Continuing with more art to see this week/weekend (see part 1 from yesterday's post), Version Fest 12 in Chicago gets going strong on Friday nite with a bunch of exhibitions and art events that stretch throughout the entire month of May. The festival is held each year in Bridgeport as a project of the Public Media Institute, a non-profit community-based arts & culture organization in the city, and a partial extension of the geniuses behind neighborhood institutions Co-Prosperity Sphere and Maria's Packaged Goods & Community Bar (both a must-go if you're down in Bridgeport).
The fest promises dynamic art throughout the month, so best to keep an eye on their website for programming updates, but in the meantime, as the event picks up steam this weekend, there's a few particular exhibitions that I think are worth a note.
First, local artist Deirdre Colgan will be launching part of her ongoing series Cast-offs (Future Relics). Beginning with a variety of ordinary and expendable household objects, Colgan freezes them in concrete, creating what would appear like statues or monuments to these everyday items we often so easily discard. In a sense, Cast-offs is her attempt to transcend these simple objects beyond their generic, disposable framework and into some pantheon of precious relics -- no doubt their role as small consumer products are already imbued as artifacts for our time.
Also on view in Bridgeport starting this week is work by Gabe Lanza, notably a large mixed media installation, titled Balance, on the outside of his home at 2835 S. Farrell St. The piece reflects the diversity of Lanza's overall body of work, combining surface design, graphic arts, painting, and other media, placing his figurative pieces among angular shapes and forms that often bring to mind futuristic urban landscapes -- which seems apropos considering Bridgeport's monicker as "The Community of the Future".
Version Fest 12
ongoing thru 26 May
Bridgeport neighborhood, Chicago
Elsewhere on Friday, in Portland the iWitness Gallery opens A Different Kind of Normal: Stories of Asperger's Syndrome, a solo show by photographer Leah Nash. The series is among a number of projects that Nash has photographed addressing common societal perceptions of normalcy.
In this exhibition, she introduces us to people living with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. The CDC reports that nearly 1 in 110 children are being classified with autism spectrum disorders, statistics that have skyrocketed even in the past few decades to the point where autism is one of the fastest growing disabilities in the nation. On top of that, it remains a mysterious disorder that continues to perplex medical professionals.
A Different Kind of Normal: Stories of Asperger's Syndrome
photographs by Leah Nash
opening Friday 4 May, 6-9pm
iWitness Gallery (at the Northwest Center for Photography)
1028 SE Water Ave., ste. 50, Portland
In NYC on Saturday, the Alice Austen House Museum on Staten Island will host an artists' reception as part of their ongoing show Foreclosed: Documents From the American Housing Crisis. The group exhibition features works by Bruce Gilden, Lauren Greenfield, Todd Hido, Imara Moore, John Moore, John Francis Peters, T.J. Proechel, Brian Shumway, Brian Ulrich and Guillaume Zuili.
The fest promises dynamic art throughout the month, so best to keep an eye on their website for programming updates, but in the meantime, as the event picks up steam this weekend, there's a few particular exhibitions that I think are worth a note.
First, local artist Deirdre Colgan will be launching part of her ongoing series Cast-offs (Future Relics). Beginning with a variety of ordinary and expendable household objects, Colgan freezes them in concrete, creating what would appear like statues or monuments to these everyday items we often so easily discard. In a sense, Cast-offs is her attempt to transcend these simple objects beyond their generic, disposable framework and into some pantheon of precious relics -- no doubt their role as small consumer products are already imbued as artifacts for our time.
from the series Cast-offs (Future Relics)
© Deirdre Colgan
Cast-offs will be showing at Co-Prosperity Sphere, where the Small Manufacturing Alliance -- a new experimental organization launching at the festival this year -- is hosting a showroom (aka "The People's Macy's") to promote locally manufactured products and companies who service small local businesses and creators. A bit of a locavore's dreamland, the Alliance is planning a variety of events in the space throughout the month.© Deirdre Colgan
Also on view in Bridgeport starting this week is work by Gabe Lanza, notably a large mixed media installation, titled Balance, on the outside of his home at 2835 S. Farrell St. The piece reflects the diversity of Lanza's overall body of work, combining surface design, graphic arts, painting, and other media, placing his figurative pieces among angular shapes and forms that often bring to mind futuristic urban landscapes -- which seems apropos considering Bridgeport's monicker as "The Community of the Future".
Balance
© Gabe Lanza
© Gabe Lanza
Version Fest 12
ongoing thru 26 May
Bridgeport neighborhood, Chicago
Elsewhere on Friday, in Portland the iWitness Gallery opens A Different Kind of Normal: Stories of Asperger's Syndrome, a solo show by photographer Leah Nash. The series is among a number of projects that Nash has photographed addressing common societal perceptions of normalcy.
In this exhibition, she introduces us to people living with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. The CDC reports that nearly 1 in 110 children are being classified with autism spectrum disorders, statistics that have skyrocketed even in the past few decades to the point where autism is one of the fastest growing disabilities in the nation. On top of that, it remains a mysterious disorder that continues to perplex medical professionals.
from the series A Different Kind of Normal: Stories of Asperger's Syndrome
© Leah Nash
Although individuals with Asperger's Syndrome tend to be active and sometimes quite gifted, their social interactions are often difficult and awkward. They may be physically clumsy and frequently lapse into repetitive behaviors fixated on unusual objects or topics. Nash brings us stories of the complexities of five people currently living with the disorder. In addition to being an intimate documentation of their everyday experiences and efforts to maintain a sustained sense of normalcy in their lives and the lives of people closest to them, Nash's photographs take on an additional urgency in light of controversial revisions recently proposed for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (aka the DSM-5, the diagnostic encyclopedia of American psychiatry) that would no longer recognize Asperger's Syndrome as a unique diagnosis but instead consider it under the broader category of Autism Spectrum Disorder.© Leah Nash
from the series A Different Kind of Normal: Stories of Asperger's Syndrome
© Leah Nash
© Leah Nash
A Different Kind of Normal: Stories of Asperger's Syndrome
photographs by Leah Nash
opening Friday 4 May, 6-9pm
iWitness Gallery (at the Northwest Center for Photography)
1028 SE Water Ave., ste. 50, Portland
In NYC on Saturday, the Alice Austen House Museum on Staten Island will host an artists' reception as part of their ongoing show Foreclosed: Documents From the American Housing Crisis. The group exhibition features works by Bruce Gilden, Lauren Greenfield, Todd Hido, Imara Moore, John Moore, John Francis Peters, T.J. Proechel, Brian Shumway, Brian Ulrich and Guillaume Zuili.
© Lauren Greenfield
The exhibition examines the aftermath of the housing bubble from its start around 2006 and into the continued hardships still facing many homeowners around the U.S. today. We are brought images from a variety of styles by fine art and documentary photographers, each addressing the larger topic via multiple viewpoints: from the empty interiors of abandoned houses as seen in works such as Todd Hido or John Francis Peters, to John Moore's award-winning documentation of the personal stories of families who lost their homes. Further, we see photographs from poor neighborhoods and wealthy neighborhoods alike, a stark reminder of the universality of ruin in this economic quagmire, which poses some serious questions about the culture of home ownership as a fundamental tenet of the American Dream.
from the series Just a Dream
© John Francis Peters
The Alice Austen House Museum turns out to be a fitting location for this exhibition, as Austen and her family were forced to abandon the home in 1945 under financial problems very similar to what people are experiencing on a mass scale today, nearly 70 years later. The show will also include a selection of Alfred Eisenstadt's vintage photographs from LIFE Magazine of Alice Austen's emotional return to the home she lost.Foreclosed: Documents From the American Housing Crisis
photographs by Bruce Gilden, Lauren Greenfield, Todd Hido, Imara Moore, John Moore, John Francis Peters, T.J. Proechel, Brian Shumway, Brian Ulrich and Guillaume Zuili
artists reception Saturday 5 May, 2-6pm
exhibition continues thru 14 June
Alice Austen House Museum
2 Hylan Blvd., Staten Island NYC
And on Sunday evening, returning back to Chicago (and just a short bike ride away for me), Peanut Gallery opens the multimedia exhibition Positive Reinforcement. The group show features work by Kristin Abhalter, Steve Armstrong, Corinne Halbert, Anders Johnson, Rachael Lombardy, Devin Mawdsley, Jonah Ortiz, Jun-Jun Sta. Ana, Matthew Schlagbaum and Edra Soto.
from the series Little Sisters of the Poor
© Rachael Lombardy
Positive Reinforcement is concerned with ideas of happiness, bliss, desire, nirvana, ecstasy, etc. Utilizing a spectrum of materials and approaches, from photography to sculpture to painting to mixed media and more, the artists here depict and explore their own personal notions of utopia or "happy places", and in the process open themselves up to allow the viewer to swim around (almost voyeuristically, or vicariously) through the fantasies of others.
Judy Garland Smile, 2012
© Matthew Schlagbaum
What we ultimately find is that there are no literal visions of utopia. As the show statement details:© Matthew Schlagbaum
"In fact, very few of the works are superficially pleasant, and many are aggressively ecstatic, even a bit violent. Motifs within this exhibition span across the board from nostalgia to sex and death, to more abstract, visceral interactions with shapes and materials."
Positive Reinforcement
works by Kristin Abhalter, Steve Armstrong, Corinne Halbert, Anders Johnson, Rachael Lombardy, Devin Mawdsley, Jonah Ortiz, Jun-Jun Sta. Ana, Matthew Schlagbaum and Edra Soto
opening Sunday 6 May, 5-9pm
continuing thru 29 May
Peanut Gallery
1000 N. California Ave., Chicago
works by Kristin Abhalter, Steve Armstrong, Corinne Halbert, Anders Johnson, Rachael Lombardy, Devin Mawdsley, Jonah Ortiz, Jun-Jun Sta. Ana, Matthew Schlagbaum and Edra Soto
opening Sunday 6 May, 5-9pm
continuing thru 29 May
Peanut Gallery
1000 N. California Ave., Chicago
