Chicago is featuring a power-packed collection of world-renowned artists and their exhibitions this month. Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to venture to some beautiful galleries and museums and experience the incredible artwork our city is hosting.
Mark Grotjahn
Shane Campbell Gallery
May 13 – June 25, 2011
Born and based in Los Angeles, Mark Grotjahn is an internationally acclaimed artist who has been showcased in exhibitions ranging from New York to Switzerland to Amsterdam. In Grotjahn’s first solo exhibition in Chicago, the Shane Campbell Gallery presents new paintings from the series Three to Five Faces.
Thick lines of oil paint are tangled, woven and overlaid, transforming ropes of color into the shapes of eyes and noses and mouths. This collection is bold and unique, sure to surprise and astound the viewer. The “face” paintings represent not only sublimated desire but also the complexity of self-expression and primitivism. Such works reflect acknowledgement of Pablo Picasso and German Expressionism. New York Magazine described these “face” paintings as a reminder of the pleasures of “the open, the out-there, and the untamed.”
This exhibit is located at the Shane Campbell Gallery, 673 North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago Illinois.
For more information, contact John Schmid at 312.226.2223 or info@shanecampbellgallery.com.
Top: Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Broken Down Beautiful Post Impressionist Face 41.71), 2011
Oil on cardboard mounted on linen
72 1/2 x 52 inches (184.2 x 132.1 cm)
Image courtesy of the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Blum and Poe, Los Angeles; Anton Kern, New York; Gagosian, London.
Photo credit: Douglas M. Parker Studio, 2011.
Middle: Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (S II “Some of Us Didn’t Know We Were Indians” Painting for RH Face 41.72), 2011
Oil on cardboard mounted on linen
101 1/4 x 72 1/4 inches (257.2 x 183.5 cm)
Image courtesy of the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Blum and Poe, Los Angeles; Anton Kern, New York; Gagosian, London.
Photo credit: Douglas M. Parker Studio, 2011.
Bottom: Mark Grotjahn: Three to Five Faces, May 13 – June 25, 2011
Installation View
Image courtesy the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago.
Theaster Gates
Kavi Gupta Gallery
April 30 – July 2, 2011
Theaster Gates is an important Chicago-based artist who has woven his background studies in fine arts and urban planning together into a unique artistic vision and practice of unparalleled breadth and depth. Over the past several years, Theaster’s work has been included in an impressive host of museum exhibitions internationally, including the 2010 Whitney Biennial, and he is currently working on a project for Documenta 2012 in Kassel Germany. This exhibit, An Epitaph for Civil Rights and Other Domesticated Structures, is being featured at the Kavi Gupta Gallery. Gates uses raw material he digs out from old abandoned houses he purchases. His art reflects a transformation of the rubble and wreckage.
This exhibit showcases fragments of an embroidered loveseat, cabinet doors, cracked moldings and an electrical socket in a wall. Gates references political events, such as the 1960′s race riots and the hosing of civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963.
This exhibit is located at the Kavi Gupta Gallery, 835 West Washington Blvd, Chicago Illinois. (Map).
Photo Credit: Theaster Gates An Epitaph for Civil Rights and Other Domesticated Structures, Courtesy of Kavi Gupta CHICAGO | BERLIN.
William J. O’Brien
The Renaissance Society
May 15 – June 26, 2011
Internationally recognized artist William J. O’Brien has been based in Chicago since 2001. O’Brien’s work in painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics and installation grows out of a unique range of materials, including ceramics, textiles, wood, metal and paper. His solo exhibition at The Renaissance Society includes around 100 ceramic pieces, many which have never been displayed before. His pieces range from masks and urns to vessels and plates, and his sculptures are bursting with unique color, texture and design.
New City Art highly recommends this exhibit, describing O’Brien’s ceramics as a dynamic psychology that expresses “things buried and prematurely unearthed.” O’Brien is also featured in New City Art as one of seven Breakout Artists: Chicago’s next generation of image makers.
This exhibit is located at 5811 South Ellis, Cobb Hall 418, University of Chicago. The Renaissance Society is a contemporary art museum free and open to the public.
Photo Credit: William J. O’Brien Exhibition at The Renaissance Society.
Mark Bradford
Museum of Contemporary Art
May 28 – September 18, 2011
Mark Bradford is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. Describing himself as having always been a creator, Bradford is known for his collage paintings that reflect both the energy and poetry of city life, specifically L.A. Bradford’s exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art is a survey of Bradford’s work dating from 2001 to 2010 and exploring different media and projects.
Bradford uses materials he finds such as flyers, plywood and movie posters to create interesting layers of color and texture, pulled together into a unified space. Influenced by pop culture, identity politics and abstract painting, Bradford’s work ranges in medium from painting to sculpture to video. Drawing upon his experiences growing up in South Central L.A., many of Bradford’s titles allude to structures of class, race and gender embedded in urban society.
The exhibition is located at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago Illinois.
For more information, call 312.280.2660 (general) or 312.397.4010 (box office).
Photo Credit: Mark Bradford Exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Emmaline Niendorf is an Integrated Marketing Associate with Otherwise Incorporated.
aris; and Thomas Dane Gallery, London.
