Other Publications
RAW Vision Magazine Features Eler’s “Invisible Mother’s Milk” Essay for Ellen Greene
My essay for Ellen Greene's solo exhibition, "Invisible Mother's Milk" at Packer-Schopf Gallery (through December 29) is in the Winter 2012/2013 issue of Raw Vision Magazine, a British print publication dedicated to outsider/brut/folk/naïve/intuitive/visionary art....
OtherPeoplesPixels Artists & Social Media Series: Sabina Ott
Artist Sabina Ott is no stranger to the social web. For more than 25 years, she has been investigating the process and act of painting. The Internet and Gertrude Stein’s prose are two of her major influences. “To me, Stein is the prescient literature to the Internet...
CAR Artist Story: Lauren Levato / Chicago Artists’ Resource
How An Artist Transitioned from Textual to Visual Language Lauren Levato draws bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. Sometimes they stand on their own, quiet in their stillness and repose. Other times they appear inside a woman's belly; we peer inside of her, privy to the...
CAR Artist Story: Gwen Zabicki / Chicago Artists’ Resource
On the Importance of a Studio, and How to Afford It Chicago artist Gwen Zabicki is interested in the ways people in urban environments live alone together. In her most recent body of work she explores the idea of a shared urban melancholy. Her work is deeply invested...
OtherPeoplesPixels Artists & Social Media Series: Ellen Greene As the Gloved Magician
OPP: We're excited to bring you something new today to inform and inspire how you use social media as an artist. Arts writer and critic, Alicia Eler, is the author of this series in conversation with artists who use social media to their advantage. We all know we're...
Review: HOMO RIOT/Bert Green Fine Art / Newcity Newspaper
Anonymous Los Angeles-based street artist HOMO RIOT got on a plane and started roaming the streets of Chicago, pasting stickers of two bearded, bearish men with masks over their eyes kissing onto newspaper stands and streetlight poles everywhere. I came across one in...
Portrait of the Artist: Ian J. Whitmore / Newcity Newspaper
Artist Ian J. Whitmore knows “nowhere” quite well. Growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he also completed his undergraduate degree, and then moving to Bloomington, Indiana for an MFA in photography, the Midwesterner can quickly spot the public, commercial landscape...
CAR Artist Story: Kate Hampel / Chicago Artists’ Resource
On Balancing Studio Time and Part-Time Teaching Chicago-based, Virginia-located artist Kate Hampel uses sculptural objects to investigate unvoiced traumas implicit in our social constructs. Through her material-based practice, she seeks to unravel the underlying...
Review: Steve McQueen at Art Institute of Chicago / Newcity Newspaper
RECOMMENDED As a child growing up in London, Steve McQueen—not the deceased film star, but the contemporary film artist—says that seeing the 1981 Irish hunger strike on television was one of those “impressionable moments,” the kind that carries with you into...
CAR Artist Story: Mieke Zuiderweg / Chicago Artists’ Resource
How I Got Back to My Real Passion It was only after the third month of volunteering at an after-school photography class that I had my “Aha!” art moment. I was helping teens curate a show of their self-portraits into a local art space in gritty downtown Springfield,...
Eye Exam: Butter Me Up, Mister Obama / Newcity Newspaper
In the Midwestern land of milk and honey stands a 600-pound cow made of butter. “Delicious” isn’t the best word to describe the manufactured butter beast, but it is a spectacle that keeps visitors returning to the annual Iowa State Fair year after year. A sculptor is...
Eye Exam: What Chicago Can Learn from Grand Rapids’ ArtPrize / Newcity Newspaper
Chicago could learn a few things from ArtPrize, the annual art competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan, open to artists from around the globe. It used to be that trade-fair style art fairs and biennials churned the money and the buzz. But in 2009 Rick DeVos, the...
Four Selections from the Top 50 Chicago Artists: Jeanne Dunning, Dawoud Bey, Doug Ischar & Aay Preston-Myint / Newcity Newspaper
Writer Alicia Eler profiles Chicago artists Dawoud Bey, Jeanne Dunning, Aay Preston-Myint and Doug Ischar for the top 50 list. Number 8: Dawoud Bey One of Dawoud Bey’s earliest photographic memories is a book called “The Movement,” which his family brought home after...
BusinessInsider
Here are six stories of mine that were featured on BusinessInsider.com. To see the full list, click here: http://www.businessinsider.com/author/alicia-eler 8 Things Instagram Did right APR. 12, 2012, 10:39 AM Why Instagrams Are The New Polaroids MAR. 23, 2012, 10:46...
Chicago Gallery News: Collector Conversation with Curt and Jennifer Conklin
Writer Alicia Eler spent some time getting to know collectors Curt and Jennifer Conklin, their 3-year-old daughter Claudi, and of course their expansive art collection. The young couple discussed who caught the art bug first, and what they’re most interested in...
MoveOn.org Associate Editor
From January–September 2011, Alicia served as the Associate Editor of MoveOn.org. Here is a list of her complete duties: • Discovering and curating top viral content daily • Writing irresistibly clicky headlines and ledes for viral content posts • Tracking memes and...
Finding The Hero on BRAVO’s Work of Art, Episode 10: The Big Show
By Alicia Eler & Patricia Herrmann Pop culture is replete with stories of young men realizing their potential and becoming heroes. In the first season of Work of Art, pop culture’s introduction to the heretofore secretive Art World, America was provided with the...
BRAVO’s Work of Art and America’s Queer Boys, Episode 9: Natural Talents
By Alicia Eler & Patricia Herrmann American culture idealizes the beautiful boy as one who lives “between the innocence of babyhood and the dignity of manhood.” Unlike adults, he is alive to “enjoy every second of every minute of every hour of every day…” The...
Theater Editor & Writer, Chicago Sun-Times’ CenterstageChicago.com
Centerstage is Chicago's original city guide. Launched before Yelp and a plethora of mobile apps became the way for people to navigate Chicago, CenterstageChicago.com was the most Google-able site for reliable information on local venues. I worked with Centerstage...
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Gunner’s in Wicker Park
At this self-proclaimed “grown-up bar,” Eric Palm, who worked at The Matchbox for 14 years, and his brother Dan Palm, who put in seven-plus years at Silver Palm, decided to go out on their own. The result is a swank Wicker Park joint covered in lots of wood and lined...