This week's snack report reads like an eight-year-old on a road trip: wine, wine, wine! Snacks were few and far between as was beer, but I must have put away at least a bottle's worth of white and about half that worth of red.
We started our adventure in River North. Our first stop was Zg
Gallery, a high priority on my list because Gregory Jacobsen's
deliciously filthy paintings were on display. I'd seen Jacobsen's work
at Zg Gallery in the past as well as in New American Paintings, and am a huge fan.
Zg Gallery was serving Trader Joe's Australian Charles Shaw Chardonnay,
with the little kangaroo on the label. My readers know that I'm no
wine snob; everything I know about wine I learned watching John Cleese's Wine for the Confused
a couple weeks ago and most of that I've since forgotten. To me, this
tasted like, well, like every other white wine I've ever had. I prefer
red but most of the River North galleries serve only white; whether
this is to appeal to a certain taste or to avoid stains in the event of
a spill, I don't know. At any rate, it was much appreciated. Thanks
for the wine, Zg Galley! And congrats on a great show, Gregory!
and she consistently shows strong work. I always make it a point to
hit her openings, despite the fact that she closes earlier than anyone
else, and serves only fizzy water. I'm embarrassed to admit, I'll hit
a place that shows good work, even if the snacks are lacking.
Up
the stairs, then, to Judy Saslow. The work at Saslow is generally a
bit tame and conservative for my tastes, but I always give it a look
since a.) it's right upstairs from Edelman and Zg, and b.) they usually
have good snacks. This week the snacks were limited to a bowl of
pretzels, but they did provide me with my second glass of white wine of
the night. Thanks for the wine, Judy Saslow!
Next we headed up one more flight of stairs to David Weinberg.
Weinberg is also a pretty mainstream space, but while Saslow shows work
by "intuitive, outsider, and self-taught" artists, the work at Weinberg
tends to be more slick, polished, and highly crafted. Again, not
normally my cup of tea, but I thought these photographs by Michael
Parker were pretty neat. Not particularly "challenging" or whatever,
but cool to look at, and well made. Everybody there is super nice.
They offered us wine, but we were still working on our glasses from
Judy Saslow! Thanks anyway, David Weinberg!
That
rounded out our experience at the 300 W. Superior building, our typical
first stop in River North. We then headed across the street to 311 W.
Superior, another building with a number of galleries in it.
My first stop was Russel Bowman Art Advisory,
one of my favorite spaces in River North. As a secondary market
dealer, Bowman shows work by artists you may have actually heard of,
rather than young, emerging talent. For a collector, they represent an
opportunity to collect works by established artists. For the rest of
us, Russel Bowman Art Advisory is like a little museum of modern art,
right in River North. Unlike most museums, they're free, and they
serve good snacks at their openings. Plus there's a bathroom in the
building.
Russel
Bowman provided me with my third glass of wine of the evening, red this
time, and some much-needed snacks. There was also some good work on
display; I particularly liked the Philip Pearlstein. Also the people
at Bowman are always very friendly and helpful.
After
a quick potty break (the 311 W. Superior building has a public
restroom), I hit the other two spaces on the ground floor of the
building, those being Printworks and Gallery KH.
Each of these provided me with a glass of white wine, bringing my
running total to five, and getting me righteous buzz. Then we headed
over to Ann Nathan.
Ann
Nathan provided me with glass number six (another red), and had some
good work up. My favorite was a large charcoal drawing by Christopher
Ganz, up in the back room. Ganz apparently had a show at Ann Nathan
recently, but I missed it. Too bad, because this image was really good.
Ann
Nathan rounded out our River North experience. My wife Stephanie Burke
then led us to the West Loop. We took the Brown Line down to the Loop
and then took the Madison bus over to the West Loop. Our first stop
was Rhona Hoffman.
Rhona
Hoffman was packed. I grabbed a glass of wine (red, I think),
socialized for a few (and man, if ever the term "rubbing elbows" was
appropriate, this was it), then headed upstairs to Walsh. I didn't see any snacks, although the title of the show was "Simply Fresh" and all of the artworks depicted lettuce leaves.
Food-themed work, perhaps, but no snacks. I headed upstairs to Dubhe Carreño for my eighth glass of wine (red) and artworks by Ann Drew Potter. Somehow I can remember they had a bowl of weird little candies on the desk. I stuck to the wine.
Eight glasses of wine under my belt, and three galleries to go. We headed downstairs to Peter Miller's
new location on the ground floor. Showing was new work by Ron
Laboray: big, shiny abstract paintings in automotive enamel, loosely
based on imagery from popular culture, particularly cartoons. I don't
remember any snacks but then, I had my drunk on pretty good by this
point.
Our next stop was our old favorite, Packer-Schopf Gallery. Three exhibitions were opening: DEATHMETALHIPPIEKILLER by Jason Lahr, Moby Dick by Tim Vermeulen, and Vent Figure Fun by Gene Hamilton.
As usual, Packer was serving white wine. This made it my ninth glass.
In my defense, gallery glasses are about half the size of normal
ones...or so I keep telling myself.
Well stupefied, I had one last gallery to attend. This was ebersmoore,
right around the corner from Packer. They had the usual bucket of cans
of Pabst, and a dish of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I had one of each.
The
show, Mark Mulroney's "Weatherbee's Revenge," was really fun, too: one
of my favorites yet at ebersmoore, and one of my highlights of the
evening. Someone, I think it was Grace Hartigan,
once told me that her father allowed dirty jokes at the dinner table,
"as long as they were more funny than they were dirty." Weatherbee's
Revenge meets this criteria. The works are both clever (in the good
way) and raunchy (which is pretty much always good for me, as long as
it's well done).
Seriously, this stuff is good. Get over to ebersmoore and check it out!
Well,
ten drinks in, and relatively few snacks, and we were all pretty ready
for dinner, so we headed over to the Exchequer for burgers and beer.
Actually I had the fish and chips, which were awesome. Thanks to
Stephanie Burke for taking care of my in my drunkenness, buying me fish
and chips, and regulating on my crass and abrasive sense of humor. It
was time for this snacker to get home and sleep off another night of
looking at art...the Jeriah way.
Jeriah is an artist, educator, writer, and snack enthusiast. You can see his work at www.jeriahhildwine.com, and read his columns at Art Talk Chicago and Chicago Art Magazine. Jeriah lives and works in Chicago, with his wife Stephanie Burke.
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Tags: Ann Nathan, Beer, CatherineEdelman, David Weinberg, Dubhe Carreno, ebersb9, EbersMoore, Exchequer, fish and chips, gallerycrawl, Galley KH, Gregory Jacobsen, JudySaslow, Packer-Schopf Gallery, packerschopf, PackerSchopfGallery, Printworks, rhonahoffman, RiverNorth, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Snack Report, Walsh, walshgallery, westloop, wine, zg
