DePaul University Via Sapientiae

DePaul Art Museum Publications Academic Affairs

2012

Afterimage

Thea Liberty Nichols

Dahlia Tulett-Gross

Louise Lincoln

Jason Foumberg

Lucas Bucholtz

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Recommended Citation Liberty Nichols, Thea; Tulett-Gross, Dahlia; Lincoln, Louise; Foumberg, Jason; Bucholtz, Lucas; DMeo, Mia; Nixon, Erin; Lund, Karsten; Bertrand, Britton; Westin, Monica; Gheith, Jenny; Cochran, Jessica; Ritchie, Abraham; Johnston, Paige K.; Stepter, Anthony; Chodos, Elizabeth; Dwyer, Bryce; Cahill, Zachary; Picard, Caroline; Dluzen, Robin; Kouri, Chad; Isé, Claudine; Satinsky, Abigail; and Farrell, Robyn, "Afterimage" (2012). DePaul Art Museum Publications. 8. https://via.library.depaul.edu/museum-publications/8

This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Academic Affairs at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Art Museum Publications by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Thea Liberty Nichols, Dahlia Tulett-Gross, Louise Lincoln, Jason Foumberg, Lucas Bucholtz, Mia DMeo, Erin Nixon, Karsten Lund, Britton Bertrand, Monica Westin, Jenny Gheith, Jessica Cochran, Abraham Ritchie, Paige K. Johnston, Anthony Stepter, Elizabeth Chodos, Bryce Dwyer, Zachary Cahill, Caroline Picard, Robin Dluzen, Chad Kouri, Claudine Isé, Abigail Satinsky, and Robyn Farrell

This book is available at Via Sapientiae: https://via.library.depaul.edu/museum-publications/8 Afterimage 9.14 / 11.18 2012 DePaul Art Museum Carl Baratta / Jason Foumberg David Ingenthron / Jenny Gheith Carmen Price / Caroline Picard Marc Bell / Lucas Bucholtz Eric Lebofsky / Jessica Cochran Ben Seamons / Joel Kuennen Eric Cain / Mia DiMeo David Leggett / Abraham Ritchie Rebecca Shore / Thea Liberty Nichols Lilli Carré / Erin Nixon Amy Lockhart / Paige K. Johnston Geoffrey Todd Smith / Robin Dluzen Justin Cooper / Karsten Lund Eric May / Anthony Stepter Joe Tallarico / Chad Kouri Rob Doran / Britton Bertran Ellen Nielsen / Elizabeth Chodos Selina Trepp / Claudine Isé Richard Hull / Thea Liberty Nichols Anders Oinonen / Bryce Dwyer Trubble Club / Abigail Satinsky Steven Husby / Monica Westin John Parot / Zachary Cahill Zach Wirsum / Robyn Farrell

Curated by Thea Liberty Nichols & Dahlia Tulett-Gross Contents

foreword 06 acknowledgments 07

Afterimage: Thea Liberty Nichols the exhibition & Dahlia Tulett-Gross 08 12

contributors 35 artists 36

Afterimage September 14- November 18, 2012 Copyright © 2012 DePaul University

DePaul Art Museum events DePaul University 935 West Fullerton Avenue 60614 40 Foreword Acknowledgments

Artists do not work in a vacuum; images. Because their work was by Chicago artists, our autumn We were lucky enough to have Gallery, as well as Dan Nadel of like all of us they partake of and so distinctive and so localized, exhibitions regularly address our own small but dedicated Picturebox Inc., graciously shared are shaped by their own circum- they have come to define in part Chicago themes, and like DePaul clutch of advisors and mentors, their arsenal of tactical advice stances, by the Zeitgeist, and how “Chicago art” is understood, University itself, the museum is all of whom kindly offered their and practical wisdom. And our by the work and ideas of their and subsequent artists, including deeply rooted in the history and insight, expertise, and encourage- colleagues Jessica Cochran and teachers, mentors, and friends. those in Afterimage, inevitably culture of the city. The broad ment at every level of this project. Paige K. Johnston’s enthusiasm But sorting through strands of respond to that legacy. disciplinary reach of the subject is It reminded us of a remark that and flexibility helped expand the influence on an individual or for another point of correspondence: James Yood made early on in the reach of the exhibition to other that matter a group of artists is The Afterimage project has been this is not simply an exhibition planning stages of this exhibition institutions, enriching its depth not a simple process, because conceived and organized by of works on a gallery wall, but about the charms and risks of through the exploration of its there are so many points of Thea Liberty Nichols and Dahlia it incorporates as well musical this city: “It used to be that if related facets. We thank Susannah 6 leverage. Influence frequently Tulett-Gross, independent cura- performance, a comics installation you wanted to learn more about Ribstein and James Connolly for 7 manifests itself through visual tors whose research interests in and reading room, and even an , you could just look their tremendous assistance quotation, selective appropria- Chicago Imagism have provided inventive Chicago-themed culi- him up in the phonebook and with our research. The staff of tion, or shared attitude, but there a grounding for their exploration nary program. give him a ring”—or something DPAM, including Louise Lincoln, can be smaller resonances in of Imagism’s more contemporary to that effect. Laura Fatemi, Greg Harris, Drea the titling of works, for example, approaches and iterations. Nichols We are immensely grateful to Jones, and Alison Kleiman, facili- or palette, or scale. Even those and Tulett-Gross have astutely the artists and critics who have Art Green deserves special tated many of the thorny logistics, who stake out a radically opposi- recognized that comparison of participated in the project, listed recognition for his thoughtful playing host to an ambitious and tional style or approach may be the two not only deepens our on page 35. We also thank our correspondence and indespens- organically expanding set of work understood to do so in reaction understanding of the “Afterimage” sister institutions which have able recommendations, which and programming with grace and to art of the past. And the ways cohort, but also illuminates the hosted related simultaneous satel- introduced us to the work of many good humor. We are certain they subsequent artists diverge from work of the Imagists themselves. lite exhibitions: the Roger Brown outstanding artists. Both Mark would echo our sentiments in their sources is similarly important Through the contemporary Study Collection and the Joan Pascale and Lisa Stone were tire- saving the biggest thanks of all for to examine for evidence of fresh perspective Nichols and Tulett- Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, less cheerleaders who reminded the artists and writers involved eyes, fresh concerns. Gross and the younger artists both at the School of the Art us to trust our eyes and our gut in these shows, to whom we owe provide, the inventive subject Institute of Chicago; and Columbia instincts. John Corbett and Jim a debt of gratitude. This exhibition is about sources matter, humor, and pedagogical College Chicago’s Center for Book Dempsey of Corbett vs. Dempsey and influences, and also about and social models of the 1960s and Paper Arts. The publica- Thea Liberty Nichols generation— both in the sense and ‘70s come into focus more tion has been edited by Susan Dahlia Tulett-Gross of bringing into being and that strongly. Their careful dissection Weidemeyer and Betsy Stepina Guest Curators of age, cohorts, and lifespans. of the subtle and nuanced quali- Zinn, and designed by Dominic Most of the contemporary artists ties of “influence,” particularly in Fortunato. Finally, we salute our whose work forms the core of the the complex and rapidly evolving curators Thea Liberty Nichols show are around the age of thirty, world of art in Chicago, has and Dahlia Tulett-Gross, who and their work manifests a fitting guided not only the content of have articulated and sustained sense of exuberance and experi- the exhibition project, but also an innovative approach to mentation. All of them have some shaped its structure, drawing contemporary art of the region connection to Chicago either by in both emerging artists and and, on a broader level, contrib- residence or correspondence, and emerging critics, creating partner- uted new ways of understanding they share a number of interests ships with other academic art the workings of artistic and subjects, in part a result of venues, and developing programs influence in general. It is a plea- having studied under or been that echo the generosity and sure to see their hard work take otherwise influenced by an earlier enthusiasms of both Imagists and concrete form. generation of Chicago artists, the their followers. so-called Imagists, who defied Louise Lincoln the canons of 1970s abstraction The DePaul Art Museum is, we Director and Pop with their figural distor- hope, a natural home for a project DePaul Art Museum tions and hot palettes derived like this one. Its permanent collec- from comics and other vernacular tion has strong holdings of work expression such as a cheeky sense by David Leggett, who came to change in particle B across any of humor, whether we are in on Chicago specifically “with hopes given distance; in similar ways the joke or the joke is on us. The of meeting the Hairy Who group.” artists distant in age and physical complexity of these works rests The move paid off: “They were location from Chicago Imagism in their inventive narrative and so helpful in my practice . . . I have recognized its influence personalized symbolism, as in still think about them whenever on their work. This includes Carl Baratta’s lyrical landscape I work.”8 Indirect tutelage has everyone from those working at Afterimage Driver, Take Me to the River 3 also been a point of connection. the epicenter, such as Carroll (2010) (p. 12), whose beguiling SAIC alumna Lilli Carré has noted Dunham,11 Eric Fischl,12 Mike combination of directness and that she “never did take a class Kelley,13 and , to nota- Thea Liberty Nichols discontinuity defamiliarizes with any of them . . . but have bles working more on the fringe, the familiar. since been kicking myself for not such as Brian Donnelly (known as & Dahlia Tulett-Gross having done so! I have been a fan KAWS), Frank Gaard,14 Trenton Lastly, several works either appro- of Roger Brown and ’s Doyle Hancock, Ray Johnson,15 priate, pastiche, or allude to the work since coming to Chicago Gary Panter,16 and David Sandlin,17 same art-historical, commercial, ten years ago and learning illustrating the nonhierarchical, pop-cultural, or vernacular about them.”9 rhizomatic flow of influence. In a pun befitting the Imagists, and ultimately redefining the of the pieces in the exhibition are source material referenced by These types of relationships also the term afterimage describes concept. His first refutation of generative—they do not mimic, the Imagists. This rich pedagogical legacy is advance a curious notion of influ- the optical phenomenon Imagism was a 1969 article arguing solely rely on, or act parentheti- exemplified by a selection of ence once removed, wherein that persists in one’s field of that Schulze had organized artists cally to Imagism in any finite way, Imagist work concurrently on view many contemporary artists, and vision even after exposure into artificial “schools”; Adrian and in several cases, Imagism is Although Imagism looms at DePaul Art Museum (DPAM), indeed several in Afterimage to it has ceased. Figuratively, preferred concise formal analysis merely “a point of both reference large in the history of Chicago featuring their permanent collec- specifically, may count Kelley or this phenomenon reflects the outlining a younger generation’s and departure.”6 The works can, tion’s growing number of Imagist Panter as influences without persistence of Imagism decades busy, flat, shallow pictoral space however, be clustered into three art, it continues to go under- works supplemented exclusively by being aware of the relationships after its emergence; by exten- populated by forms abstracted general relationships to Imagism: loans from other local university that unravel their way back to 10 sion, the contemporary artists from nature.4 those that share its formal recognized in the history of art museums. For the most part, the Imagists. who compose Afterimage are a approach; its subject matter; or “greatest hits” were eschewed American art, and it is quite in favor of “deep cuts,” some of Like several of the artists in 8 generation after Imagism, and in The 1972 publication of Schulze’s its source material. Not surpris- 9 ways both visual and ideological pivotal Fantastic Images: Chicago ingly, given the pluralism of the possibly this very sense of which have seldom or never been Afterimage, those listed above they have worked with it, but also Art since 1945 cemented the subject, nothing fits neatly into a seen, such as Roger Brown’s early work outside of Chicago, even if student painting Title unknown they passed through it at some moved through and beyond it. term Imagism into mainstream single category, and several works obscurity and remoteness (Triptych: lightning bolts/rain/ point. Historically, in Chicago discourse and served as the can easily be placed in more than miscellaneous images) (1967). Early specifically, the generation of So what is Imagism and who are first text to elucidate Chicago’s one. Even the diversity of artists that gives it cachet in other works were selected because artists directly following the the Imagists? If you ask three visual art of the postwar period.5 on view in Afterimage does not parts of the country. they functioned most effectively Imagists resisted comparison to Chicago artists you might get four Schulze tentatively expanded his represent an exhaustive list, but as palimpsests, providing fertile them because of a sort of Imagist opinions. Aesthetically, Imagism definition of Imagism to include merely a cross section. These works challenge the illustrations of the Imagists’ own fatigue. Typically, this has not can be understood as a focus on not only the monumental, exis- embedded narratives of their development of style by exposing been the case for artists working the image, typically set in opposi- tential, chiefly figurative work of Works that demonstrate a shared historical referents by expanding slabs of their raw, unmetabolized in other art centers. Although tion to abstraction, but in fact the 1940s and 1950s generations formal approach with Imagism upon their meaning. Eric influences. Because of this, these Imagism looms large in the history it is a more complex fusion of but also the graphic, text-infused, evoke its visual vocabulary, Lebofsky’s Time Machine (p. 21), works lay a firm contextual foun- of Chicago art, it continues representation and nonobjectivity. narrative work of the Hairy Who, including pieces that assimilate with its madcap imagery drawn dation for Afterimage; they also to go underrecognized in the Philosophically, it foregrounds a self-titled series of exhibitions the Imagists’ color palette, level from a painting by his grand- allow us to re-examine the historic history of American art, and it is “the authenticity of personal held at the of finish, and high volume of mother, also includes a partial work through the lens of the quite possibly this very sense of vision and the intensity with which (HPAC) in 1966, 1967, and 1968 forms—typically arranged indexi- representation of Esso-LSD, a contemporary work. For example, obscurity and remoteness that it (is) articulated,” summarizing featuring artists James Falconer, cally or bilaterally—within a single notorious work by the Imagist Steven Husby’s potent painting gives it cachet in other parts of the thrust of decades of art Art Green, , picture plane. Often these works contemporary Öyvind Fahlström. Untitled (2011) inspires a new the country. Only recently has production in Chicago.1 , , and can be read, either through the read of Roger Brown’s patterned Imagism become a viable way of Karl Wirsum. incorporation of actual words or cloud formations as the geometric thinking about the generation of The term was first used in a short strings of text, or through The artists whose work is exhib- abstraction they truly are. artists represented in Afterimage. 1963 column by Franz Schulze, As the term circulated it mutated, imagery that functions as a sort of ited in Afterimage have also As more time passes, these art critic for the Chicago Daily at times expanding to include rebus. Yet these artists maintain all either studied with or been artists are less likely to share News.2 Initially, Schulze applied other artists who exhibited at their autonomy from Imagism by influenced by the Imagists and Tracing influence is slippery due the distancing or negative senti- it to a generation of his peers, HPAC, such as Roger Brown, Ed employing additional strategies or were inclined to participate in to its fungibility and liminality. It ments of being associated with colleagues, and fellow School of Paschke, , and addressing other formal concerns, this exhibition because of these pops up in unexpected places— Imagism; many, in fact, espouse the (SAIC) Barbara Rossi. Eventually, it also as in Selina Trepp’s playful experi- relationships. Local art schools, such as Rob Doran’s former band the opposite. graduates, including the artists contracted, more in accordance mentation with media and deep remarkable for their number Pit er Pat taking its name from text Cosmo Campoli, , with Adrian’s reluctant usage and space in her photograph and quality, have always been a found in one of Nutt’s paintings— Theodore Halkin, , and eventual redefinition. It is now The Painter (2011) (p. 32). hotbed of meaningful teacher- H. C. Westermann, among others, generally used to refer solely to and its reach extends well beyond The majority of Imagists have student relationships, for the what has fermented among the stuck around town, despite whom he had also subsequently the 1960s generation of artists. Some works share subject matter Imagists as well as the contem- artists represented in Afterimage. frequent and chronic complaints dubbed the “Monster Roster.”3 with the Imagists. Despite the porary artists in Afterimage.7 about talent drain to either While Imagism is a term that has variation of intent within Imagist The contemporary artists brought Many of the artists featured in the The quantum-mechanics theory coast,18 and since the very served many masters, its other and Afterimage artists’ work, together in Afterimage do not show have cultivated relationships of “spooky action at a distance” term itself is inculcated by its chief proponent was writer they both address topics such as necessarily make work that is with the Imagists through direct asserts that particle A can inex- physical location, it has become and curator Dennis Adrian, who gender and sexuality or nostalgia iterative of Imagism; in fact, most classroom instruction, epitomized plicably be linked to and affect synonymous with “provincialism.” employed the term while resisting and obsolesence, or modes of ENDNOTES Westermann (though I do admire Imagism’s magnetic pull has networks, of self-published and the sentiment of the Imagists). BIBLIOGRAPHY Adrian, Dennis. “Aspects of Form Among 1Cozzolino, Art in Chicago, 13. Westermann’s parodies of folksy drawn young artists to the city, artist-made books and ephemera. But it is important to remember Americana) during my undergraduate Some Chicago Artists.” Art Scene 2, no. 7 2Schulze, “The Image and the Dream: as the examples of Leggett and In addition, programming accom- that, unlike the Imagists—whose student years when I was primarily a (April 1969): 10–15. Identities of Postwar Chicago Art,” 3. Lebofsky, among others, suggest. panying Afterimage highlights self-chosen or outwardly imposed painter. The problematic issues raised by Schulze has acknowledged similar usage their work relative to formal composition In contrast to this influx, there has the pluralistic disciplines shared critical mass was a mixed Cozzolino, Robert. Art in Chicago: of the term by curator and and moral readings continues to interest also been a dispersal. Thanks in by both generations: music by blessing—these contemporary Resisting Regionalism, Transforming gallerist Alan Frumkin around the same me to this day, however, and still informs part to this movement to and fro, the bands Avagami, Spectralina, artists have all made their impact Modernism. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania time; “As far as ‘Imagism’ is concerned, Academy of the Fine Arts, 2007. my work.” Kelley, Minor Histories, 167. Imagism has been disseminated and artist Richard Hull and jazz chiefly as individuals. The exhibi- Selz had used the term ‘new images’; 14“I met Jim [Nutt] a couple times and I by contemporary artists to cities saxophonist and composer Ken tion, and truly this catalogue itself, Frumkin spoke of the ‘the image’; we Kelley, Mike. Minor Histories—Statements, were all of us talking about images in don’t know if I met anyone else from that such as Los Angeles (John Parot) Vandermark; the social art prac- reflects the diligent attention Conversations, Proposals. Cambridge, the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.” (Schulze, “The bunch. I remember going to that show or Boston (David Ingenthron). New tice of Chef Eric May’s E-Dogz paid to each maker as a discrete MA: MIT Press, 2004. Legacy of Imagism,” 30). at the Hyde Park Art Center, and they had made a little comic – I have a copy artists’ relationships to Imagism Mobile Culinary Community individual, and the following 3Ibid 30. Kirshner, Judith Russi. Surfaces: Two of it someplace – and that made a big are coming to light daily, and it 4 Center food truck; and Trubble entries, written by dozens of art Adrian, “Aspects of Form Among Some Decades of Painting in Chicago. Chicago: impression on me: to have a comic made is important to recognize such Club’s monumental “jam comic” critics, writers, curators, artists, Chicago Artists,” 10-15. Terra Museum of American Art, 1987. by the artist in the show as the catalog. I examples as they emerge because installation (p. 33). All of these and enthusiasts, demonstrate this 5 See also Art in Chicago, 1945-1995; for don’t know. I like Jim’s work the best of they illustrate a central tenet of performances and projects share fierce independence. Prince, Sue Ann, ed. The Old Guard and Chicago art prior to the World Wars, see that gang. I like [Karl] Wirsum too, but I Afterimage: work that does not in the Imagists’ manipulation of the Avant-Garde: Modernism in Chicago The Old Guard and the Avant-Garde; for like Jim.” BOMB GLOBAL: Frank Gaard, assert an overt visual resonance popular culture as a vehicle for 1910-1940. Chicago: art from the turn of the century by Jonathan Thomas, Mar 12, 2012, with Imagism may nevertheless the transmition of radical work Chicago Press, 1990. to the mid 1970s see Art in Chicago: http://bombsite.com/issues/1000/ Resisting Regionalism, Transforming be influenced by it, just as the and ideas. articles/6461. Modernism. Ribstein, Susannah. “Nomination for 15In several of Johnson’s drawings Imagist Art Green has noted: “Jim 6 1926 N. Halsted Street to Be Listed in Thorson and Yood, “Who Follows,” 153. and , the artist pays tangible Nutt’s work doesn’t really remind Because Imagism “too overtly 7 the National Register of Historic Places.” Some Imagists include , homage to the Imagists by appropriating me very much of Sienese painting, questioned dominant aesthetic Master’s thesis, School of the Art Kathleen Blacksheer, Whitney Halsted, elements from Karl Wirsum’s drawing 19 20 an influence he has cited.” standards of the time,” it Institute of Chicago, 2010. and Ray Yoshida, among others. The for the back cover of The Portable Hairy has languished in a sort of meaningful relationships that these Who!, the exhibition comic book for the So what, beyond the visual, is limbo—thrust off the timeline, Sandlin, David. “Learning from the artists had with several of their first Hairy Who show at the Hyde Park Art the central connection between out of the canon, with the term Master.” In The Education of a Comics instructors and mentors undoubtedly Center in 1966. Artist: Visual Narrative in Cartoons, led many of them to go on to teach as 16 Imagism and contemporary art? itself rendered meaningless “In the 70s, the few times I was in New edited by Graphic Novels, and Beyond, well; Art Green, now professor emeritus, York, I would go to Galery Certainly its sustained relevance through erratic application and Michael Dooley and Steven Heller, 95–97. held his post at University of Waterloo, and ask to look at Karl Wirsum and Jim 10 is due in part to the fact that the enigmatic definition. But by rees- New York: Allworth Press, 2005. 11 Ontario, since 1977. Ed Paschke was an Nutt’s work. There was a treasure trove work still looks as electric today tablishing the previously obscure instructor at of paintings on plex[iglas], polychromes Schimmel, Paul. “California Pluralism and as it did in its heyday almost fifty relationship between Imagism from 1978 to 2004. Christina Ramberg wood sculpture, insane marionettes and the Birth of the Postmodern Movement.” years ago. But it is also the way and contemporary art, Imagism’s taught briefly at Roosevelt University, ink drawings in her back room. Killer In that the Imagists’ art practice, strong connection to and influ- Under the Big Black Sun: California Art, and then at SAIC from 1974 to 1995. As stuff. When I saw [Wirsum’s] album cover edited by Lisa Gabrielle Mark 1974–1981, faculty at SAIC, Phil Hanson (since 1973), for Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in a record which espoused many avant-garde ence over the dominant idiom and Paul Schimmel, 16–21. Los Angeles: Gladys Nilsson and Jim Nutt (both since shop in about 19seventysomething my big ideologies and pluralistic disci- of contemporary art making Museum of Contemporary Art, 2011. 1990), Barbara Rossi (since 1971), and toe jumped up in my boot. It was about plines, very strongly resembles is revealed. Karl Wirsum (since 1972) have impacted the greatest piece of art I had ever Schulze, Franz. “The Image and the what has come to be understood generations of students there. seen.” “Karl Wirsum,” Gary Panter blog, Dream: Identities of Postwar Chicago 8 as postmodernism. These prac- This prescient perspective is “Artist of the week: David September 9, 2010, http://garypanter. Art,” , tices resonate equally as much as rebooting the conversation Chicago Daily News: Panorama Leggett,” LVL3 Gallery blog, com/site/blog?p=231. July 6, 1963, 36–40. the visual affinities to Imagism for surrounding Imagism for the December 7, 2010, http://lvl3. 17“Of course I was interested in Warhol, tumblr.com/post/2135570594/ Rivers, Oldenburg, Rosenquist; basi- many of the contemporary artists twenty-first century, infusing it ———. “The Legacy of Imagism: On the artist-of-the-week-david-leggett. cally New York Pop. But something was in Afterimage, if not more so. with new energy and talent. While Occasion of the Exhibit Art in Chicago, 9 Lilli Carré, e-mail message to author, missing. It was too cold. Then I found the Imagism functions as a sort of 1945–1995.” New Art Examiner 24, no. 8 June 2008 Hairy Who…their stuff made me feel like (May 1997): 27–32, 38. In conjunction with DPAM’s catalyst for much of the work in 10These institutions include Elmhurst I was on the right track. To me, here was presentation of Afterimage, Afterimage, inspiring a metaphor- College’s A. C. Buehler Library, University art about America that wasn’t trying to ———. “A Tale of Two Cities in Art.” three related exhibitions at ical “chemical reaction” in the of Chicago’s , hard to be cool and hip. It was quirky, Chicago Daily News, March 8, 1969, 6. other Chicago venues pay contemporary artists on view, it Northwestern University’s Block subversive, and smart-ass – not afraid to Museum of Art, and SAIC’s Roger get down and dirty with popular culture. special attention to the shared is the contemporary artists them- Thorson, Alice, and James Yood. “Who Brown Study Collection. This art seemed to be made by fans, aspects of these ideological selves who are the catalysis—the Follows the Hairy Who?” [March 1985]. In 11 participants – it reminded me of what approaches. SAIC’s Roger Brown ingredient that not only speeds The Essential New Art Examiner, edited “I’ve come to think that Jim Nutt is punk rock was doing at about this time, by Terri Griffith, Kathryn Born, and Janet actually a central figure in my personal Study Collection hosts artist- the processes up but also renders another form of art that was engaged Koplos, 147–54. DeKalb, IL: Northern artistic cosmology because I don’t curated microexhibitions that it more stable in its aftermath. and populist.” Sandlin, “Learning from Illinois University Press, 2011. think he’s involved with critique as we draw connections between the now talk about it in anyway at all and the Master,” 95-96. 18Although Nutt, Nilsson, and Wirsum contemporary artists and the More importantly, catalysis is not it’s really pretty much old-fashioned Imagists’ collecting, curating, exhausted after one go around; self-expression done by a very eccen- all spent periods of time on the West and modes of display; Columbia it can participate in multiple tric man.” Carroll Dunham, “Case Coast in the 1970s, Art Green is the Studies of Selected Works on View: primary exception. Green has lived and College Chicago’s Center for chemical transformations. The Jim Nutt” (lecture, Art Institute of taught in Canada since the early 1970s, Book and Paper Arts underscores contemporary artists’ sensitivity Chicago, October 16, 2009), http:// and his student Anders Onionen is just the endurance of interdisci- to and comprehension of Imagism www.artic.edu/aic/resources/ one example of a slew of Canadian plinary modes of expression and allows them to utilize it as both a resource/950?search_id=1&index=0. artists (including Marc Bell and Amy collaborative art-making strate- tool in their artwork and a plat- 12“The underbelly, carnie world of Ed Lockhart) who also draw inspiration gies between generations; and form for their art practice. As they Paschke and the hilarious sexual vulgarity from the Imagists. 19 SAIC’s Joan Flasch Artists’ Book continue to develop and execute of Jim Nutt were revelatory experiences Art Green, e-mail message to author, Collection highlights creation, their own unique aesthetic, they for me.” http://www.janeeckertfineart. July 27, 2010. com/portfolio/eric-fischl/. 20 production, and distribution, are of course reluctant to be Kelley, Minor Histories, 168. 13“I was most interested in the works frequently through independent grouped or labeled (again echoing of Nutt, Saul, and to a lesser extent, Carl Baratta Marc Bell

12 13

Driver, Take Me To The River 3, 2010 | Watercolor, gouache and ink on paper | 18 in x 25.5 in | Courtesy of the artist R, 2011 | Acrylic ink, paper, and found objects on board | 12 in x 9 in x 3.5 in | Courtesy of the artist and Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York

A river snakes through most, if brood of duck decoys from Roger even, in the famed folk artist the ancients. In this way, Baratta Marc Bell first embraced the work the urban landscape and appropriated content, bestowing Bell’s comic world through the not all, of Carl Baratta’s landscape Brown’s collection, and beneath a Rufus Porter’s 1825 techniques patchworks many referents—from of the after a its detritus, and non-Western on it further psychic relevance as medium of paint. Through Bell’s paintings. Sometimes that river Mughal sky. The eye easily mean- manual for self-trained artists. arcane to mass-media ephemera— decade of making fine art and visual cultures. personal symbols. employment of a symmetrical is bloody or is on fire; some- ders through Baratta’s landscapes. Porter prescribed tracing as a into an alchemical pastiche that drawing comics for independent composition and axial bands of times a finger beckons from the More than that, they are them- way to order imagery, a technique solidifies into a memory painting print media. In 2003 he was Bell is not afraid to reference his Recently, Bell has consciously unmodulated colors, the sculpted murky water; sometimes ducks selves an experiential walkabout Baratta uses to correspond with of his artistic inheritance. invited to show his mixed-media fine art in his comics, and much of adopted Yoshida’s manner of Styrofoam cup achieves gravitas— rest there. A river is a road to an through off-the-grid folklores and history. For example, the curve constructions in The Ganzfeld his current practice seems predi- “grid-like composition,” arranging the seemingly banal symbol of undiscovered country, an invita- art-historical fantasies. of a horse’s rump in a Gericault -Jason Foumberg (Unbound) exhibition at Adam cated on his comic art. In a nod his figures and doodles in all-over consumption becomes an object tion to a quest. This is a place drama mirrors the lumpy coastline Baumgold Gallery in New York. to the wordplay employed by the drawings as a means of reintro- of meditation. ripe with visions. It is anywhere Baratta establishes the same in a Nick Engelbert landscape, Through his ongoing relationship Imagists, he playfully differentiates ducing the comic strip form to but here. Driver, Take Me to the relationship to his influences that making it a fruitful shape for a with this gallery, Bell was exposed his contemporary works from his his “ahtwerks.” In mixed-media -Lucas Bucholtz River 3 commands an escape to the Chicago Imagists did, lifting new painting. to work by Roger Brown, Jim comics by referring to them as constructions such as R, the influ- this wilderness. Armed with a the pure authenticity of folk Nutt, Christina Ramberg, Joseph “fine ahtwerks.” Over the last few ences of Brown and Art Green witch’s brew of freak, fringe, and art, without apparent irony, as a Making his own egg tempera paint Yoakum, and Ray Yoshida. Bell’s years, Bell has taken cues from are also clear. This piece, which folk subcultures, Baratta wanders collaboration with his adopted is an important aspect of the affinity for the Imagists may stem Brown, Art Green, and Yoshida incorporates elements taken from through ’s fertile ancestors. Imitation or cannibal- artist’s practice, adding dimen- from a shared passion for the toys about how to amplify the graphic earlier collages, also references, lobes and rivers, over André ization of one’s influences is not sion to his self-made approach and printed mass art of his youth, and formal qualities of his self- if abstractly, various aspects of Derain’s ripe red earth, past the without precedent, appearing, and further connecting him with Eric Cain Lilli Carré

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Bleedin’ Heart, 2011 | Hand-drawn animation, 1:15 minutes | Courtesy of the artist

Pujol’s First Triumph, 2011 | Acrylic on PVC board | 72 in x 48 in x 48 in | Courtesy of the artist

The celebration of the spectacle Moulin Rouge’s monumental influences from his youth, Like dreams, personal fantasies represented in a manner that An experimental dive into new materials and erasure of and the demand for the grotesque elephant. The fascination with including Warner Brothers cull images that persist in one’s adds a disarming dimension to abstraction, Bleedin’ Heart offers a figurative central character align with the strange stage of the sideshow act reflects the cartoons and Mad magazines. memory; even long after expo- the work of her predecessors. a suggestion of the quickening portrays a more suspended, our contemporary moment in Eric social and political ridiculousness Channeling aesthetics akin to the sure, they are accumulated by The flashes of visual influ- of one’s heartbeat—through enigmatic statement. Through the Cain’s Pujol’s First Triumph. French of our world, in which illusion Chicago Imagists, Cain developed the subconscious. Lilli Carré’s ence that Carré’s work shares pulsing sound and flashing progression of Carré’s work, the flatulist Joseph Pujol—or “Le and delusion play out in a state his illustrative style during the animations have absorbed the with the Imagists are rooted in images—by a lover. Carré makes enduring influence of the Imagists Pétomane” (The Farting Maniac) of cultural change. The historical twenty years he worked as a fantasy-based practices of the underground comics, and in folk prominent her usage of low-art prevails, as her otherworldly as he was also known—was a parallels and colorful dissent that tattoo artist. Abstracted, comic- Chicago Imagists, while unfolding and . Her narratives materials—permanent markers fantasies begin to bleed into a popular stage act at the Moulin Cain draws through metaphor style imagery meets abjection in into sensitive existential tableaus. possess a folkloric fixation on and index cards—paying homage world of abstraction. Rouge in Paris during the final and satirical imagery are open for Cain’s art, reflecting his continued In Carré’s art, the figurative style love, death, myth, and bodily to the vernacular artists that years of the nineteenth century. discussion within Pujol’s curiously infatuation with poking fun at the of the Imagists persists, though transformation. inspire her. In Bleedin’ Heart, -Erin Nixon Pieced together from two- empty speech bubble. windbag establishments of past her subjects are intimately Carré’s experimentation with dimensional parts, Cain’s sculpture and present. deconstructs this anecdote, In this and other self-described leaving the flattened cues of a “screwball history paintings,” -Mia DMeo moustache, a bow tie, and the Cain references pop-cultural Justin Cooper Rob Doran

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Bruno Antony, 2010 | Clay, ink, enamel, acrylic and carborundum Untitled (ties), 2010 | Pigment print | 45 in x 30 in grit on paper | 30 in x 22 in | Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of moniquemeloche Gallery, Chicago

Justin Cooper’s relationship with recognizable. Cooper also takes stands at ease with his hands Rob Doran was introduced to the artists, including Billy Al Bengston, Bruno Antony are complemented that is simultaneously flat and the Chicago Imagists is not one familiar elements, edging into the behind his back, as if nothing Chicago Imagists at age nineteen Ken Price, and Peter Saul, who by an underlying sense of the multi-dimensional. In this portrait of direct influence. He attended realm of kitsch, and shows them is out of the ordinary. Even the through his friend’s father, the became incredibly influential on sinister: Westermann’s antiwar of a fictional character, we see the School of the Art Institute to us in a weirder, funnier light. He title of the photograph denies artist Patrick Rodriguez. Rodriguez his practice. stance and Doran’s portrait of an antagonist who is dangerous of Chicago, as did many of the picks up on oddities and amplifies any funny business, pointing to had been a fellow student at the psychotic murderer-for-hire but also adventurous, thrifty yet Imagists roughly forty years ingrained contradictions. While its subject impassively without the School of the Art Institute of Doran’s work is also firmly rooted in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 movie ultimately sad. Nevertheless, the earlier, but his appreciation for his artworks are precisely realized, commenting on why the man’s Chicago with Karl Wirsum, Roger in the visual style of another Strangers on a Train. protagonist in this scenario—the these artists only came much Cooper pulls at the loose ends of closet has swallowed his head. In Brown, and , and Chicago artist and influencer of artist—assures us that the future later. If Cooper has an affinity normal life until everything seems the quiet aftermath of a turbulent their works—as well as those the Imagists, H. C. Westermann. Bruno Antony is an amalgam of Imagism will never dissipate. with the Imagists, then, it is at risk of unraveling. encounter with everyday objects, by other Imagists—filled the The affinities evident in both of physical materials (clay, ink, more natural than cultivated. The the artist shows our world to be Rodriguez home. Immediately Westermann’s lithographic enamel, acrylic, and carbo- -Britton Bertran Imagists readily borrowed from In Cooper’s photograph Untitled a little unhinged but somehow no struck by the work, Doran soon prints (particularly his See rundum) whose parts come popular culture, assimilating it (Ties), a man’s head is wrapped less pleasant for it. discovered a succession of other America First series) and Doran’s together to create a complexity into their work so that it came entirely in boisterous neckties, out looking strange and not quite yet his demeanor is relaxed: he -Karsten Lund Richard Hull Steven Husby

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Adolescence, 2011 | Oil on linen | 36 in x 30 in | Collection of Brian Herbstritt Untitled, 2011 | Acrylic on canvas | 48 in x 48 in | Courtesy of the artist

Despite many points of contact of each canvas; in the case of now multiplying exponentially Much has been made about Hyper-controlled, systematic, and in a sequence of paintings. Much abstraction and Post-Minimalism. Husby’s work has much in with the Imagists—as artists, Adolescence, the artist chose a and taking on more recogniz- the prominence of the figure recursive, Steven Husby’s practice of his work can be divided into Critics have been strongly drawn common with Imagism. Untitled instructors, friends, and purveyors word from a W. H. Auden poem ably human postures and poses. in Chicago art, specifically in does not immediately evoke or visually similar groups of paintings, to his paintings’ impersonality, is in obvious dialogue with Roger of shared reference materials as the title. This development may be connection to the Imagists, but directly recall Imagism’s most in which individual pieces “tweak” which suggests a lack of artistic Brown’s scalloped backgrounds and similar influences—Richard liminally related to a course he here we find Hull chasing down a recognizable tropes. A native of the formula of the previous ones. ego and obvious persistence and in gradients of tone and hue. But Hull has always forged a distinct Hull’s teardrop forms contain co-teaches with James Nutt at new mode of representation that South Dakota, Husby attended In his new work, however, Husby is careful attention in a system of more generally, Husby’s use of name for himself. This may be concentric abstractions slowly the School of the Art Institute not only evolves his previous visual Minnesota State University and somewhat abandoning the rigidity art making that seems deeply unmodulated colors, in the form due, in part, to his sensitivity to doubled, giving way to bow-tie of Chicago entitled “Pictorial vocabularies but also blends figu- the School of the Art Institute of of his earlier recursiveness tedious in practice. In fact, of everyday or vernacular hues, other realms of experience and or hourglass shapes. Filled in, Spaces.” Adolescence exhibits ration with painterly abstraction. Chicago, where he began impro- many of his paintings rely on gut semiotics, and repetition; the his openness to collaboration. rather than around, these shapes a playful push and pull between This twist, so typically Hull, proves vising with geometric abstraction, Untitled exemplifies the qualities instincts and trust in how their straightfowardness of his facture; Paintings in his current series feature his signature crazy-quilt its constituent parts and whole, that the only constant within his near-monochromes, and value that continue to attract critical changing incarnations “feel” rather and what he calls his “atavistic” are all named after poems—a patterning and hot and cold color endlessly telescoping the viewer’s seasoned practice is change. gradation. He also began his interest; formally geometric, than “work,” adding a subtle tendency all align him with the perennial source of inspira- palette. In this current body of attention into, and then around, now-characteristic rule-based rhythmic, and immaculately human element to the “ideology Imagists and larger trends in tion for Hull—with the poet’s work, Hull’s forms have morphed the composition. -Thea Liberty Nichols serial painting procedure, adding constructed, the painting invokes of formalism.” . initials inscribed on the back once again, with looping shapes and subtracting elements or digital logics, labor, and the stretching particular proportions intellectual projects of both -Monica Westin David Ingenthron Eric Lebofsky

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Natural Love, 2007 | Acrylic and gouache on gesso board | 12 in x 12 in | Col- lection of Letitia Noel Time Machine (Hinda 1), 2011 | Acrylic on canvas | 24.5 in x 24.5 in | Courtesy of the artist

The months from November this landscape, and intermingling besides a sad, cartoonish black freedom and sense of risk taking At first glance, one might think this painting wearily bridge fantasy surface. Multiple fragmented His use of the fragmented figure through February, and sometimes throughout is a sense that new face and what appears to be a leg in Ingenthron’s practice. Natural Eric Lebofsky’s Time Machine is a and reality. While it is fun to bodies are bisected along three recalls the work of Roger Brown, March, are icy, cold, and gray in formal relationships and discov- with swappable limbs. Attachments Love and Attachment Threads painted remix based on spirited speculate that Bilenker saw one edges of the painting, placing Philip Hanson, Jim Nutt, and Chicago. Since leaving the house eries can and do appear. Thread has an extended are reminders that at one point printed ephemera from False of the very few Imagist exhibitions parts of his grandmother’s Christina Ramberg. These floating can take a herculean effort, this appendage that upon exchange Chicago influenced Ingenthron’s Image (one of the early Hairy Who in New York during the 1970s, it characters effectively beyond fragments suggest a discursive, time offers an annual, forced In 2002 Ingenthron accepted can alter its image, if only so work, whether through the exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art is more likely that this irreverent view. Lebofsky also employs situational conundrum of events— hibernation. David Ingenthron’s a position as senior preparator slightly, by morphing the end of its psychological effect of winter, H. Center) or a Ray Yoshida comic painting was fueled by her own what Imagist critic Dennis Adrian a comic strip condensed and first winter in Chicago had a at the University of Chicago’s leg into another form. The artist’s C. Westermann, or the prevalent book. It is, however, based on anxieties, energy, and humor. referred to as a “truncation” flattened. In the center of the profound effect on him and his Smart Museum, the same year focus on the figure, emphasis on sense of enigmatic forms, humor, an untitled painting created by technique internally on the picture picture, the narrative becomes practice, which took substantial that the H. C. Westermann Study distortion, and use of garish color high-pitched color, and distortion Lebofsky’s grandmother Hinda With Time Machine, Lebofsky plane itself, where legs and halved rhetorical. Above a small control form in his painting Natural Love. Collection was founded through also bring to mind the work of the that pervades the work of the Bilenker in the late 1970s. Bilenker, appropriated the essential heads meet artificial edges, often panel, Lebofsky rendered the The artist’s open experimenta- gifts from the artist’s wife and Hairy Who, an affiliation of artists Hairy Who. who lived in Elizabeth, New elements of his grandmother’s created by Lebofsky’s ambiguous, word LSD in plain red. Is this tion and freely associated shapes estate. Westermann’s influence working in Chicago who exhibited Jersey, enrolled in a class at Keene picture—the Spiderman head and rendered shapes. gently subversive, albeit adoles- are the backbone of the work. on Ingenthron’s work can been together at the Hyde Park Art -Jenny Gheith College, where she made her first the figure fragments—giving her cent, gesture—punchy, nostalgic, Flowing throughout its boldly seen in Attachments Thread, an Center in the late 1960s. painting. The work is an unre- soupy composition a particu- While Lebofsky’s painting is based and certainly Pop—Lebofsky’s patterned surface, saturated odd sculpture made of plaster and solved, exploratory cacophony larly Imagist sense of symmetry. on his grandmother’s, many of the reminder to us all that he is at hues blend and bleed, imbuing sawdust that comes with inter- Leaving home can offer a rare of red Spiderman heads, zigzags, Amplifying Bilenker’s colors into explicit Imagist influences in it the helm? it with a strong sense of move- changeable parts. Painted a pale opportunity to reinvent, reestab- and floating limbs that alternately bright blues, pinks, and greens, he (and in his work in general) may be ment. There are vague allusions to Pepto-Bismol pink, the figure is lish, and perhaps redefine oneself, belong to a businessman and a gave the background fluffy, flat the result of his professional and -Jessica Cochran trees, figures, phalluses, and sky in missing any identifiable armatures and there is an undeniable superhero. Set on a flat expanse clouds that add a shallow, finite educational experiences in the of muted pink, the contents of sense of depth to the complex shadow of Imagist predecessors. David Leggett Amy Lockhart

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The Collagist, 2009 | Paper puppet and cut out animation, 2:00 minutes | Courtesy of the artist

Summer of Dreams and Magic, 2010 | Acrylic, watercolor and ink on paper | 30 in x 22 in | Courtesy of the artist

David Leggett’s work looks artists, art movements, and ideas Summer of Dreams and Magic of felt and glitter knowingly Canadian artist and filmmaker Amy The Collagist is a short video the , igniting and quickly and unsightly. Lockhart’s earlier and feels just as complete and are referenced as Leggett asserts reflects many of Leggett’s upend the traditional percep- Lockhart has been making idio- animation that Lockhart created engulfing it. With a splash of the animations display a cool distance confusing as life in America. his position as consistent themes. Leggett pays tions of what makes “high” art. A syncratic, handmade animations in 2009 in collaboration with coffee, the fire is extinguished, from their subject matter, but Fragments of text float an artist. Leggett is not shy or homage to the notable Chicago disembodied brain hovers in the for over a decade. Even as tech- the artist Marc Bell. As the video leaving the collage a wet and The Collagist is decidedly self- like snatches of overheard squeamish about presenting the artist , referencing picture, perhaps indicating the nological advances in computer opens, the viewer sees a tightly jumbled mess. The video ends as reflexive. When the video ends, conversation or arguments. body in his art, influenced as his Vivian Girls via the figure mind-body divide while adding to software have made it possible framed shot of two paper puppet the hands wipe it all away to reveal the viewer is left to ponder the Racial and homophobic epithets he is by the Chicago Imagists in the lower-left corner. The the strangeness of the scene, as to animate with little recourse hands, themselves at work with the blank page once again. slippage between permanence sometimes appear in Leggett’s and Hairy Who artists. These phrase “Folk ART” conjures the a coke-sniffing alien (a Scarface to physical material, Lockhart paper and scissors. Over the and ephemerality, further twisted work, ugly attitudes that are often tensions—racial, sexual, bodily, sometimes contentious divisions reference?) looks on. Yes, this is has continued to work with course of the video’s two minutes, The piece was drawn directly from by Lockhart’s decision to install buried just below the surface, and andartistic—all regularly appear between artists; those who work America understood. frame-by-frame photographic the hands sketch and arrange Bell’s collage process—Lockhart the video alongside the original Leggett is not afraid to expose in the artist’s work, just as we without training, and those who techniques. Using hand-painted drawings, clippings, and text literally traced his hands for the drawings and puppets from them as a reflection of his experi- deal with them every day. have it, those who prefer realism, -Abraham Ritchie props, cut-outs, and replacement across a white page. Grasping a paper puppets and re-created the animation. ences as an African American and those who prefer abstrac- and drawn animation, Lockhart cup of coffee, the protagonist two-dimensional versions of his man. Internecine conflicts between tion. Likewise, the “low” materials produces works with a cartoon- pauses, as if to reflect on how the tools. Yet the work transcends -Paige K. Johnston like style, offbeat sense of humor, larger work has come together. A the particularities of Bell’s and youthful, frenetic energy. long puff of smoke from a ciga- practice. The mise en abyme Her work recalls the irreverence rette takes over the screen as the created by Lockhart suggests of Imagists James Nutt, Christina collage flashes and vibrates below. a desire to reveal something of Ramberg, and Karl Wirsum. Suddenly, the clouds of gray the artistic process—systematic smoke drop orange sparks across and unpredictable, harmonious Eric May / E-Dogz Mobile Ellen Nielsen Community Culinary Center

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Eat in the Streets, 2012 | Flash paint on paper | 48 in x 36 in | Spectacle Box, 2007 | Sequins, pins, wood, glass, velvet | 18 in x 17.5 in x 2.5 in | Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist

Like the Imagists, Eric May uses inspiration from unique food just a culinary amalgamation, the brand of art making rooted in The Chicago Imagists created The Imagists made art that was including Ellen Nielsen. Like the sequins that are organized by size the unique character of Chicago cultures in and around Chicago. combination of these two South Chicago, May is no doubt aware work that challenged the domi- charged with the energy and Imagists, Nielsen creates a coun- on top of a bed of black velvet. as fertile ground for cultivating Side classics connects the Great of this recipe. But like any self- nant narrative of art history from politics of the time—irreverent ternarrative to modernism. Her It is a taxonomy of tackiness, an an expanded definition of artistic May’s ongoing series of deli signs Migration, which brought the respecting cook, he cultivates the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. and loaded with the possibilities work celebrates ornament, the ordering system for playfulness. practice. On October 8, 2011, demonstrates his sincere approach Mississippi Delta–style tamale relationships and ingredients that More personal and surreal than of a radical generation. personal, the feminine, and the Like much of her work, Spectacle he hosted the first International to the phenomenological to Chicago; the creative seasoning make each project he presents Pop Art, Imagism embraced the tacky, while maintaining a deep Box is a tactile exploration that Hot Dog Forum outside Roots exploration of food and culture. methods that turned thin slices to the public uniquely his own. figure and representation in ways Years later this same energy, appreciation for whimsy and elevates traditionally cheap and Culture, the gallery he owns His appropriation of the graphic of beef into tender delicacies that modernism eschewed. The enthusiasm for the abject, and the absurd. materials through manipulation and operates. A line of artists, style of deli signs for painted during lean times; and the impor- -Anthony Stepter paintings and drawings produced desire to reorient the dominant and recontextualization. students, families and couples, phrases such as “Food Oasis” and tance of Chicago as a production by this group of artists empha- narrative and creative strategies In Spectacle Box, Nielsen created neighbors, and curious passersby “Mongrel Cuisine” subtly reminds center for various Mexican sized whimsy and absurdity, the of the time appeared in the work a grid out of large and small, -Elizabeth Chodos queued up to sample the various viewers of our deep political and food products. grotesque and the lowbrow. of a new generation of artists, variously colored and shaped regional hot dogs being prepared cultural associations with food. by the crew inside the E-Dogz May is clearly influenced by Mobile Community Culinary For this catalogue, May submitted Chicago’s traditions, incorporating Center, May’s food truck. E-Dogz a new recipe, combining a chili and these directly into the medium of has been the site of several tamale “Mother-in-Law” with an his practice. If the Imagists formu- recent projects that drew Italian beef sandwich. More than lated the recipe for a distinct Anders Oinonen John Parot

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Navarro’s Problem, 2010 | Gouache, enamel and ink collage on paper | 34 in x 30 in | Courtesy of Western Exhibitions

PDA: A letter on/to John Parot touch and vision together. It has Why this mix of the visual and the learned of Ramon Navarro’s story, always been an elusive concept tactile? But why this constellation I thought that Navarro’s Problem Dear John, for me—that is until I saw your of exuberance and danger? was indeed a complex calculus of Island Lake, 2009 | Oil on canvas | 20 in x 24 in | Collection of Joshua Newcomer and Tejal Shah Do you know the work of Maurice work and studied the faces you gay visuality: the wish to remain Merleau-Ponty? He’s been on my draw so eloquently. You once described your work as invisible as well as the struggle to mind recently, especially while a type of “Fantastic Realism,” and be recognized and afforded basic preparing this essay. Your work Eyes seem to be a constant motif that seems to me to be an accu- civil rights. that has such a peculiar feel to in your work, “eyes without a rate self-assessment. But maybe it, particularly in the faces you face.” Looking. Looking at what? it leaves out an important dimen- While my description is no doubt Anders Oinonen was greatly influ- where faces are conjured out island by the violet shores pressing from his primary figural motif, into draw. The way you handle the Then there is the color: bright sion in the work. I am thinking of an oversimplification of the poli- enced by his teacher Art Green, of abstract planes of color. in from each corner. These shores one of its most subtle invocations. surface and the way the lines fold pink that feels plugged into your piece Navarro’s Problem, tics of visuality in and around gay who exhibited in the first Hairy end at the canvas’s edge, and the Island Lake’s face does not tell us in on each other. It’s almost like the electric socket paired with which at first sounds like a math- culture, it seems to me that your Who show at the Hyde Park Art Waterloo, Canada—where surrounding gallery wall turns the anything or betray any emotion. an endless folding that is derived light-tight black. Like night vision ematic problem or a philosophical work Navarro’s Problem is not. Center in 1966, but has made his Oinonen studied with Green— entire painting into an island. It looks back at the viewer like a from vision and the force of goggles, your work seems to dart conundrum like Gödel’s incom- Indeed, it retains the serious play home in Canada since the mid- is something of an island. It sits face in a cloud, existing only when looking. A gaze tattoos us, marks in and out of the shadows. Now pleteness theorems or Zeno’s of hide and seek that I mentioned 1970s. While he lived in Chicago, in the middle of the part of A bull’s-eye is the perfect emblem the mind sees it and conjured with us, and changes us. Not unlike the the tattoo plays a double function, paradox. Which given the source earlier and bespeaks a kind of Green absorbed the architectural Ontario surrounded on three for an island; there is one in this the telescoped concentration one common interpretation of Werner a marking, but also camouflage. of the title might actually make woundedness marking the flesh patchwork of downtown and sides by Lakes Ontario, Huron, painting, colored by the only unre- focuses on a bull’s-eye. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Revealing and concealing. Hide sense. The “Navarro” in question of the world in a way that is used the built forms to explore and Erie. Island Lake is clearly peated shade of blue and peeking in which observation can alter the and seek within a world of sharp- is Ramon Navarro, a closeted gay attendant to any effort to see and his fascination with geometry. about islands—figurative islands through at the base of the green -Bryce Dwyer structure of the thing that’s being edged geometric abstraction. film star from the 1930s who was be seen. So perhaps the lines on Oinonen may not focus on these as well as islands of color within swath. With the addition of this observed. It occurs to me that this Somebody could get cut if they embroiled in an extortion plot by the faces you draw are also scars, same geometric concerns, but he a painting—and how the defini- bull’s-eye, the island becomes not is essentially what is suggested in ran too fast through some of your an ex-lover who threatened to proudly held up to show what it is similarly interested in making tion of an island can change. The just an island, but a face as well, the way you deal with vision. Your paintings. But that’s what someone out him, effectively destroying his means to live and be seen in a the viewer’s mind shuffle between colorful mound at the painting’s and one of Oinonen’s slyest faces work foregrounds the flesh-i-ness would be doing inside your career, if he did not invest in the society whose unjust laws attempt vantage points. This is perhaps center is an island in a lake, but at that. This turns the painting, of vision itself; what Merleau- painting, running or some activity purchase of a house designed by to make one invisible. most noticeable in his paintings the lake itself is also turned into an what seems like an excursion away Ponty might call the “flesh of that required a similar amount of Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Yours, the world.” Merleau-Ponty’s is a energy. Whoever steps into your Wright. When you described how Zach puzzling account of perception painting is going to have to be you started from an interest in that mixes the two senses of alert. The question then is why? the work of Lloyd Wright and later -Zachary Cahill Carmen Price Rebecca Shore

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09, 2010 | Oil on canvas | 30 in x 45 in | Collection of Emmy Kondo and Daniel Rosenthal

Untitled, 2011 | Gouache on paper | 11 in x 15 in | Courtesy of the artist

Before one turns to electricity, as His work is always full of light, but everything else on the picture Price’s intuitive readiness ties him In Rebecca Shore’s untitled Shore’s meticulously rendered, The negative space around a It is a fitting trope, given the the light diminishes at the end of the contents described upon each plane lies flat, embedded in the to the Chicago Imagists and the painting, visual information from deftly balanced silhouettes form—twisting into its own unique legibility of Shore’s work and the each day, objects flatten into the page seem broadcasted from paper. Each of the three pairs of Surrealists before them. He has all corners of culture is organized include animals, figures, and flora shapes and patterns—is often of freedom she gives viewers to draw darkness, becoming indistinguish- an intuitive twilight. His images legs indicates a different frame worked with Phil Hanson, Michiko into a chaotic precision. Inspired and fauna (a spouting whale, a equal importance as the form their own connections among able from their surroundings. A appear trapped, as though netted of origin. The first is shown from Itatani, Barbara Rossi, and Karl by a variety of sources—Egyptian human leg, a pressed leaf) and itself. In addition, a form’s the grammar and syntax of her sphere becomes a circle as one’s from the unconscious, frozen and a bird’s-eye view; the second is Wirsum, among others. Through stele, crazy quilts, Audubon traverse the historical timeline meaning is challenged by its vocabulary of forms. foot becomes a plane of ever-lost rearranged in a petri dish. Price seen from the same ground. The their shepherding, he was nour- illustrations, topiary, and medieval (a cauldron, the Batman signal, adjacency to other forms in the light. At such times human sight paints between the second and last pair of feet hangs twisted ished by idiot savants, lunatics, Sienese painting—Shore is also an 8-bit alien). Shore accumulates, composition. Sometimes juxtapo- -Thea Liberty Nichols is especially fallible and the mind third dimension; the objects he from yet another axis. Price’s and rebels. He belongs to a group influenced by her relationship and to some extent archives, sitions build relationships; at other must compensate, filling in what transposes are not quite two- complex interface captures a of artists unafraid to dabble in (as student, colleague, and friend) these silhouettes. She also prob- times, dissimilarity or competitive- is not seen with a recollection of dimensional. Each thick slice of delicate space where various murky, subconscious truths, to many of the Chicago Imagists. lematizes the extreme specificity ness of forms is an intentional daytime’s landscape. Implicit in paper captures an intersection perspectives coexist, tethered by realms of thought beyond express Some of their winking humor, of their outlines by representing cultivation of dissonance. these exercises is an assumption of variant planes; most of the an intuitive, gelatinous harmony. control. This is what twilight is: an radical manipulation of popular them only as silhouettes, which that objects stay the same. Yet objects caught in that intersection Looking at Wet Garden is like admission of vulnerability. Price culture, and deliberate commit- strips away additional information Shore’s linkage of vivid imagery there will always be a witching become flat afterimages, slivers looking at a page of letters in a paints the portrait of this state of ment to deskilled handicraft, and standardizes each form. and lyrical fragments that lack hour of doubt: when day bleeds of themselves. In Wet Garden, only foreign language, straining to grasp mind again and again, and in doing vernacular, folk, and self-taught obvious connection calls to mind into night, just as sleep and a suggestion of the rocks’ dimen- the order in their combinations. so recalls the glorious cracks and art pulse through her work. the literary device of parataxis. wakefulness blend together via sionality survives Price’s surgical But this work was made intuitively, fissures so easily marginalized by imperceptible and even sensual transcription; each stone casts in a state of mind that defies the systemic monoliths of reason. borders. Carmen Price makes a conspicuous shadow. Waves synthesis of language. work from that space. in the background also maintain -Caroline Picard some evocation of depth, but Geoffrey Todd Smith Joe Tallarico

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Feel Harder, 2012 | Acrylic, gouache, and ink on panel | 24 in x 18 in | Courtesy of Western Exhibitions Millie Moohlah Moves In, 2012 | Hand-drawn and digital animation, 5:00 minutes | Courtesy of the artist

Though skill is a defining charac- taken on in a particularly unself- childhood relics without actually androgynous rock, domestic Joe Tallarico’s obsession with the and a participant in several about why comics are a valid relationship with his art, most teristic of the paintings by Chicago conscious manner. telling them, is what keeps the decorativeness, and social media traditionally nontraditional has led exhibitions focusing on comics and integral part of America’s of his work is an externalization Imagists, the term craft would viewing experience in play long into carefully crafted, geometric him to various ventures related to at cultural institutions nation- rich artistic and cultural history. of his personal experiences with never have been used to describe Drawing from many of the same after the material novelty has abstraction. Much like Ray comics. He is not only the author wide, Tallarico has undoubtedly A collaboration with animator unavoidable and extreme human their intentions. To this day, artists sources as the Imagists—graphics, drawn one in. Yoshida, Smith is able to infuse of his own comics but also an avid made many contributions to Sara Jean Cough, Tallarico’s Millie metamorphosis over time. who focus on craft are still fighting advertisements, adolescence, all of these fragmented parts of historian, collector, and teacher. underground and contemporary Moohlah Moves In includes over against prejudices when it comes and rock and roll—Smith care- Carrying on the very best of the life into enigmatic paintings that As the longtime comics editor comic culture. 150 original drawings, digitally -Chad Kouri to its incorporation into “fine art” fully veils his references with his Imagist sprit, Smith makes work take full advantage of the intellec- for Lumpen magazine, a member colored and animated to create dialogue. Embracing craft and pattern-based aesthetic. The true to his day. At no other point tual and aesthetic potential in of the Chicago-based jam comic Tallarico’s work mixes myriad a seamless metamorphosis of decorativeness is an area that has artist’s unique ability to conjure in time could an artist mash up the vernacular. crew Trubble Club, a key player inspirations. With his vast knowl- color and form that can be seen not yet been thoroughly mined for up a viewer’s memories through a generation’s worth of girly gel in the building of comics holdings edge of Minimalism, abstraction, from the Fullerton ’L’ station. its contemporary value, a venture abstraction, to reference stories pen doodling, science fiction, -Robin Dluzen in the Art Institute of Chicago’s and design, he inserts his art Although Tallarico believes that that Geoffrey Todd Smith has about favorite album covers or Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, directly into ongoing dialogues viewers should create their own Selina Trepp Trubble Club

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The Painter, 2011 | Chromogenic print | 19.5 in x 27.7 in | Sketch for Trubble Corpse, 2012 | Acrylic on MDF (planned) | Variable | Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Rafacz Gallery Courtesy of the artists

Selina Trepp’s photographic come to terms with her familial Her initial efforts took the form gestating it—into an already estab- Each Sunday the members of pages can take years to complete, acknowledged as the essential friends and inspirations of series The Relatives presents and artistic legacies. Her mother, of self-portraits painted on a lished image-making practice, Trubble Club—like-minded artists sometimes a couple of weeks. elements of great works of art, Trubble Club can come together viewers with an absurdist cast of the artist Judith Trepp, is an sheet of glass positioned before a Trepp, like numerous generations who meet up to encourage and The drawing styles of the club and comic art is a collaborative in conversation, reveling in characters (each portrayed by abstract painter, as was her late video camera. The glass acted as of artists before her, found a way enjoy their communal weird- members vary widely, though it genre at its core. bizarre, disturbing, and scato- the artist herself) whose bodies grandmother Rhoda Sklar Platt. a one-way mirror on which Trepp to revive the art form and make ness and ingenuity—rendezvous is often hard to tell that different logical fantasies. are partly painted, partly flesh For Selina Trepp, the charting of traced her reflection, with the it new. Her “return to painting” in secret to draw together. One hands have drawn the panels. The work of Trubble Club and blood, partly reflection—and an independent artistic course camera documenting the entire reflects her personal history person makes an initial panel Some members are professional is distributed on its blog, in -Abigail Satinsky wholly image. The photographs’ apart from her maternal forebears process. She then used the still- and aesthetic context without that is passed around to the artists with their own individual anthologies sold at independent titles seem to offer clues about seemed to require her to avoid wet paint on glass as her palette, precisely mirroring them. other members of the club. practices; others are not. But all bookstores or comic conventions, the characters’ personalities and making paintings altogether. quickly adding it to a sheet of Whoever is interested creates are serious about the process of and in newspapers handed out for possible occupations without paper. From there strange new -Claudine Isé the next panel in the story. This collective authorship. Quotation, free. For this exhibition, the group ever revealing who they are. Although The Relatives is a series faces evolved. Some were purely continues, round-robin style, mimicry, appropriation, and created a site-specific sculpture Indeed, the composite nature of photographs, not paintings, imaginary; others were based on until the page is done. Sometimes outright stealing have long been and reading library in which the of each figure seems to affirm its existence is rooted in the act real people, like the head and postmodern notions of identity as of painting and in the idea that shoulders of the figure in The a construction that is by nature painting is a form of knowledge Painter (based on the artist’s fragmented and illusory. production. Trepp wanted to grandmother). push her practice in new direc- In many ways, the series is the tions and explore what it means By incorporating painting—or product of Trepp’s efforts to to grow up in a family of artists. better yet, by ingesting or Zack Wirsum Contributors

Britton Bertran is a Chicago- found in such publications as art Chad Kouri is an artist, designer, based independent curator, an ltd. and i4design magazines, the and cofounder of Chicago’s only instructor at the School of the Chicago Reader, and the New art and design incubator, The Art Institute of Chicago in the American Paintings blog. Post Family. Arts Administration and Policy Department, and the educational Bryce Dwyer is a writer and arts Joel Kuennen is an editor of programs manager at Urban organizer in Chicago. ArtSlant.com and an arts writer Gateways, a non-profit art living in Chicago. education organization. Robyn Farrell is a writer and curator who keeps an eye and Karsten Lund is a writer and Dana Boutin is an arts journalist ear open to all the strange curator in Chicago, where he also working in Chicago whose work and beautiful things that make works as a curatorial assistant at has been featured in Newcity Chicago tick. the Museum of Contemporary Art. and at the Hyde Park Art Center and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Jason Foumberg is a Chicago- Thea Liberty Nichols is an arts based writer and editor who administrator, writer and curator. Lucas Bucholtz has a background contributes art criticism to in philosophy and received an MA Newcity, Frieze, Modern Erin Nixon is a curator, writer, and in art history from the University Painters, Photograph, and the former codirector of Noble & of Illinois at Chicago. Sculpture magazines. Superior Projects.

Zachary Cahill is an interdisci- Laura Fox works for the Qatar Caroline Picard is the founding 34 plinary artist whose writings have Museums Authority and serves on editor of the Green Lantern Press 35 appeared in the Journal of Visual the executive board at Intuit: The and writes regularly for the Bad at Culture, Rethinking Marxism, Center for Intuitive and Outsider Sports and Art21 blogs, as well as and Artforum.com, among other Art; she is an arts advocate and art ltd. and Proximity magazines. publications. hopes her writing—for publications including Newcity, the Chicago Abraham Ritchie holds a degree Elizabeth Chodos is a creative Reader, Proximity magazine, and in art history and a master’s writer, independent curator, and Harper’s Bazaar Art—mirrors degree in new arts journalism; he associate director of Ox-Bow that passion. is also a former editor of ArtSlant School of Art and Artists’ and Flavorpill. Residency; she was formerly Jenny Gheith is assistant curator executive director of threewalls, of painting and sculpture at the Abigail Satinsky is the program where she now serves on the San Francisco Museum of Modern director at threewalls and Good at Scarves, 2010 | Acrylic and canvas on panel | 18 in x 24 in |Courtesy of Jean Albano Gallery board of directors. Art, prior to which she was a cura- a member of InCUBATE, a torial assistant in the Department research group dedicated to Jessica Cochran is a Chicago- of Contemporary Art at the Art art economies. based curator, instructor, and Institute of Chicago. writer; she is currently the curator Anthony Stepter is a Chicago- of exhibitions and programs at the Dahlia Tulett-Gross is an based organizer and educator. Somewhere in Chicago, Zack abstraction and representation, A serious part of Wirsum’s prac- Wirsum’s signature obsessive lines, Center for Book and Paper Arts at independent curator. Wirsum—the son of Lori Gunn and functioning as urban landscapes tice, poetic wordplay continues neon palette, and acumen for Columbia College. Monica Westin is a Chicago-based Imagist Karl Wirsum—is scrawling and personal narratives. His the metaphorical dig and concep- detail—demonstrates the balance Dan Gunn is a Chicago-based writer, critic, and PhD student an obsessively perfect line. A small paintings are an extension of his tual narrative found between the between abstraction, wit, and James Connolly is a new media artist, writer, and educator who in rhetoric. detail of a larger sketch, this line relationship with the city. Layer lines of his paintings. Named after representation. artist, writer, and curator living is also currently a part of the will eventually find life in a form or upon layer, each line and stroke a hypothetical debut single by and working in Chicago; he “Fielding Practice” art gabfest shape undulating within a system- of color is vibrant and methodical, the artist’s fictional group Future -Robyn Farrell received a BFA with emphasis with Bad at Sports for the atic network of color. Frenetic mirroring the brilliance of Boyfriends, Good at Scarves in art history, theory, and criti- Art21 blog. and organic, Wirsum’s composi- Chicago’s grid. exemplifies the duality of his cism from the School of the Art tions result in a balance between practice. The painting—featuring Institute of Chicago. Claudine Isé is the editor of the Art21 blog and a freelance writer Mia DiMeo writes for ArtSlant and based in Chicago. received an MA in new arts jour- nalism from the School of the Art Paige K. Johnston is a curator and Institute of Chicago. publisher, currently working as the manager of Special Collections for Robin Dluzen is a Chicago-based the John M. Flaxman Library at the artist and writer, and the former School of the Art Institute editor-in-chief of Chicago Art of Chicago. Magazine, whose writing can be Artists

Carl Baratta received his BFA Justin Cooper graduated with David Ingenthron was born and and internationally. Chicago in 2011. Characterized symbolism and a strong faith in Joe Tallarico makes paintings, in painting with a minor in art an MFA from the School of the raised in Oakland, California. He He received the visual artist award by absurd humor and uncanny the accidental to form occasion- comics, and drawings in his home history from Tyler School of Art, Art Institute of Chicago in 2005 is currently learning the gravity of from 3Arts in 2009. visual transformations, Nielsen’s ally narrative and often confusing studio in Chicago, Illinois. He Philadelphia. He spent a year as after receiving his BFA from the place. In Chicago, he embraced work explores the conventions scenes. Originally from Kansas enjoys studying the histories of a student at Temple University University of Colorado in 2003 the figure as a movement and Amy Lockhart is a filmmaker, of kitsch, femininity, and artificial City, Price currently lives and both art and comics and exploring Rome and received his MFA from and studying at the Sorbonne, a gesture. He earned an MA in animator, and artist whose artwork nature. She lives and works works in Chicago. how the two are incorporated. the School of the Art Institute Paris, in 2002. Cooper has teaching from Massachusetts and award-winning films have in Chicago. Avocations include gardening, junk of Chicago, where he currently performed and exhibited in cities College of Art and Design in 2011. been exhibited and screened Benjamin Seamons received his collecting, and table tennis. teaches painting and drawing. His worldwide including New York, He has exhibited at 65GRAND internationally. Lockhart studied Born in Canada in 1977, Anders BFA from the School of the Art artwork has been exhibited in Hong Kong, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, and Roots and Culture, both in at the Nova Scotia College of Art Oinonen currently lives and works Institute of Chicago and his MFA Born in 1973 in Zurich, Switzerland, various galleries in Chicago, New Philadelphia, London, Los Angeles, Chicago; Proof Gallery, Boston; and Design and has been a resi- in Toronto. He graduated from the from the University of Tennessee. Selina Trepp is a Chicago-based York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Austin, and Chicago. His work has been and Lucky Tackle, Oakland. He has dent artist at Calgary’s Quickdraw Ontario College of Art and Design Originally from Chicago, he multimedia artist who works in Maine, Santa Fe, San Francisco, reviewed in publications such as been featured in Artforum, Time Animation Society, Struts Gallery, in 2001 and received his MFA currently lives and works in photography, painting, film, and Los Angeles, and Detroit, and he Artforum and Art in America. His Out Chicago, and Newcity. the School of the Art Institute from the University of Waterloo in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his installation. Her work investigates has shown internationally in Tokyo third solo exhibition will be held at of Chicago, and the California 2004. His work has been exhibited wife, Kate. identity and the limits of image and Rome. His work was featured moniquemeloche in fall 2012. Eric Lebofsky was born in the Institute of the Arts. Her work has at LES Gallery, Vancouver; Deitch making. She is also one half of the in a group show at the 2011 Venice Bronx, New York, in 1977. He is a received international acclaim Projects, New York; Max Wigram Rebecca Shore received her audiovisual performance project Biennale. His most recent solo Rob Doran was born in Sterling, visual artist and a saxophonist, and has been collected by public Gallery, London; and Greener BFA from the School of the Art Spectralina, with her husband, exhibition was at Lloyd Dobler Illinois. He currently lives and singer, and composer. Lebofsky’s and private art institutions and Pastures Contemporary, Toronto. Institute of Chicago in 1981. She musician Dan Bitney. Gallery, Chicago, in March 2012. works in Los Angeles, California.. solo shows include Sears-Peyton film festivals across the globe. Most recently his work was shown has lived and worked in Chicago In addition to various reviews in Gallery in New York, Western Lockhart received a fellowship at the Museum of Contemporary since 1978 and has taught in Trubble Club is a collective of Chicago newspapers, his work has Richard Hull ’s psychologi- Exhibitions in Chicago, and Miller from the National Film Board of Canadian Art, Toronto, and at the Department of Painting and Chicago-based cartoonists and 36 been published in Bailliwik: An cally intense abstract paintings, Block Gallery in Boston, and he Canada and support from the Royal/T, Los Angeles. His work Drawing at SAIC since 1996. Her artists that has been meeting 37 Artist Collective for the past drawings, and prints are in the has been included in group shows Canada Council for the Arts. She can be found in the collections of meticulous paintings and drawings weekly for the past four years. five years. collections of several museums, at the Museum of Contemporary is currently working on a feature- the Musée d’art contemporain de have always been characterized One night nearly every week, club including the Art Institute Art Chicago and at Gavin Brown’s length animated film, The Dizzler. Montréal and the Canada Council by an abiding interest in pattern, members, along with other artists Marc Bell was born in London, of Chicago; the Museum of Enterprise and Participant, Inc., Art Bank. He is represented by system, and issues of signification. and cartoonists passing through Ontario, Canada. Hot Potatoe [sic], Contemporary Art Chicago; both in New York. His artist books Eric May is a Chicago-based Bryan Miller Gallery, Houston, and Shore was also profoundly influ- the city, make collaborative a monograph of his recent art and the Smithsonian American Art are in the collections of the artist and chef. His practices Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto. enced by Chicago Imagism, whose “jam” comics. comics work, was published by Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Contemporary Art cross disciplines between visual, artists were her teachers and Drawn and Quarterly in fall 2009. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Chicago and the School of the performative, and culinary arts. John Parot’s work—vibrant paint- friends. Recent exhibitions include Zack Wirsum received his He is represented by the Adam Kansas City; the Museum of Fine Art Institute of Chicago. Since At its core, this range of practices ings and collages that poetically solo shows at the Elmhurst Art BFA from the School of the Art Baumgold Gallery, New York. Arts, Houston; and the Smart 2005 he has performed with the examines ecologies, not only investigate gay urban living—has Museum; the Herron Gallery at the Institute of Chicago. He has Museum of Art, University of musical group Avagami, whose environmental and biological but been shown at the Museum of Herron School of Art and Design, exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Born into a small midwestern Chicago. He joined the legendary debut album was released by also social, focusing in particular Contemporary Art Chicago, Jack Indianapolis; and the Chicago Center, Elmhurst College, and existence, Eric Cain grew into Phyllis Kind Gallery before gradu- Lens Records in 2007. Lebofsky on issues surrounding food and Hanley Gallery in San Francisco, Cultural Center. Jean Albano Gallery. a certain presumptive bravado ating from the School of the Art received his BA from Columbia its sources. Locust Projects in Miami, and and reluctant utopianism. Institute of Chicago in 1979 and University in New York and his Light & Sie in Dallas. His work Geoffrey Todd Smith’s intensely He embraces oddities from had numerous shows in both her MFA from the School of the Art Ellen Nielsen is an been published in BUTT magazine, patterned and intricate painting/ everywhere, humbuggery and New York and Chicago locations. Institute of Chicago. He teaches interdisciplinary artist whose Artcritical, Beautiful/Decay, the drawing hybrids have been legerdemain, and an aesthetic of Recent exhibitions include solo in the Department of Painting works include sculpture, photog- Art21 blog, , Time featured in solo shows at Luis De the operational. He is learning that shows at Western Exhibitions and Drawing at the School of the raphy, performance, and video. Out Chicago, Artnet magazine, Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, Main things do not have to add up in in Chicago and at Wake Forest Art Institute of Chicago, and lives She received her BFA from NYFA Quarterly, and Art on Gallery in Las Vegas, and Western order to count. University in North Carolina, a and works in Chicago. Maryland Institute College of Art Paper. His 2007 show at Western Exhibitions in Chicago. His work mini-survey at the Rockford Art in 2008 and her MFA from the Exhibitions was named one of is in the collections of Hallmark Lilli Carré is an interdisciplinary Museum, and the group show David Leggett was born in School of the Art Institute of the top five shows of the year by Cards, Inc., in Kansas City, the artist currently living in Chicago. Someone Else’s Dream, curated Springfield, Massachusetts, in Newcity. He received his MFA from Jager-Collection in Amsterdam, She primarily works in the forms by John McKinnon at the Hyde 1980. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of the South Bend Museum of Art of experimental animation, film, Park Art Center. Hull lives and Savannah College of Art and Art, and he currently lives and in Indiana, and Harper College in and comics. Her animated films works in Chicago. Design in 2003 and his MFA from works in Los Angeles. Illinois and has been published in have been shown in festivals the School of the Art Institute of art ltd., the Chicago Tribune, and throughout the United States Steven Husby lives and works Chicago in 2007. He also attended Carmen Price’s work creates new Chicago magazine, which called and abroad, and she is cofounder in Chicago. He received his Skowhegan School of Painting relationships between familiar him one of the “rising stars we of the Eyeworks Festival of MFA from the School of the Art and Sculpture in 2010. His work visual elements to express joy should be collecting now.” Smith Experimental Animation. She is Institute of Chicago. Recent is influenced by relationships, in contemporary culture. His lives and works in Chicago. the author of The Lagoon, Nine solo exhibitions include both personal and cultural, and celebratory drawings use personal Ways to Disappear, Tales of RUBICON at Julius Caesar and he utilizes popular culture and Woodsman Pete, and the forth- we speak the way we breathe at imagery in his art. His work has coming collection Heads or Tails. Peregrine Program. been shown throughout the Staff

DePaul Art Museum staff

Louise Lincoln Director Laura Fatemi Assistant Director Gregory J. Harris Assistant Curator Alison Kleiman Administrative Assistant Geoffrey Pettys Administrative Assistant Jenny Cotto Building Maintenance

Interns 38 Andrea Jones Nik Massey Reid Miller Olivia Morris

This publication was edited by Susan Weidemeier and Betsy Stepina Zinn and designed by Dominic Fortunato.

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S e p t S e p t Opening Reception Performance: Friday, September 14, 5-7:30pm Avagami 14 Wednesday, September 26, 6-8pm26 This opening event will feature E-Dogz Mobile Culinary Community AVAGAMI was formed in 2005 by drummer/composer Matt Espy Center, a mobile kitchen project that celebrates the preservation and (Dead Rider, former The Reputation and Atombombpocketknife,) and advancement of street food in the city of Chicago. Through collabora- Eric Lebofsky, a visual artist, saxophonist, and composer. Affect drives tive cooking practices, Chef Eric May and his guest chefs develop new their musical invention, which is energetic, dark, improvisational, and recipes that reflect the contemporary food landscape and promote humorous. Avagami has performed at Chicago fixtures such as the deeper understandings of what we eat, where it comes from, who is Empty Bottle, the Hideout, and Schubas, and at many galleries and making it, and the maker’s story about the food that alternative art spaces. Their debut album Metagami was released by they are sharing. Lens Records in 2007.

O c t O c t Performance: Film Screening: Richard Hull & Ray Yoshida Ken Vandermark and Karl Wirsum quintet Wednesday, October 24, 6-8pm 24 Wednesday, October 10, 6-8pm 10 FILM SCREENING featuring documentary portraits of H.C. Westermann (Selection of HC Westermann family films), Karl Wirsum KEN VANDERMARK AND RICHARD HULL have been collaborating on (“A Movie About Karl Wirsum,” 1971) and Ray Yoshida (“The audio/ visual performances for over ten years. Hull, using video Individuality of the Inanimate Object: The Collection of Ray Yoshida,” projections, incorporates collaged photographs of paintings and 1990); and a musical sculpto-pictorama by multimedia artist Red drawings along with images of real incidents into the musical perfor- Grooms (“Tappy Toes,” 1968). All films recently transferred and mances of Vandermark and his ensemble of jazz musicians. This restored by Nolo Digital Film Chicago and PostWorks New York, with exchange between structure and spontaneity— intention and the participation of The Filmmakers’ Cooperative and the estate improvisation— mirrors the individual working methods of them both. of George Seton Coggeshall. Presented in conjunction with Chicago- based Pentimenti Productions, producers of the forthcoming feature documentary Hairy Who & The Chicago Imagists. A short excerpt from their work-in-progress film rounds out the program. Director N o v Leslie Buchbinder in person. Performance: Spectralina Wednesday, November 7, 6-8pm 07 SPECTRALINA is the audio-visual performance project of Dan Bitney and Selina Trepp, collaborators, lovers and magicians. Working with songstructure, as well as in an improvised format, the goal of Spectralina is to create an image-sound relationship that treats each medium as equal, resulting in performances in which projection and All events are free and sounds come together as visual music. open to the public.