Visiting Art Chicago April 2007 (Part I):

Another large scale art show, Art Chicago, was held at the Merchandise Mart, an enormous building which is mainly used as a design trade show building. This is the second year for the show at this site, after having been held for thirteen years at Navy Pier. It seems to have been a success, judging by the crowd size, the number or red stickers marking sold artwork, and a bit more of an international presence of galleries than two years ago, which is good news, since there was talk of the decline, and perhaps even demise of this annual exhibit, since it hadn't been doing so well in its last years at the Navy Pier site.

Along with Art Chicago, there were several other large scale shows staged simultaneously, in the same building or nearby building, as well. This is a prudent business strategy, since Art Chicago itself had had difficulty attracting large crowds in recent years, so clearly the strategy is to hope for spill over crowds from the large antique show, the outsider show, on a floor below, as well as a local show, the bridge Art Fair, in an adjacent building.

http://artchicago.com/showInfo.html

I had last visited Art Chicago two years ago and felt the show was much better and the location overall much better this year, for it was more accessible, near an elevated train stop, and there is no need to walk through crass commercial tourist halls and arcades that now fill up Navy Pier in order to get to the exhibit space. A special bonus was offered to bike riders, they I learned got free entry to the exhibit! But probably, if judging by what clothes people wore, few took advantage of this offer.

The only shortcoming of the new location is the unavailability of space for oversize and enormous art works, in particular sculpture, but this probably only leaves out at most a few art works. In addition, it perhaps felt a bit more crowded than it would at Navy Pier, since there was perhaps less floor space overall, but in the future, the exhibit can always spread to another floor. As it was, there was an exhibit of outsider art on another floor, The Inuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art, along with an antique show; I saw most of the outsider show, which seemed to occupy about a quarter of a floor.

It's an exhausting task to try to take the art in, in one day; I spent about five hours looking and was a bit rushed doing so; really two full days are needed to look more thoughtfully and repeatedly at the art to let it sink in, or at least those works that appeal to you. My friend who I met at a nearby cafe, left after a few hours, and I stayed on until closing time. Most of the galleries were from Chicago and New York and the Midwest area of US, there was a considerable international dimension to the show, mostly with galleries from Canada, England, France, Germany, and Korea. Still there are only 33 foreign galleries out of more than 125, which gives us about 25% or so. Especially odd, was not seeing more galleries from this hemisphere, that is, galleries from Central and South America.

There were some familiar and famous living artists featured, like Chuck Close, Fernando Botero, and a few deceased, like Paul Delvaux. Looking through the exhibition catalog, my only quibble with it is that I'd fault some of the galleries for featuring famous artists with a reproduction of their work; of course, they want above all a sale, but why not feature an artist who needs more publicity?!

There was a considerable amount of minimalist art, conceptual art, which I generally don't like, since much of this art is antithetical to beauty. Some of it evokes a negative sense of the sublime often through a minimal use of form, color, line. Much of it eschews elaboration of the basic elements of art--color, light, line. That said, I still do like some abstract art, particularly if it does elaborate elements like color and light, and my own taste is generally for richer, bolder, strong use of color and form and materials, as in William Conger's work.

There is really no way to do justice to every single gallery and every artist, so I will select only a few that caught my eye. Also, I should say that my choices are guided by simply my own taste.

Let's begin with the realist figural artists, of whom only a handful were in evidence, since figural art occupies a small niche on the contemporary art scene, but several notable artists stood out, like Philip Pearlstein, who paints life size, or slightly large than life size female nudes in pairs with symbolic objects near them. A spirit of world weariness and pondering pervades the nudes of Pearlstein's paintings, bestowing a dignified tone to them. His rendering of figures reminds me a bit of figures from Max Beckmann's early work. For a few samples of Pearlstein's work see this link:

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/finch4-9-07_detail.asp?picnum=1

Charles Browning, who is represented by the Schroeder Romero gallery in Manhattan http://www.foundrysite.com/browning/ offers a parodic representation of the past, which provokes us to smile. In Browning's paintings, we are viewing the past informed with a social critique of its purported virtues. Browning's paintings mock historical paintings that monumentalize, celebrate, and thus distort the past. For example, in the painting above, Browning mocks a wealthy man, who sits beside a donkey, or is it an ass, and overindulges in food unceremoniously, while someone who looks like a servant, paints him in a dignified pose.


Vasily Shulzhenko, represented by Maya Polsky, is a Russian painter in whose works there is a Renaissance monumentality of figure and a seriousness of theme, but the subjects are placed in mundane settings, which generates an energizing frisson in our perception that has been conditioned to expect something more noble and sublime. I can't help but think that Shulzhenko is also parodying the monumentality of Socialist Realist work commissioned during Soviet rule in which he grew up and lived as a young man. http://mayapolskygallery.com/artists/shulzhenko/index.html

Caleb O'Connor, who is represented by Ann Nathan gallery doesn't offer any of the critique or parody one senses in the previous figurative artists I have mentioned, and seems a notable exception in this regard on the contemporary art scene. To the left, you can see an example of his work, which is simply an impressive realist work of art. But in other paintings, O'Connor offers realism with a twist, or else, I can't imagine him being in show of contemporary art in which just straight realism is anathema. I couldn't find two other paintings I saw of figures walking a tightrope high above a cityscape, which give a surrealist, Magritte-like dimension to his work. http://www.annnathangallery.com/pages/caleb_o'connor.htm


More artists and paintings will be continued in the next post.