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...

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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.

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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/

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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: 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

Review: Anne Wilson & Judy Ledgerwood @ Rhona Hoffman

Opening night, January 14, 2011: Entering through the storefront's glass curtain facade, Judy Ledgerwood's direct treatment of the surrounding solid walls has the effect of preparing a "color field" ground.  Building upon that foundation she's brushed, freehand, a "lyrical" metallic paint figure, which in this context would be pleasing to consider as a lace motif.  Continuing, her palette shifts from right to left, and top to bottom, while remaining tripartite in both the foreground and also the background.


Above: Rhona Hoffman's clear, glass curtain wall, and Peoria St. entrance.

Within the piece, between the two distinct planes of action, there is high contrast: in hue, in value, in reflectivity, in painterliness, and in complexity of pattern.  The result is a strong "op" effect.  The large, nearly floor-to-ceiling, scale of the work is helpful in achieving its powerful, visual presence.[1]  Not being bound by a frame, nor even by a single architectural surface: Where it occupies the whole of one's visual field the experience of the painting  is like unto an immersion.


Above: Judy Ledgerwood, "Chromatic Patterns for Chicago," 2011, detail.

In sum, Ledgerwood's work upon the vertical, two-dimensional area of Hoffman's street-level gallery is immediately accessible, exposed to the variations of natural light, evident of the artist's own involvement, and, while connected to the history of painting and executed on a heroic scale, able to offer itself as playful, colorful and abstract.

That said, the defining experience of the exhibition is not to be found in that one space only, but rather in the dramatic movement from that starting point, upward, in an ascent into twilight.


Above and below: Anne Wilson, "Rewinds," 2010.

Elevated, at the other end of the building, in a windowless, blackened room, Anne Wilson's somber, three-dimensional installation awaits investigation.  Therein, many small, achromatic or desaturated, glass elements lie carefully placed across horizontal surfaces: within vitrines or upon delicate plinths.  Each was carefully wrought by a team of artisans; all are selectively lit by overhead spotlights.  Control of light is as important, here, as was the handling of the (translucent) solid from which the objects were crafted.



During Wilson's first solo exhibition at Hoffman, in 2008, interest in the object category of "tool" was evident from the presence of a frame loom at the center of her noteworthy performance-sculpture "Wind-Up: Walking the Warp," even as an interest in the spatial distribution of phenomena was evident in the layout of her "Portable City" group from the same show.


Above: Anne Wilson, "Wind-Up: Walking the Warp," 2008, post-performance.

Then as now, Wilson co-ordinates the labor of others: seeming to be attentive to the worker's gender.  While tools tend to be, and are here, interesting forms in their own right, it might also be good to remember that such implements appear at the nodal points of (at least some of) Wilson's historical interests: (1) labor; (2) gender; (3) parallel material and social organization.  Those same three, longstanding, concerns remain manifest--only now in a different medium, with new connotations of value being derived from physical qualities of delicacy and semi-preciousness.  Symbolically, tools bespeak laborers engaged in a particular craft.  Though, yet again, Wilson's own role most closely resembles that of the architect.





With regard to that interpretation, "Blonde" is idiosyncratic and maybe confounding.  More characteristic of what's understood to be the work of Wilson's own hand, "Blonde" is a vertical, hanging tapestry which incorporates her own hair of the same color.  Maybe, whether intentional, it's a point of connection with the also flaxen-headed Ledgerwood, even as Ledgerwood's mural seems to nod at Wilson with a design imitative of a sagging, wall-mounted, horizontally-orientated textile.


Above: Anne Wilson, "Blonde," 2011.

Ledgerwood too, for her part, makes difficult a simple reading as a result of her linear hanging of three-dimensional, non-objective, polyurethane "Blob Paintings" in red, yellow, green and blue.  The (partial?) representation of the visual spectrum seems indicative of the careful nature of the pieces' irrationality; the material has been previously employed by Ledgerwood's partner Tony Tasset.


Above: Judy Ledgerwood, "Blob Painting," in blue. 

Considering the whole, it's the successful synthesis of an environment, and not only a discrete object, which in this place connects Judy Ledgerwood to Anne Wilson.  The two seem otherwise somewhere near antipodes: as much in formal terms as in their artworks' respective locations across the site.  The range of visually interesting material available is probably the (two-part) show's greatest strength, and certainly not its weakness.  It's very much worth seeing.

[1] Describing Ledgerwood's "Chromatic Patterns for Chicago," writers have moved beyond the realm of the visual: Lori Waxman, January 21, 2011, Chicago Tribune, wrote of the "icy cool rush" and "agitated jangle" produced by the "loud, metallic, fluorescent," paint which "rustles and twinkles" in the light, even as Janina Ciezadlo, January 17, 2011, Newcity, commented upon the "heat and light" produced by the artwork.

Anne Wilson
"Rewinds"
Judy Ledgerwood
"Chromatic Patterns for Chicago & Blob Paintings"
January 14—February 18, 2011
Tuesday-Friday, 10am-5:30pm
Saturday, 11am-5:30pm
Rhona Hoffman Gallery
118 North Peoria Street
Chicago, Illinois 60607
http://www.rhoffmangallery.com

- Paul Germanos

Review: Carla Arocha & Stephane Schraenen @ Monique Meloche

Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" is well-loved in Chicago.  Its polished, stainless steel skin reflects not only the City skyline but also those spectators near to the curvilinear work, thus providing equal opportunity for civic pride and public vanity--assuming that they are distinguishable.[1]


Above: Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate"

In a similar manner, for the purpose of examining their own reflections, patrons (including the author) drew close to the mirror-like surfaces contained within four pieces of statuary on display at the opening of Carla Arocha and Stephane Schraenen's show "As if" at Monique Meloche Gallery.


Above: Carla Arocha and Stephane Schraenen's "Untitled (gold)" which, on a different scale, would fit quite nicely into Chicago's skyline.  See MvdR's 1971 IBM Building,[2] which Ira J. Bach called, "superbly proportioned."[3]

It was a human response, likely engendered by the scale and proportion (59 x 20 x 12 inches in every case) of the art.[4]  The bright, acrylic sheets filling each sculpture were said to have been laser-cut; the monolithic cabinets holding that acrylic were said to have been fastidiously constructed from synthetic board painted with automobile enamel.  But, contrary to the orchestrated precision which characterized the process of the artworks' fabrication, it was that random, casual, and natural reaction of the audience which provided the color--according to the (reflected) dress of the attendee.  What seemed at first proper to judge as a minimal and nearly monochromatic presentation of regular, geometric forms was enlivened by the entry of the crowd.


Above: Carla Arocha and Stephane Schraenen's "Untitled (lines)"

Visual art is "alive" when it's seen, in real time and space, by an engaged party.  And, generally, it's fatal to understanding to imagine that artworks (any cultural products) exist only in the vacuum of "white cube" gallery and museum spaces.  Hopefully, internet viewership and academic practice--being abstracted from reality--will not wholly displace the pursuit of direct experience and the practice of personal contemplation.  How much color is in Arocha and Schraenen's show? as much or as little color as is in the environment in which it's displayed.  Light, clothing, paint on the walls: The pieces are affected by whatever surrounds them.


Above: Carla Arocha and Stephane Schraenen's"Untitled (bubbles)"

On perception: The gallery's front window and front wall (facing Division) have been treated with precisely-cut vinyl tape, so that two concentric ring patterns are held on planes parallel to one another, separated by a distance of roughly two meters.  As viewed from the sidewalk and/or street, a "moire" effect appears in a striking manner.  The high contrast of the black and white, figure and ground, is boldly graphic.  But the piece is truly three-dimensional (sculpture) as its appreciation depends upon spatial relationships.  It's from this installation that the show takes its title; and it's probably the most effective use of the storefront to date.


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

The whole show--installation, statuary, and four photographic prints--seems very much more expansive than it is, thanks to good placement and light.

[1] Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" is curvilinear in shape--but contains within its surface the reflections of many rectilinear shapes as a result of the context in which it has been placed.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/330_North_Wabash
Above: Mies van der Rohe's 1971 IBM Building at 330 N. Wabash

[3] "Chicago's Famous Buildings" Third Edition, ed. Ira J. Bach (1965, 1969; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) 95-96.

[4] If the scale and the proportion (but not the shape) of Arocha & Schraenen's statuary relates to the human body, in the context of Chicago the shape and proportion (if not the scale) of that statuary relates to the City's Modern architecture.

Carla Arocha & Stephane Schraenen
"As if"
September 16 – November 6, 2010
Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Closed Sunday and Monday
Monique Meloche Gallery
2154 W. Division (@ Leavitt)
Chicago, IL 60622
http://moniquemeloche.com

See also: Lauren Weinberg's Time Out Chicago review of Carla Arocha & Stephane Schraenen,
http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/art-design/90016/carla-arocha-and-stephane-schraenen-at-monique-meloche-art-story

- Paul Germanos

Review: Todd Chilton @ Slow

The best of Todd Chilton's paintings produce a visual stimulation of such intensity that prolonged exposure is uncomfortable.  Too, one is led to believe that the sometimes protracted effort which is required to successfully execute such works is not entirely comfortable for his own person.


Above: "Wiggle" @ Slow

Here, the paint is often thick upon the canvas. And, it's Chilton alone who's physically involved in the process of creating the things.  He freely admits to failure in his successive attempts to build a proper composition; what didn't work, for him, is (mostly) lost as underpainting or altogether discarded.  When so much contemporary craft is noncommittal, there's a pleasure to be taken in the arrival at a definite position after a personal struggle.


Above: "Buzzy Diamonds" in Ps & Qs @ HPAC, March 2010

"Contradiction" seems a good word to employ (and it's not to be construed as pejorative) when attempting to describe Chilton and his work.  He parallels many of the linear patterns of Op; but if Bridget Louise Riley is recalled from the 80's and 90's, Chilton's contemporary channeling is much more painterly than was the historical reality.  And while he's clearly interested in geometric abstraction he doesn't fuss with hard edges; there he's like Sean Scully.  When the admixture gels, his canvases are thick, vibrant masses of highly contrasting hue and/or value which possess a kaleidoscopic energy.  He pulls it off--in Chicago.


Above: "Pointing to the Middle" @ Tony Wight, January 2009

With regard to this current show, "Wiggle" in particular manages to pack a nice punch in spite of the fact that it, like all of the paintings on display at Slow Gallery, is of a rather modest (350 square inches) scale.  Alongside Todd Chilton, Mike Peter Smith exhibits a series of small, well-crafted and surreal sculptures at Slow.  The relationship between the painting and sculpture isn't immediately clear.


Above: "Raft" by Mike Peter Smith @ Slow

Todd Chilton & Mike Peter Smith
"plain plane"
September 4 - October 2, 2010
12pm - 5pm
Slow Gallery
2153 W. 21st Street
773-645-8803
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chicago-IL/Slow/157109257009

Todd Chilton,
http://www.toddchilton.com

Neoteric Art's 2009 interview with Todd Chilton,
http://neotericart.com/2009/06/21/interview-with-todd-chilton

Dan Gunn's 2009 review of Todd Chilton,
http://art.newcity.com/2009/01/19/review-scott-fife-and-todd-chiltontony-wight-gallery

Todd Chilton has been called (I think inappropriately) a "Neo-Geo" painter. See Grace Glueck's 1987 report on Neo-Geo,
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/06/arts/what-do-you-call-art-s-newest-trend-neo-geo-maybe.html

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

- Paul Germanos