September has arrived and along with it, a long list of art openings and events are about to begin in Chicago and its surroundings. This post is a sampler of the varied art openings happening this weekend. Everything from well established to emerging artists are part of the many options. Check out the obvious choices and discover new ones. All the info below was taken from the event’s Facebook or website pages. Click on the links for full details. See you around town!!
1) Dan Ramirez, Minimal Baroque at Union League Club of Chicago
Thursday, Sept 4, 5:30 to 7:00 pm
The paintings on view are the outcome of residencies Ramirez enjoyed at the Fundació Tallers Josep Llorens Artigas in Gallifa, Spain, and draw inspiration from works by the great 17th and 18th century Spanish masters Velázquez and Goya. Using the language of geometric abstraction and the rigorous formalism of minimalism, Ramirez’s seductive canvases explore the use of color, space, and light as a means to create images that embody the spiritual narrative that infuses the critical interplay of Goya’s paintings of La Duquesa de Alba and Velázquez’s Las Meninas.
65 West Jackson Boulevard Chicago. Website: http://www.ulcc.org/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=309631&ssid=198153&vnf=1
2) Dominick Di Meo & Magalie Guérin at Corbett vs. Dempsey Gallery
Good Night, Good Mourning, 1974-1984, an exhibition of work by Dominick Di Meo. This is the artist’s third solo show at CvsD.
Friday, Sept 5 from 5:00pm – 8:00pm
Di Meo (b. 1927) first emerged as an artist in Chicago during the late 1940s, when he was associated with like-minded figurative expressionists like Leon Golub and George Cohen. Deeply psychological, Di Meo’s work exhibited a lighter sensibility couched in a morbid exterior. After he relocated to New York at the end of the 1960s, Di Meo’s playful side came more fully forward, as the work literally grew lighter, from a dark, often black, palette, to a pale, often whitewashed look. For a decade starting in the mid 1970s, he made an expansive group of works utilizing tiny putty heads, sculpted with open mouths and pinhole eyes, ranging in relief over pock-marked canvases or lined up on 3-dimensional sculptures. Extending his interest in shrines and fetishes, these sculptures were a new addition to his repertoire, the aggregated little heads lending them a deranged feel, like aghast smiley faces at an Aztec ritual ceremony. As ever, in these works and associated drawings and paintings, Di Meo is formally resourceful, a master of texture and a ruthless experimenter with materials. Twenty-two of these works were shown at an exhibition at P.S.1 in New York in 1982, but they have remained otherwise unseen. This will be their first exhibition in Chicago. Good Night, Good Mourning, 1974-1984 is accompanied by a 56-page catalog, with a short essay by John Corbett.
1120 N Ashland Ave 3rd Fl, Chicago, Illinois 60622. Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/272006319661442/
3) Three Solo Shows: Ellen Greene, Teresa James, Lauren Levato Coyne at Packer Schopf Gallery
Teresa James – Not All Angels Have Wings
Lauren Levato Coyne – Wolf Peach
Ellen Greene – Murder Ballads
*SIDESHOW / Vintage Employee Photo Badges from the collection of Keith Sadler
Artists’ Reception: Friday, September 5, 6 – 9 PM
Reception during EXPO Chicago: Friday, Sep 19, 6 – 9 PM
Exhibition Run: September 5 – October 18
942 W Lake St, Chicago, Illinois 60607. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/570353719740848
4) Kim Piotrowski, “Catch and Release” at Linda Warren Projects
Gallery Y and Gallery X: Kim Piotrowski, “Catch and Release”
September 5 – October 18, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, September 5, 2014, 6-9pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, October 11, 2014, 3pm
Linda Warren Projects is thrilled to announce the gallery’s fall exhibition season opener, Kim Piotrowski’s “Catch and Release.” In her debut exhibition with the gallery, Piotrowski will be exhibiting in Gallery Y and Gallery X, filling both spaces with her bold and vibrant abstractions. The Chicago-based artist is known for her paintings and works on paper featuring forms abstracted from recognizable imagery –often imagery with loaded associations, like beds or guns. “Catch and Release” marks a new shift in Piotrowski’s practice: a step away from representational references, instead looking inward for aesthetic and conceptual stimuli.
327 N Aberdeen, Suite 151, Chicago, Illinois 60607. Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/348422358646127
5) Vanishing Point: Kathleen Waterloo at Addington Gallery
Friday, September 5, 2014, from 5-8pm.
Waterloo creates encaustic paintings (encaustic: the ancient technique utilizing pigment mixed with molten beeswax) which are color-based architectural fantasies. Responding intuitively to her passions for and intellectual interest in the design of man-made human environments, Waterloo creates color formed space that blurs the line between 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional perception. For this body of work, the artist has studied the floor plans and design characteristics of major international airport terminals in China. With these global visual cues functioning as a starting point, Waterloo creates rich encaustic tapestries of color and structure, engaging us in the question of how we map our own spaces, physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
6) First Friday Art Show at Lakeside Legacy Arts Park
Intersect is a thematic collection of pieces each based on selections of language. The group selected several words, phrases, and poems about which to create artistic reflections in each artist’s respective media. It is a multifaceted approach to the collaborative process.Sage Gallery Exhibit: Hard Edge
Hard Edge will be presented in the Sage Gallery andis both a title and a description of the artworks presented. Featuring young artists with new perspectives, this show features a range of mediums such as graphic illustrations, graphite drawings, and oil paintings by young artists: Corey McCullar, James Brown, Kayti Sault, Pheidole Morrissi, and Andrew Schulte. These artists are excited to see how the community interacts with their pieces, and believe that part of the art is the individual experience people have with it. Lakeside is proud to have found such talented young artists to present a new breath of fresh air into the Sage Gallery. This work will be on display in the Sage Gallery for the month of September.
7) Daniel R. Combs at Lighthouse Gallery in Marion, IN
The exhibition includes close to 40 pieces in oil on canvas and drawing mediums. It explores the depths of dreams and reality. Also, working with conflicts in societal and social conflicts.
8) Rory Coyne at Galerie Fledermaus
Rory Coyne Solo Exhibition
The fire pit or hearth is a setting that is thousands of years old, and you can feel that connection through the ages. It’s not just the fire itself, but what it provides: a place to gather with family and friends and the perfect situation to talk and dream. Stories are born here, histories told, and heritage handed down masked in allegories, myths, and grandiose creatures.
“I’m discovering my characters and revealing them one by one stripped from any surrounding in order to focus on just them. They will grow and mature, and take part in many sagas. Some already have, some have just come to be, and many have yet to come to life. They are the sparks that start the fire, a glimmer of what’s to come,” said Coyne.
2136 W. North Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60647. Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1481558135419585
9) RESCUE OR DESTROY at Gallery Bar Chicago
This time at Rescue or Destroy we will be having the affordable show. All works will between $20 and $100 so there will be no excuse to not become an art savior. Also fill free to bring work, all artist are welcome just keep the prices affordable.
Playoffs continue Werm( Gregory Gunter) vs Ryan Shultz
10) Inside Space at River Arts Center
Joanne Aono, Paula Crown, Susanne Doremus, Carrie Gundersdorf, Jason Lazarus in collaboration with Molly Brandt and Robert Burnier, Jin Lee. Curated by Anne Harris
The artists in this exhibition vary greatly, but all bring substance to what we usually think of as empty. Behind their selection lies a drawing idea, the notion that marks on a surface transform that surface. The stuff between marks becomes space: a container for light, air, mass, movement and imagination.
Reception: Sunday, September 7, 3 – 6pm
Panel Discussion: Saturday, September 27, 4pm
32 E. Quincy St., Riverside, IL 60546. Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/828775187146700
11) Bit Bash & Art Bash at Threadless HQ
http://bitbash.eventbrite.com/?aff=efbeventJoin Indie City as we present a gallery of over 30 unique video games, hand-picked by Chicago-based game developers. Featuring live music, local beer, local art and of course, video games. Art Bash is an art show celebrating video games and their cultural impact. We’ve invited artists, designers, and anyone who loves video games to present their work in a curated gallery at Bit Bash. From 2pm – 7pm we offer a relaxing and inviting environment for the public to try new interactive experiences. At 7pm the event transforms into an all-out party with live music, beer and new games.
artnxtleveljournal.com 