Friday, August 28, 2009

Reviews

The World of Things In Themselves and An Incantation for Eternity at Vega Estates 
by Gretchen Holmes
 
Google Searching For God at ebersB9
by Jeriah Hildwine
 
Ghostly Echoes at Evanston Art Center
by Jeriah Hildwine
 
Two Closing Receptions You Should Be Sorry You Missed
by Jeriah Hildwine
 
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The World of Things In Themselves and An Incantation for Eternity at Vega Estates 
by Gretchen Holmes

Joe Grimm and Ben Russell, in Saturday’s one-night installation at Pilsen space Vega Estates, provided a caffeine boost for Chicago’s fatigued sensory receptors, weary after a summer of Olafur Eliasson and the Burnham Pavilions.  In this fleeting high, both Grimm and Russell presented subtly experiential, formally austere pieces built, primarily, from 16mm projectors and analog sound systems.  Entering the apartment gallery’s dank basement to view Grimm’s The World of Things In Themselves or climbing into the equally dank garage for Russell’s An Incantation for Eternity felt like eavesdropping on strained conversations between light and sound. 

Initially, The World of Things In Themselves and An Incantation for Eternity seemed virtually identical—not just the materials and aesthetic, but each piece’s phenomenological, visceral bent—and, if not for the PR, I’d have assumed this was a one-man show.  Both artists manipulate the mechanics of these somewhat obsolete AV devices in ways that show a parallel between the equipment and our own bodies: Grimm first slows down each projector’s shutter speed until our eyes perceive its flicker, then amplifies the flicker’s rhythm, sped-up until our ears perceive it as varied tones. Russell projected five black film loops cut with a single clear frame through five prisms onto five mirrors.  An amplifying feedback loop, initiated by popping noises created as each projector spun through the clear frame, cracked and hummed in the background.

It’s no surprise to find that Russell and Grimm collaborate frequently; however, each artist balances subject matter and spectacle uniquely.  Grimm’s title, The World of Things In Themselves, accurately betrays the artist’s predilection for phenomenology (referencing Husserl’s mantra, “To the Things Themselves!”), and the visceral experience—replete with afterimages and retinal fatigue—easily dominates sentimental ones suggested by the exhausted, failed translation between obsolete technology and our own increasing obsolete bodies.  In An Incantation for Eternity, Russell introduces prisms and the pentagram: references to rainbows and death metal.  This comical juxtaposition is a portal, inviting us beyond the physicality of light and sound to the momentary convergence of Abbie Hoffman, Morbid Angel, Sir Isaac Newton, and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.  Grimm and Russell’s convergence at Vega Estates is, unfortunately, momentary as well.  Falling easily into dialog, The World of Things In Themselves and An Incantation for Eternity make a great team, illuminating a vast spectrum of concepts and reference points within their narrow margin of formal variety.  

Vega Estates is located at 723 W 16th St.
 
Google Searching For God at ebersB9
by Jeriah Hildwine

Jason Ferguson’s current exhibition, Google Searching for God, at ebersb9, features evidence of his attempts at finding a higher power through an Internet search engine.  The evidence presented consists of two 24x36” digital prints, and a hand-built light table displaying a scroll of typewriter-embossed paper.

The prints, titled God Sighting A and B along with an address, show two results of a Google map search for “god,” one in Germany, the other in Virginia.  No information is provided as to why God was found in those locations, although the standard Google point-marker shows exactly where He is.  The high-quality archival prints, mounted on aluminum, lend a touch of seriousness to what is essentially a found digital image.

The scroll on the light table, entitled Wikigod, is a sixty-foot scroll of paper, embossed using an inkless typewriter with the entire hypertext transcript of the Wikipedia entry for “God.”  The light table is topped with a sheet of plywood.  Small cutouts in the plywood correspond to each occurrence of the word “God” in the text, allowing the light to pass through and illuminate the paper.  The effect is both a pun on “illuminated manuscripts” and a clean and elegant aesthetic presentation of an attempt at understanding what God is.

The slightly misplaced reverence for an artifact of technology perhaps inadvertently recalls Walter M. Miller Jr.’s book A Canticle for Leibowitz, in which a post-apocalyptic monk lovingly copies (and illuminates, with flourishes and gold leaf) the blueprint for a minor piece of technology he cannot even remotely comprehend.  For Ferguson, however, technology is a means to an end:  the finding and comprehension of God.

Depending on the lens through which one views this work, it either gently reminds the viewer of the inadequacy of the human mind (and of human artifice) in finding and understanding God, or else mocks the futility of the search itself.  For me it does both.  Neither evangelical nor heretical, Ferguson’s work provides us with a fresh angle on a pervasive human activity.  It is worth a look, even if you’re not sure what you’ll find.

ebersB9 is located at 1359 W. Chicago Ave. Apt. B9
 
Ghostly Echoes at Evanston Art Center
by Jeriah Hildwine

Featuring the work of Jesse Avina, Larry Chait, Alice Hargrave, and Eric Holubow, Ghostly Echoes  showcases the work of these four local artists, all of whose work depicts desolate spaces, barren, unoccupied, and seeped with an uncomfortable sense of decay.  Curators Alan Leder and Bruce Rogers have done an impressive job of finding and presenting the work of four individuals whose distinct images unite as an impressive investigation of this theme.

Of Jesse Avina’s photographs, my favorites are close-ups of a diorama of a World War I trench system created and exhibited in his MFA thesis exhibition in 2008.  The diorama was an engaging and exciting spectacle, particularly when Avina crawled beneath the structure to manually initiate an “explosion” of dirt and charcoal dust.  The photographs on display in Ghostly Echoes trade in the original diorama’s playful sense of fun for a quieter, subtler experience.  The vapors from dry ice stand in for smoke, fog, or poison gas, which hugs the ground and fills trenches and craters with eerie verisimilitude.  The diorama stands up surprisingly well to extreme close-ups, creating an ambiguous sense of scale that both immerses and disorients the viewer.

Larry Chait’s body of work for this exhibition consists of images of roadside structures, taken from a moving vehicle.  The structures are sharply focused, in contrast to the rest of the image, which is intensely blurred.  The selective focus of these images appears to transcend the effects of distance and movement, mimicking instead the selective focus of human vision and attention.  The absence of inhabitants and the isolated, rural settings emphasize the ghostly transience of these places.

Alice Hargrave’s series Untitled (family pictures) read as personal snapshots of a family vacation home, with the inhabitants almost palpably conspicuous by their absence.  Like a Zen koan on trees falling, they are a quiet meditation on the private lives of our spaces when we leave them.

Eric Holubow’s photographs of abandoned interiors are powerful, as photographs of these spaces inevitably are.  It is easy to take a good photograph in an abandoned building; it is Holubow’s technical prowess that lends these images their excellence.  Of particular merit is his The Great Room, a distorted panorama in which multiple images of a giant domed interior are seamlessly stitched into a single image, rich in detail and awe-inspiring in its vacant grandiosity.

Evanston Art Center is located at 2603 Sheridan Rd.
 
Two Closing Receptions You Should Be Sorry You Missed
by Jeriah Hildwine
 
Earlier this month (Saturday, 8/1) I was fortunate enough to attend the closing receptions of two excellent shows.  The first was a brunch reception for The Diorama Show at Home Gallery in Hyde Park.
 
There were many excellent works in this show; one that appealed to my tastes in particular was Drue Langlois' Casual.  In this small-scale painting in a shallow box construction, a retro stereotype of a cave girl, complete with leopard skin and a bone in her hair, feasts on the flesh of a severed human head.  Her arm rests on an animal skull much larger than herself.  The skull, which would be about life-sized if it had belonged to a chihuahua or a large rodent, alters the perceived scale in this work.  While dioramas frequently depict a scene at reduced scale, Casual seems to show a miniature woman trapped in a Cornell-like box construction with a the skull of a regular-sized small mammal.  This nuanced manipulation of scale lends a complexity to the charming humor of the quaint vintage syling and unabashed savagery.
 
Albert Stabler's Faggot Fence also uses scale to its advantage; the depiction of a hate crime becomes approachable enough to be effective when presented very small, but high on the wall.
 
Nicely if coincidentally timed to immediately follow this reception was the closing of Aspen Mays' Concentrate and Ask Again at Golden, in Lakeview.  Mays' work deftly balances the conceptual with the aesthetic.  In particular, her large-scale digital prints reward prolonged visual contemplation.  Untitled (Fireflies inside the body of my camera, 8:37-8:39PM, June 26, 2008) is an almost Rothko-esque field of color, shifting from cool yellow to acidic green.  I saw this piece at Mays' MFA thesis exhibition and it was presented at Golden at a larger scale, at which it is even more rewarding.
 
Home Gallery is located at 1407 E. 54th Pl.
Golden is located at 816 W. Newport Ave. 
 

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Opening 8/28, 8/29 & 8/30

Blarg! Have you ever sat on the bus with someone who smells like cat piss? It's rather unpleasant. Bu that's beside the point. Here's your list for the week. Again, there isn't much, everyone holding on till the ole 11th to blow their loads. Enjoy ya'll!

FRIDAY
Elmhurst -
Elmhurst Art Museum - 150 Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst. Portraits of the Urban Landscape in Watercolor, work by Tony Armendariz. Reception 7-9pm. 8/1-9/11.

Lakeview -
Center on Halsted - 3656 N. Halsted. Looking for Lala, work by Liz Wuerffel. Reception 6:30-9:30pm. 8/28-10/4

Paper Boy - 1351 W. Belmont. Cindy Tomczyk, solo show. Reception 5-8 pm. 8/28-10/4

Logan Square -
Galaxie Chicago - 2603 W Barry St. 2nd Annual Art Jam, group show. Reception 7-11pm.

Open House – 3106 W. Fullerton Ave. Open House, group show. Reception 5:30-9pm.

Ravenswood -
Fill in the Blank - 5038 N. Lincoln. Wildlife Features, work by Kyle Harter. Reception 7-11pm. 8/28-9/26

West Loop -
Andrew Rafacz Gallery - 835 W Washington Blvd. Public Works Lecture Series #3: Dawn Hancock & Harper Reed. Lecture 7-10pm. 

SATURDAY
Bucktown -
Believe Inn - 2043 N Winchester Ave. Letting Go, work by Ephameron. Reception 6-10pm. 8/29-9/25

Scott Projects – 1542 N. Milwaukee. No More Perfect Moments, work by Justin Kelly and Andrew Laumann. Reception 6-10pm. 8/29 – 9/11

Humboldt Park -
Barbara & Barbara Gallery - 1021 N. Western Ave. Pardon me, I am just not feeling like myself today, group show. Reception 6-10pm. 8/29-9/22

Lemont -
Argonne National Laboratory - 9700 South Cass Ave. Open House, come explore the lab! Open to the public 9am-4:30pm. One day only.

Pilsen –
Golden Age - 1744 W. 18th. Plain + Fancy, work by Nicholas Gottlund. Reception 6-10pm. /29-9/24

Ravenswood -
Lillstreet Art Center - 4401 N Ravenswood Ave. 6th Annual Lillstreet Student MemberShow. 12-6pm

River North -
Chicago Art Dealers Assoc.  - 730 North Franklin Street, Suite 004. Saturday Morning Gallery Tours: Habatat Galleries, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Carl Hammer Gallery and Perimeter Gallery. Meet at Starbucks at the corner of Chicago and Franklin. 11am-12:30pm.

University Village -
Gallery 400 - 400 S. Peoria St. Artist lecture: Michael Ruglio-Misurell's Artist. Lecture 2pm. 

SUNDAY
East Garfield Park -
Devening Projects + Editions - 3039 West Carroll. Irrationalism, work by Julia Hechtman. Reception 4-7pm. 8/30-10/10

East Rogers Park -
Mess Hall - 6932 N Glenwood Ave. Everybody's Got (More) Money Issues, closing reception. Reception 6-9pm.

Evanston -
Evanston Art Center - 2603 Sheridan Rd. Ghostly Echoes, work by Jesse Avina, Larry Chait, Alice Hargrave, Eric Holubow. Reception 1-4pm. 8/23 – 9/29.

Noble Square -
Roots & Culture - 1034 N Milwaukee Ave. Zummer Tapez, work by Kent Lambert. Showing 8pm.

Ravenswood -
Lillstreet Art Center - 4401 N Ravenswood Ave. 6th Annual Lillstreet Student MemberShow. 12-5pm

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Opening 8/21, 8/22 & 8/23

Sup, y'all. Here's your fodder. It's lean, and is going to stay that way till Sept. 11th. Ya want my suggestion? Go to Evanston Art Center on Sunday. Over and out.

FRIDAY
Bridgeport -
33 Collective - 1029 W. 35th. Contra, work by Carla Carr. Opening 7-10pm.

Co-Prosperity Sphere - 3219-21 S. Morgan. Transparent Reflect, group show. Opening 6-11pm.

Zhou B - 1029 W. 35th. 3rd Fridays at Zhou B Art Center. Opening 6-9pm.

South Loop -
Center for Book and Paper Arts - 1104 S Wabash Ave. Anne Elizabeth Moore, artist talk. 6:30pm.

West Loop –
Andrew Rafacz Gallery - 835 W. Washington Blvd. Public Works, lecture with Chris Eichenseer, Jason Teegarden-Downs, and Justin Fines. Lecture at 7pm (till 10pm).

Coop, The - 845 W. Fulton #201. Sequence, work by Mike Ruggierello. Opening 6-10pm.

ebersb9 - 1359 W. Chicago. Google Searching For God, work by Jason Ferguson.

SATURDAY
Bucktown -
Around the Coyote - 1815-25 W. Division. 1st Annual Painting Competition. Opening 6-9pm.

Hyde Park -
Hyde Park Art Center - 5020 S Cornell Ave. Work!, group show of student work. Opening 1-3pm.

Pilsen -
Vega Estates - 723 W. 16th. An Incantation for Eternity, work by Ben Russell & The World of Things In Themselves , work by Joe Grimm. Opening 6-10pm.

River North -
Art Dealers Association of Chicago – River North. Saturday Art Gallery Tour: Stephen Daiter Gallery, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Addington Gallery and Habatat Galleries. Meet inside the Starbucks at the corner of Chicago & Franklin. 11am-12:30pm.

Ukrainian Village -
Barbara&Barbara Gallery - 1021 N Western Ave. Fundraiser for Stacee Droege and Levi Johnston. 6-10pm.

SUNDAY
Evanston -
Evanston Art Center - 2603 Sheridan Rd. Ghostly Echoes, work by Jesse Avina, Larry Chait, Alice Hargrave, Eric Holubow. Opening 1-4pm.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Opening This Weekend (8/14 & 8/15)

Sup ya'll. This weekend's pretty lean. I think everybody's holdin' their breath till the big opening in Sept. Maybe you should be doing that too? See ya'll out there.

FRIDAY
Loop:
Art Institute of Chicago - 111 S. Michigan. Arts of 17th-Century China. Aug. 14-Oct. 25

Chicago Tourism Center - 72 E Randolph St. Chicago Gardens: group show by Palette & Chisel artists. Reception 5-7pm.

Finestra - 410 S. Michigan #516. To Locate Again: work by Deirdre Fox. Reception Fri 8/14, 5-9 PM. 8/4-8/29.

Gallery UNO - 410 S. Michigan. A Situation Among Parts: work by Rana Siegels. Opening 4:30-9:30.

Ossia Fine Arts Space - 410 S. Michigan. Retrospective: work by Josh Garrett, Eric Mecum, Rebecca Moy, and Dale Spann. Reception Fri 8/14, 6-9 PM. 8/14-9/25.

Second Floor Gallery - 410 S. Michigan Avenue. Chicago: City and Shore. Opening 6-8pm.

North Center:
Chicago Mosaic School - 1800 W. Cuyler. Pieces of Eight. Reception Fri 8/14, 6-9 PM. 8/14-10/4.

Pilsen:
4Art – 1932 S. Halsted #100. Finale Show: group show. Fri., Aug. 14, 6-10 p.m.

Chicago Arts District - 1945 S. Halsted, Ste. 101. 2nd FRIDAYS Gallery Night. Openings 6-10pm.

Logsdon - 1909 S. Halsted. WonderSky: work by Marco Logsdon and Michael Wayne. Reception Fri 8/14, 6-10 PM. 8/14-9/5.

Rooms Gallery - 645 W. 18th. Toward Ash and Anxiety: work by Todd and Marrakesh Frugia. Fri., Aug. 14, 8-11 p.m.

West Loop:
Packer Schopf Gallery - 942 W. Lake St. Closing Reception for Size Matters. Reception 5-8pm.

SATURDAY
Bridgeport:
Medicine Cabinet - 1854 W North Ave. Installation by Michaela Calhoun. Sat., Aug. 15, 7-11 p.m.

Second Bedroom Project Space - 3216 Morgan. ATLANTIC O: work by Irene Perez. Sat., Aug. 15, 7-11 p.m.

Loop:
Art Institute of Chicago - 111 S. Michigan. Elemental Beauty: Shigaraki ware. Aug. 15-Jan. 10.

Wicker Park:
Quimby's Bookstore - 1854 W North Ave. Horde of the Flies: An Infestation: work by Onsmith and Nudd. Event at 7pm.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Notes From The Field

Once again, the Friday Night Army has sallied fourth to bring notes from the field. This week, they bring you:

Mating Call at Believe Inn
by Niki Grangruth

The End of the 80s at Avram Eisen
by Stacy Hunt

Public Works at Andrew Rafacz
by Corinna Kirsch

Devastation and Space at Eel Space
by Ariel Pittman

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Mating Call at Believe Inn
by Niki Grangruth

Candy-colored paintings of nymph-like cartoon characters, cubist-inspired muses, tan-skinned madonna-esque figure and the lush jungle of Puerto Rico direct the subject matter of work by artists Chris Silva and Lauren Feece at Believe Inn. The show, titled “Mating Call,” contains works created by the artists during a two year stay in Puerto Rico, where they spent most of their time in isolation along a river on 16 acres of land in the lush jungle.


The colors were obviously inspired by the artists’ environment. Aqua blues, vibrant greens, and Tuscan oranges dominate the paintings, which are hung salon-style in the compact gallery space. Love and cuteness are in abundance with depictions of a deer whose antlers are adorned with feathers, colorful birds paired with hearts, and many beautiful longhaired women sprouting flowers and feathers.


Silva’s “Wise Children’s Room Investment” stood out as the only sculptural work. Created from dilapidated wood, paint and a cartoonish wooden llama, surrounded by silhouettes of plants and sunburst flowers. In accordance with the title, it appears to be a rustic version of a children’s wall plaque.


“Peacock” by Feece depicts a woman with dark features haloed by a vibrant orange sunset. Her flowing brown hair gives way to turquoise and green peacock feathers, forming an inner halo. The paintings have a spiritual and mythological air around them, drawing from religious iconography and cultural folklore. The impact of her Puerto Rican experience reveals itself in the work through the use of color, subject matter and style.

At first look, the style seems completely static, which is surprising for works created by two different artists. Upon closer examination, there are obvious differences between the styles of the artists; Silva uses slightly brighter colors and focuses more on abstract line and shape while Feece uses a more subdued palette and focuses on figurative subjects, specifically women. In a few of the paintings on which the two artists collaborated, these two styles interweave; Silva’s geometric shapes give way to Feece’s organic swirls of color.

Believe Inn is located at 2043 N. Winchester Ave. For more information, visit www.believeinn.org

The End of the 80s at Avram Eisen
by Stacy Hunt

A few of the alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago have come together for an exhibit to showcase some of their recent works of art at the Avram Eisen Gallery. Somewhat expecting there to be a similarity between all the artists due to the fact that they had all graduated between 1985-1989, I was surprised to find them all to be very different from one another showing how each artist have taken their own experiences and created their own style. A small place card next to each work of art helped to give the artists perspective on how they have grown since attending SAIC, as well as their views on how they make their art.


Going Mobile with Style by Joan Fabian

This small gallery was very successful in showing the various styles all the SAIC alumni had to offer through this exhibit. From digital mixed media to painting and even sculpture, the unique perspective of each artist was clear from looking around the gallery. None of the artists had chosen to the same process or subject matter, making it clear that though they were all SAIC alumni they shared very little else especially in their artwork. The exhibit is definitely an interesting collection of alumni from a short period in the 1980s that shows the growth of their art and how experiences of each artist have shaped their own styles since graduating.

Avram Eisen is located at 5202 N. Damen Ave. For more information, visit www.avrameisengallery.com

Public Works at Andrew Rafacz
by Corinna Kirsch

In The Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman describes how the frustrations we have with the objects that surround us—from difficult to unbuckle safety belts to unzippable zippers—is often due to poor design. However, this problem has a simple remedy, one taken on by contemporary designers like the four shown in Public Works at the Andrew Rafacz Gallery. Part aesthetics and part engineering, the contemporary designer doesn’t just sell you things—they make things that people want to use (iPhones), propel viewers towards social change (Shepherd Fairey), or provide visual delight (any of the designers in this exhibition).


Public Works, the first in a series of exhibitions and events that will show crossovers between art and commerce, features artists who have made careers out of design, but whose work can—and has—just as easily be shown on the door to a music venue or on the cover of a magazine as on gallery walls. Many of the works revel in the simplicity of color, composition, and pattern. Walking into the gallery, I was overwhelmed with a simple feeling of glee, absobed in an adult gymboree of bright colors and playful approaches to collage. (DEMO), Sing by Justin Fines combines quirky colors, a plethora of shapes,—like triangles, circles, and hearts—and found imagery into a banjo-strumming musician with a smile so large it could crush its wearer. Andy Mueller’s Joni Mitchell’s Necklace requires a double-take to decipher what decade the work was made.


Collage, an oft-used technique in this show, facilitates combinations of old and new styles and in the 2000s, a decade where bands try to sound like Joy Division and Kanye West tries to look like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, this return to the past often results egregious abuses. Of course, the best instances of the mash-up, espoused in new music by bands like The Dirty Projectors, a band equal parts Jazz to Jam band and East to West, are more than just copies of the past, but tensely balance their sources, held together through collage.


A design exhibition without artists’ commercially applied designs would be incomplete, belying the crucial tension inherent in any design exhibition. As such, the southern wall of the main gallery features a “super group” wall with a salon-style presentation of album covers, concert posters, and even an advertisement for a sporting event in Los Angeles. As the variety of works in this exhibition show, design can sell you things, but in line with Brown’s description of good design, it has the ability to pull you in any which direction.

Andrew Rafacz is located at 835 W. Washington Blvd. For more information, visit www.andrewrafacz.com

Devastation and Space at Eel Space
by Ariel Pittman

Eel space inhabits a humble ground floor studio at 2846 W North Ave. Run by Patrick Holbrook, the space is primarily used to present curated, thematic exhibitions of work by emerging artists. Devastation and Space brings together work by Emily J Gómez, Jesal Kapadia and Snorre Sjønøst Henriksen in an exploration of the public and private narratives of space.


Kapadia’s video, A Vacant Rectangle, left black for a work expressing modern feeling, depicts the city of Chandighar in Northern India, designed and built by LeCorbusier in the 1950’s. Accompanied by a series of photographs of the city, Kapadia’s video refutes the discourse of concrete utopias espoused by the figureheads of modern architecture.


This theme of disappointment and lost promises persists in Gómez’s muted photographs of sacred Native American sites. These sites have been marginalized by development. Transformed into football stadiums and traffic circles by modern America, Gómez’s photographs lend these sites an intense pathos through a careful under-exposure, and an embrace of grey tones. Her images imply that no one has looked for the sacred here in quite a while. As a contrast to the reflective quality of Kapadia and Gómez’s work, Henriksen’s video, Psychosomatic, is a dizzy recording of the artist and a collaborator, dressed in lab coats, skateboarding through the tunnels between the psychiatric and somatic wards at the Central Hospital of Telemark, where Henriksen was treated following a suicide attempt.


The piece is captivating in its whimsy and adept use of rough shots combined with careful, media conscious editing. Though, it is less expressive of an underlying narrative than Gómez’s photographs or Kapadia’s installation. Purporting to express a desire to reunite the mind and the body, despite the hospital’s attempt to dissociate the treatment of the two, Henriksen’s video is more a reckless reclamation of freedom in a heavily controlled environment. Watching these two young men skate through the underground tunnel at breakneck speeds, sometimes falling, sometimes showing off, I was struck by the infinitesimal line between having and losing control. Devastation and Space poses questions about our experience of spaces. In particular, how we perceive their histories, sacred potential, and the charge they retain from individuals who have inhabited them. The only answer it presents is that control over space and experience is out of our hands.

Eel Space is located at 2846 W. North Ave. For more information, visit eelspace.wordpress.com

Opening this Weekend (8/7 to 8/9)

Sup ya'll. So, the best thing going on this weekend, in my opinion, ain't even in Chicago. The Great Poor Farm Experiment is going on up in Wisconsin, and they're having an open house all weekend. I wanna go, but alas, I cannot. I guess I'll have to settle for 'round these parts this weekend. I'll defiantly be hitting the MCA for Jill Frank's 12x12. I was also thinkin' 'bout trawling the West Loop, there's some fun stuff at Architrouve (weirdly) and Spoke. Don't drag your feet, summer just started and now it's almost over. See ya'll out there.

Friday

Berwyn:
12th Street Gallery - 7023 Roosevelt. Artapalooza: visual art by famous musicians.

Bowmanville:
Morpho - 5216 N. Damen. Emerging Artists Summer Exhibit. Reception 6pm.

Bridgeport:
Co-Prosperity Sphere - 3219-21 S. Morgan. Well Hung: group show.

East Village:
Rotofugi - 1953 W Chicago Ave. Greetings from Near and Afar. Reception 7-10pm.

Gold Coast:
International Museum of Surgical Science - 1524 N Lake Shore Dr. Redefining the Medical Artist & Vesna Jovanovic & Inkspill Drawings. Recption 5-8pm.

Loop:
Gallery UNO - 410 S. Michigan Ave. Rana Siegel: A situation among Parts. Reception 4:30-9:30pm.

Pilsen:
ANTENA - 1765 S Laflin St. Gabriel Villa. Reception 6-10pm.

Roscoe Village:
August House Studio - 2113 W. Roscoe. Gretchen Kish Serrano: Dog Paintings. Reception 7-9pm.

West Loop:
Architrouve, The - 1433 W Chicago Ave. William Marhoefer. Reception 6-9pm.

Spoke - 119 N. Peoria. Tirtza Even and Toby Millman: Palestine Revisited. Reception 6-9pm.

Wicker Park:
Coalition - 2010 W. Pierce. Group show, first show at the new gallery. Reception 5-8pm.

Eyeporium - 1543 N. Milwaukee. Playgrounds: work by Bruce Noel Mortenson. Reception 7-10pm.

United Center Park:
Family Room, The - 1821 W Hubbard St. North American Wildlife. Reception 6pm.

Saturday
Homan Square:
Murphy Hill Gallery - 3333 W. Arthington. Art Across Cultures. Reception 6-10pm.

Humboldt Park:
Busy Beaver Button Company - 3279 W Armitage. Busy Beaver Grand Opening. Reception 1-8pm.

Logan Square:
Scott Projects - 1542 N Milwaukee Ave. Sopping Granite. Reception 6-10pm.

Pilsen:
Underscene, The - 2215 S union Ave. Use Your Left Hand. Reception 4-11pm.

River North:
Art Dealers Asso. Of Chicago - 730 North Franklin St. Saturday Gallery Tour: Marx-Saunders Gallery, Addington Gallery, Judy A. Saslow Gallery and Carl Hammer Gallery. 11am–12:30pm.

Streeterville:
MCA - 220 E Chicago Ave. UBS 12 x 12: Jill Frank. Reception 6-10pm.

West Loop:
ThreeWalls - 119 N Peoria. Panel discussion: Jenni Sorkin, Mark Jeffrey, and Sara Rabinowitz, moderated by Peter Taub. 2pm, $5 at door.

Sunday
East Rogers Park:
Mess Hall - 6932 N Glenwood. Everybody’s Got (More) Money Issues. Reception 3-6pm.

West Loop:
ThreeWalls - 119 N Peoria. Salon discussion with resident artists. 2pm, $5 at the door.