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.

Donald Young Gallery

The Donald Young Gallery is located on Michigan Avenue inside the Santa Fe building. With a prime location probably comes a prime real estate cost, and so the gallery is forced to take advantage of all its space. It has a small front room set up like a more traditional gallery, but the rest of the works are packed in a small hallway, around the reception desk, and inside two offices.
The artworks outside the main space are positioned in places that make the viewing experience awkward. To view Rodney Graham’s A Glass of Beer and Vancouver Sun, one has to hang around the reception desk while people are working there. Some works located in the offices are difficult to spot, like bear figurines on the desks, and Bruce Nauman’s work on a computer screen; other works don’t recieve their proper space like Chromatic Modernism and photographs from the Glass House Series. In a business sense, displaying work in an office allows potential buyers to see works in a less formal space. However, the choice to use the offices seems to have more to do with space, rather than curation.
In the front room, works are displayed in a more traditional fashion (white walls and pedestals). The contrast between how works are arranged on the south and north sides of the room is distracting. The south side houses four sculptures arranged by color and size. At the center is Rosemarie Trockel’s Abuse of Beauty, to its left is Martin Puyer’s Facedown and to its right are Joshua Mosley’s George Brown and Freidrich Hayek. Mosley and Puyer’s works face in towards Abuse of Beauty. Mosley’s works are placed next to each other and both given white pedestals. This gives the works a sense of unity, and together they are a comparable size to the other two works. The north side of the gallery is not as neatly arranged, and the disparity between the two sides of the room is distracting. It needed to be one way or the other, both was just weird.
The current show is not worth going to see. However, the next exhibition in September will be of Dan Flavin’s work. It is a little surprising to hear his work will be on show, and it will be interesting to see what kind of space solutions the gallery comes up with. While they may have been able to get away with work in offices during the current group show, it will be near impossible with his work.

Cy Twombly: The Natural World

The Cy Twombly exhibit, The Natural World, at the Art Institute divides his floral inspired works from 2000 to 2007 into a few clumps of work meant to represent the overall body of his later years. Located in the newly opened Modern Wing, the exhibit seems to be very self-conscious. Somehow, the curators have made the normally assured and unregulated work of Twombly seem tame and aseptic. His works on paper are tied down by frames, and every sculpture has a pedestal. All but one of the rooms had his works arranged perfectly symmetrical by form and color. On one door leading into the galleries, it denotes that the patron should enter the other doors so they can experience the exhibit the way it was meant to be seen: from lighter colored works on paper and sculptures at the beginning, through progressively larger and darker paintings at the end. The curation seemed so strict and opaque, it undermined the intuitive nature of the work itself. Twombly's work continues to stretch the ways we taxonimize art with combinations like photographs of sculptures and paintings/drawings, both on paper, and the continued incorporation of language. Despite the presentation, Twombly's newer works prove that after all these years, he still has not gone soft.

A New Home for Old Friends: The AIC Modern Wing

The Art Institute Modern Wing, which opened in May of this year, is still attracting masses a few months later. The wing brings a sense of pride to Chicagoans and has become a destination for tourists. It is the defibrillator the Art Institute needed. While the museum has always boasted an impressive collection, the works now in the Modern Wing never really had a proper home. They always seemed sparse, tucked away, or just oddly placed. However, now they all have one home that gives them proper due.
The Modern Wing was designed by architect Renzo Piano, whom is probably best known for his work on the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Piano used as many opportunities as possible to highlight the relationship between the museum and the city. The Nichols Bridgeway connects the museum to Millennium Park, and offers brilliant views as the patron passes over Monroe Street. The Bluhm Family Terrace offers a special view of the city from within the museum, but there are plenty of skyline glimpses available from within the galleries as well. Even when viewer enters the wing from the main body of the museum, they get a North facing view of the skyline from within Griffin Court. The frequent views of the city, which one does not find often in museums, are a constant reminder of the symbiotic relationship between museum and city.
Griffin Court, the atrium of the wing, can be entered from the North by way of Nichols Bridgeway and South through the museum. The center is opens to all three stories, and the specially designed skylight floods the wing with natural light. Piano's use of glass, open spaces, and stark white walls make the Modern Wing feel breezy and light, a welcomed contrast to the stoicism and gravity of the museum's main body Neo-Classical architecture. The only aspect of the wing that breaks the mood is the obligatory donor names plastered everywhere; but hey, you gotta make money somehow.
The deceptively slim looking atrium, leads to a surprising amount of gallery space. Just off Griffin Court on the first floor are the Abbott Galleries and the Carolyn and Matthew Bucksbaum Gallery. The Abbott Galleries, located to the West, will house different exhibitions. This is where the Cy Twombly works from 2000 to 2007 are being shown. On the East side, the Bucksbaum Gallery now houses the museum's photography collection. The Contemporary and Architecture and Design galleries are located respectively on the East and West side of the second floor. Both collections have had some recent additions, but the most surprising were the acquisitions for the Contemporary collection. Along side old favorites from the likes of Eva Hesse and Gerhard Richter are recently purchased works by Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Charles Ray, and Bruce Nauman. The museum has really made an effort to build up their Contemporary Collection, as well as bring out pieces patrons have not seen in a while. Upstairs, the third floor houses the Modern European Collection, containing works by Picasso, Matisse, Dali and others.
A hefty collection is to be expected, but the sheer amount, quality, and diversity of work the museum has on show, combined with the architecture itself, is absolutely breathtaking. The Modern Wing far exceeded my expectations. I would highly recommend it for visitors to the city, and would expect Chicagoans to check it out to welcome the newest member of the city.

(under)Exposed

(under) Exposed at Carl Hammer Gallery, was a sort of pupu platter of contemporary work. Work ranged from a painting of refugees by Grace Graupe Pillard to a dodecahedron of “Cloud Gate” by Nathaniel Smyth. While it is difficult to judge the show as a whole because of the disparity of work, there were a few artists who stood out amongst the pack.
Alex Fleming's Flying Carpets were tucked away behind the gallery desk and didn't receive the visibility they deserve. The work consisted of two Persian rugs cut into the shape of airplanes. While the two were similar, the more successful was when the carpet was cut to mimic the interior forms of the plane. Whereas the other just seemed to be two scrap pieces combined to fill the space. Fleming's work addresses the issue of globalization in a very simple yet sophisticated way.
South Korean artist, Seung Wook Sim, displayed the work Black Mutated Ornamentation. The piece was a black, oblong blob consisting of layered hot glue on top of a non-visible metal structure. While the work itself is nothing new (actually somewhat reminiscent of some Eva Hesse work), it was a great opportunity to see some of the work coming out of Korea.
The most exciting pieces in the show came from artist Rebecca Kardong. Her works Reverse Alchemy and Inverted Void look like two cherubs gone horribly wrong. The works, which are an extension of her early work with dolls and figurines, are like over exaggerations of fleshy baby dolls. The figures bulge and twist in a way that show off Kardong's strong knowledge of anatomy, to the point she can manipulate it into a believable contorted form. The forms are finished of with iridescent coats of paint, which contribute too their eeriness. I was impressed by what I saw of Kardong's work in the gallery and then online, I highly recommend you take a look.