The Chicago Problem: An Open Letter in Response to Pedro Velez

Pedro,

The title of your Newcity article "Friends Curating Friends" contains the kernel of your most recent complaint.[1]

And you'd have your readers believe that the aforementioned piece is, in metaphor, nothing but a mirror held to Chicago's art world. That's fair enough, I suppose, because you're a critic. In any case, the reaction to a looking-glass bespeaks the nature of the person who stands before it.[2]

Having written that, rather than contest your action I'd like to turn your mirror just enough to allow you to reflect upon yourself and the profession that you practice.[3]

In fact, let's look together. For if it's the case that a curator has some ability to determine what is shown within an exhibition space, it's also true that critics have some ability to determine what appears in press. It follows: If "friends curating friends" is a phenomenon which merits attention, "friends covering friends" must too be an issue of import.

Well, how do you fare when your own work is subject to such scrutiny? Do we find that you've tended to praise certain parties regularly? blame certain parties regularly? About whom do we learn that you've been silent? Why?

Were I to stop here I think that you'd get the gist of it. Every complaint which you've made about the state of curatorial practice in Chicago applies equally well to the state of critical practice in Chicago. For example: "It’s not enough to have good intentions...one must do the legwork, conduct full-blown research and exploit untapped local resources. There is no excuse to not do so."[4]

Again, Pedro, what would we find if we employed your own heuristics and interviewed Chicago gallery owners in an effort to determine the amount of "legwork" which supports your criticism? You named the galleries Julius Caesar and Peregrine Program in your recent Newcity article: How often would their proprietors report having seen you under their shared roof?

It's no small point whether your local readership is upset with you for practicing art criticism--or criticizing art programs of which you have little practical experience.



"Little practical experience" describes well most of the authors of Chicago's arts coverage over the last five years. But, while you've railed against the "eternal puberty" which characterizes our alternative spaces, you've staunchly defended our critics--you know, your friends.[5]

It's now ironic that you were an invited speaker when many of us gathered together in one of Chicago's alternative spaces for the expressed purpose of discussing "crisis-free criticism" two years ago.[6]

What did we hear from you in that place? that there are no problems in art criticism in Chicago. Even earlier, in 2010, you used artnet.com to inform an international audience that Chicago was "well served" by the criticism published in a local, student newspaper.[7]

How is it possible to reconcile the standard which you've applied to critics with the standard which you've applied to curators?



I really like many of our young writers; I've no doubt that there are talents developing here. Whether they stay is another matter altogether. And to pretend that the loss of their predecessors is of no consequence is absurd. We have precious little memory of past events left alive in this city. In fact, twenty-five percent of the whole population of Chicago has been lost since 1970.[8]

Our criticism and attendant dialogue face this threefold challenge in development: (a) people need to travel miles in order to see spaces such as Julius Caesar and Peregrine Program; (b) people need to make such pilgrimages regularly; and, (c) people with such experience need to find a way to stay here, and participate in whatever conversations are ongoing.

Most of us fall into a rut. And if the reason that we see the same things again-and-again is that we're bound to do so by our ties of friendship, the consequence is that our opinions, our prejudices, are ever more firmly reinforced.

We have no shortage of people with ideas about art; but if few people look at art then where do those ideas about art originate? From where do your ideas come, Pedro?

Over the course of the last several weeks I've met, informally, with artists, publishers, and staff from various organizations in the city. My aim has been to better understand what it might be possible to do with my archive of Chicago art photography. I'd like to bring the project to some tangible conclusion, whether in the form of a book or exhibition. This series of meetings related to my own practice seems good to mention here because everyone involved has gotten the same spiel from me: a show of such images, derived from locations across the city, over time, might provide an occasion both for new names to be learned and also for familiar names to be understood in a new way. I think that's important. Performance and other time-sensitive, audience-involved, site-specific works typically are lost to history after the opening night; and studio visits don't provide a substitute for the missing experience. The documentary practice itself has made obvious that most visual art events are not well-attended.

That's "The Chicago Problem" in a word: audience. The competition for audience here is fierce. Our art schools produce more artists, and our artists produce more works of art, than we have interested curators, gallerists, collectors, and critics to engage. So efforts are made, ever more frequently, to combine artwork with food, and drink, and music, in order to appeal to a broader audience.

Or it's begun to dawn upon people that the easiest way to make money in the art world is not by showing and selling art, but rather by selling things to artists, e.g., residencies, webinars, and certificates. Because "striking it rich" is as rare in the field of culture as it was anywhere in the Gold Rush, it's safer to make money supplying other people as they risk the long odds.

We've probably got six commercial galleries relevant to a serious career (Kavi, Shane, Monique, and you can name the other three as you like) and six MFA programs disgorging new graduates every year.[9]

It's inevitable that non-traditional arrangements evolve to keep our annual raft of hopefuls afloat--if only long enough to drift away to one coast or another. If there isn't money, or fame, or even much good lighting to sustain the effort here, maybe friendship isn't the worst thing?



I thought that we had some bond of friendship, or at least some collegial understanding, when I spoke to you and Robin in a tavern on January 25, 2013.[10]

I'd just finished driving the two of you around town: we'd gone from opening to opening, and I'd made introductions, sharing names and history all along the way. However grim my own persona, whatever additional difficulties followed from Robin's article on MDW, I wanted, I really wanted, to try to bridge the gaps between groups--rather than burn any remaining bridges.[11]

You argued with me about Chicago. You told me that Chicago was no different than any other city in America.

In response I gave to you what I gave to Shannon Stratton, Mike Nourse, Dana DeGiulio, Annie Heckman, and others in the prior weeks: a sketch of "The Chicago Problem" in which spatial distribution of phenomena, role of institutional connectivity, bottom-heavy proportions, lack of record, and friendship figured prominently.[12]

You took that, Pedro, and you ran with it--for the purpose of throwing it at our curators and our alternative spaces on February 5, 2013, in your "Friends Curating Friends" article at Newcity. Why, for the love of God, why did you do it? And why do you persist in repeating on-line that any subsequent upset has stemmed from your honesty and good work as a critic? Where do you expect the discussion to go at this point?

Paul.

[1] http://art.newcity.com/2013/02/05/eye-exam-friends-curating-friends/

[2] See: Myth of Narcissus and Oscar Wilde's use of Shakespeare's character Caliban from "The Tempest," in Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" appended preface.

[3] Xenophon's Simonides.

[4] Ibid.

[5] http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/velez/2010-chicago-review1-13-11_detail.asp?picnum=19

[6] http://paulgermanos.blogspot.com/2011/03/editorial-winter-experiment-monique.html
Above: Group membership, love of the familiar, constellation of practices, etc., treated in addition to the "Crisis-Free Arts Criticism" discussion.

[7] http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/velez/2010-chicago-review1-13-11.asp
Above: "Academic art writing--criticism, theory and opinion--is well served in the city. Whitney Stoepel and Ania Szremski collaborate with F News Magazine..."

[8] http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/fast_facts/1970_fast_facts.html

[9] http://blogs.artinfo.com/truestories/2012/11/11/self-ostracism-in-chicago-a-photo-essay/
Above: It's noteworthy that Michael Workman identified "student and post-graduate populations," as one of the city's strengths.

[10] http://www.flickr.com/photos/73059802@N00/8416843387/

[11] http://www.artfagcity.com/2012/11/14/smallness-and-sameness-at-chicagos-mdw-fair/

[12] http://neotericart.com/2011/12/05/art-criticism-in-chicago-dazed-and-confused-a-review-of-the-panel-discussion-at-the-school-of-the-art-institute-on-november-22-2011-by-diane-thodos/#comment-3122
Above: An outline of "The Chicago Problem" on-line in 2011.

Editorial: Todd Chilton vis-a-vis Scott Stack

Chicago painters Todd Chilton and Scott Stack seem good to bring together in comparison. Independent of one another, both artists have recently produced abstract works in which successive, regular, linear elements dominate the canvas. Having written that, between Chilton and Stack there is too a telling difference in manipulation of line and color--a difference indicative of opposing strategies for pattern formation and the perception thereof. Coincidentally, in the not-too-distant past, the pair opened shows only two weeks and three miles apart.


Above: Todd Chilton @ Rhona Hoffman, October 28 - December 3, 2011, edge detail


Above: Scott Stack @ Monique Meloche, October 15 – November 12, 2011, edge detail

In a previous article, on October 13, 2011, two days in advance of his exhibition at Monique Meloche Gallery, Scott Stack was recorded as follows: "'I'm not interested in pure green, or pure red, or anything straight out of the tube,' he said, 'That's not color.'"[1]

Whether his (Stack's) words were driven by prescience or exasperation, that formal antithesis which he conjured in speech was seen realized by Todd Chilton at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, on October 28, 2011.


Above: Todd Chilton @ Rhona Hoffman, October 28 - December 3, 2011, edge detail

In Chilton's presentation at Hoffman, more-or-less solid colors in alternation were used to build linear elements within paintings. Band-of-paint to band-of-paint, transitions were seen to be relatively abrupt and high in contrast; internal borders were well-defined, even if painterly. The periodic reversal of value and/or hue within said bands was, in aggregate, sometimes productive of a weak "gestalt effect," according to which geometric figures were able to be recognized.[2]


Above: Todd Chilton @ Rhona Hoffman, October 28 - December 3, 2011

In this regard, Chilton wholly depended upon his viewer's ability to psychologically complete his half-painted patterns: secondary shapes, however simple, e.g., diamond, needed to be known (knowable) in whole aforehand.

Conversely, in his most recent show at Meloche, Stack displayed a commitment to blending not only in his palette but also in the paint having been applied to the canvas. Movement from color-to-color and line-to-line within Stack's new paintings was usually characterized by a compact but gradual gradient progression; it was refined. Where Chilton's (impasto) surfaces were thick and tempestuous, Stack's surfaces were remarkably shallow and placid in spite of hours of brushwork.

It was in his composition that Stack roiled enigmatically, as the organization of his lines appeared stochastic, whether such activity was said to have some original correspondence to objective reality. Here, Stack was open as Rorschach to readings as yet unknown to himself or his audience.[3]

Above: Scott Stack, "Return of the Leopard Woman," 2009, oil on canvas, 89 x 74 inches, original image from Monique Meloche Gallery.

Stack is, roughly, twice Chilton's age; Stack must have held a brush for more than twice as many years as Chilton. And it's tempting to attribute at least some difference in their current work to said temporal disparity: What in youth seems clear, a matter of earnest to be vigorously pursued, frequently becomes a more complicated and ambiguous affair as the years pass. Why Chilton and Stack should have drawn relatively near one another, however briefly, now, is a yet more difficult thing to guess.

Historically, Scott Stack had seemed to be committed to the representation of abstractions--and not to representation or abstraction per se.[4] Painting the imagery reproduced by electronic devices, e.g., night vision equipment or television, Stack had spent years painting scenes already multiple generations distant from reality.[5][6] And it had been fairly easy to nestle him (Stack) in the near precedents set by Chicago Imagists: linking his apartment exteriors to Roger Brown, and his figure work to Ed Paschke.

Above: Scott Stack, "7:30pm Apartment," oil on canvas, 78 x 66 inches, original image from Monique Meloche Gallery.

Above: Scott Stack, "Queen," 2009, oil on canvas, 100 x 66 inches, original image from Monique Meloche Gallery.

Stack was a sort of surrealist with a conceptual bent, a foot in each local camp. But, Stack's more recent work recalls another continent almost one hundred years ago, in which time and place Cubism and Futurism were incubated. Maybe, Stack recalls Fernand Leger particularly.[7]

Above: Scott Stack, "Untitled," 2011, oil on canvas, 68 x 78 inches, original image from Monique Meloche Gallery.

Locally, Todd Chilton has been repeatedly associated with the purely formal issues of his craft.[8] And Chilton does indeed seem to be a painter of paintings: any reference external to the activity of himself, his viewer, and art history, appears limited if at all extant in his work. To the extent that Chilton is involved in a re-imagining of Op and Hard-Edge painting he too, like Stack, relies heavily upon abstractions which already exist somewhere in visual culture.


Above: Todd Chilton @ Rhona Hoffman, October 28 - December 3, 2011, installation view


Above: Todd Chilton @ Rhona Hoffman, October 28 - December 3, 2011, installation view

Not surprisingly, Chilton hails from one of the coastal states, and he's been picked-up and shown on the opposite coast. In spite of what happened in architecture and furniture design after pollination by the Bauhaus in the 1930s (and maybe in needful opposition to it) geometric abstraction in painting did not take root and flower in Chicago as it did in other places.[9] The easily imagined art historical precedents for Chilton and Stack's linear work, collected and exhibited in Chicago, tend to have been trucked-in from New York or some part of Western Europe. For example, Frank Stella and Barnett Newman hail from New York, Bridget Riley from England, and Sean Scully from Ireland.[10]

Maybe, playing upon the reference to the Weimar Republic in the preceding paragraph, Chilton and Stack are equally out of step with the "zeitgeist" in Chicago. Here and now, economic theory (Marx and Engels are only rarely named) underpins much contemporary education, production, and critique within the visual arts; and, not surprisingly, types of social art, poor art and street art constitute no small part of the local scene. Specialization in a particular craft, solitary studio work, and the production of real "commodities," such as the oil paintings on canvas made by Chilton and Stack, are things broadly considered to be passe.[11] For Scott Stack not to be connected to Todd Chilton's youthful cohort of SAIC and UIC graduates is a yet-more difficult thing. Whether Chilton will become more like Stack, or Stack more like Chilton, time will tell...

+ + +

Notes:

[1] http://paulgermanos.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-scott-stack-monique-meloche.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Rorschach

[4] http://www.cod.edu/gallery/catalog/short_stack.pdf
Paragraph Two: "between representation and abstraction an approach to painting has developed that one might describe as 'situational,' a conceptually based attitude toward the application of paint,"

Above: Essay by Dominic Molon, past Pamela Alper Associate Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
"Situational Painting: Matthew Girson, Scott Short, Scott Stack"
May 19 - June 23, 2005
Gahlberg Gallery
College of DuPage
Glen Ellyn, Illinois

[5] Ibid.

Paragraph Six: "The skewed view of the world presented to us through electronic mediation is examined in the paintings of Scott Stack,"

Paragraph Six: "Stack’s depiction of scenes comprising shadowy forms often seen through some type of electronic distortion makes the more sinister implications of a life lived through televised, filmed or computer-based mediation (such as the use of media as a form of social control) visually manifest in his paintings,"

[6] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-03-31/entertainment/0603310296_1_peter-miller-gallery-drawings-cover
"His first approach was to give contemporary scenes culled from newspaper photographs the look of having been viewed through night-vision goggles. So the images are horizontally striated..."

Above: Alan G. Artner, Chicago Tribune art critic, March 31, 2006, "Scott Stack at the Monique Meloche Gallery"

***Artner seems to suggest that Stack entered linear abstraction through the relatively straightforward representation of a technological distortion.***

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Leger
Above: See "The Railway Crossing," 1919, noting stochastic arrangement of well-modeled diagonal lines.

See also: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/79600

[8] Todd Chilton appeared in both the 2006 and also 2010 iterations of the contemporary formal exhibition "Ps & Qs," as curated by Shannon Stratton and Jeff Ward.

2010: http://www.hydeparkart.org/exhibitions/ps-qs-1
Review: http://art.newcity.com/2010/03/22/review-ps-qshyde-park-art-center/

2006: http://microrevolt.org/reblog/archives/2006/09/ps-qs.html
Above: Todd Chilton, Nevin Tomlinson, Andrea Myers, Kirsten Flanigan, Mung Lar Lam, Paul Jackson, Carl Suddath, Katy Heinlein
September 8 - November 12, 2006
Glassell School of Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Todd Chilton appeared in both "Beautiful Form" and "New Formalisms 2" as curated by Abraham Ritchie, in 2009 and 2012 respectively.


Above: Todd Chilton with Samantha Bittman in "New Formalisms 2," on January 13, 2012, at 65GRAND, 1369 W. Grand Ave., Chicago, IL 60642

2012: http://65grand.com/newformalisms2_release.php
Review: http://art.newcity.com/2012/01/31/review-new-formalisms-2-65grand/

2009: http://www.65grand.com/beautiful_form_release.php
Review: http://art.newcity.com/2009/01/19/review-beautiful-form65-grand/

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe
Above: See Illinois Institute of Technology, Second Chicago School, International Modernism, and Walter Gropius

[10] http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/72177
Above: Sean Scully, "Heart of Darkness," 1982, oil on canvas, 96 x 144 inches

Scully was shown (and, if memory serves, afforded a great deal of space) at The Art Institute of Chicago, December 15, 1987 – February 7, 1988

[11] A Feminist critique of Chilton and Stack might additionally emphasize the artists maintenance of an essentially patriarchal narrative; the commercial, as opposed to domestic, context of the artists' exhibitions; the subordination and anonymity of familial support structures enabling each male artist; etc. Multiculturalists might find fault with Chilton and Stack when considering the narrow ethnic demographic which the two artists represent. Chicago Imagists, i.e., Surrealists, their collectors and chroniclers, not Marxists, Feminists, or multiculturalists, find little to love in any form of non-objective geometric abstraction. And, Neo-Conceptualists seem to occupy little intellectual ground apart from Marxism and Feminism.

+ + +

Exhibitions:

Todd Chilton
October 28 - December 3, 2011
Rhona Hoffman Gallery
118 North Peoria Street
Chicago, Illinois 60607
http://www.rhoffmangallery.com/

Scott Stack
October 15 – November 12, 2011
Monique Meloche Gallery
2154 W. Division
Chicago, Illinois 60622
http://moniquemeloche.com/

+ + +

Related Posts:

http://paulgermanos.blogspot.com/2011/07/editorial-after-minimalism-in-chicago.html
"Editorial: After Minimalism in Chicago the Summer of 2011," July 22, 2011

http://paulgermanos.blogspot.com/2010/09/review-todd-chilton-slow.html
"Review: Todd Chilton @ Slow," September 9, 2010

- Paul Germanos

Editorial: September 9, 2011 Art Lists

Friday, September 9, marks the opening of the Fall 2011 visual art season in Chicago. Multiple on-line guides are available for the purpose of navigating the gala evening. In fact, the level of redundancy is so great that it seems good to consider the meaning thereof.

But, first, the links to said September 9 event listings and maps:

(1) Stephanie Burke, historically available as published and republished (in part or in whole) at (a) Art Talk Chicago, (b)The Gallery Crawl and So Much More, (c) Bad at Sports, and (d) Chicago Art Magazine:

http://www.chicagonow.com/art-talk-chicago/2011/09/september-9th-opening-of-the-gallery-season/

http://badatsports.com/2011/10-picks-for-the-gallery-season-opener/

(2) Abraham Ritchie, found editing (a) ArtSlant Chicago and (b) Chicago Art Blog, while simultaneously contributing to (c) Flavorpill Chicago, (d) Bad at Sports and (e) Art21 Blog, while advising (f) Sixty Inches From Center:

http://www.artslant.com/chi/events/list

http://flavorpill.com/chicago/events/genres/art

(3) Chicago Art Magazine, founded by Kathryn Born, formerly of Bad at Sports:

http://chicagoartmagazine.com/2011/09/chicago-art-map-season-opening-schedule/

(4) Newcity Art, edited by Jason Foumberg:

http://art.newcity.com/2011/09/06/comprehensive-listing-of-gallery-shows-for-the-fall-opener/

(5) Chicago Gallery News, edited by Virginia Berg:

http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/openings.asp

http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/listing.asp?g=7165

(6) The Visualist, (featuring, among others, ArtSlant Chicago's Steve Ruiz, himself a proprietor of another "listing" site: chicagoartreview.com) which seems to have risen from the ashes of former Chicagoan Karly Wildenhaus' onthemake.org:

http://thevisualist.org/

(7) Chicago Art Net, maintained by Jno Cook of Columbia College Chicago:

http://chicagoart.net/calendar.php

(8) Sixty Inches From Center, directed by Columbia College Chicago grads Nicolette Michelle Caldwell and Tempestt Hazel in company with Andrew Roddewig of Clarion New Media:

http://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/archive/?p=9950

(9) Art Letter, written by Paul Klein, re-blogged on The Huffington Post:

http://www.artletter.com/2011/09/its-here-the-day-weve.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-klein

(10) Gapers Block A/C, edited by Kelly Reaves:

http://gapersblock.com/ac/2011/09/09/art-around-town-20/

+ + +

Direct observation of the phenomena (on-line listing vis-a-vis in-person attendance) has proved that it is not unusual for more people to announce than arrive at an event, e.g., Tom Burtonwood's recent presentation at Hinge Gallery.

Vicarious "experience" of culture, reliant upon the computer screen, has been broadly criticized. The explosion of on-line listing seems to suggest that a yet-more-remote "textual acknowledgement" is now taken as sufficient (or necessary?) participation in the arts.

+ + +

Curiously, Lauren Viera's recent article in the Chicago Tribune did not clarify the relationship between the now defunct onthemake.org and Chicago's other (at least eleven other) visual art calendar, map, and event listing sites. Rather, the quotation by interviewee Jenny Kendler was left to suggest a vacuum (in art reportage) in the wake of onthemake.org's (Karly Wildenhaus') departure: "'Losing (On The Make) is like losing one of these beacons that shows how awesome that community is. (When I heard) I thought, What can Brian and I do to keep it going?'"[1]

Chicago Gallery News has been in existence for 28 years; Newcity's art coverage has run for 22 years; Chicago Art Net has been on-line for 10 years. Viera and Kendler are both competent professionals, and Chicago needs them. But, does Chicago need yet more "listing" sites? Is that really the best place to put time and energy? What are the long-term implications of such comprehensive but superficial engagements as are now regularly made by critics, reporters and the public at large?

Note:

[1] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-08-31/entertainment/ct-ent-0825-art-opp-20110824_1_art-institute-website-support-artists/2

See also Time Out Chicago Arts + Culture, edited by Lauren Weinberg:

http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture

- Paul Germanos

Editorial: After Minimalism in Chicago the Summer of 2011

Early in the calendar year, on the ninth day of January, 2011, Gerard Byrne's "A thing is a hole in a thing it is not" opened to the public at The University of Chicago's Renaissance Society.[1]


Above: Gerard Byrne's "A thing is a hole in a thing it is not"

There, the art historical moment which seemed to be addressed by Byrne's exhibition was yet more clearly defined by the first words of Hamza Walker's companion essay: "In the decade spanning 1958 to 1968, developments in American visual art moved at a fast clip. In the wake of a triumphal Abstract Expressionism came Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art."[2]

Minimalism particularly was the explicit subject of "A thing is a hole in a thing it is not," whether one might argue that Byrne's carefully orchestrated reenactments of new-media history effectively wound together all three post-AbEx threads cited by Walker, above, in a Postmodern metanarrative.


Above: Gerard Byrne's "A thing is a hole in a thing it is not"

Most relevant to the present undertaking was that one reenactment (described by Walker as being a "vignette" in Byrne's "multi-channel video installation") of "...a 1964 interview with Frank Stella, Donald Judd, and Dan Flavin conducted by Bruce Glaser for WBAI radio, New York."[3]

Following the (1964) interview which interested Byrne and within the decade (1958 to 1968) numbered by Walker: Donald Judd introduced his "stacks" in 1965;[4] Frank Stella introduced his "Protractor" series in 1967.[5]

Outside of Byrne's installation, even here, in a city so strongly associated with provincial attachments to graphic, decorative, and surreal renditions of the human figure, the echoes of Stella and Judd continue to reverberate.[6]

Whether by coincidence or coordination, four months after the close of "A thing is a hole in a thing it is not" the Summer of 2011 has yielded up many works indebted to the Minimalist dialogue.

To her credit, Time Out Chicago's Lauren Weinberg appears to have been the first person, in print, to employ the Minimalist reference. In her review of Kendell Carter at moniquemeloche gallery, Weinberg wrote: "'DJ (2010),' a column of copper-plated Timberland boots anchored to a wall, refers to a Donald Judd sculpture."[7]

 
Above: Kendell Carter's "DJ"

The modular component of Judd's early "stack" works had been the galvanized, or plated, metallic box. Carter simply swapped the boot for the box: maintaining the unit in repetition along a vertical axis, fixed to the gallery wall. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, at the Smithsonian, in Washington, DC, contains one of Judd's untitled "stacks," from 1969, which exhibits a cupric surface closely approximated by Carter in "DJ."[8]

Maybe like our national psyche, or a now middle-aged male born of the same generation, the hard-edged figure, as exercised by Judd and Stella in the '60s, has, for better and for worse, broken, and softened a bit. But the mode--the rhythm of the unit in repetition--is as strong as ever. Mark, mark, marky, mark: Carter works with a conceptual refrain.[9]

Atop the Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing, on the Bluhm Family Terrace, colorful concentric rings are the things repeated. Pae White's "Restless Rainbow,"[10] cut at regular intervals by the Terrace's white picket fence, hearkens back to the semi-circular motif of Frank Stella's "Protractor" series. Not at the Art Institute of Chicago but rather at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, New York, Stella's "Harran II," from 1967, seems good to compare.[11]


Above: Pae White's "Restless Rainbow"

Closer to home, the ninety-degree vertical-to-horizontal transition made by White's supple, polychromatic bands was foreshadowed by Andrea Myers' "Soft Concentrics" in the 2010 exhibition "Ps & Qs," curated by Jeff Ward and Shannon Stratton, at the Hyde Park Art Center.[12]


Above: Andrea Myers' "Soft Concentrics"

And White's curvilinear application of vinyl tape to a glass surface for the expressed purpose of creating a potentially immersive optical effect was prefigured by Carla Arocha and Stephane Schraenen's 2010 installation "As if," found, again, at moniquemeloche gallery.[13]


Above: Carla Arocha and Stephane Schraenen's "As if"

Contemporary with the aforementioned works of Donald Judd and Frank Stella, noteworthy for a high-contrast, curvilinear unit in repetition, and productive of an "op" effect, might be a piece such as the 1963 "Fall" by Bridget Riley, from the Tate Collection.[16]

But it isn't only Pae White's "Restless Rainbow" which in the Summer of 2011 recalls both Op Art and also "Ps & Qs" from 2010 at the HPAC. At threewalls gallery, in "Either/Or/Both," curated, again, by Shannon Stratton,[14] Samantha Bittman's painted textiles rely upon the same formal devices as Todd Chilton's thickly painted black and white canvas from the previous year's Hyde Park show.[15]


Above: One painting from Samantha Bittman's "Zebra" series, at threewalls
 

Above: Todd Chilton's "Buzzy Diamonds" from Hyde Park Art Center

Confounding the effort to tell a good story about the development of abstract art (painting) after the period described by Walker in the second paragraph, above, is the persistence of Expressionism.

The rhetoric of geometry, and all of the "Classical" devices of the Apollonian camp, just go to Hell when confronted with the aggressive, intuitive, asymmetrical brushwork of André Butzer at Rhona Hoffman.[17]


Above: André Butzer's "Nicht Furchten!" from Rhona Hoffman Gallery

It is abstract art. It is on display, over the Summer of 2011, in Chicago. And it is possible to describe the piece (above) as employing, in a painterly manner, a palette of vivid near-primary hues.

But Butzer gives little evidence of having any use for the "triumphal" post-war American stories of either Minimalism or AbEx. Rather, Butzer's oeuvre resembles the offspring of a union between what is cruel in George Grosz and what is dark in Paul Klee. The nightmarish "big black blob" at the center of ("Nicht Furchten!" above) the painting's action reminds one of Wesley Kimler's local position; there isn't much light between Butzer and Kimler. Nevertheless, as a painting, on its own terms, "Nicht Furchten!" works.

"Painterly" less well describes the more "lyrical" non-objective abstract work by Patrick Berran at Thomas Robertello,[18] and Jasmine Justice at 65GRAND.[19] Berran gives the impression of relying heavily (maybe like Helen Frankenthaler) on a stain painting technique: building successive layers of relatively muted color. Justice, in addition to her visible brushwork and washes, shows (occasional) evidence of masking--among other means, not being committed to any one technique.


Above: Patrick Berran from Thomas Robertello Gallery
 

Above: Jasmine Justice from 65GRAND
 
Where this leads is anyone's guess. But the formal re-engagement is difficult to miss--if only in contradistinction to the partisanship, social activism, and conceptual bent, which have for so many years impoverished our "visual" culture.

Notes:

[1] http://www.renaissancesociety.org/site/Exhibitions/Intro.Gerard-Byrne-A-thing-is-a-hole-in-a-thing-it-is-not.618.html

[2] http://www.renaissancesociety.org/site/Exhibitions/Essay.Gerard-Byrne-A-thing-is-a-hole-in-a-thing-it-is-not.618.html

[3] Ibid.

[4] http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=7770&searchid=9690&roomid=false&tabview=text&texttype=8
Above: "With the exception of the first of these arrangements, a large galvanized iron ‘stack’ comprising seven five-sided boxes, completed in June 1965 (DSS 65), each ‘stack’ is composed of a minimum of ten units."

See also: http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5261476

[5] http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=5640
Above: "The Protractor series (1967–9, with additional works until 1971) is characterized by monumental scale, potentially garish colour juxtapositions and, for the first time, curvilinear forms derived from the drawing tools referred to in the title."

Note: The text above is attributed to Constance W. Glenn, Grove Art Online, 2009, Oxford University Press, and employed on-line by The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY, at URL listed.

[6] Chicago's connection to the Bauhaus school has been proven much stronger in architecture than in visual art.

See also: http://art.newcity.com/2011/07/25/review-go-figuresmart-museum-of-art/
Above: Jason Foumberg's July 25, 2011, review of "Go Figure" at the Smart Museum of Art.

[7] http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/art-design/14805147/kendell-carter-weaves-references-to-hip-hop-into-abstract-works

[8] http://hirshhorn.si.edu/visit/collection_object.asp?key=32&subkey=8625

[9] http://moniquemeloche.com
Above: "Liberation Summer," featuring Kendell Carter, May 21–July 30, 2011, moniquemeloche gallery, 2154 W. Division, Chicago, IL

Mark, mark, marky, mark:


Compare, also, Carter's offset text ("mark mark," above) to Kay Rosen's "Go Do Good," below:
http://www.chicagogallerynews.com/blog/post/2011/05/24/Go-Do-Good-Chicago!-Kay-Rosene28099s-New-Installation-Unveiled.aspx

[10] http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/exhibition/paewhite
Above: Pae White, "Restless Rainbow," May 21–September 20, 2011, Bluhm Family Terrace, Art Institute of Chicago

See also, below, it is at best an exaggeration to claim that the city skyline has been wholly obscured by the installation:


[11] http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/piece/?search=Frank%20Stella&page=1&f=People&cr=1

[12] http://www.hydeparkart.org/exhibitions/2010/02/ps_qs_1.php
Above: "Ps & Qs," featuring Todd Chilton, Pete Fagundo, Carrie Gundersdorf, Katy Heinlein, Jessica Labatte, Andrea Myers and Tessa Windt; curated by Jeff Ward and Shannon Stratton; February 28-June 6, 2010; Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 South Cornell Avenue, Chicago, Il

[13] http://paulgermanos.blogspot.com/2010/09/review-carla-arocha-stephane-schraenen.html
Above: "As if," featuring Carla Arocha & Stephane Schraenen; September 16–November 6, 2010; moniquemeloche gallery, 2154 W. Division, Chicago, IL

[14] http://www.three-walls.org
Above: "Either/Or/Both," featuring Samantha Bittman, Stephanie Brooks, Casey Droege, Michael Milano, Hans Peter Sundquist; curated by Shannon R. Stratton; July 1-30th, 2011, threewalls, 119 N Peoria St # 2D, Chicago, IL

[15] Todd Chilton, September 4-October 2, 2010, Slow Gallery, 2153 W. 21st St, Chicago, IL:


Samantha Bittman, July 1-30th, 2011, threewalls, 119 N Peoria St # 2D, Chicago, IL:


Note: Exhibited in 2011, the bulk of Bittman's work (at threewalls) is contemporary with Chilton's work, i.e., it dates from 2009-2010.

[16] http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=12600&searchid=9648
Above: "Fall," a painting from 1963, by Bridget Riley, in the Tate Collection

[17] http://www.rhoffmangallery.com
Above: "Never Let Me Go," featuring André Butzer, Folkert de Jong, Lari Pittman, Rona Pondick, Jeni Spota, Nicola Tyson, and John Wesley; curated by Terry R. Myers; May 20-July 29, 2011, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, 118 N Peoria St # 1A, Chicago, IL

[18] http://www.thomasrobertello.com
Above: "One Must Eat the Other," featuring Patrick Berran, May 27-August 14, 2011, Thomas Robertello Gallery, 27 N Morgan St, Chicago, IL

[19] http://www.65grand.com
Above: "You'll Love Them All for Giving You the Swellest Time You've Ever Had!" featuring Jasmine Justice, May 20-June 25, 2011, 65GRAND, 1369 W Grand Ave, Chicago, IL

Related Posts:

http://paulgermanos.blogspot.com/2012/02/editorial-todd-chilton-vis-vis-scott.html "Editorial: Todd Chilton vis-a-vis Scott Stack," February 23, 2012

- Paul Germanos

Editorial: Winter Experiment @ Monique Meloche & Discussion in Chicago

It's an act of "munificence" to throw open the doors of one's own home or place of business and invite in strangers for a symposium; and it's an act of "magnanimity" to restore the quarters without complaint in the wake of such an event. The naming of virtue here is easily dismissed as weirdly archaic or, worse, sycophantic. However, in truth, the wheel of art and the progress of culture depend almost wholly upon the regular exercise of generosity and grace.

Not the "Symposium" but rather Plato's "Republic" begins with his character of Socrates remembering a descent to the Piraeus.[1] It was the lowly Piraeus, in its function as the port of Athens, from which novel and foreign things tended to be made available to his (Socrates') high city. And philosophy, as an expression of the longing for knowledge in the true sense, depended upon Socrates' willingness to move and look precisely there: beyond the familiar.


Ebony G. Patterson in the Winter Experiment

Between January 15 and February 5, 2011, the "Winter Experiment" was played out within gallery moniquemeloche.[2] In order of appearance, Ebony G. Patterson, Dan Gunn, Ben Fain, and Anna Shteynshleyger built installations within the space: each person in succession staging the scene for his or her own Saturday afternoon interview, followed immediately by a week-long exhibition of artwork.

It might seem a great leap from "The Republic" to the "Winter Experiment," so that it would be natural to wonder about the connection between the second and third paragraphs of this article. Such a relationship as might exist is dependent upon one's willingness to accept that the gallery (any good gallery) has the potential to function within Chicago in a manner which is comparable to the Piraeus in its relation to Athens, i.e., a place in which the novel and foreign are likely to appear.

Those who went down, here, found within each week's installment: artwork; a pairing of artist and interlocutor; other spectators; and members of the gallery staff. Taken together, the aforementioned elements of the "Winter Experiment" were said to constitute not a "traditional" commercial show but rather a community engagement. And curiously (given the context) the element of visual art might well have been only ancillary to the human interaction ongoing in its vicinity. Encouraging consideration of that possibility (the subordination of the visual to the auditory) is evidence found in the one other "Winter Experiment" article yet published. The young Erik Wenzel, Senior ArtSlant Staff Writer, recalled in text a singular visit which he made during the event's second weekly convocation.[3] Therein, Wenzel chose to employ twenty (cumulative) repetitions of the words: converse or conversation, dialogue, talk, discussion and discourse.[4]


Dan Gunn in the Winter Experiment

In contrast, no word related to the visual properties of an artwork--such as color, line, shape, texture, scale, proportion--ever appeared in the (Wenzel) piece on ArtSlant; not even the broad categories of painting, drawing, video, and photography, each present in the "Winter Experiment," were invoked.[5] The artwork "said" nothing so important to Erik Wenzel (or any other local writer) that he felt the need to repeat it. Is that in itself noteworthy? If so, is it telling of the writer(s), the engagement, or the material on display?

The artwork hung silently in the gallery during Wenzel's visit; an image of the artwork appeared without comment in Wenzel's article; the artwork seen by Wenzel was made by someone said to have experience building theater props. Maybe it (visual art) is now expected to serve as support for speeches, and nothing else.  Having written that, it would be imprudent to rush towards a particular conclusion.

In fact, the boundaries of the "Winter Experiment" were not fixed but rather they expanded and contracted according to the number and activity of all participants--continuing, perhaps, to the reading of this text. The position, the movement, of the general public seems therefore important--in "relation" to the whole of the experience. To what, and to whom, did Chicago respond in this case? Why?


Ben Fain in the Winter Experiment

Were the attendance of the "Winter Experiment" to be graphed it would take a bell-shaped form: climbing from the first week to peak in the second and third weeks, falling again in the fourth and final week. What might have affected the attendance? The time and location of the event remained the same from week-to-week, and so ought not to have been a factor. The event could only have become better known over time, so that the last week should have enjoyed the largest audience; it did not. The weather did vary from January 15 to February 5; but, being Winter in Chicago, it (the weather) was never especially good.


Anna Shteynshleyger in the Winter Experiment

Critically, in retrospect it seems that the strongest correlation proved to be between that which was familiar to the people and that which the people came to see. Those parties (pairings of artist and interlocutor) who in sum had the greatest presence in what is called the Chicago art community--Dan Gunn and Michelle Grabner in the second week and Ben Fain and Shannon Stratton in the third week--drew the largest numbers.[6] The chance of sighting the novel and foreign did not in the end seem equal to the motivation provided by association, habit, and self-interest. Remembering the second paragraph above, such patterns, seen repeated elsewhere and over time, are worrisome.

"Discussion," "dialogue," and even "dialectic," all presuppose the competent articulation of multiple, relevant ideas. And, ever more frequently, one is made to wonder whether the new psychological monolith of "community" has hampered both the outward movement of its members and also the inward movement of the bearers of the counterargument. It's a bit of a game of semantics: while the words (above listed, such as "discussion") continue to circulate, that which they are thought to represent in speech has changed over time in the world of action. Even so, teasing out the tandem smothering deaths of philosophy and art, by means of the analysis of one critical blurb and one pattern of attendance, might be something more than melodramatic. It seems very much more realistic to begin by wondering in what form "high culture" was ever alive within the visual arts here, as some have implied that it has suffered only maltreatment from its inception.


Ben Fain video in the Winter Experiment

While explaining the struggle and eventual failure of the publication "New Art Examiner" in relation to Chicago's perpetual "Second City" status, Derek Guthrie suggested in his 2008 Bad at Sports interview that: "We [Guthrie et al] were on the wrong side of the anti-intellectual machine that runs this city, and Chicago will never be an art center as until such times, and I don't care if three Picassos are born next week, it will never happen until we start having discourse and discourse just means that you have discussion..."[7]

Following Guthrie, in the listener comments which were able to be appended to that interview at the time of its airing, Mark Staff Brandl concurred: "[...] I think he is mostly dead-on about Chicago. Certainly, that 'anti-intellectualism' he fought has now been replaced with a strange pseudo-intellectualism, yet it all remains structurally the same with new masters, mistresses: bigoted machinations of those who have petty close-mindedness. An approach stifling [sp.] dialogue and having all the negative effects exactly as Derek outlined them, with the added bonus of hypocrisy."[8]

Not a smothering death per se, but both Guthrie and also Brandl wished to suggest that a (using Brandl's word) "stifling" of much local growth is to be expected, given Chicago's intellectual climate. Returning to the original subject, the "Winter Experiment" did in every case formally pair its young artists with relatively sympathetic questioners in order to more readily elicit thoughtful responses from them. But, when viewed across the four-week period for which it ran, the "Winter Experiment" did also include a broad range of artists and questioners; it was, after all, meant to introduce new things. If the generalized (poor) response of the "Chicago art community" to the things outside of itself (the novel and foreign, not to mention the rebuttal or counterargument, etc.) is at issue, are the references (above) to an "anti-intellectual machine," and "masters, mistresses," an indication that the quotations from Guthrie and Brandl are irrelevant? Or, are there both top-down and also a bottom-up relationships--maybe not unlike the political symbiosis between an apathetic public and manipulative officeholders--which are equally needful of consideration?


Claudine Ise in Crisis-Free Arts Criticism

One year after Guthrie's interview the ability to directly append comments (such as Brandl's) to articles was removed from the Bad at Sports website.[9] Public participation (at Bad at Sports) is now channeled via e-mail (or phone call?) through the blog's editors, whom might or might not post all of the submitted text in some place of their choosing. It appears to be the case that, to date, one comment has passed through said system to become seen.[10] And only (Bad at Sports) members, or guests invited by members, now find participation possible. Monologue was facilitated; dialogue was inhibited; metaphorically, the wagons were circled.

Per Bad at Sports' audio hosts Richard Holland and Duncan MacKenzie, California natives Meg Onli (moved to Chicago in 2005) and Claudine Isé (moved to Chicago in 2008) now manage the group's on-line writing. And with regard to "discussion," Onli and Isé named the finest of the past year (2010) as, "Studio Chicago, a yearlong collaborative project focusing on the artist’s studio."[11] Self-identified as "Core Partners," the "Studio Chicago" members--Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University Museum, Gallery 400 at UIC, Hyde Park Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and threewalls--in turn named the "Studio Chicago Blog" as their "forum for discussion."[12]


Crisis-Free Arts Criticism Salon in threewalls

In a familiar pattern, over the one-year life of "Studio Chicago," its, (a) Core Partners invited guests to post the "Studio Chicago Blog" for a period of one week; (b) guest posts were subject to moderation by Core Partners; and (c) comments deemed inappropriate and/or off-topic were removed at the Core Partner's discretion.[13] In short: control was (again) exercised or reserved to be exercised over every aspect of the "Studio Chicago" discussion component. Did that control serve a necessary purpose (removal of threat, libel, etc.) only; or, upon close examination, might parties, e.g., Guthrie and Brandl, reasonably suggest that the exclusion of some viewpoints inhibited the "life" of what's properly called discussion? How might it be possible to begin to consider whether any given control is editorial or censorial?

Between October of 2009 and October of 2010, 59 "Studio Chicago Blog" entries were produced through the combined efforts of eight major (and minor) organizational players in Chicago's visual culture; they included 1 introductory post and 58 pieces of content.[14] According to some criteria, gender for example, a great effort to "balance" the writers appears to have been made. Noting that some of the 58 pieces of content had multiple authors, and that some of those authors contributed on more than one occasion: 28 posts had female authors and 26 posts had male authors.[15] While not proportional to Chicago's demographics, with regard to race and ethnicity too an attempt at inclusion seems evident. But in other areas the evidence tells a different story.


Lori Waxman (background, at left) in Crisis-Free Arts Criticism

"Studio Chicago" was, manifestly, a demonstration of privilege attendant to "community," i.e., acceptance into one or more of Chicago's many organizations. Only very few--if any--of the chosen posters might not have had an affiliation with an academic institution, co-operative, not-for-profit, government entity, or other such group.[16] "Studio Chicago," in spite of what its name might have been thought to imply, was not an opportunity for individual visual artists to share the details of what transpired in their studio in Chicago. Whether one was an artist, occupied a physical studio, created tangible objects, or had any longstanding connection to the city was largely irrelevant. "Studio Chicago" leveled the distinctions between artists and curators, art making and social action, the visual and theatrical arts, one place on the globe and any other place on the globe. From the onset it was taken as given that "art" and a "studio" might equally well be any one of a number of things--meaning that many of the chief questions were answered by the Core Partners before being known to the public.[17] The cumulative effect was to lionize the collective, the egalitarian, the non-traditional, and the anti-commodity. Where was the oversight? Where were Chicago's critics?


Pedro Velez in Crisis-Free Arts Criticism

Independent of "Studio Chicago," on March 1, 2011, former "Core Partner" threewalls hosted "Crisis-Free Arts Criticism,"[18] which was called a public discussion. Arts writers Jason Foumberg, Claudine Isé, Lori Waxman, and Pedro Veléz, were invited to lead a conversation which addressed the widespread perception of "an apparently ceaseless 'crisis of criticism,'" in Chicago.[19] Jason Foumberg declined.[20] And threewalls' representative Ania Szremski was left to guide the remaining three figures.[21]

Given that in staging the event Szremski/threewalls had acknowledged the existence of a broadly held, long-term concern with arts writing in Chicago, only to then dismiss that concern as "insecurity," it seemed noteworthy that all of the invited leads were invested in the status quo,[22] and had previously demonstrated support for one another or the position of Szremski/threewalls.[23] It was so very noteworthy that after the introduction of "Crisis-Free Arts Criticism" had been completed, and the floor opened for the first question, Szremski was asked directly why no representative of the counterargument had been invited.[24] First acknowledging the pre-existing consensus, Szremski went on to explain that the counterargument was excluded because, "We wanted this to be a productive discussion."[25] Considering the potential meaning of that response it would be good to wonder: Productive of what?


Ania Szremski in Crisis-Free Arts Criticism

For those who have hoped to participate in an unfettered exchange of ideas--whether in speech, or in text, or in visual form--the situation in Chicago does at times seem less than ideal. Where the novel and foreign have been made available, the "Chicago art community" has seemed not moved to look. And where the representatives of the counterargument have been willing to move and participate, the "Chicago art community" has seemed to "wall them out." If not all things are good to see, and not all speech is helpful, how should the good and the helpful be known apart from a thoughtful consideration of the whole, in which the evidence and arguments--for one thing and against another thing--are seen and heard. We depend upon our questions, as much as any answer, to better know the truth. Models of "practice" which rely upon unquestioning belief and partisan action have the effect of pushing art towards the realms of religion and politics. And that's dangerous ground, especially when public money is used to support the activity.

[1] http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.2.i.html

[2] http://moniquemeloche.com/winter-experiment-2011/

[3] http://www.artslant.com/chi/articles/show/21264
Above: "Winter Experiment," by Erik Wenzel, ArtSlant, January 24, 2011
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.

[6] Witnessed by author; confirmed by gallery staff.
Full "Winter Experiment" 2011 schedule:
January 15: Ebony G. Patterson & Tumelo Mosaka
January 22: Dan Gunn & Michelle Grabner
January 29: Ben Fain & Shannon Stratton
February 5: Anna Shteynshleyger & Andreas Waldburg-Wolfegg

[7] http://badatsports.com/2008/episode-168-derek-guthrie/
Above: Hear Derek Guthrie in original "podcast" audio from 40:00-40:29, November 16, 2008, Episode 168: Derek Guthrie
[8] Ibid.
Above: Comment (in text) appended by Mark Staff Brandl, November 19th, 2008

[9] http://badatsports.com/2010/letter-to-the-editor-britton-bertran/
Above: In response to "Letter to the Editor," by Britton Bertran, May 2, 2010, Meg Onli wrote that, "[...] we [Bad at Sports] removed comments with the new site launch on November 1st, 2009"
[10] Ibid.

[11] http://blog.art21.org/2010/12/31/center-field-art-in-the-middle-with-bad-at-sports-top-10-chicago-art-events-in-2010/
Above: Meg Onli and Claudine Isé, December 31, 2010: "Best city-wide, sustained, multi-platform discussion of a single topic in contemporary art: Studio Chicago..."

[12] http://www.studiochicago.org/

[13] http://studiochicago.blogspot.com/
[14] Ibid.

[15] Full "Studio Chicago Blog" posting schedule:
October 26, 2009: Barbara Koenen
November 4, 2009: Philip von Zweck
November 16, 2009: Michelle Grabner
November 23, 2009: Jacqueline Terrassa
December 1, 2009: Joyce Owens
December 7, 2009: Kevin Henry
December 14, 2009: Jim Duignan
December 21, 2009: David Moré
December 29, 2009: Abigail Satinsky
January 4, 2010: Dominic Molon
January 11, 2010: Mathew Paul Jinks
January 18, 2010: Karsten Lund
January 25, 2010: Lisa Stone
February 1, 2010: Katie Hawkey Swindler
February 8, 2010: Sarah Laing
February 15, 2010: Rey Colón
February 22, 2010: Abdul Goler
March 1, 2010: Brian Tyler Wright
March 8, 2010: Jon Cates
March 15, 2010: Diana Nawi
March 22, 2010: Stan Chisholm
March 29, 2010: Arti Sandhu
April 5, 2010: Beth Wiedner and Faiz Razi
April 12, 2010: Jessica Hutchinson
April 19, 2010: Irena Knezevic
April 20, 2010: Irena Knezevic
April 22, 2010: Irena Knezevic
May 3, 2010: John Neff
May 5, 2010: John Neff
May 11, 2010: Sze Lin Pang
May 17, 2010: Thea Liberty Nichols
May 24, 2010: Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson
May 31, 2010: Sara Schnadt
June 7, 2010: Angee Lennard
June 10, 2010: Angee Lennard
June 15, 2010: Jessica Cochran
June 23, 2010: Jessica Cochran
June 23, 2010: Maggie Leininger
June 30, 2010: Jennifer Geigel Mikulay
July 6, 2010: Judd Morrissey and Mark Jeffery
July 21, 2010: D. Denenge Akpem
July 28, 2010: W. Keith Brown
August 2, 2010: W. Keith Brown
August 2, 2010: W. Keith Brown
August 4, 2010: Melissa Stanley
August 12, 2010: Adia Millett
August 19, 2010: Cauleen Smith
August 25, 2010: Annie Heckman
September 1, 2010: Adam Grossi
September 8, 2010: Shane Aslan Selzer
September 13, 2010: Elissa Papendick and Libby O’Bryan
September 15, 2010: Louise LeBourgeoise
September 22, 2010: Nicolette Michele Caldwell
September 29, 2010: Zach Dodson
October 6, 2010: Alberto Aguilar
October 13, 2010: Peter Fagundo
October 20, 2010: Chad Kouri
October 27, 2010: Conrad Freiburg

[16] See:
InCUBATE
Stockyard Institute
Industry of the Ordinary
Green Lantern
The Post Family
ARTivention
Open Studio Project Inc.
Bad at Sports
Spudnik Press Cooperative
Chicago State University
School of The Art Institute of Chicago
Harold Washington College
Columbia College Chicago
Hyde Park Art Center
Museum of Contemporary Art
threewalls
Alverno College (Milwaukee)
DePaul University Museum
City of Chicago
Gallery 400 at UIC

[17] http://studiochicago.blogspot.com/2009/11/introductory-thoughts-on-studio.html
Above: Paul Klein and Wesley Kimler attempted to voice their objections after the November 4, 2009, post. Neither Klein, nor Kimler, nor any representative of their position, i.e., the counterargument, ever wrote an invited post in the "Studio Chicago Blog."

See also: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/kimlers-complaint/Content?oid=896646
Above: "Kimler's Complaint" in "The Reader" for a lengthier treatment of the issue.

[18] http://badatsports.com/2011/threewallssalon-crisis-free-art-criticism-discussion-tonight/
[19] Ibid.

[20] Author witnessed same reported at the event.
[21] Ibid.

[22] See:
Claudine Isé: artforum.com, Bad at Sports, Art21 Blog
Lori Waxman: Artforum, Bad at Sports, Chicago Tribune
Pedro Veléz: artnet.com

[23] http://badatsports.com/2009/forget-the-olympics-what-the-second-city-really-needs-is-first-class-art-news/
Above: Claudine Isé, October 5, 2009: "My advice to the Trib: get freelancer Lori Waxman on staff and make her a reporter or something–I don’t fucking care..."

http://badatsports.com/2009/episode-177-art-journalism/
Above: Pedro Veléz, January 19, 2009: "There’s more than enough art criticism in Chicago. and has been that way for a long time..."

http://studiochicago.blogspot.com/2009/11/introductory-thoughts-on-studio.html
Above: Pedro Veléz in response to Paul Klein's questions, November 9, 2009: "...This obsessive Jihad against everything you guys don't agree with is pathetic."

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/velez/2010-chicago-review1-13-11.asp
Above: Pedro Veléz on Ania Szremski in "Chicago 2010" on artnet.com: "Academic art writing--criticism, theory and opinion--is well served in the city. Whitney Stoepel and Ania Szremski collaborate with F News Magazine..."

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/velez/2010-chicago-review1-13-11_detail.asp?picnum=19
See also image above.

http://60wrdmin.org/resume
http://www.shannonstratton.com/curriculum-vitae/
Above: Lori Waxman, "Shannon Stratton," artforum.com "Critic’s Picks" April 30, 2008.
(Shannon Stratton is Director of threewalls.)

http://www.three-walls.org/store/publications/
Above: Lori Waxman's writing for sale on-line at threewalls' store in the texts, "Talking With Your Mouth Full: New Language For Socially Engaged Art" and, "Artists Run Chicago Digest"

[24] Author put the question to Ania Szremski.

[25] Author witnessed same reported at the event.

Questions:

- Might the fullest possible development of any one role within the arts, i.e., "expertise," have come to be inhibited by the division of time and effort between the multiple roles presupposed by the vogue "constellation of practices" model?

- Might the coincidental mushrooming of the "art blog" and the "apartment gallery" have practically eliminated all qualitative entry barriers both to exhibition and also to the interpretation and/or promotion thereof?

- Might the relatively new on-line social networks, e.g., Twitter and Facebook, have tended to reinforce "communitarian" thought and behavior?

- Within the arts specifically, might the increasingly young age, and corresponding inexperience, of most "role players" hamper sound judgment?

- Might the fear of social sanction have grown in relation to the broadly perceived need to "network" rather than work in isolation, further inhibiting frank exchange and honest evaluation among critics and curators?

- Might the "new" political rhetoric as exercised within (recently ascendant) Chicago have tended to incorporate youthful, majoritarian, and social justice themes?

- Might the economic deterioration of Illinois have heightened at least the perception that there is little compensation available in exchange for most arts activity, increasing the incentive to play yet more "roles" in employment outside of the arts?

- Might the possibility of careful, studio-based, object production have diminished as a result of the real growth of both "social practice" and also what is known as a "constellation of practices" model?

- Might the chronic exclusion of the counterargument and the minority position from "discussions," given all of the above, have come to be generally accepted as a social good?[26]

[26] Author attempted to introduce the questions above at "Crisis-Free Arts Criticism," and was then named in public a "debaser," by attendee Easton Miller.

- Paul Germanos