CHICAGO — What does it mean, bodily, physically, emotionally, mentally, and perhaps spiritually, to be what Simone de Beauvoir deemed “the second sex,” to be a woman and, moreover, to be a mother? These are questions that Chelsea Knight explores in her latest video work “The Breath We Took” (2013), now on view at Aspect [...]
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For more than 20 years, John O’Brien’s Dolphin Gallery has been a cultural and community epicenter for Kansas City artists. Located in a huge white wall space in the West Bottoms, a historical area in downtown Kansas City, the Dolphin is the size of a barn, and embodies the charisma of an established Chelsea [...]
CHICAGO — What happens when blogs GURLDONTBEDUMB and WEIRD DUDE ENERGY face off in the reblogosphere, dueling it out in a viral battle-of-the-sexes? This post compares these two Tumblrs, both of which index hyper-gendered pop culture tropes, readily spinning off memes for the easy consumption of an A.D.D.-addled web audience. GURLDONTBEDUMB (GDBD) is comprised of Eileen Mueller and Jamie Steele, two Chicago-based [...]
CHICAGO — The internet is amazing, the internet is awful. It amplifies the general public’s internal thoughts, projecting them out into the cybersphere. This is how and where internet memes are born. The latest internet fodder for comment threads and message boards is Charles Ramsey, a man who helped rescue three Cleveland women who were [...]
CHICAGO — Move over, John Currin. Your paintings of disproportionate, not symmetrical picture-perfect bodies pale in comparison to the photographs of Philip Toledano, whose images portray women, transgender women and men with extreme cosmetic surgery. As a matter of focus, I’ll only look at images of those who identify in a feminine gendered space. In our [...]
MILWAUKEE — When a story, an image of a work of art, or an essay goes viral, it has struck a cultural nerve, somewhere, and people can’t stop passing it on. The work itself becomes freed of the space where it was first realized; it is taken over by global internet culture and social networks, [...]
OAK PARK, Illinois — You’re driving to a suburb that you don’t know well, and you whip out your iPhone to quickly punch an address into Google Maps. In this case, that address is 704 Highland Avenue, home of Sabina Ott and John Paulett, who run Terrain Exhibitions, a once-a-month-ish, home-turned-cozy gallery experience. Every artist who shows [...]
CHICAGO — Tavi Gevinson took the ACT exam the same day she took the stage at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s Edlis Neeson Theater, joining old family friend and LA-based filmmaker Jonah Ansell to discuss their latest collaboration, “Cadaver.” In this animated short film, Ansell and Gevinson marry a playful macabre — think Edward Gorey, Tim [...]
CHICAGO — Michelangelo’s Renaissance masterpiece “David” presents the idealized masculine body. Chiseled and exacted over a period of three years, this perfect man stands on his pedestal, head cocked to one side, proportionate and gorgeous in his porcelain pose. Centuries after its Renaissance birth, The David stands in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, on view for [...]
CHICAGO — In the GIF world of twohundredfiftysixcolors, there is no time to process visual imagery; viewers are left with reaction options to each short GIF much like those found on a Buzzfeed post. It’s all <3, LOL, WIN, OMG, CUTE, WTF, UNBELIEVABLE, SCARY, FAIL TRASHY, OLD, EW, <heart break!<3 > or whatever and then it’s over. [...]
CHICAGO — What does it mean, bodily, physically, emotionally, mentally, and perhaps spiritually, to be what Simone de Beauvoir deemed “the second … [Read More...]
Slipping the fur skin of a dead animal over a perfectly crafted taxidermy form produces a visual illusion of life, much in the tradition of a trompe … [Read More...]
Abigail DeVille ICEBERG PROJECTS 7714 N Sheridan Road April 13–June 1, 2013 If “X” marks the spot, and three Xs mean “poison, do not … [Read More...]
