Chicago

March 15, 2019, 4:37pm

Personal Stars: Maia Cruz Palileo at Monique Meloche Gallery

She has finally come, born across centuries and oceans and the yawning gaps of the pied world hewn for us and by us from the flesh and bone of the Earth, across the ragged expanse—flesh hanging like foliage, necrotic, mycological and un-healing as the hearts of men (men especially, here, not “men” as the priapic stand-in for all humankind, which is a fucked up way to think and really truly indicative of the kind of men we are being dealt with here, men who happen upon a glorious verdant chain drawn across the vicious expanse which hides in it the horrors of our world, the planet's calid sacred heart, the shifting red, the immolating ring born on the Jovian finger of the true ruler who we have betrayed, just like we're betraying each other, or more specifically in this case these men are betraying each other), the men whose claret-caked hands have driven the bayonet, twist the aperture far beyond the fibrin, wipe clean the entrails and drive forward again—and she has freed, has excised, has extricated the men's targets, with a deific scalpel, debridement as deliverance, from the burdens of white men, from the alien words which fall hard, knocking teeth over like tombstones—cultural vandalism!, vandalism-cum-conquest, petty and political, in the sense of all structures being re-sorted, the scaffold a literal skeleton—as they drop like a bird kill; has cut them free of the white cloth which is the funeral veil of their own humanity, the very backdrop to the cruel slavery of scare quote science before which they pose dead on and in profile, the twin portraits of prisoners and objects, and placed them instead in the tabula rasa of a sympathetic and empathetic framer …

October 12, 2018, 3:56pm

Crushing the Can: Wendy White

Oh!,my good fucking God can you hear it?, that low sounds like harnessed thunder, that rumble of plates and paradigms being pushed, the trembling, the shuddering, heaven-shaking, deity-quaking--because He is hiding—kraken's roar of an engine, an engine of creation through destruction, God's Own 1972 Plymouth Scamp column cracked and with the proper hand finally at the wheel, stepping down, stepping hard with all the driver's got, dropping that pedal like a guillotine and shredding denim and the very fabric of time and space, ripping loud and fast though an amalgamation of the decades of the American man, the formative years when the whole bloody disgusting thing, the thing which we're witnessing the apex and nadir both of now—an extinction boom, the rage-filled cry of something mortally wounded, the eyetooth corner, the coiled snake striking forth from the fly, the death rattle, please let if be the death rattle!—this hypermacho, alpha-male, dick-in-one-hand, beer-and-throat in the other toxic masculinity, and she's crushing that can now;

September 29, 2018, 12:10am

NEW AMERICAN PAINTINGS ALUMNI TAKE OVER EXPO CHICAGO: 16 Booths You Can't Miss

New American Paintings heads to the Windy City this week to explore Expo Chicago.  Here's your first look at the 16 NAP alumni booths you just can't miss. 

 

1.Amir H Fallah (Pacific Coast #91) at Shulamit Nazarian

Amir H. Fallah
A Path Set In Stone
2017
acrylic on canvas
68 x 96 inches

photo courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian

July 10, 2013, 8:30am

Museum Admission: José Lerma at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Engaging all the melodrama and frivolity of commemorative portraiture, José Lerma’s most recent exhibition, currently on view at the MCA Chicago, challenges the long-since relevant historical relationship between social status and painting. Fitting the museum with a number of works ranging from painting, sculpture, and installation, Lerma combines the pomp and splendor of honorary gestures with the sharp and undercutting wit of his overly embellished, and stylized method.

Listed under: Chicago, Museum Admission

June 14, 2013, 8:30am

Postpositive: New Work by Zach Meisner at Courtney Blades

Appearances can be deceiving in Zach Meisner’s work, and what may seem like a potentially recognizable form at first is often an illusion.  His recent exhibition, currently on view at Courtney Blades, is no exception.  In New Work, a collection of small paintings, symbols stand in for silhouettes of busts; asymmetry masks itself as something more harmonious, and meaningless forms take lovely lapses into the aesthetics of utilitarian design objects.  Though made out of low-grade construction materials – Plexiglas, plywood, MDF, and acrylic – Meisner’s paintings are sleek, clean, and crisp.  Through combinations of bold geometric elements and slow passage

Listed under: Chicago, Review

May 22, 2013, 8:30am

Invisible Performers: David Salle at The Arts Club of Chicago

How can a figure pretend to be invisible, yet still remain the focus of the painting?  David Salle begs the question with his recent exhibition at The Arts Club of Chicago – a stunning collection entitled the Ghost Paintings, which displays a collection of work produced by Salle in the early 1990s.

Listed under: Chicago, Review

August 14, 2012, 8:25am

Stacey Rozich’s “This Must Be the Place” at Chicago Urban Art Society

It’s not often that illustration succeeds in a fine art context, as illustration, didactic by nature, tends to be without the depth and subtlety we understand to be valuable in “fine art.” However, the illustrative practice of Seattle-based Stacey Rozich not only succeeds in the gallery, it thrives with narrative strength and a clear artistic vision that ranks her recent exhibition “This Must Be the Place” at Chicago Urban Art Society among the best exhibitions in Chicago this summer. - Robin Dluzen, Chicago Contributor

Listed under: Chicago, Review

May 04, 2012, 8:25am

Matthew Metzger’s “Backdrop” at Tony Wight Gallery

There’s no getting around the fact that Matthew Metzger makes difficult paintings. His may be among most difficult paintings I have ever seen, though the act of “seeing them” or “looking at them” is certainly not the difficult part. In his current exhibition at Tony Wight Gallery entitled, “Backdrop,” the artist presents a succinct seven paintings, rendered in the artist’s trademark, impeccable trompe l'oeil.

Listed under: Chicago, Review

March 16, 2012, 8:15am

Reinvention: a Q&A Session with Adam Scott

I recently went to Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago to see Antonia Gurkovska's first solo show with the gallery, after viewing her show I stepped into Kavi's second gallery where a group show of his artists was installed.

Listed under: Chicago, Interview

January 31, 2012, 8:29am

MUST SEE PAINTINGS SHOWS: FEBRUARY

One of the best parts of my job is getting to see the careers of artists that we have worked with take off. Artists such as James Siena, Amy Cutler and Matthew Day Jackson were all featured in New American Paintings long before they reached the international spotlight. This month is not only an extraordinary month for the medium of painting at galleries around the country, it is a particularly strong month for New American Paintings’ alumni. No fewer than twenty artists featured in past, or upcoming editions, have their work on view in February. Two of my favorites, Summer Wheat and Benjamin Degen, will be featured in the soon to be released 2012 Northeast Edition (#98).

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