Prologue to the Prologue: Dream
Last night I dreamed that the Hanoki log in the AI Modern Wing was springloaded like a huge catapult and lumberjacks were cutting away at the string. Then I was trying to hide in the MCA when they were about to close so I could look at all the exhibits after hours. Madeleine Grynsztejn found me and covered for me, telling a security guard I was a performance art piece. Then I was asking Kerry James Marshall for some more information about African American diaspora art. He was unlocking a door and looked at me and said, "that's a pretty green question to be asking, why didn't you ever study this stuff?"
Editors' Note: I know some of these shows are hitting their expiration date, but I'm highlighting them because projects and venues are worthy. All month I've been in the quandry of having more content now than I can post. So I'm doing a little housekeeping and getting these up.
I've just been reading Jason Foumber's piece in New City from February trying to read between the lines and looking at some of these venues in the light of retrospection. Since the printing, Lloyd Dobler has found the police shaking them down for a business license, and I just got a message from Irene Pérez at Second Bedroom project space saying she's going back to Barcelona and handing the reigns to Christopher Smith.
One thing that's not often said about the apartment gallery scene is that it operates like a relay race. One group, often fresh out of school, runs a few "laps" as an alternative space, then burns out and closes, handing the baton to a new group, fresh out of school, who will, in turn, run a space for a few years before handing the baton to the next person.
Twelve Galleries
[Editor's Note: Foumberg described the "Twelve Galleries" as "the nomadic exhibition project slated to last for one year, and which takes place at a different space each month."
Although the project seems determined to go though the whole year, they seemed to have abandoned all PR efforts a few months ago. The website hasn't been updated since April but I tracked down the curator and found out Meg Onli's Underground Railroad Project is up next . I know Meg through Bad at Sports and her dedication to walking the entire, multi-state path of the Underground Railroad is extraordinary. JULY gallery will open July 26th in Pilsen, at 2156 W 21st place.]
Kaylee got the inside scoop and review on JUNE, somehow. It might still be open, but it's not clear.
Feel Good Foregone: Carrick Bell at June Gallery
Review by Kaylee Wyant
Twelve Galleries' tenth appearance took place in Logan square this month above a storefront on 2351 N. Milwaukee. Curator Jamilee Polson's traveling year-long project has materialized all over the city with a different location and new name for each month. This month, June Gallery presents the work of video artist Carrick Bell. Works include a video projected on a fluttering white curtain, eggs containing colored ink are cracked and poured down the side of a bathtub.
Catherine Jacobi at North Branch in Skokie, then Packer Schopf
Also in the hopper is my girl Sony Basinger's space in Skokie called North Branch. She has more balls putting a cutting edge gallery space in our podunk town of Skokie. I applaud her efforts. Every show is great and people actually come and buy stuff.
This is the work of Catherine Jacobi. These works will go straight from North Branch to Packer Schopf's exhibit "Size Matters," which opens this weekend.
Dianna Frid: Surfaces and Patterns, College of Du Page
review by Victor Cassidy
Dianna Frid gets a variety of effects by collaging small colored strips and triangles onto flat surfaces in diagrammatic patterns. Sometimes she stitches or embroiders lines and abstract forms onto paper or cloth--or creates small objects. Whatever her method, Frid makes art that's buoyant and fresh, a treat for the eye. Her exhibition "The Forces That Shape Them," is up at the Gahlberg Gallery, College of Du Page, until August 8. There are ten works in the show and an installation around the gallery's inner perimeter.
What We Often Simply Call Air (2009), Photo by Nathan Keay
What We Often Simply Call Air (2009) is four sheets of drawing paper mounted together to make a 58-in. x 52-in. surface. The artist creates a sky-like background by collaging on short horizontal color strips--dark blues at the top and pale blues, greens, and pinks below. Floating over the background in the center is a large rounded shape made of small bronze-colored triangles in a pattern that recalls a geodesic dome. There's a blue circle at bottom right and a thin line of yellow triangles across the face of the dome shape. Frid's surface is so alive that we can almost see her hands at work on it.
Craters (2009) is seven canvas constructions hung side by side to occupy a 9-in. x 54-in. wall space. The artist stacks layers of canvas and sews them together at the edges to make square or rectangular forms that resemble small paintings on stretchers. She cuts into the surfaces to make oval craters, which she lines with aluminum foil. The effect is charmingly nutty.
photo courtesy of the artist
Since We Can Measure the Heights of Mountains (2009) is a floor piece made of 64 cardboard hexagon forms with their upper halves colored white and lower halves unpainted. Of slightly different heights, the hexagons are arranged in a manner that recalls terrazzo flooring. A few have tiny knitted hexagons laid on top. This pattern piece suggests landscape.
Since 1995, Frid has had thirteen solo shows in museums, commercial galleries, and university spaces in New York, Chicago, Belgium, and Canada. She has also exhibited widely in group shows. Based on what we saw at the College of Du Page, Frid seems to lose focus after she's made a piece and installed it. There is little apparent connection between the title of this exhibition and the work--and less between the names of the pieces and what we see.
Frid should haves skipped the image-less, dreadful catalog and left her pieces untitled. The work speaks perfectly well for itself.
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Tags: dianafrid, kayleewyant, megonli, northbranch, packerschopf, victorcassidy
