This Episode 9/10/04:
The Big Dogs Are The Big Dogs for a Reason
Here's the best disclaimer I have: if you don't like what is on this site, let me know and I'll take it down.
The sole purpose of the Friday Night Flash Review is highlight strong work, and publish it immediately before the weekend begins. There are only a couple sources of weekly reviews in Chicago, and I think there should be more. I think pictures help. Personally, as an artist and curator, I focus on experimental work, with special attention to work that cannot sold as a decorative object. For those of us who work in that space, it's a tough business, and I highlight these works to bring attention to those artists and bold curators who feature them.
That said, I am dead tired, so I'm just going to blow through this and say what I liked. Usually there is a long artsy rigmarole between my relationship to the piece, the evening itself, and all the things that affect the way one audience member sees a piece, but tonight....
My pick:
Sterling Ruby at 1R
Yes, the gallery that liked my camera the least won me over. Nirvana started blasting through my MP3 player just as I was walking in.
The room was mostly empty, just this on the walls. It was intense, and with Nirvana playing it was perfect.
I mean, I'm a bad girl with a rough history, and I feel like I'm being... well, marketed to a lot. I picked up a copy of "Bust" magazine, and it's geared for Riot Girrrls and... I hated it. I don't like that magazine, and that name Riot Girrrl is friggin stupid. So when I see something that is really punk, that really appeals to that side of me, that ISN'T TRYING TO BE TOUGH OR HARD, well, it just touches my little anarchist heart.
So anyway, I'm taking pictures and sort of get, well, caught. But Jesus, taking pictures when you're not supposed to is a blast. So I'm trying to explain to the guy there about this site, and doing a lousy job of it. And I ask who the artist is. And he's the dude who's been sitting right there, very quiet, and watching me shoot. He's hot, he's a grown up, he was wearing a black suit and looked like a mix of between a rock star and the coolest art dude ever.
So he wins the pick.
Here's a detail, not a good photo, heh heh ....
but see the rope? It's just a cool extra thing. A tough, edgy, natural thing. Looks like barbed wire, but it's clearly string.
I'm not going to let it rest, here's detail of the fucking string.
one more shot:
You know what it is? The room, the color, the cloth (the walls are covered with cloth), really surround you with this dark, warm, anarchist energy. It didn't feel angry, it felt alive and radical.
Other picks:
Stephanie Brooks at Rhona Hoffman
I had seen her site and her name was familiar. She has these karma tax forms on her site that are really good. Her site is great.
Above is from her site, my picture below is awful. I hate to put it in. The wall was white, if that gives you an idea. They are little tiles. It's all about tiles. squares with round edges. How can you really even be a square if you have round edges? It's like you're pushing your identity as a square with your circle-like qualities. And she pushes it, she is all about that shape. And she's fearless about it.
I don't know how she does stuff like this and keeps it fresh. I think because everyone else is scared to do minimal and abstract stuff any more. They add a lot of bling bling to justify it nowadays. But she doesn't, she puts a 2' rounded pastel blue square on a wall without blinking an eye. I've never met her, but I would guess if you asked her for an honest answer and she knew you were ready for the truth, she would tell you. And the titles are good, things like "A book that changed my life, and another one" and "mailing label abstraction".
Cody Hudson at Bucket Rider
http://www.bucketridergallery.com/chudson1.html
I had just gotten busted with the camera at 1R down the hall, so I was more careful. Then the curator left the space to get ice and I snapped away like crazy. I'm so sorry, truly I am. Don't hurt me.
I couldn't back up far enough, but this is mostly the entire wall, so I don't know, maybe 15' high. And those are skateboards. It's peaceful and organized. Pleasantly non-compulsive.
And then there is some nice Textwork, again lousy photo, but I'm not using a flash.
It says look the other way. Nice. Before the One Line Collective show this exhibit would have made me pass out from the thrill, but not so much now. Still, the writing is good, which is totally rare.
I'm looking at this now, I'm getting a second wind from drinking soda, and I'm out of cigarettes. I think I'm starting to become a smoker and I really don't want to. But I just put out my last one and I realize I'm a human being who is in the state of being out of cigarettes.
I don't know, I keep looking at this and the other pics. I guess my advice to the artist would be to be careful. Be careful about who you are. But I'm big on useless advice like that.
I was at the graduate exhibit for AI students and saw a girl I used to do -------- with. I collapsed on her living room floor and she saw me and didn't recognize me at the show. It's been many years. I was a little hurt that I could drop dead in her apartment without that making a lasting impression on her, but oh well. I wrote on a business card, "Be Good, Sadie" and gave it to her boyfriend to give to her, and left the AI show.
And that's what I have to say about Cody Hudson at Bucket Rider.
Jitish Kallat at Walsh Gallery
http://www.artnet.com/artist/74944/Jitish_Kallat.html
All Kallat's other work looks totally different than this.
Lookie that! Lookie that! They are photographed just like the moon, with documentation of the dates and moon cycle. But it's toasted pita.
Awesome.
Wrapping it up with Pilsen
So the big dog galleries are big dogs for a reason, or at least they were tonight. West Loop Gate put out a fine spread for all Chicago. But seriously, if I didn't have the headphones on and block out the crowd, I'd go apeshit. I closed out the night at Pilsen and Around the Coyote.
Oh, Vespine had Marina Nandapurkar, she had this big book with homemade paper and a projector shooting a movie onto the book, and the images would change and you turned the pages. You felt like turning the pages was changing the images. I think she made her own guest book, it felt good to sign. Vespine is a homey, warm female space, with brownies.
e.k. buckley. Bad photo.
Here are some Pilsen artists in the Chicago Artists Collective space, drinking wine. The guy in the suit was walking down the street with a violin, playing a little. Not to show off, but just because he's an artist. It's what he does. You can clobber me for this site, but this is what we do. What we do for ourselves and those who are within earshot.
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Always,
Kathryn