS 2009; Drake Hotel, Toronto,ON 2009; Pleasure Dome, Toronto, ON 2009; Ed Video, Guelph,ON 2009; Isssue Project Room, Brooklyn,NY 2009; Northwestern College, St Paul, MN 2009; Smokey's Tangle, Oakland,CA 2009; University of Wisconsin, 2009; Ottawa Bluesfest, 2008; Dunedin Fine Arts Center, Dunedin, FL 2008; GarageComedy, Los Angeles, CA 2008; LA Weekly Biennual, Santa Monica, CA 2008; Electric-Eclectics Sound Art and Media Festival, Meaford, ON 2007; America's Got Talent, 2007; Tyra (Tyra Banks), 2006; VH1's Big in 06, 200
http://www.letspainttv.com/
http://www.stickam.com/letspainttv

Jeff Kolar
title: Hallmark Cards
time: 7:10-7:30PM Central
Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hallmark-cards

"Hallmark Cards" is a hand-bent playback of Hallmark greeting cards with sound.

Jeff Kolar is an audio/visual artist working in Chicago, USA. He is the grandson of an ex-military radio operator and has a history of trespassing to land. His work, described as "speaker-shredding" (Half Letter Press) and "amusingly kitschy" (Music For Maniacs), investigates circuits that are disguised, hidden, or ignored. His recent interests include cross-platform collaboration, low-powered radio, and live performance.
http://www.jeffkolar.us/

Another language Performing Arts Company
Elizabeth Miklavcic – Artistic Director, Jimmy Miklavcic – Executive Director
title: The Two
time: duration
Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/another-language-the-two

Combining different art forms in innovative ways and broadening access to cutting-edge performance art with today's technology since 1985.
http://www.anotherlanguage.org/

Wyatt Niehaus
title: Obscenity Sleep
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wyatt-niehaus

As an artist, I have found myself drawn to new media for its clear political implications. My work focuses on the dissonance and subversion of traditional communication through the Internet. I see the Internet as a place for an egalitarian and anarchistic reconstruction of both artistic process and conversation. Intensely interested in the critical theory surrounding emerging media, I have spent time both creating art that relates to this subject, as well as writing formal analysis and speaking at interdisciplinary conferences in academic settings.
http://wyattniehaus.com/

Rob Ray
title: Boom Harangue
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/robray
Follow along: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5S3_dmj8BU

"Boom Harangue" uses Richard Serra and Nancy Holt's 10min 27sec "Boomerang" (1974) public television broadcast as a script for improvised streaming performance.

Rob Ray makes site specific electronic installations, wondrous public games and experimental videos. He has recently relocated to Los Angeles, CA from Chicago via Rensselaer's Electronic Arts MFA Program in Troy, NY. Rob also collaborates with Jason Soliday and Jon Satrom as a member of the Chicago-based circuit-bent multimedia noise trio I Love Presets and is visual arts editor for the online journal Drunken Boat. Rob is also a keyholder at Public Address Los Angeles via Publica - a new experimental cultural center currently in residence at the Outpost for Contemporary Art and is a member of the CrashSpace hacker space in Los Angeles. From 1999 to 2008 Rob was founder and head curator of the DEADTECH electronic arts center in Chicago, IL, USA.
http://robray.net

V1rus
title: untitled?
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mcv1rus

V1rus has been doing rap and beating on samplers for a lot of years, and it doesn't look like it is going to end anytime soon. In his home city of Seattle he is known for making all forms of music, from true school hip hop to improvisational noise.
http://soundcloud.com/mcv1rus

Heather Warren-Crow
title: 4-Hour Confession (After 1984 After 1984, or Confession is the Princess of Evidence)
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/after1984after1984

Using Winston's final confession from the 1984 film adaptation of the novel 1984 as a template, 4-Hour Confession is a series of public expressions of guilt. A group of volunteers working in shifts will watch other Daisy Chain performances and make small changes in the original text based on what they see. Warren-Crow will read these scripted mea culpas with great sincerity, happily taking on other artists' "crimes" as her own.

Heather Warren-Crow is a performance artist and professor based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her solo performance pieces both critique and embrace representations of identity in the mass media. She joins the vernacular of low art (the language of pop music, social networking websites, and Internet memes) with the rhetoric of body art to address issues pertaining to youth and femininity. Alternately playful, tragic, cheeky, and earnest, her performances confront the aesthetic pleasures of the American Brand Identity as well as its pains. She has exhibited her work at galleries and in performance spaces in the United States, Austria, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain,Tanzania, and Trinidad and Tobago. Warren-Crow received a doctorate in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a professor of art theory and practice at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts.
http://simplesatellite.org/artwork.html

Webster Oppewal and Interweb Plasma (Jon Satrom, Mark Beasley)
title: Daisy Chainsaw: An Anachronistic Parallelistic Event
time: duration
Broadcast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/meatspace
SLTeleport: http://4nt3n4.info/

Throughout the evening, Webster Oppewal and Interweb Plasma (AKA Jon Satrom, Mark Beasley) will be functioning as gateways betwixt the IRL Pilsen Antena Gallery Meatspace and a Second Life 4nt3n4.gallery-meetspace. Participants, attendees, and virtual visitors will overlap and dissolve through this anarchistic mirrored polygon swap.

Mark Beasley is an artist/educator making software, video, performance and web art.
http://arcanebolt.net/

Jon Satrom performs realtime audio/video and enjoys working within collaborative projects and open systems.
http://jonsatrom.com

Antena @ The MDW Fair

2011-04-12T19:57:00.002-05:00

The MDW Fair: visual arts landing in Chicago

CHICAGO: threewalls, Roots and Culture and Public Media Institute announce The MDW Fair, a gathering of alternative art initiatives, spaces, galleries and artist groups from the Chicago metropolitan area. Held April 22-23, 2011 at The Iron Studios, 3636 S. Iron Street, The MDW Fair will demonstrate the diversity, strength and vision of the people/places making it happen in the art ecology of our region.

The fair features for-profit, 501(c)3, and commercial and unincorporated galleries, independent curatorial projects and publishers and media groups in over 25,000 square feet of exhibition space that includes a 10,000 square foot sculpture garden with work by local artists. The MDW Fair is a manifestation of the collective spirit behind the region's most innovative visual cultural organizers, focusing on the breadth of work done here by artists and arts-facilitators alike. Participants include: threewalls, Roots and Culture, Reuben Kincaid, ebersmoore, OxBow, Heaven Gallery, Antenna, Roxaboxen, Regional Relationships, The Suburban, ACRE, Iceberg Projects, The Post Family, Western Exhibitons, 65GRAND and more.

The MDW Fair
Saturday and Sunday April 23-24, 2011

GEOLOFTS
3636 S. Iron Street
Chicago, IL 60609
SEE GOOGLE MAP

ARTISTS PARTICIPATING WITH ANTENA:

SAUL AGUIRRE
SEBASTIAN ALVAREZ
ARIELLE BIELAK
MIGUEL CORTEZ

Saul Aguirre is a Chicago Based artist born in Mexico City. He has been considered a standout at NEXT 2010 Chicago by PEDRO VÉLEZ who is an artist and critic living in Chicago. Saul used real manacles, to remind people of the reality of being picked up by the police during a live spectacle, and captivated people with his small drawings. Saul has been exhibiting Nationally and Internationally, in several Museums and Galleries since 1990. http://www.saulaguirre.com

Sebastian Alvarez, born in Lima, Peru, is an interdisciplinary performance artist, who is interested in transforming his personal vision into social responsibility with new cultural imperatives that include a renewed sense of community, an ecological reintegration, and greater access to the mythic and archetypal bases of bio-restoration. http://sebastianalvarez.info/

Arielle Bielak is an integrative minded collaborationist living and working in Chicago; circa 2005. By day, she works as a program coordinator, teaching artist, writer and curator at the esteemed and astounding Marwen. By night she concocts real live performance art and other Objects. She makes art chiefly to be in direct and ecstatic participation with the joy and wonder of living and understanding life. Photography has been a dominant force in Arielle's life, beginning about 13 years after she was born-at-home in Damascus, Maryland. This medium followed her through her studies at the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies (Redlands, CA). Photography took center stage in her studies in Florence, Italy, and then on through a career as a mental health advocate and organizer on tour with Warped, Take Action, and Plea for Peace. She was doggedly photographing as an employee of the Big Apple Circus (NYC-Based) in 2004. In May of 2005, she and her one suitcase and her Nikon D70 arrived in Chicago. Currently, Arielle is organizing her first apartment-style exhibition set to open in the magnificent Pilsen on Tuesday, June 7, with an promising group exhibition entitled Mothers. You are invited. http://www.ariellebielak.com/

Miguel Cortez is an artist/curator living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently runs Antena, an alternative art space located in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. His artwork has been shown at Gallery 414 in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Krannert Museum and at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. Other shows included exhibits in Dallas at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery, Glass Curtain Gallery and at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. Upcoming shows include a two person show with Saul Aguirre at Carlos & Dominguez Art Gallery. http://miguelcortez.wordpress.com/

Imágenes Religiosas

2011-04-06T04:52:00.000-05:00

Opening Friday, April 8 from 6:30pm - 10:00pm

Imágenes Religiosas is an international traveling exhibition that show cases artists from México and the USA who interpret the theme of religion and spirituality through painting.
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Imágenes religiosas es una exposición internacional que esta en gira la cual presenta artistas de México y EE.UU quienes interpretan la temática de religión y espiritualidad através de la pintura.

Curators / Curadores: Pascual Sahagún Godínez & Anastacio Ortega Fernández (Jamay, Jal. México) Salvador Jiménez-Flores (Chicago, IL USA )

Roberto Ferreyra, Hector Duarte, El Antonio, Anastacio Ortega Fernández, Carlos Frésquez, Ricardo Santos Hernández, Olimpia Veronica Castellanos Garcia, John Salhus, Everardo Ceja Díaz, José L. Gutiérrez (ELGTZ), Angela Scalisi, Patrick Flaherty, Antonio Martinez, Ricardo Gonzalez, Ricardo X. Serment Leyva, Adriana Baltazar, Martina Romero Suárez, Eric J. Garcia, Nacho Chincoya, Salvador Jiménez Flores, Lucia Munguía Cervantes, Victor Hugo Castellanos, Miguel Cortez and more.

Cobalt Studio

1950 W. 21st St

Chicago, IL 60608

cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com

Remember, Hallow, Places, Animals

2011-04-01T07:06:00.000-05:00

Rebecca Beachy, Katharine Lion, Liz McCarthy, and Nicolás Rojas.

Opening April 2, 6pm-9pm
Through April 30

Eel Space

1906 S Throop St #2F
Chicago
eelspacechicago@gmail.com
Hours:By appointment.

Eel Space brings people and ideas together through its focus on Chicago artists and thematic group exhibitions. It often enables risk-taking and new work that is improbable elsewhere. Eel Space is non-commercial (nothing is for sale here).

LIKE A ROCK: work by TONY BALKO and OLIVIA CIUMMO

2011-03-23T22:03:00.000-05:00

LIKE A ROCK: work by TONY BALKO and OLIVIA CIUMMO

Friday, March 25 from 6:00pm - 9:00pm

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street
Chicago, IL 60608

ACRE Projects hosts a special event on Friday, March 25, 2011 from 6-9pm at 1913 West 17th Street, Chicago, IL. ACRE Projects is proud to present LIKE A ROCK: work by TONY BALKO and OLIVIA CIUMMO, an exhibition of moving image and photographic work curated by ACRE staff member Olivia Ciummo.

LIKE A ROCK: Tony Balko and Olivia Ciummo express their thoughts on ROCK through film, video and photo works. In this exhibition they will s...hare processes that speak to thoughts on temporal moments of stability and holding. With some works as collaborations with musician AE Paterra as well as solo works, this exhibition will bring out each artists' interest in ROCK and ROLL, MEDIA, and MEDIATION. In good humor the name of the show stands for riffing through multiple meanings of things that ROCK.

Tony Balko and Olivia Ciummo have been working together on films for a decade, recently they have both collaborated with Majeure the alter ego of A.E. Paterra, drummer for seminal sci-fi prog explorers Zombi. Majeure has composed synthed out tracks to accompany the visuals of these two filmmakers and they plan to continue to collaborate again in the future.

OLIVIA CIUMMO’s moving image works have screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York with collective Jefferson Presents, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, Seoul Experimental Film and Video Festival, The Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival and in galleries nationally and abroad. She is a collaborating member of ACRE artist residency and teaches at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

TONY BALKO is a media artist and educator living and working in Milwaukee, WI, USA. His work has screened throughout the United States and internationally in museums, galleries and film festivals including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Milwaukee Art Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), 21C Museum (Louisville), Jefferson Presents… (Pittsburgh), Green Lantern Gallery (Chicago), Stereo Underground (Seoul), the PDX film festival (Portland), and the FLEX film festival (Gainesville).

Pittsburgh based MAJEURE is the alter ego of A.E. Paterra, drummer for seminal sci-fi prog explorers Zombi. Timespan is his debut release taking the term "full-length" quite literally, the album is made up of three epic, side-long journeys through time and space. Merging the darkness of Vangelis' Blade Runner-era Moog-driven scores and the stately minimalism of Steve Reich and Philip Glass with the relentless drive of Can and Silver Apples, Timespan delivers inspiring sci-fi disco of the highest caliber. Record Label Temporary Residence LTD, Denovali.

VISIONES FEMENINAS

2011-03-17T21:45:00.000-05:00

VISIONES FEMENINAS:
Four Women Photographers View the World

ANALIA RODRIGUEZ, MACHIELI MACIAS,
ROSY TORRES, and SHARYNE MOY TU

--Four very unique photographers whose images are visually eloquent expressions of the sublime beauty which surrounds us moment by moment. It is this sublime beauty which is the essence of every woman.

ANALIA RODRIGUEZ states, "These images are part of the constant exploration of my identity, physically, mentally, and spiritually."

ROSY TORRES "...has a burning desire to expose truth through her photos. She enjoys documenting the world around her, and her journalistic style contains a poetic mysticism that gives life to her photography."

MACHIELI MACIAS brings the training of a Cultural Anthropologist to her photos, which touch us with their warmth and humanity.

SHARYNE MOY TU travels the world and shares her moments of light and beauty, which remind us of those moments which we all have stored in our own memories.

Four women, unique and beautiful, sharing their visions of themselves and their world, and we are all the richer for them. Please join them for this opening reception.

Opening Reception, Friday, March 18, 2011 from 6:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m.

CARLOS & DOMINGUEZ Fine Arts Gallery
1538 W. Cullerton Street, Chicago IL 60608

The exhibition closes on April 8, 2011.
Exhibition showings:   by appointment.

NOAH FURMAN @ ROXABOXEN

2011-03-11T04:17:00.002-06:00

STREET VENTRILOQUIST
NEW WORK BY NOAH FURMAN

OPENING RECEPTION MARCH 18TH 6-9PM - READING AT 7PM

MARCH 18 - APRIL 2ND

"The bearded old man on the corner,
The one drinking out of a brown paper bag,
The one who declares himself
The world's greatest ventriloquist,
We are all his puppets, he says
When he chooses to say anything."
-Charles Simi

Noah Furman’s sculptures and paintings take root in intuitive drawings, pulling from a lexicon of forms that reference cartoons, tropes of abstract painting, letterforms, and early modern sculpture. These recent works examine the creative act itself and the process of translation, transformation, and embodiment that takes place in object making. Existing somewhere between abstraction and representation, the works in “Street Ventriloquist” activate and breathe life into their simple materials, and seek to occupy a pre-lingual and experiential state.

Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W 21st Street
Chicago IL 60608
www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

Vicissitude: Duk Ju L. Kim

2011-03-10T18:54:00.004-06:00

Vicissitude: Duk Ju L. Kim

Opening Friday April 1 from 6pm-10pm
April 1- April 30, 2011

        Duk Ju L. Kim was born in Pusan, South Korea. Due to her father’s job, her family later moved to Tehran, Iran, before eventually immigrating to the United States. Duk Ju received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. After completing a residency program at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, she moved to Chicago and enrolled in the Master’s program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for one semester.

        Duk Ju’s course of study at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels was fine art. She has received a number of honors for her work, including a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship Grant and a 2003 Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council in 2003, that state’s most prestigious recognition of artistic talent. She was selected to show at Sotheby’s International Young Art in 1999; all the paintings shown in Chicago and Tel Aviv were sold, and she continues to sell her art through Sotheby’s to international buyers.

        "For the past several years I have been working on a series of mixed media drawings and paintings featuring abstracted portraits that interact and mesh with the surrounding urban environment. Since living in Chicago, the city's raw and rigid buildings and streets have crept into my paintings. Exposed pipes, plumbing, and wires have become part of my work. Evident in my work is a sense satirical entrapment; people who cannot seem to escape the grittiness of urban living.

        Gravity, violence, as well as grace, and beauty all coexist-which can be both exquisite and perverse. I portray it by exposing and intertwining the hidden with the obvious-pulling the inside out and pushing the outside in. I approach the canvas as if making a three-dimensional sculpture. Content and depth are what matter the most. I want the paint to move and shift for the viewer. Figures, mostly abstract, are constructed from lines. The colors I choose are manipulated to make space, to box space. Creating art is an intensely solitary activity for me. It is never easy to achieve a dialogue with the canvas. The fulfillment comes when that dialogue is achieved, when the canvas and I have reached a mutual respect for one another.

        My earliest influences are from writers as well as painters, among them Flannery O'Connor, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Salinger. I share their preoccupation with the human psyche and its place in society, the complex manner in which society and people intersect and interact." - Duk Ju L. Kim

ANTENA
1765 S. Laflin St.
Chicago IL 60608
www.antenapilsen.com
antenapilsen (at) gmail.com
(773) 340-3516
Hours: by appointment only

Salvador Jiménez Flores @ HumanThread Center

2011-03-10T18:46:00.002-06:00

Solid to the Earth:
The prints and Drawings of Salvador Jiménez Flores

Friday, March 11, 2011
6pm – 10pm

HumanThread Center
645 W. 18th Street
Chicago, IL 60616
www.humanthread.net

Salvador Jiménez deepens his exploration on issues of Chicano identity in a bold quest into graphic media. This exhibition sees Jiménez using printmaking and graphite as a way to dissect the modern social connotations of being Mexican-American. The use of line to explore these themes is emphasized in both the unique granular textures of his linocuts and the energetic line work in graphite. Jiménez simultaneously questions and celebrates his own personal and artistic journey to the US as well as that of the collective voice of others who are struggling to understand what it is to be Mexican and American
in this place and time.

ABOUT HUMANTHREAD
HumanThread is a non-profit organization, seeking to popularize a Culture of Peace through educational, artistic, and cultural programs and events focused on YOUTH.

new works by BECKET FLANNERY and GRANT W. RAY

2011-02-28T21:12:00.006-06:00

FRONTISPIECE // THE UNCANNY IMAGINATION

new works by BECKET FLANNERY and GRANT W. RAY

March 13-14, 2011

Opening Reception: Sunday, March 13, 4-8

Open Hours: Monday, March 14, noon-4

ACRE Projects

1913 W 17th Street

ACRE Projects hosts an opening reception for two new projects on Sunday, March 13, 2011 from 4-8pm at 1913 West 17th Street, Chicago, IL. ACRE Projects is proud to present BECKET FLANNERY: FRONTISPIECE and GRANT W. RAY: THE UNCANNY IMAGINATION, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of exhibitions by 2010 ACRE summer residents. Their respective projects each engage with the means by which images elicit narratives from deep within the social imaginary.

FRONTISPIECE: Becket Flannery’s exploration began with Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan; prior even to the text, a frontispiece depicts the new “artificial man” whose body is the people and whose soul is sovereignty. This cryptic image introduces and also summarizes Hobbes’ thought. The frontispiece was not simply a decoration, it was a way of reconciling political thought with the sensible – i.e. the creation of political vision. Lately, the rupture between vision and thought has been too severe to repair so easily. One of the most recent political manifestos is written by a committee that proclaims itself to be invisible; and what use does the image-driven political simulacrum have for text beyond the purely tactical?

Rather than the strict correlation of image and text, the intention of the collages in Frontispiece is different. Rather than focusing on the loaded image-symbols, those privileged nodes of interpretation, they play with the forms that frame and suggest this referentiality. These cues to the civic still linger, as we are constantly asked to engage with our political images, without being troubled with what they might mean. These text-less frontispieces then imply new ideas and social visions; they are images looking for authors.

THE UNCANNY IMAGINATION: Grant Ray continues his experiment-based practice of documenting photographically the pseudo scientific investigations into unexpected forms of communication from unexpected places. For this latest set of photographs, Ray returns to the wooded rural areas of North America to get closer to an unblemished natural landscape in humorous exploration to locate marks, traces, or signs that could be construed as natures attempt at communication.

From long hikes in the woods to discover naturally forming patterns of flora and faunas that reflect /mimic the night sky in the form of constellations. To late night psychotherapy sessions with a flashlight, paper, and coal dust producing plant shadowgrams that are then read as Rorschach test. Or the uncanny patterns of marks from tacks and staples from flyer's, ads, job postings on information boards located in the sleepy Wisconsin towns of Steuben, Boscobel, Ferryville, and Soldiers Grove. As whimsical and humorous as the photographs are, they stand to poetically reflect nature as a site of human projection of our desires, ambitions, and destruction. A testament to the environment and the often complicated and politicized issues that effect it.

GRANT W. RAY received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and a MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. Ray has exhibited at Barbara & Barbara gallery in Chicago, Spoke gallery in Chicago, the Richmond Center for Visual Arts in Kalamazoo Wisconsin and most recently at CGIS Gallery at Harvard University in Boston. Grant is currently an instructor of Digital Photography at Northwestern University.

BECKET FLANNERY studied Art and Political Theory at Swarthmore College. In 2009 and 2010, he has been an assistant for Yale University’s Institute for Studio Studies summer painting intensive. He lived and worked in Chicago for three years. He currently lives in Philadelphia.

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

ACRE Projects is a new space in Pilsen presenting weekly art events every Sunday evening. Each of ACRE's 70+ residents are given the keys to the space for one week to do with it what they will. Additional exhibitions will be hosted by a number of local galleries and alternative spaces.

More information about Becket Flannery can be found at www.becketflannery.com

More information about Grant W. Ray can be found at www.grantray.com

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

Remake closing @ Eel Space

2011-02-17T21:07:00.000-06:00

Saturday, February 19 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm

For the closing of "Remake".... You can't get this 90 minute 1978 movie on Netflix, GreenCine, nor any library in Chicago, folks... I finagled a deeply discounted copy right from director Rick Schmidt (thanks, Rick!). Also, Jacques Hammer and Wanda Drug possibly will play a few covers! You may want to bring the sitting/reclining tool of your choice (chair, pillows, etc).

"In another favorite, "1988: The Remake," Schmidt held an open-call audition for his restaging of the musical "The Show Boat," resulting in something like a crackpot San Francisco talent show. Sued by MGM for titling his film after theirs and required to remove all mentions of the name, Schmidt replaced every utterance of 'showboat' with the sound of a foghorn, which of course only made the movie funnier." - Amy Yao, Top Ten, Artforum Jan 2011.

http://www.lightvideo.com/films.aspx#1988TheRemake

http://kaycebayer.com/jacques-hammer-and-wanda-drug-show-1024/

Eel Space

1906 S Throop St #2F

Chicago, IL 60608
http://eelspace.wordpress.com/

BEN RUSSELL : BLESS

2011-02-04T21:43:00.002-06:00

BEN RUSSELL presents
BEN RUSSELL : BLESS

SANDY KAYE ALLENDAYTON CASTLEMAN
DEREK CHAN
JUDY LEDGERWOODDAVID WOJNAROWICZ

1716 S Morgan #2F Chicago, IL 60608
February 5, 2011 - March 12, 2011
Opening reception: Saturday 6-9 pm, February 5th, 2011

Private viewings by appointment*

*The performance by Sandy Allen will begin at 8:00pm during the opening reception.

-----
ABOUT THE SHOW:
Gesundheit! It seems that you've still got the sniffles, Friend, and what with the winter of our discontent snowing down upon us again andagain and again, it's clear that you need something more than a box of Kleenex to lift your spirits. And so, without further ado, we're taking the "BLESS" out of "God BLESS you" and putting it back into BEN RUSSELL. In preparation for such an historic event, we had an Orthodox priest sprinkle holy water in the screening room, got some German Pagans to mark the snow in the sculpture garden withgoat's blood, asked our Jewish ex-girlfriend to recite prayers while lighting the Shabbat candles in the exhibition space, and took part in a gang initiation rite in the kitchen where we were punched really hard in the forehead.

After all, art is BLESSing (which, coincidentally, is also the term for a group of unicorns) - art is brightness, art is hope, art is buoyancy of spirit in the Newest Year. In the year of our (land)lord 2011, we've assembled an array of minor altars upon which to worship and be worshiped - we've erected a selfless monument by which to orient ourselves in the darkness, a beacon of positive communication (CASTLEMAN) with which we can broadcast our message to the world. BEN RUSSELL : BLESS is self-realization through rigor and ritual, it is a document of time-in-space, re-spaced (CHAN); it is sage incense and Cherokee flatbread and self-taught customs derived from a disappearing culture (ALLEN); it is an inquiry into Painting and Form and the very real possibilities of a center that has expandedoutward from itself (LEDGERWOOD). Last but certainly not least, BEN RUSSELL : BLESS is a video-shout-in-triplicate, a protest against social and spiritual conservatism, a conversation that we simply cannot allow to become familiar (WOJNAROWICZ).

We are BLESS, we are future, we are now - take our hands and join us, let the light of Art shine upon us all.

-----

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

SANDY KAYE ALLEN lives in Chicago. She is deeply worried about the dying heritage and fading language of her ancestors, and she actively engages in the important artifacts and stories of Native American life, drawing from ritual and custom in an effort to educate others through her work. Intrigued by the sounds of the Cherokee language and the instruments that accompany it, she weaves these elements together with samples of her own recordings and her own voice. Moving between fact and fabrication, she teaches herself folk dances and writes love letters to her pretend Native American boyfriend in Tsalagi, the Cherokee language. She learns Native American recipes to cook meals for her friends; she sings the self-taught Cherokee morning song of her ancestors and often contemplates the magic of being able to fluently speak the Cherokee language. She dreams of one day finding and connecting with the Cherokee elders and using their knowledge to inform the world around her.

DAYTON CASTLEMAN is an artist who was born in New Orleans, worked extensively in Philadelphia, and now resides in Chicago, where he received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute. He has installed work at numerous venues in Philadelphia, and has exhibited his work in Chicago at Co-Prosperity Sphere, DePaul University Museum, and Jennifer Norback Gallery, among others, as well as curating exhibitions at Alogon, Spoke, and The Zhou B. Art Center. He has shown work at the International Sculpture Center in New Jersey, and at galleries from Los Angeles, to New York, to Rotterdam.

DEREK CHAN's paintings, works-on-paper, and durational performances record the minutia of daily life while combining historical narratives to reflect on such themes as spirituality. He develops his work through a highly personal, meditative practice that most recently that explores the spiritual and poetic nature of the Four Corners region, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. Chan’s recent exhibitions include Thirty and Eight with Golden Age, a 12 x 12 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and collaborations with Theaster Gates at the Whitney Museum of American Art during the Whitney Biennial.

Expanding elements of modernist painting, JUDY LEDGERWOOD uses color as the primary agent to gain a critical vantage point on its trajectory. Early in her career, Ledgerwood began incorporating traditionally feminine pastel colors into her paintings in an attempt to challenge and undermine the historically male-dominated tradition of abstract painting. Today her compositions include a compound circular motif typically associated with the decorative arts tradition. Ledgerwood's Blob Paintings push painting toward sculpture in a further exploration of the meaning of form. Ledgerwood is the recipient of a The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award, an Artadia Award, a Tiffany Award in the Visual Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, and an Illinois Art Council Award. Her work is represented in public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Her degrees are from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, BFA, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MFA.

DAVID WOJNAROWICZ was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s. Wojnarowicz died of AIDS-related complications on July 22, 1992 at the age of 37. In November 2010, G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian, removed Wojnarowicz's short silent film A Fire in My Belly from the exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" at the National Portrait Gallery after complaints from the Catholic League and Rep. John Boehner.

ABOUT THE SPACE:
BEN RUSSELL is an art space in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Co-curated by artists Brandon Alvendia and Ben Russell and situated around the front two rooms in the apartment of its namesake, BEN RUSSELL began presenting a series of month-long 5-person shows on Memorial Day Weekend in the year 2009. Participating artists are invited to produce and exhibit work that is in accordance with the title/theme of each show, the name of which will be derived entirely from the 10 letters in the words "ben russell." Future shows may include BEN RUSSELL : LENS, BEN RUSSELL : REBELS, and BEN RUSSELL : US. In keeping with the structural conceits of the French Oulipo language group and the spatial and material limits of what is effectively a rented apartment, BEN RUSSELL maintains a strict set of restrictions for all exhibiting artists by which:

- One artist shall produce a wall-mounted work scaled at a minimum of three quarters of the thirteen by ten foot wall.
- One artist shall produce a wall-mounted work at a maximum of one half of the opposing wall space between the two adjacent doors.
- One artist shall produce a time-based work to be presented via a CRT flat screen monitor (and associated components) with Dolby 5.1 audio in the adjacent screening room.
- One artist shall produce work to be installed in the all-weather sculpture garden.
- One artist shall produce work to be performed for the duration of 15-30 minutes during the opening.

BEN RUSSELL features a rotating roster of Chicago-based and non-Chicago-based artists and will be open for viewings one night a month and by appointment, as needed.

UPCOMING at ROXABOXEN

2011-01-28T06:04:00.002-06:00

January 28 - Contraphonic Showcase - Bands : Magic Gloves, Wishgift, and DJs.....danceparty? 8- 11pm

February 6 - Bands : BROWN LAZER (abbreviated to just Marvin Astorga) and 3 Awesome L.A. Musical Solo projects - Emily Lacy, Corey Fogel, and Ezra Buchla
musicians from Gowns, Cryptacize, The Mae Shi, Carla Bozulich ------- listen to more at vimeo.com/knitdrums http://catfact.net www.emilylacy.net

February 12 - Bands : DANCE YOUR HEART OUT DANCE-A-THON (duh) Soul DJ for all night, Rules will be posted on the website, spectators welcome 8pm ---- till you drop

February 21 - Bands : Calvin Johnson, Cains & Abels, Winston Lasker - the rumors are true, K record guru galore 7pm-10pm

Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W 21st Street
Chicago IL 60608
www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

La Vida Sobre Papel: Judithe Hernández

2011-01-19T18:03:00.002-06:00

La Vida Sobre Papel: Judithe Hernández

Opening Reception on January 21 from 6-8pm.

National Museum of Mexican Art
1852 W 19st
Chicago, IL, 60608
http://www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org

As one of the pioneers of the Chicano Art and Los Angeles Mural Movements of the 1970's, Judithe Hernández is regarded as one of the important visual artists of the period. She was the only female member of the seminal and influential East Los Angeles artist collective "Los Four" that included the late well-known California painter, Carlos Almaraz, whom she met when they both attended graduate school at Otis Art Institute.

She has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, and Mexico, including the ground-breaking first exhibition of contemporary Chicano Art in Europe: Le Démon des Anges. Her public works include the Los Angeles Bicentennial Mural (1981) which was commissioned by the Los Angeles Bicentennial Committee to officially commemorate the 200th anniversary of the city's founding in 1781. In contrast to her mural work, her studio work has always been pastel on paper. The lush color and haunting imagery of the work prompted one art critic to compare it to two legendary artists, saying it was a "unique and beautiful blend of Rivera and Rousseau".

CRITICAL OF TAN new works by ERIN LELAND

2011-01-18T19:53:00.000-06:00

CRITICAL OF TAN
new works by ERIN LELAND
January 30-31, 2011

Opening Reception: Sunday, Jan 30, 2011, from 4-8pm
Open Hours: Monday, Jan 31, noon-4pm

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street

ACRE Projects hosts an opening reception on Sunday, January 30, 2011 from 4-8pm at 1913 West 17th Street, Chicago, IL. ACRE Projects is proud to present ERIN LELAND: CRITICAL OF TAN, the next installment in ACRE's year-long series of solo exhibitions by 2010 ACRE summer residents.

Erin Leland’s CRITICAL OF TAN, a series of glances askew at herself, began with photographing strangers as a live mannequin through a shop window, continued with attempting to reclaim explicit photographs inadvertently inherited by two Midwestern strangers, and includes Accidental Sightings, a poem chronicling her attempts to avoid her image in reflective surfaces. At the heart of all the work is their existence as encounters. She is currently reinterpreting her own image through autobiographical retellings.

ERIN LELAND, a performer, photographer and writer, recently graduated with an MFA from the University of Illinois, Chicago. In the Spring of 2010, Erin's work appeared in the New Insight exhibition at Art Chicago, Iceberg Gallery and Swimming Pool Project Space. She was a resident this fall at the Watermill Center, where she undertook an autobiographical re-hanging of pieces from Robert Wilson’s private art collection. She looks forward to residence at the Banff Centre in the spring.

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

ACRE Projects is a new space in Pilsen presenting weekly art events every Sunday evening. Each of ACRE's 70+ residents are given the keys to the space for one week to do with it what they will. Additional exhibitions will be hosted by a number of local galleries and alternative spaces.

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

Map of current active art spaces in Pilsen

2011-01-13T21:36:00.004-06:00

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th St, Chicago, IL 60608
http://www.acreresidency.org/

Antena

1765 S. Laflin St., Chicago, IL 60608

http://www.antenapilsen.com

Ben Russell

1716 S Morgan St, Chicago, IL 60608

Carlos & Dominguez Gallery

1538 W. Cullerton Street, Chicago, IL 60608

Cobalt Studio

1950 W 21st St, Chicago, IL 60608

http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/

Eel Space

1906 S Throop St, Chicago, IL 60608

http://eelspace.wordpress.com/

Roxaboxen

2130 W 21st Street, Chicago, IL 60608

www.roxaboxenminicastle.com

View Pilsen Alt Spaces in a larger map

Maze: Work by Hyeon Kim

2011-01-05T21:09:00.000-06:00

Maze: Work by Hyeon Kim
Final show in the ACRE and Roxaboxen solo show series

Opening Reception January 23 7-10pm

Her most recent work, Maze - 2010, an installation and video work, is a reflection of the labor-intensive practices of her parents’ new working situation after immigrating to America. Maze revolves around the social and cultural aspects of life in America through the lens of a Korean immigrant family living in the US. For the past few months, Hyeon accumulated large amounts of shirts left behind at dry-cleaners around the Chicago area. In her video, she travels throughout Maze putting dry-cleaning bags on every shirt to explore how labor and physical objects can hold the stresses of everyday life, as well as the public perception of this type of work.

Many immigrant families come to the United States to pursue the American Dream of owning their own business and creating a successful family life. Many times, however, the burden of maintaining success in the family business gets passed from the parents to their children. Even though Hyeon’ s parents were a teacher and an engineer in Korea, when they came to the US they found themselves unable to pursue these careers and opted for started a number of small businesses, finally settling on a family-run dry-cleaning store. The washing, drying, pressing, and delivering of clothes involves a variety of materials and labor patterns that Hyeon has constantly been exposed to throughout her life in America.

In Hyeon’ s art practice, much like her parents business, she engages in her own repetitive process with similar intensity towards the transformation and treatment of objects and materials. This process gives her time to reflect on the issues being brought out in the work, and also exposes her to the meditative state of its production. This dual focus on material and process is a way for her to embed something intangible, like the energy of labor or personal memory, into an art object.

Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W 21st Street
Chicago IL 60608
www.roxaboxenminicastle.com