You-Ni Chae at 65 Grand

by Holly Murkerson

Editor: Jason Lazarus

Whistler, 2012, oil on canvas, 11 x 13 in - Photo by Malcolm Varon

Something like being inside. This is what You-Ni Chae’s recent show, Motif Painting, at 65 Grand feels like…

Two paintings conjure images of bright internal organs, another uses a subtle gesture of architectural perspective to imply a room, and one resembles a brick wall, putting us in proximity to some delineated space we cannot see.  One of the smallest works, Whistler, is clearly a reference to his nocturnes, and through thin layers of dark hues, we are enveloped in night sky.  These paintings are interiors, and their generosity lies in their scale.  They are modest in size, small even, the largest barely over two feet in width and the smallest ones around 11 by 13 inches.  They know better than to be large and looming, they know not to try to eclipse our periphery and contain us. Instead, the inside spaces are turned inside out, spilling bits of their contents out into the world around them.

 

Drum Talking, 2012, oil on canvas, 15 x 12 in - Photo by Malcolm Varon

The radiant fuchsias and pale pinks of Drum Talking feels like some kind of carved out corporeal space, while the loosely stretched canvas acts as a skin, leaving an imprint of the physical support under the weight of You-Ni’s hand. It begins to feel as though it could be a direct impression of the body, but it is only an index so far as it is evidence of the hand over time. In Joey, contrasting planes of blue and green are placed on either side of an angled tan line, suggesting a wall meeting the ceiling, yet the shapes in the immediate foreground block us from the rest of the space.  Small bits of textured, puckered paint sit on the surface of these shapes and add to the feeling that the foreground is a solid surface.  The contents have been pushed forward to us, but one can’t help but feel as though there might be more hidden behind these opaque layers of paint.  Throughout the entire show, the works utilize both opaque, and thin, transparent layers of paint, and these juxtapositions convey the sense that some things remain hidden, keeping us engaged and anticipating.

Joey, 2012, oil on canvas, 13 x 11 in - Photo by James Prinz

There is nothing extraordinary about the way the exhibition is set up; in fact, it mimics the format one encounters at a museum, complete with a bench placed in the center of the room.  However, a book on the subject of Korean Buncheong ceramics sits on the bench, and invites viewers to sit and flip through its pages.  Doing so confirms the affect of interiority that resonates from the paintings.  Some of these ceramic vessels are characterized by a narrow, short opening for a body that opens long and wide, so that the ratio between the opening and the vast interior is so great that what pours out or goes in must happen slowly over time. In a similar way, this is how You-Ni’s paintings maintain their perplexity, they require us to stare into the dark waiting for our eyes to adjust, and while some things may be revealed, ultimately and intoxicatingly, we are held at a distance.  

Motif Painting installation view - Photo by James Prinz

When you spend enough time investigating and/or excavating something, it’s not unusual to end up emptying everything out or compacting the contents so much that we’re left with something that feels flat, one-dimensional. In the case of these works however, what she has spilled out into our world leads us back to those vague interiors, and we are simply left hovering.

You-Ni Chae: Motif Painting ran from March 1- 30 at 65 Grand, 1369 W Grand Avenue.

Tony Balko at the Storefront

by Hiba Ali
Guest Editor: Nicholas O'Brien




Construction: lights, lots and lots of fog and hard/blues rock: the former 'materials' were modulated and coordinated with the song Slow Ride by Foghat for Party On, Pedestal by Tony Balko at THE STOREFRONT. The event was scheduled last month during the 2nd Floor Rear Festival indicated in the 12 slots below, each respectively held in Logan Square. 



The title of the exhibition is instructive in deciphering the visceral installation, performativity, and overall execution of this event. Essentially a performance where walls acted as the secondary site of introspection, a pedestal at the center of the space demanded all the viewer’s attention. The pedestal projected colors and emitted fog in sync with Slow Ride.

A casual passerby described this show by simply saying, "I liked it. It was trippy."

I am not one to contest that opinion as such, but instead would want to provide a deeper reading of this statement, specifically illustrate what the ‘It’ is according to the passerby. The walls functioned merely as containers since what occurred in the performance only happened within them and not on them. The performance’s documentation, in photos and videos, is not sufficient in depicting the complex physical experience, as it fails to show how the lights and fog of the performance became the space of the exhibition.

The elements of this experience, such as the disregarded walls, dark space, spotlight and fog, deterred a ‘clear’ explanation. In addition, documentation through any digital camera –  in my case an iPhone – offers a limited capability due to its lack of capacity to focus the lens.  When I selected to take a picture of the lights, the focus on my iPhone on the fog became blurred and vice versa. More importantly, the medium of light as it moves across the room could not truly be captured on film (whether digital or analog) as it existed in the space. Due to this, I cannot properly describe this experience except by citing its psychedelic overtone, specifically the 'lite' experience. For me, watching the lights was similar to watching fireworks: one looks up in anticipation of the colors of light to burst and shine, filling the void of the dark night sky. The aspect of viewing, anticipation, and gratification worked in hyper speed in Party On, Pedestal, particularly in its virtual and atmospheric nature. What remarkably differs between fireworks and this piece, aside from difference in magnitude and proximity, was the speed of the colors pulsating in darkness. Usually, when fireworks are shot up in the air there is an incline, a rapid increase of electron energy that is accompanied with a rapid decline. During this apex, a rapid show of color (made by metal salts), sound, and finally a burst of light and action occur. This arc of incremental excitement did not occur in Balko’s work, but instead the motion was consecutively energetic. The music – in tandem with the colors – continuously brought forth a new hue from each circle's center. The beginning of the performance was just as quick and intentionally anticlimactic as its ending. Only when it  was over did I understand what had just occurred. Photos and video only capture a portion of the physical experience of the pulsating light.

To better encapsulate the experience I had, I’ll instead reference Balko’s modulated lyrics to illustrate the physical experience of Party On, Pedestal

Sloooowriiiide, take iiiit eaaaasssyy

SlooOooowuh rhhhyyyiiiideehhh, take it eeeuhhheazaaahy

Sloowiriddee, tahake iiit eaaasssiy

Art Criticism Today and Hopefully Also Tomorrow: A Workshop with Lori Waxman

 

What does it mean to write criticism that is genuinely of its time? What new forms can criticism take today, and might they be more appropriate to the artwork of the present?

In this workshop, we'll cover the basics of then and now, and brainstorm about the future. Your smart phone will probably come in handy (perhaps tellingly, the workshop leader hasn't got one).

Lori Waxman is the art critic for the Chicago Tribune and a teacher of art history and new arts journalism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has written for Artforum and a number of exhibition catalogues. She is co-editor, with Catherine Grant, of the book, Girls! Girls! Girls! in Contemporary Art (2011, Intellect Press). This past summer she performed her "60 wrd/min art critic" as part of dOCUMENTA (13).

Space is limited to 30 people. To attend, please rsvp to chicagoartistwriters@gmail.com. Current students will receive priority (non-UIC students welcome).

This event is co-sponsored by Chicago Artist Writers and Gallery 400.

Poster by Louis Doulas.

http://gallery400.uic.edu/events/art-criticism-today-and-hopefully-also-tomorrow

Guest Editor: Nicholas O'Brien

Nicholas O’Brien is an artist, curator, researcher, and writer focused on the ways in which nature continues to hold relevance in digital representation as well as the influence of language upon the development and use of network technology. His work has been published and exhibited internationally, including The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Xth Biennale de Lyon, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, and at the Copenhagen Space in London. He has curated shows at 319 Scholes in Brooklyn, Kunsthalle New in Chicago, and The Future Gallery in Berlin. As a regular contributor to online publications Bad at Sports and ilikethisart.net his work has also been featured on Art Fag City, ARTINFO, The Creators Project, Dazed Digital, Newcity, the L Magazine, and the New York Times. In 2011 he was a awarded a Turbulence commission funded by the National Endowment for the Art and is currently working on a collaborative piece to premiere at the Baryshnikov Art Center while serving as a Visiting Artist in Residence at the University of Cincinnati.

Kirk Faber at Lodos Contemporáneo

by Jais Gossman
Guest Editor: Nicholas O'Brien

 Kirk Faber, "I got a rock"

In Samuel Beckett’s “Act Without Words,” an actor is prevented from exiting, regulated by Beckett’s stage directions. Similarly, we are found with no way out of Kirk Faber's paintings.  The tragedy of needing to act out oneself is that one does not find an exit. With so much posturing, the onlooker attempts to grasp what sort of work creates the landscape that Faber has depicted. In the extremely controlled environment of post-modernity, pleasure pushes us over the edge of a cliff and all the way to the bottom of a canyon. It is this landscape the viewer is relegated to and, once there, must make the best of.

Despite their being landscapes and not figural paintings, they are not without life. A figure attempting to find a way to fit in breathes heavily from beyond the picture plane, crowding the emotional space of a viewer. These perspectives are the result of a slowly catastrophic situation as one realizes his or her presence may be just like everyone who has come before. The landscape has not yet reached a point of post-humanism, and suggests this observation as a rather bitter fact, urging that we gleefully proclaim some humility.

"View from the bottom of a canyon"

The trajectory of Faber’s work is consistently visible, it’s just that there is no way of traversing this path without tripping on obstructions, or even discovering obstructions were much smaller when seen from further away.  Things aren’t seen as obstacles until they’re encountered, as if the triumph of making it to the top of Mt. Doom only leads one to pass out from over-celebration.  As documentation of this one-step-forward-two-step-back journey, the perspectives in Faber’s paintings are found in the midst of a democratic struggle to illuminate processes of power.  These paintings are a question of that power forced onto us externally – a questioning of why the preference for a global shipment usurps the need for local travel.

The observer, unwilling to flee the decrepit situation, is evidence of this dilemma. The depicted vistas are the result of a temporary calming, brief enough for us to get only a glimpse beyond both our own expectations and the modes in which our environment has been marketed to us. As a result, questions arise: Why should I have bought this at the store, professionally made by diligent hands?  What does it do? What is my relationship to it? The paintings illustrate a way of finding a landscape within itself, through the act of attentive observation. In other words, one may find pleasure simply through observation.  Once sifting through these initial questions, we then start to arrive at more rhetorical inquiries. Namely, why should we care that rocks find comfort in one another’s coddling?

Care shows itself in particular, and frequently unconventional, ways. If one opens themselves up to the possibility, solutions to these inquiries – and the care that lies behind them - may be found in the most unassuming or inanimate of objects/places. Rocks care because we care, not the other way around. Perhaps those types of questions are what draw the viewer to the surface in Faber’s paintings. Over-enthusiastic execution may be taken as a disregard for form, but this play in paint reveals a simple way to investigate the material of objects beyond their appearance. As a result of engaging and forgetting the task of observation, the artist adopts an irresponsible stance, something we need more of.  The artist must not answer to the conditions that are demanded of him, but rather play with them. Acts of falling short of what is expected, meekly at points, illustrate the difficultly in taking on a strategically irresponsible stance. If there is still a web of humanity to maintain within one’s practice, we aren’t yet post human.

"Tunnels for trucks and other vehicles"

In regards to the potential figure that we might idolize or mock, it is pertinent to observe that this figure is indeed absent.  This pointing to the irresponsibility of the subject is to highlight their persistent gaze – one that depicts the idiocy of the logic in the surrounding environments (e.g. those things we've made that we can no longer run from, those places we've settled that will likely kill us).  Since there is no figure to stand in for the viewer within the frame, should we implicate ourselves as the antagonists to an insurmountable situation?  There is a danger in this, as Adorno notes, "in the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so."  We cannot blindly root for ourselves in an uphill battle, so these paintings may shine some light on the path.

It is my hope that these paintings might find an appropriate home in a nursery, as a statement of encouragement, that, yes, it is okay to look at the world blankly, poorly, clumsily, and that a viewer with uncorrupted eyes might see these situations for what they are.  Will they grow up to be something we consider post human?

[This is a review of a show of Paintings by Kirk Faber, curated by Francisco Cordero-Oceguera of Lodos Contemporáneo, 11/30/2012 – 12/31/2012. To see a reversal of roles, see Cordero-Oceguera’s show Formerly the Artist at Kirk’s Apartment, 02/15/2013 – 04/18/2013]

All images courtesy www.kirkfaber.com

www.fffrancisco.com/lodos

www.kirksapartment.tumblr.com

Chicago Artist Writers on Bad at Sports

We were recently interviewed by arts podcast Bad at Sports! Listen to the interview here.

MDW Micro Meditation: Chris Collins & Anjali Alm-Basu

by Robert Chase Heishman

RESPONSE 1: EXPLICIT VERSION 

video still, YouTube video of Ginuine's "Pony" (w/ lyrics)

I'm just a bachelor, I'm looking for a partner. Someone who knows how to ride, without even falling off. Gotta be compatible; takes me to my limits. Girl when I break you off, I promise that you won't want to get off. If you're horny, lets do it, ride it, my pony. My saddle's waiting. Come and jump on it. If you're horny lets do it. Ride it: my pony. My saddle's waiting; come and jump on it. Sitting here flosing, peeping your steelo. Just once if I have the chance, the things I would do to you. You and your body, every single portion, send chills up and down your spine, juices flowing down your thigh. If we're gonna get nasty, baby, first we'll show and tell, 'till I reach your pony tail. Oh, Lurk all over and through you baby, until we reach the stream. You'll be on my jockey team. 

~Ginuwine

RESPONSE 2: ACTUAL VERSION

video still, Chris Collins, "Pony", 2011 http://youtu.be/2RWg8ER-j5Q

Whenever Ginuwine's song "Pony" makes it into an artwork, an angel gets its wings. Okay, well, maybe not, but at least it gets my attention. For this year's Suitable Video MDW Fair screening room, curated by Scott Wolniak, there were many thoughtful, intriguing, and often humorous videos presented. Coming to the forefront was Chris Collins' "Pony", and subsequently, "Response to Pony" by Anjali Alm-Basu. In Collins' screen-capture-recorded video, shot within the spaceless context of a computer choreography software, a lone computer-generated human stands ebbing to the intro of Ginuwine's burpy bass sounds. Soon, the figure is enacting an impossible choreography. The body becomes mangled and at times indistinguishable due to its contortions into and around itself, before syncing back to its starting pose. The choreography addresses the limits and possibilities of taking a computer software and playing with it to the point of an unrealistic real-world application. It is an intriguing display of a body in glitch-form. By hovering in the virtual, the work feels pleasurably latent. And all throughout, the Ginuwine soundtrack fits perfectly. The song doesn't quite match up with the dance solo (thankfully), instead it cuts the heady, even absurd, performance of the digital body with a dish of explicit lyrics and booty jam.    

video still, Anjali Alm-Basu, "Response To Chris Collins' 'Pony'", 2011 http://youtu.be/N6nncbuwfxc

Equally compelling was Anjali Alm-Basu's "Response to Pony", which pays real-life tribute to Collins' choreography. In "Response to Pony" you are presented with a similar fixed point-of-view, yet this time instead of the endless vista of a digital world we have a view of a rather cluttered bedroom, a woman starting a video recording on her computer's camera, who then assumes the same introductory pose as Collins' figure. With Ginuwine's song as soundtrack as well, you soon realize that this real-life figure is attempting to perform the same timeline of movement. As a companion piece, you see the translation from computer figure to real-life figure. With the template before her, the woman stares, determined, to the screen, us. Her movements, equally folded and awkward, appear to be untrained and yet her earnest reconstruction of Collins' solo commands attention. Each of these videos can certainly stand on their own, but when paired they have a sweet kind of flirtation. Alm-Basu’s video speaks to our (semi-newly discovered?) human desire to liberate, expand, and realize the digital world in real space. Even if the gesture is an artist's game of mimicry, or simply a YouTube "response” to the posted "call", the resulting video has value both aesthetically and culturally. With digital contexts and platforms pervasive throughout our daily lives it's only natural that we attempt to understand their contours and movements by replicating them in our bedrooms, and everyday life.