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Entries associated with the tag "Art":December 22nd - 6:50 p.m.
Exquisite City, the cardboard fantasy town curated by Kathleen Judge for the Viaduct Theater, is moving to the Chicago Tourism Center, 72 E. Randolph, starting January 15 for a three-month run. More than 70 artists contributed to the show, which was inspired -- but not limited -- by the real Chicago. Some of them will be there for a public reception January 30, from 6 to 8 PM. Info on other events planned around the exhibit at the Exquisite City site.
December 10th - 12:31 a.m.
MSNBC's courtroom sketch is sort of winningly emotive. October 31st - 12:22 p.m.
"Daily reporting on the world of Barack Obama artwork, prints and auctions. Invest. Collect. Document." The Obama Art Report: an essential document of our times. The outpouring of Obama art during the election season, mostly in the fields of graphic design and hip-hop, has been nothing short of astounding. Here's my favorite, from Burlesque Prints:  A variation on a theme, from Chicagoland L.A. correspondent KHo:  And my only Obama-related art (the puppy has three legs, I mean, damn); (derived from):  September 9th - 11:57 a.m.
My colleague Whet laments the Obama campaign's uninspired advertising. But maybe they're intentionally bland, because the guy's already got some of the sharpest minds in advertising working for him for free. Has another presidential contender ever inspired so many totally sincere art projects? And then of course there's this . . . Update: Whet and I were apparently pondering this question at the same time. September 9th - 11:55 a.m.
One of my ongoing interests this election season has been the outpouring of bootleg and semi-official Obama art, so I was perturbed to hear mainstream situationist Shepard Fairey griping about imitators. Shepard Fairey needs to chill. Myself, I prefer the totally inexplicable work of David Carson. August 8th - 11:40 a.m.
Do yourself a favor: print out this editorial by David Brooks--shame of the Chicago Maroon--on acid free paper and store it in a cold dry place, or put it on your flash drive, or your Kindle, or on a server at your favorite hosting facility, and when you turn 50, reread it, and if you think, hey, that's me now, ask yourself why you are professionally self-conscious about taste, and think about technology throughout history as an evolutionary process and the role of early adopters and cultural exchange, and read Ecclesiastes, and just try not to be a dick about it going forward because if you even have time to think about eclecticism as an aesthetic you probably have it pretty damn good. Plus: Hey, speaking of eclecticism, I can't say how much damage to society you would do by going to see a free in-store from a wonderful local, kind of obscure psychedelic rock band whose lyrics are all in Spanish, but Allá is playing Permanent Records tomorrow in support of the gorgeous new El Tiempo, which Miles Raymer convinced me was great, and it is. Local, "obscure" tastes--part of what makes Chicago, like many places throughout the world, a wonderful place to live. Or you could wait until they're in the New York Times or whatever. Update: Now I'm listening to Lonely China Day's Sorrow. They're kind of the Coldplay of Beijing--the lead singer definitely picked up a bunch of tricks from Chris Martin. It's pretty interesting; I wouldn't say I'm a big fan, but it's pleasant and nice to work to. Incidentally, I didn't discover this through the Evil Internet but through the very 20th century medium of the newspaper promo copy dump box. *Title of the e-mail from Chicagoland correspondent ptb that included this link. Pvt to David Brooks: I'm listening to Keith Jarrett's recording of the Goldberg Variations; the next thing in my iTunes (ooh) library is Lifter Puller's Fiestas and Fiascoes. Because they're both remarkable works of human achievement that make me glad to be alive. [Blogger: raises middle finger.] May 6th - 2:59 p.m.
WHEREAS children, at least boy-children for the most part, love cars; WHEREAS everyone loves the Berwyn Spindle, an important part of our film heritage; WHEREAS WHY DO YOU HATE CHILDREN? CHICAGO IS ABOUT CHILDREN! SPITTLE FLECKS! WHEREAS the Spindle is Brutalist; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:  April 25th - 8:58 a.m.
The Tribune has an update on Yaacov Agam's Communication X9, which was returned to Michigan and Randolph last month. Agam is still unhappy with the restoration, which he says amounts to erasing the original (which was aging badly) and replacing it with a copy. It's good to see it back in the news, because the story's interesting if you're into the intersection of law and art, but their explanation of what happened is a bit pro forma; check out Deanna Isaacs's November column for details on what went "wrong"--the sculpture contains 1,410 different colors, and Agam thinks the restorer screwed them up--with the restoration.
April 24th - 1:30 p.m.
Over at Chicago's Best Blogs I weighed in on a couple of my favorite local blogs, but today I discovered a new favorite via Archinect: Design Dissent. It's an informal (in the best way) discussion blog from the Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects department at the School of the Art Institute, and is pretty much just students and faculty sounding off about whatever pops into their heads (recently, Bruce Mau and sustainability): "The way sustainability is practiced in the US and Europe seems worse than lying, its more akin to feel good religion: green roofs on one hand and then a nice drive across the landscape in the summer Hummer on weekends. Incidentally, I’m convinced that the super-stretch Hummer is a green vehicle: twenty passengers in a single hot tub with one V-8 powering the whole shebang, that’s got to be better than twenty nasty little Priuses jamming up the freeways going home for twenty twenty minute showers." It seems to have been precipitated by some internal controversy that I'm not privy to, and it's entirely possible that they'll work it out and the blog will no longer be necessary. I hope not--it's really compelling. April 23rd - 4:27 p.m.
Dmitry Samarov, proprietor of HACK (one of my favorite blogs), is starting a new illustrated job blog: Dive ("a year sitting ringside to hell"), an account of his time at the Blue Light Tavern. Just one post so far, but I eagerly await more. More good stuff from artist-bloggers: veteran underground comics artist Skip Williamson has a fascinating account of working for the Daily News and its proto-RedEye, Sidetracks. Also: I am extremely excited about the Chicago International Poster Biennial. April 8th - 3:25 p.m.
I was like, “That’s so beautiful,” but he was obnoxious in kind of a sad way, ‘cause he was a teenager by himself and he just wanted attention. So it was a beautiful gesture from someone who was driving us crazy. It struck me as something I wanted to do. Make a rainbow through this sort of aggressive and stupid teenage gesture. The Morning News has an interview with Melanie Schiff, whose career is really taking off. Fred Camper wrote about her last year. More here. April 8th - 1:48 p.m.
Heston proved to be a remarkably open guest, eager to share stories of his Midwestern roots as well as his participation in the Civil Rights Movement at a time when such public involvement was significant and not without costs. Andrew Patner has a moving and thoughtful take on Evanston native Charlton Heston. I don't know enough of his work to comment thoughtfully on it, but I recommend Richard Dreyfuss's essay on Heston as a contrast to Neil Steinberg's piece and Michael Miner's reaction. In particular, I thought this was significant: "Is so and so a great actor? A good actor? A bad actor? Speaking as an expert it's a stupid question. The actor either gets you to where you have to go, or not." Steinberg and Miner argue that Heston simply didn't have that much talent. That may or may not be true; I don't know that much about his movies or movies in general to argue otherwise. But broadly speaking, talent doesn't always matter in art, and that's not necessarily bad. The gift of speaking to certain things at certain times in history is not simply a matter of virtuosity, training, or skill; sometimes it's merely a confluence of events with aesthetics. Heston had a voice, look, and charisma that directors and producers found useful for certain roles, and how much that had to do with any particular effort or decisions Heston made, or whether it was just one of those things, I have no idea. Quality is different than popularity, and it may be that the legend of Heston is something people should look back and be confused about, but as an aesthetic question his legacy is more complicated than his talent or lack thereof. Just personally, I can think of a lot of people of average or even marginal talent, at least in comparison to their peers, who have spoken to me through their work: X-Files-era David Duchovny; the 2006 Cardinals' middle infield; Kid Rock, for at least "Bawitdaba," which is actually incredibly moving, and I will brook no dissent; the Monkees, not ironically; The Headphone Masterpiece; Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, at least as compared to say Thom Yorke; Fred Durst and Johnny Rzeznik's cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," which is still my pick for best recording of the century so far. As with movies, I don't know enough about the moral order of the universe to say whether or not the hand of God is responsible for Heston's career, as Dreyfuss argues. For all I know God is more of a Brando fan. But some kind of providence is involved. March 20th - 3:47 p.m.
I've speculated that one of the reasons Chicagoans tolerate mediocre to terrible local governance is that, well, we're not Detroit (whether governance has anything to do with that is a separate matter). Along those lines, here's a Toquevillian look at Detroit by two Frenchmen; it's a little old, but still interesting. They mention one of the few good things that's come from the city's collapse: the Heidelberg Project, a remarkable combination of outsider art, urban critique, and grassroots renewal that's celebrating its 20th anniversary (with a book, among other things) this year and puts even Chicago's impressive public art to shame. Imagine if Millennium Park was built around a block of abandoned houses over the course of 20 years, mostly through the work of one artist, and that's the Heidelberg Project.
March 7th - 2:50 p.m.
Two of my favorite local photographers, Lauri Apple (vid; proprietor of FoundClothing and Stick Figures, True Stories) and David Schalliol (vid), are part of a show Saturday at Cafe Latakia. Schalliol's Isolated Buildings Studies is an amazing series. Here's a good writeup of it.
February 26th - 1:26 p.m.
One of the things the Poetry Foundation has seen fit to do with its buckets of money is support UbuWeb, a long-running and incredibly comprehensive repository of avant-garde art weirdness. The latest UbuWeb podcast, produced by the foundation, features the Western Roundtable on Modern Art, a seven-hour fest featuring Frank Lloyd Wright, Darius Milhaud, Marcel Duchamp, and others (via the inimitable Coudal). If that's not enough you can listen to UbuWeb Radio (courtesy of the Center for Literary Computing at West Virginia University). Perhaps more exciting: a recording of Chicago '82: A Dip in the Lake, a historic new music festival that was previously only available on cassette from Belgium. For the performance, John Cage created a score (not performed?) called A Dip in the Lake, using a Chicago street map and environmental sounds from various city intersections. You can see a copy of the score here; from 2001-2003, Robert Pleshar "realized" the work, which is also available on UbuWeb. February 13th - 4:50 p.m.
The inscrutable television spotted this morning on the Blue Line turns out to be for a Chicago Train Art exhibit/party, Friday at the A.Okay Official boutique (off-topic: note their MJ tees). You can check out more of Solve's art here; some of it you'll probably recognize. (h/t Josh and artillery in comments) January 29th - 1:32 p.m.
Local artist Jonathan Gitelson, whose car project was the subject of a 2005 Reader feature, was commissioned to do an awesome art installation called Chicago El Stories for the Armitage Brown Line station, a 21st century version of Olivia Gude's Where Have You Been? Where Are You Going? oral history mural in Hyde Park. Gitelson's Web site is wonderful; the finale of his online "book" The Ballad of Carl Wilson moved me. (via)
October 26th - 2:50 p.m.
August 17th - 12:36 p.m.
As a conspiracy and surveillance buff, I'm geeked about our Critics' Choice this week in art: Echelon: Who Is Watching You?, a group show about the panopticon that is the 21st century. Besides Ground Control (detail pictured), a rug by local artist Noelle Mason and Mexican artists Jose Antonio Flores and Jonathan Samaniego whose pattern comes from satellite photos of the U.S./Mexico border, there's Getting de Menezes, a short film by T.W. Li about the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, and other works, which you can preview at Polvo's Web site. The exhibition, incidentally, is named for a famous and extremely creepy SIGINT network that was allegedly part of the Bush administration's program of domestic surveillance. Vaguely related: If this sort of thing floats your boat, you might enjoy the great MIT art book Ctrl [Space], based on this exhibit, and this story about Wilco's breakthrough album, spy radio stations, and international copyright law, and what that all has to do with the Conet Project (warning: terrifyingly opaque shortwave recordings). Plus: get ready for the awesomely named Real ID. May 10th - 11:25 a.m.
I used this photograph, by local photographer Melanie Schiff, on the homepage...  because I expected it would generate more traffic than usual, and, well, I was right. But I also just think it's a great picture. What gets me about it is not the nude woman, but everything else--the berber carpet, the drapes, the sliding-glass door. Without the beautiful woman in the frame, it'd seem generic, a stock suburban den. To me, at least, the conceit of the photo is that her presence lends beauty to her surroundings, and makes the viewer look at them with a friendlier eye. Fred Camper profiled Schiff back in January, when she had a show at Kavi Gupta. Photos from that show are still online at the gallery's Web site, and my favorites--Emergency, Spit Rainbow, Heyyou, and Lagoon, among others--all seem to find a profound bit of pleasure, be it fun or beauty, in explicitly simple surroundings. The piece above is part of Schiff's exhibit at the MCA, which opened Friday and runs through the 27th; she gives a tour of it on Tuesday. March 28th - 1:34 p.m.
Detail from 117 Homes for Sale, Chicagoland 1999, a digital C-print by Chicago artist Jason Salavon. It's "the result of mean averaging a specific number of realtor photos of single-family homes for sale." Salavon has other prints that were made by applying the process to other metro areas, including NYC, Dallas/Ft. Worth, and Miami. I think I can see regional details emerge, but maybe it's just a real-estate Rorschach test. Geeks will enjoy Salavon's notes on how he did this. The same technique works eerily in his 100 Special Moments series and gives an impressionistic, abstract feel to porn. (NSFW? An aesthetic and philosophical question in this case.) Stat geeks will enjoy his Studies for American Varietal, an installation piece for the U.S. Census Bureau derived from state and county information, 1790-2000.
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