Author Archives: b.quinn

This show just opened at the Ren today, and was complimented by a QA/Panel with four of the artists and curator Hamza Walker. When asked about the title, Walker mentioned the connection to this genre of teen fiction… I just googled it http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/paranormal-teen-romance-dark-romance/379002329/. The panel of artists offered diverse, even if connected, points of departure as they spoke about their practices and their selected works within the show. Pictured here is a shot looking into Kathryn Andrew’s remake of her 2010 Friends and Lovers, originally created for a group exhibition titled Support Group at Thomas Soloman Gallery in LA.

C. Wool at AIC. This work on paper is my favorite.

I returned to the AIC to check out the rest of the Christopher Williams show, see the Chris Wool show, and just unwind and see what else was currently up in the Modern Wing…. Totally loving the small installation of three gorgeous achromatic works on the second floor. Here is one of those, and one of the many Williams pieces from the second floor, first room. Also had not realized that the massive Thomas Schutte sculpture was moved outside the modern wing, now keeping company with the white Ellsworth Kelly on the outside museum wall.

The two woman show Drip Music at SAIC’s Gallery X, right near the AIC/Columbus Drive borderline, features Jihae Park (MFA 2015) and Gulsah Mursaloglu (MFA 2015). These are images of one of Mursaloglu’s sculptures titled Ministry of Afternoon Coffee and Other Delights.

http://www.saic.edu/highlights/exhibitions/drip-music.html

Schult’z installation at the Renaissance Society was a refreshing use of the exhibition space’s ascendant architecture and intense natural light. Most of the gestures, text, and placement of works pointed upward, and prior to the performance already seemed to speak about temporality, structures, and the artist’s need to develop her own systems via process and transformation of materials. The performance heightened attention on the more banal aspects of the materials and mark making within the installation, but it felt harder to connect with what was going on while these bodies were working in the space as opposed to my prior experience of getting to move freely through the exhibition. For a while I was able to connect as more of a voyeur, wondering if the moves were planned, and how the actors/participants were communicating. Eventually I felt idle in comparison, and wanted to be jumping off of the lift and pressing girders to make prints. Like a lot of things in life, I was also wondering just how long it was going to go on for…and whether all of the work they completed was going to stay in the space afterwards.

It turns out it was the last day of the show, but I was told that Schultz typically completes her performances at the beginning of her exhibitions’ runs.  http://www.renaissancesociety.org/site/Exhibitions/Intro.Nora-Schultz-parrottree-building-for-bigger-than-real.643.html

 William J. O’Brien at the MCA. The first day of the exhibition opened with a Q and A tour through the show between O’Brien and the show’s curator Naomi Beckwith. The dialogue was informative, with a full house crowd packing the gallery space as Bill talked a bit about process, not thinking too much/thinking via making, the installation of the work, and his choice to live/work in Chicago in relation to his teaching and art making practice. His first solo museum show is up until May 18.  http://mcachicago.org/exhibitions/next/all/327