NOTICE-- CLOSED and A Unique Marquee

Spudnik Press has taken over Wicker Park’s Heaven Gallery, at least for the time being. Currently on show is A Unique Marquee comprised of work from Spudnik artists, and NOTICE – CLOSED a body of work created by Jeremy Lundquist while an artist in residence at Spudnik. Having the solo and group shows side by side worked out really well. The common denominator of printmaking makes for an overall cohesiveness, and A Unique Marquee helps wet the audience’s appetite for a closer look into a single body of work.

The focal point of NOTICE – CLOSED is 21 etchings Lundquist made using a single copper plate. He draws upon tourist culture by collecting signage, pamphlet materials, and his own drawings from Illinois historical sites. By layering these images on one plate, each new image sits on top of the ghost images of past prints. The effect is a sense of loss through the creation of new memories and histories. The tourism theme is carried through a pamphlet for the series that gives a brief description of the attraction and its “points of interest”. NOTICE – CLOSED also includes Adjournment Drawings, which are even more reductive in their imagery and wording than Lundquist’s etchings, and Drinkwater’s Lincoln: Complain/Make Sacrifices, which consists of the words “of course we could all” on the wall. The inclusion of these works support his etchings, by distilling prominent elements to help consider the relationship between text and imagery.

A Unique Marquee features several artists working at Spudnik Press that represent a broad range of style, subject matter, and printmaking processes. While all the works employ new and interesting takes on the classic, and often over looked medium, some resonated more than others did. Meng Yang and Angee Lennard borrow from mid-century advertising and posters to create works that rally support for local industries. Nostalgia and the current economic situation combine to make their work feel simultaneously timeless yet extremely relevant. Also on show are works by L Born, such as Fish Dinner and Irreconcilable Differences. The works are slightly grotesque and read like one-liner jokes, in a hip, fresh way.

Niels Strobek "Modern Danish Master"

While his work shows an intense understanding of historical painting, and his mark making the sign of a seasoned hand, viewer be wary of dismissing Niels Strobek’s work as traditionalist. Modern Danish Master features 11 of his portraits and landscapes, all of which follow the trajectory of realism. Strobek’s work has a sense of timelessness, but just enough detail to modernize the style. Details like the woman’s facial piercing in Irishat, and the architecture in Yellow Farm date the subjects to contemporary western culture. A majority of the work relies on this dichotomy between modern subjects and traditional technique, in a way that exoticizes our own culture. While historical style brings content to one aspect of his work, it becomes quite problematic in another.

Not only does Strobek participate in the western canon’s depiction of female subjects by male artists, he repeats many of the same problems pointed out through history. The women he depicts are very much aware of the male gaze. Most make eye contact with their audience, and are subtly suggestive based on their class. The wealthier women, denoted by their dress, show sexuality through powerful poses, like a woman in Sisters, with her knee bent exposing her bare leg, and her chest square to the audience. Compare to the woman with laundry in Basket, who is equally as engaging, but through submission as she turns her back to the audience and peeks over her shoulder. Images of candles next to cups, pins piercing flowers, and a woman holding an apple add an allegorical level to the way Strobek depicts the subjects’ sexualities. What further complicates these portraits is their placement next to landscapes. While the two subject matters seem to come from different lines of thought, they are equally valued by displaying them together. This reinforces the cliché correlation of women to nature. His depiction of women undermines his attempts to progress canonical painting. As wonderfully rendered as Strobek’s paintings may be, as long as he continues to repeat gender blunders of the past, his work will remain in limbo between modern and traditional.

SUBSTANCE (for Julian) at The Suburban

The Suburban is currently hosting ‘SUBSTANCE (for Julian)’ a collaboration, or rather integration, of work by artists Julian Dashper and Tilman Hoepfl. The exhibit, created by Hoepfl, memorializes the recently deceased Dashper. It features an artist book and installation, both specifically made for the show, by Hoepfl, complemented by Dashper’s audio track, “Untitled/ Studio Door”. The exhibition reveals the commonalities between the artists’ work, through its focus on the minimalist and deductive qualities of both.

Julian Dashper, who passed away on July 30 of this year, was one of few New Zealand artists to make it onto the international stage. He worked in several media including sculpture, film, photography, and sound. Work that ranged from “Untitled (The Warrior)”, a drum set with colored disks as drumheads, to films like “Untitled (the last 15 seconds of the last Venice Biennale”, all functioned to abstract the familiar. “Untitled/ Studio Door”, a part of the SUBSTANCE exhibit, is a 1 minute 15 second sound recording of a door opening, rocking back and forth, and closing. The work balances the banality of a creaking door, by manipulating the sound into a soothing hum. The result is a heightened attention to the sound’s character, and dissolution of its source.

For the exhibition, Hoepfl created a site-specific installation of alternating strips of red chromolux and white bristol board encircling the room. The work employs a similar technique to Dashper’s sound piece, in the way it draws attention to the familiar by sharply contrasting it. The white board blends with the white wall, but the red draws it out; in the same way, the droning highlights the door creaking. Hoepfl continues using red and white stripes in his artist book. The book, which consists of rectangles of varying widths, allows the handler to manipulate (to a certain degree) the ways in which the two colors interact.

The similarity between Hoepfl and Dashper’s work, and the contrast between media makes them wonderful complements. By integrating Dashper’s work subtly into the show and working around it, Hoepfl has created a beautiful living memorial to his fellow minimalist.

As We Live and Breathe at Carrie Secrist

On Sinking at Tony Wight

On Sinking is a continuation of Robyn O’Neil’s vision of an apocalyptic future. Her past works show men fighting for their lives; whether it is drones on rafts with a threatening sky above, or hanging by a wire above a tumultuous sea. Her newest work seems to suggest that despite their best efforts, the end has come. Where O’Neil used to render figures against dominant backdrops, there is nothing left but nature and a sole survivor.
The new drawings do not necessarily tell a linear narrative, but rather work together to create a mood. O’Neil’s modes of representation vary from straightforward in Quiet and A Song of So Many Beginnings, to poetic in The Dismantled Ship and Turbulent Beliefs. The tension between the two types of work is periodically interrupted by images of the back of a man’s head, like in Turn to the Left. While some scenes sprawl across the paper, others exist as floating images. The variety within the body of work prevents it from reading as a beginning to end story, and instead places emphasis on individual works that would have otherwise been means to an end.
While the works at times seem disparate from one another, a few motifs unite them not only within On Sinking, but also with O’Neil’s entire body of work. In her signature graphite on paper, she continues to render sky and sea in exaggerated sweeps that are simultaneously ominous and peaceful. She takes advantage of the dark material and white paper by varying which represents sky and foreground; nothing is safe, because the world can easily exist inverted. Certain shapes are repeated throughout the show. For example, the shape of a cloud over a man’s head in Occurrence is used for the shape of an overturned boat in The Dismantled Ship. The subtle repetitions throughout the show pull the pieces together in a unified vision, albeit of the end of the world.

You're My Favorite Kind of American at Rhona Hoffman

The diversity of work on display for You’re My Favorite Kind of American made it seem more like a group show than a one-man exhibition. Drawing on inspiration from hip-hop culture and his Cuban heritage, jack-of-all-trades Luis Gispert uses photography, film, and sculpture to investigate notions of the individual, customizing, and consumer culture.
The show features several photographs of customized vehicles looking out over landscapes. The pictures, all taken from the cockpit or front seat, seek to show how the individual manipulates things to taste. While the owners of the vehicles have chosen how to manipulate them, Gispert changes the landscapes to suit his own taste. In untitled (L.V. Escalade), the Cadillac is modified with a white leather interior featuring the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram. It overlooks a field in winter where two blank billboards sit in a small grove. The lack of advertising on the billboards contrasts the overworked car interior. These newer photographs, while exploring similar themes as his past work like the Cheerleader series, show a growth and maturation.
The other works on show feels secondary to the photographs, but have equally important ideas. In a short film Rene, Gispert, who actually has a BFA in film from SAIC, follows a Cuban immigrant through his daily life. The film shows a development and more natural approach than his previous work like Smother. The show also includes two sculptures in the shape of crack cocaine with heart shaped cutouts for speakers. One sculpture, They All Can’t Be Big Ideas, rests on a box of grape soda, and the other, Green Grocers Apostrophe, is propped upon a box of Newport cigarettes. The craftsmanship of the work is somewhat reminiscent of Robert Gober. The work tries to give a like life quality to reproduced items, but the presence of the artist’s hand is still visible. If Gispert’s work speaks to hip-hop culture, then it needs to be polished and streamlined like the customized vehicles. Realistic rendering would also direct focus towards content rather than craft, and put the sculptures on par with the photographs and film.

Kim Curtis "Perception" at Kasia Kay

With a history that ranges from the Hudson River School to Claude Monet, contributing to landscape painting can seem a bit like reinventing the wheel. Kim Curtis’ Perception, her fourth show at Kasia Kay, combines elements from her forerunners with more contemporary art practices to make the genre feel fresh again. The body of work on display is oil paint on panels, and consists primarily of vistas in exaggerated horizontal formats, all 3.5 inches tall and trimmed in red. Works vary in size from the largest Long View II at 113 inches long and consisting of seven panels, to a 20 inch single panel A Somewhat Shorter View. Her work uses a palette reminiscent of Turner, with dull or dark colors punctuated by moments of vibrant color that seem to radiate off the surface. The application of paint is intuitive and blithe. The loose brushwork recalls the Impressionist movement and its desire to capture moments as time unfolds. While Curtis refines the surface of her paintings, a record of previous incarnations is visible beneath, adding to a sense of uncertainty and unfulfilled recollection. Curtis is able to recombine elements of traditional landscape in a way that is specific to her work, and makes the genre feel like after all these years landscape still has something more to give.
Curtis’ work straddles the line between representation and abstraction. While the titles of her paintings and their format point to landscape, their ambiguous forms and handling of paint leave the images open to interpretation. The result is a seemingly vague memory or scene glimpsed in passing, in which the general information is there but the details are unclear. Curtis provides enough visual cues and information for the viewer to reconstruct the scene, but withholds enough so that each person will come to their own conclusion. The work addresses a hurried culture, where details and moments pass by the wayside. By constructing someone else’s experience, the viewer becomes aware of the elusiveness of his or her own memories.