Spring is here and so is my first list of awesome openings and events you do not want to miss. I’m sure there are other great events worth mentioning but hey, its a start. The information below was copied directly from each venue’s event page. See you around town!
FRIDAY, MAY 1
HATCH Projects: Kissing in Heaven
Friday, May 1, 2015 to Thursday, May 21, 2015
Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, from 6-9PM
HATCH Projects exhibition, Kissing in Heaven, brings to mind a perfect experience, a suspect fantasy that nevertheless sustains many of life’s efforts. The works on display focus on this tension between desire for the ideal and the material limitations which obstruct it. Andy Roche uses video and lightboxes to examine both the comedy and the anxiety of the life cycle. Snow Yunxue Fu uses digital media in gesturing towards a higher reality, while utilizing technology and artifice to achieve that vision. Hideous Beast (Josh Ippel and Charlie Roderick) defy the rarefied status of art by performing and documenting the installation of the entire exhibition themselves. This direct handling of the artworks suggests how physical, tactile, and intimate processes counteract the purity of the ideal.
Luftwerk presents REFRACTIONS
OPENING RECEPTION: 5/1/15 from 6:00 until 10:00 p.m.
MID-MONTH CONCERT: 5/9/15 from 7:30 until 10:00 p.m., Resonance Series Show feat. Brett Naucke, Jacob Kart, Gardener, and Exael
CLOSING RECEPTION: 5/29/15 from 6:00 until 8:00 p.m., live concert with Rempis/Abrams/Ra at 8:15 p.m.
Hours by appointment – contact MLBARON at gmail dot com
What do you get when you mix 5,000 square feet of raw
warehouse with Chicago’s most adventurous installation artists? An indoor exhibit unlike any other called Refractions.
Refractions is a presentation of two excerpts from Luftwerk’s recent installation-based works at Silent Funny, a nascent arts space that, since December 2014, has hosted exhibitions for a variety of esteemed artists including Joe Miller, Amir George, and a month-long seven-artist residency curated by Claire Molek.
Both excerpts of Refractions are inspired by water and explore how light travels through this element to create a connection that envelops the viewer. Excerpt #1, FLOW, visualizes characteristics of the Chicago River through a video composition that illuminates a screen made of water—inviting viewers to immerse themselves into a flow of data. Excerpt #2, DROP, is part of a larger Luftwerk piece called “Flower of Light”, a water drop chandelier inspired by sacred geometry. Upon the release of an illuminated water drop, ripples of light overlap in circles.
The cavernous, meditative oasis will be transformed by Luftwerk from May 1st until May 29th. A closing reception on May 29th will morph into a performance by three of Chicago’s premier musicians: Aerophonic Records founder and transcendental saxophonist Dave Rempis, avant-bass player Josh Abrams, and iconic drummer Avreeayl Ra (billed as Rempis/Abrams/Ra).
Fortune First Friday May | Dana Major Open Studio
Fortune First Friday | May
Dana Major Open Studio
New sketches in photons, lenses, and wire for upcoming installation and Fortune Seeing on request
psst… you don’t have to get your Fortune to enjoy the art, the fine peoples, and the TJ’s wine…
location specifics: Bright glass door to Mana is located on East side of building, deep inside parking lot at Allport and Cermak
Color Formed Space: A Group Exhibition
Featuring work by Michael K. Paxton, Howard Hersh, Kathleen Waterloo, Michael Hoffman, and Molly McCracken
Running contrary to the renaissance perspective illusion of space on a two dimensional surface, the artists of “Color Formed Space” use color as the primary tool in developing their own unique sense of space that not only recedes, but often advances, even orbits. These paintings involve us by implicating the space between viewer and painting as consequential.
Each painter in the exhibition demonstrates a sophisticated eye for movement by guiding us into their compositions, inviting us to traverse the territory, and then setting us free to find our own way back. Progeny of postwar painter Hans Hofmann’s famous “push-pull” color theory, these artists use color to create personal spaces that invite, engage and envelope us.
John Whitlock: Mirrored Infinity
— Jorge Luis Borges, The Approach to Al-Mu’tasimThe works in Mirrored Infinity explore ideas of reflection, transformation and personal discovery. Drawing inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim, John Whitlock constructs broken narratives that reflect points of thought around existential and spiritual uncertainties.Whitlock creates small black and white collages that are then scanned, and repurposed into larger mixed media compositions, stretching the boundaries of their original framework. Simple, familiar shapes are combined to create quasi-religious iconography; Gold is introduced as both a symbol of preciousness and an implication of age. For his video installations, Whitlock has run a video feed into an infinite feedback loop that he animates with simple camera movements, creating self-reflexive geometric distortions. The pulsing circular patterns and reflective mirror fragments manifest real-time, infinite transformation.As the illusory literary critic in The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim might put it, Mirrored Infinity is a “detective story with a mystic undercurrent.” It’s about finding yourself in the search for another.
SATURDAY, MAY 2
ART in the ROOM
You are invited to a spectacular fundraiser event for Elephant Room Gallery at Lacuna Artist Lofts! Join us for the evening as we celebrate visual artists and raise the funds necessary to continue our gallery and pop up exhibitions, community art projects, and programs for local artists, students and the community.
The evening will include COMPLIMENTARY DRINKS, LIVE PAINTING, SILENT ART AUCTION FEATURING EMERGING ARTISTS, APPETIZERS, AND MORE! Sounds are courtesy of DJ Hegemony Matt Skirving)and live painting includes artwork by Joseph Sentrock Perez and a collaborative live piece by YAMS (Lewis Graham Taylor) and Christie Chew-Wallace! Works will be up for the silent auction as well.
Silent Art Auction works feature Keelan McMorrow, Abraham Brand & Jaime Foster!
Craft Beer has been generously donated by Finch’s Beer Company and wine has been donated by Domaine St. George.
The event takes place in The Reverie Gallery on the main floor of Lacuna Artist Lofts located at 2150 S Canalport Ave. in Chicago. The entrance is on the West side of the building at Canalport & Morgan. Free parking is available in the lot and street parking is nearby.
Options for purchasing tickets: You may purchase your tickets through the Eventbrite link below or you may purchase tickets by making a tax-deductible donation to our Fractured Atlas page (link is below as well). Be sure to include your name in your donation so that we can include you on the list for entry. Amounts are $50 for a single entry and $90 for 2 entries. We will include the number of entries allowed based on the amount you donate and you will receive a confirmation email confirming you are on the Will Call list. There are no fees associated with this option.
Eventbrite Link:
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/art-in-the-room-elephant-room-fundraiser-2015-tickets-15983821039
Material Normal Monumental (Gallery Talk)
Riverside Arts Center
32 E. Quincy St.
Riverside, IL 60546
708-442-6400
Participating Artists: Alberto Aguilar, Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera, Maria Gaspar, Jorge Lucero, Victoria Martinez, Maddie Reyna, Edra Soto, Rafael E. Vera
April 12 – May 9, 2015
Reception: Sunday, April 12, 3 – 6pm
Artists’ Talk: Saturday, May 2 @ 3pm
Curated by Alberto Aguilar, in association with his Crossing Boundaries Residency through Arts + Public Life and Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture.
Exhibition essay by J. Gibran Villalobos and Wil Ruggiero (JGV/WAR)
A diverse group of Hispanic/Latino/a artists show works using everyday materials to present varied perspectives around the monument and monumentality. Although grouped through these simple common factors, each artist in this exhibition conceptualizes complex individualities about hybridity through their unique contribution to the exhibit. These blended identities are characterized by the particular nuance of being Hispanic/Latino/a in the United States (currently residing in Chicago), often existing within multiple languages and cultures while trying to make a personal contribution to contemporary art discourse.
artnxtleveljournal.com 