Bad at Sports » Deb Sokolow

Top 5 Weekend Picks (7/8-7/10)

stephanieburke — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:38:54 +0000

1. Addendum & The Blind Light, the Pyre of Night at Linda Warren Gallery

Addendum features work by Jason Peot and The Blind Light, the Pyre of Night features work by Conrad Freiburg.

Linda Warren Gallery is located at 1052 W. Fulton Mkt. Reception is Friday from 6-9pm.

2. Space Out, Space In at Andrew Rafacz

Curated by Scott Wolniak. Work by Thorne Brandt, Ken Fandell, Young Joon Kwak, Jesse McLean, Shana Moulton, Jon Rafman, Andy Roche, Ben Russell, Jen Stark and Kirsten Stoltmann.

Andrew Rafacz Gallery is located at 835 W Washington Blvd. Reception is Saturday from 4-7pm.

3. People Don’t Like to Read Art at Western Exhibitions

Work by Nicholas Frank, Adriane Herman, John Parot, Mark Wagner, Joe Hardesty, Deb Sokolow, Rebecca Blakley, Elijah Burgher, Simon Evans, Cat Glennon, Meg Hitchcock, Rachel Foster, David Leggett, Andy Moore, and Angie Waller.

Western Exhibitions is located at 119 N. Peoria St., suite 2A. Reception Saturday from 6-9pm.

4. Samuel D. York at Courtney Blades

New works by Samuel D. York.

Courtney Blades is located at 1324 W Grand Ave. Reception is Friday from 7-10pm.

5. Part Wolf at What It Is

Work by Jacob Crose, Chris Holmes, and Vaughnda Johnson.

What It Is is located at 1155 Lyman. Reception Saturday from 3-8pm.

Deb Sokolow interviewed on art:21 blog!

Claudine Isé — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:36:48 +0000

Just popping in again to point you to Caroline Picard’s interview with Chicago-based artist Deb Sokolow on art:21 blog! (We’ve also interviewed Deb on Episode 201 of the podcast). Caroline asks Deb a bunch of really insightful questions – don’t miss this! A brief excerpt follows; please go on over to art:21 and read it in full.

Deb Sokolow, "Dear Trusted Associate" (detail), 2008-2009. Graphite, charcoal, ink, acrylic on paper and on wall, approx. 40 feet long. Installed at the Van Abbemuseum in 2008 and at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 2009-2010.

Deb Sokolow invokes You, the audience. When engaging her work–wall drawings rife with text-narratives that revel in heist, hijinks and mystery, You are not a passive bystander. You are implicated as a character in her web, because she always writes in the second person. I spent some time talking to Deb about that second person device. It strikes me as particularly interesting because of its self-reflexiveness. Rather than sharing the artist’s gaze, looking through the lens of a camera say, the audience suddenly identifies with the model. You/We are in the drawing. You/We are being watched. Deb Sokolow is looking at us. Like an unnerving Welcome mat, Sokolow gives you a platform on which to stand.

Caroline Picard: How would you describe your development as an artist? Do you feel like there are different stages of Deb Sokolow work?

Deb Sokolow: Good question, maybe it’s a question I’d be able to answer better 10 or 20 years down the road. I’ve only been working in this current vein since 2003. That year, I was smack-dab in the middle of grad school, and it was the year that I had an art crisis; I realized I didn’t know what the heck I was doing or wanted to do as an artist. I had no personal investment in anything going on in the studio, so I stopped making work. I went home. I watched movies and ate Chinese take-out. “This is so much better than making art,” I told myself. But then when I started asking myself what was so compelling about watching movies, I realized that it was the stories, the narrative form that I loved, that I could get lost in. This was an A-ha! moment for me, because prior to this, I was making these blobby shapes out of glue and arranging them on table tops. It was boring. So boring! So I moved into working with the narrative form, making large, diagrammatic drawings on paper or multiple papers, always narrated by an anonymous, unreliable protagonist who’s only ever referred to as “you” and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years up until a couple of months ago where I decided to make a break with this, keep using the “you” but develop a new framework for the narrative and a new way of presenting it. So, in answer to your question, I guess I could say that I’ve recently entered dynasty #2, which is actually a pretty exciting place to be. Read more.

About this series of interviews…

Caroline Picard — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:13:20 +0000

I am about halfway through a two-week period of guest blogging on the Art21 site. It’s been fantastic. Suddenly I had an opportunity to engage 11 artists in conversation, asking them questions I’ve always wondered about. I began to see the possibility of an arc in the interviews. On the one hand each interview is independent, on the other there is a thread of interest that flows through each post. I thought I could think through the progression here.

For the last couple years I’ve had a growing interest in celebrity culture. Not simply for its own sake, but rather as a particular reflection of the social structure in which we live, (i.e. post-industrial, capitalist America). Within that culture, celebrity provides a kind of apex or pinnacle of success. At one point, Young Joon Kwak equated them with the Greek Gods—as though Marylyn Monroe serves a parallel, cultural purpose in America as Hera did in Greece. At the very least celebrity provides a model for success and recognition, a model that translates into other fields, particularly in the arts, where tokens of legitimacy are rather slippery to grasp. As people working in a field with no direct use-value, the translated monetary/cultural value of a given object is highly subjective—something steeped in the momentum of the contemporary art dialectic. One way, then, to attain a sense of success is to become the famous Picasso, to be inducted into the Western Art canon. Or, the more immediate rock star artist option like, say, a Dash Snow type. Or, the shorter-lived 5 minutes of fame…”Even if you’re a flash-in-the-pan artist,” I remember a professor telling a class, “even if you just get famous for 5 seconds, at least you were famous. At least that one [painting] mattered. It’s better than nothing.” It’s the “nothing” that I’m interested in: the undefined, highly personal (and maybe less legitimate?) way of recognizing value in one’s work. Because I can’t define that “nothing” alternative, I’ve spent some time thinking through it’s dominant reflection: this whole Famous thing.

In lieu of those thoughts, I asked a series of artists to talk to me about their practices. I began with photographers Melanie Schiff and Jason Lazarus, asking about the gaze of the camera and how photographs memorialize events, or create opportunities to personalize mainstream culture. I then spoke to Young Joon Kwak, about his strategies of assemblage as a means to avoid commodification (oddly enough, he was also a finalist in the infamous SJP artist-reality-TV show), and Irina Botea about reenactment, revolution and film. That first segment of my guest-blogging was about the camera, in some way, or about our relationship to the camera.

My subsequent conversation with Anne Elizabeth Moore functions like a bridge—her interest in branding, for instance, crosses various mediums, even resisting the traditional “artist” label. She is a publisher, she is an educator and she also happens to make objects. All of her work is about self-empowerment in a context where that empowerment is difficult (if not, some might argue, impossible). Following Anne, I spoke with Brandon Alvendia who, like Moore, investigates self-publishing strategies. That is only one arm of his practice, however and working in different mediums, he locates “the art” primarily in himself. With Deb Sokolow, I asked about the characteristic second person pronoun throughout her work—here I feel like the interview-gaze shifts from Alvendia’s “I” to Sokolow’s, perhaps more aggressive “You.” (Agressive in so far as the audience becomes complicit with her work by reading/engaging in it.) At this point, the interviews start to shift towards an investigation of structure. Tsherin Sherpa talks about his relationship to the history and rigor of Tibetan religious painting, and what it means to step outside of that. He offers interesting reflection on the self, how he negotiates it. Here too, in some way I was surprised that the conversation became about the “self.” That theme is predominant in these interviews, and though I hadn’t anticipated it, it makes sense. After speaking to him, I interviewed Hiro Sakaguchi, Nadine Nakanishi and Ellen Rothenberg—artists working in very different ways, I was nonetheless especially interested in talking to them about the structure of their work and the places they work within. Hiro works in a museum, paints and teaches, occupying many different scales at once. Nadine boast a pragmatic optimism, running a print shop, participating in a printer’s guild and making her own work. Ellen takes advantage of overlooked portions of structure, in order to co-opt them for her own use. In all instances, the structure is both advantageous (in so far as it creates a context within which to work) and somewhat overbearing, insofar as it establishes standards and taboos. Ultimately I realized my thoughts about celebrity are really questions about structure.

Celebrity is a standard that reflects a structure, or style of thinking. The nothing, is the uncharted wilderness around that structure. Yet, that uncharted “wilderness” is actually more real and more vibrant. It is a more familiar context, and in taking time to better consider it, I realize that the fairy tale “fame” is actually the curious mistake. Because this whole gamut isn’t really about fame, it’s actually about doing good work, and thinking about the world with critical openness.

Top 5 Weekend Picks! (11/19 & 11/20)

stephanieburke — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:13:27 +0000

1. The Night Parade at FireCat Projects -

Inaugural exhibition at FireCat Projects (formerly Fitzpatrick’s working studio), featuring new works by Tony Fitzpatrick.

FireCat Projects is located at 2124 N. Damen Ave. Reception is Friday from 7-10pm.

2. Time Switch at Kasia Kay Gallery -

Photographs by David A. Parker.

Kasia Kay Gallery is located at 215 N. Aberdeen St. Reception is Friday from 6-8pm

3. Deb Sokolow at Western Exhibitions –

A solo exhibition of new works by the artist.

Western Exhibitions is located at 119 N. Peoria St. Reception is Friday from 5-8pm.

4. Access at Pentagon Gallery –

Work by Hiba Ali, Natalie Brilmeyer, Woori Cho, Meg Dancy, Justus Harris, Walter Latimer, Kira Mardikes, Tilly Pelczar, Marie Socha and Vincent Uribe.

Note the new location: Pentagon is now located at 2655 W Homer St. Reception is Friday from 7-11pm.

5. Goodbye Turquoise at LVL3 –

Work by Samantha Bittman, James Cooper, Racer Levan, Montgomery Perry Smith and Leslie Supnet.

LVL3 is located at 1452 N Milwaukee Ave, 3. Reception is Saturday from 6-10pm.

Artist Deb Sokolow’s Project with Chicago Public Schools In Today’s Tribune

Claudine Isé — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:47:19 +0000

Deb Sokolow, "Secrets and Lies and More Lies (Winchester House)," 2006, detail.

Make sure and check out the Chicago Tribune today for an article about Deb Sokolow’s current residency project with Daniel Boone Elementary School, which is part of Chicago Public School’s “Crossroads” program. Sokolow is helping 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students create a wall mural that will become a permanent part of the school’s hallways. As is typical for Sokolow, the wall mural will contain a combination of text and images that tell the story of the school’s 80 year history in an idiosyncratic and detour-laden fashion, including, for example, an account of the 1932 murder of Mabel Chenoweth, a woman who owned a candy shop a block away from the school.

Written by Lauren Viera, the Tribune story does a great job of showing how Sokolow’s apocryphal approach to storytelling sparks kids’ imaginations. From the article:

“We started (this project) by asking (the students) to observe their surroundings,” Sokolow explained. “What’s inside the closet on the second floor? What do the halls of Daniel Boone smell like? If it were up to you to redesign the drinking fountain, what would it look like? Almost every assignment left it up to their imagination.”

Third- and fourth-grade classes were tasked with drawing their rooms’ floor plans. Fifth-graders researched the school’s history to write their ghost story, and visual art teacher Gail Locke’s seventh- and eighth-grade students were taken under Sokolow’s wing. Beginning in October, the artist assigned students observational roles ranging from Chair Sketcher and Ghost Recorder to Smell Recorder, and put them to work illustrating their findings.

Some students received instructions to draw what, if anything, might be small enough to live in the announcement-speaker box bolted to the corner of Locke’s colorful classroom. During a mid-November visit, Saad, an eighth-grader, showed me his interpretation. “It’s like a lizard that lives in there, saying the morning announcements,” he said, gesturing to his painting of a green lizard (based, he told me, on the Geico insurance gecko). The lizard is happy at home in the morning-announcement box with his bed, refrigerator and television.

I hope someone will publish images from the project somewhere once it’s finished (hint, hint). I would love to see how this mural turns out. If you want to learn more about Deb Sokolow’s work, you can find her interviewed on Episode 210 of the Podcast.

Got a response to this post? Let us know! Email your comments to mail@badatsports.com. We’ll feature thoughtful responses to issues generated by our posts in our Letters to the Editors Feature on Saturdays.

Wednesday Clips 9/16/09

Claudine Isé — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:38:29 +0000

Bob Dylan, "Train Tracks," 2009, from the "Drawn Blank" series.

Here’s our midweek summary of this n’ that and other chit-chat happening in the world of art and beyond.

*Keith Olbermann gives Christopher Knight “Best Person in the World” status for pointing out potentially communist imagery in right-wing Tea Party poster art.

*Was overzealous corporate art collecting partly to blame for Lehmann Bros. fall? Former Lehman trader Lawrence McDonald speculates that indeed, it was, in his new book about the investment behemoth. Artnet fleshes out the issue in its latest report.

*Bill Viola rejects Vatican’s invitation to a summit “aimed at bridging the gap that has developed between spirituality and artistic expression over the last century or so,” reportedly because Viola disagrees with many of the Catholic Church’s policies. No word yet on whether artist Robert Gober was invited, and if so, whether or not he’ll attend.

*If you haven’t already been following this issue, this L.A. Times article provides an excellent one-stop summary of the current controversy arising from the Obama administration’s alleged attempts to “politically manipulate” the NEA and, by extension, the arts communities it serves.

*Tyler Green writes in defense of blockbusters, following Holland Cotter’s article in last weekend’s NYT calling on museums to “rethink the blockbuster phenomena.”

*Wanna know what the Art Institute is deaccessioning this Fall? Read Green’s roundup of what they’re hoping to sell, here.

*Four Andy Warhol prints of famous sports stars stolen from Richard Weisman’s L.A. Collection.

*Annie Leibovitz finally reaches an agreement with her creditors.

*C-Monster elegantly takes the piss out of Bruce Nauman’s “LEAVE THE LAND ALONE” skywriting installation.

*Bob Dylan to exhibit nearly 100 of his paintings in a 2010 solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen. An example of Dylan’s work heads this post. How will they stack up to Joni’s, I wonder?

*Ghosts and their media.

*Chicago artist and BaS fave Deb Sokolow interviewed in Beautiful/Decay magazine.

*How to disappear.

A New Twist on Deb Sokolow’s “The Way in Which Things Operate”

Claudine Isé — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:46:10 +0000

Hey look — a remake, or rather, a remix…or maybe it’s more like a reinterpretation…or an ‘enhancement’?? — of The Way in Which Things Operate, Deb Sokolow’s large-scale drawing that was recently exhibited at the Spertus Museum. Whatever you call it — I kinda like it! The video is nicely edited, the voice characterizations are silly and great, and it plays up some of the inherent cinematic qualities of Deb’s work. And of course, it was all done in fun, and with the artist’s permission — in fact, the guy behind it is none other than Deb’s cousin (who goes by the moniker Squirehogg on YouTube — sorry Sir, I couldn’t find your real name anywhere to credit ya properly!).

I love the idea of a family member being so inspired by Sokolow’s piece that he wanted to create an ancillary work to show how much he loved it. The audio track production reminds me a teeny bit of the hyped-up comic noir audio riffs Joe Frank was doing for So Cal’s KCRW way back in the day.

Deb Sokolow, The Way In Which Things Operate, 2009

Sokolow was interviewed on Episode 201 of the Podcast. Give it a listen if you haven’t already! (Via Windy Citizen).

Opening tonight: Second Stories: Artists Making Do & Fixing Up

laurenvallone — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:36:25 +0000

I had the opportunity for a brief (and I mean super quick) walk through with co-curator Rachel Kalom of this show this past week. It opens tonight, and it is definitely worth checking out. I harassed Rachel with some questions about co-curating a show, and will share those answers and some pics from the opening later this weekend. From the press release:

Zolla Lieberman Gallery proudly presents a group exhibition addressing art making in an era of tightened belts and pinched pennies. Curated by Brian Gillham and Rachel Kalom and with works by Sarah & Joseph Belknap, Tom Berenz, Michael Cheatwood, Garrett Durant, Lucia Fabio & Robert Andrew Mueller, Shannon Goff, Nadia Hotait, Natalia Ivancevich, Sam Jaffe, Mark Khaisman, Austin Knierim, Jessica Labatte, Jesus Mejia, Phillip Orr, Vijay V. Paniker, Miriam Slager, Deb Sokolow, Katherine Webb and Jake Wells.

Opening reception: Friday, June 19th, 5-9pm

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery
325 W Huron
Chicago, IL 60654
www.zollaliebermangallery.com
zollalieberman@sbcglobal.net

Wednesday Clips 6/17/09

Claudine Isé — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:19:30 +0000

Special Art PrOn Edition!!

*Visitors to the Art Institute have a jaywalking problem (Chicago Tribune).

*Getty Research Institute to close Bibliography on the History of Art (BHA, IBA) (via CAA news).

*NEA Survey indicates arts audiences getting older, scarcer (er, more scarce) (CAA News).

* Top ten best Star Wars architecture. The comparisons to real-life buildings are fascinating. (via Culture Monster).

*The history of Jewish punk.

*Shady deal: Orange County Museum of Art sells much of its plein air painting collection to a private collector. Read about it at Culture Monster and Modern Art Notes.

*I like to watch: Robbie Cooper’s Immersion: Porn (via boingboing).

*More pr0n: Russian Art Collective Voina (WAR) stages controversial exhibition (via boingboing).

*Even more pr0n!!: Highlights from the World Air Sex Championships (The XX Factor).

*Students design exhibitions that get people to talk to each other (talk! as in, ‘in person’!) (via Tomorrow Museum).

*The drawings of Chicago artist Deb Sokolow featured on Beautiful/Decay.

*You are what you Tweet: Twitter Psychology Profiling (via Avant Chicago).

*Writer Dave Eggers tells those bummed about loss of print to buck up.

*Justin Wolfe at songsaboutbuildingsandfood covers Freebird, and it’s lovely. (Thanks to Art Fag City for linking to this blog a few weeks back — I’ve been hooked ever since).

**(Image Credit: Robbie Cooper’s Immersion: Porn).

Top 5 for 6/12-6/14

stephanieburke — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:59:22 +0000

1. Green Lantern says it’s the end but we can still be friends…

After 4 (or so) years going strong, the Green Lantern is closing it’s doors. Unfortunately The Man clamped down, and now we must say good bye, though hopefully only to the current space. Hopes are high for the Green Lantern re-opening in 2010 in a new locale, but for now we celebrate the end of an era. So head over on Saturday the 13th for It’s Your Turn, and rock out with Caroline and the rest of the crew. BBQ and copious toasts will be had. Afternoon to 2am.

2. ebersb9? WTF is that?

I’m glad you asked. ebersb9 is a (relatively) new apartment gallery in the Noble Square neighborhood. Everyone likes new apartment galleries, right? Well, now you have the chance to check it out and go see some weird looking work by Krista Hoefle. The show is called The girl who stopped being human, and opens Friday night from 6 to 9. And just remember, people live there, don’t barf on the bathroom floor.

3. Jim Nutt (and others) talk dirty too you at the Smart Museum.

Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson, and Dennis Adrian talk about the work of H. C. “Cliff” Westermann on Sunday at the Smart Museum. Come on, Jim Nutt is awesome, I’m sure the other two are smart, and you’ll probably learn something. What else do you have to do on a Sunday? Come on down for an enlightening afternoon, Sunday the 14th at 2pm.

4. Western Exhibitions presents…PORN!

Not just porn, but that’s what caught my eye (no surprise there). If you’re ambiling ‘roung the West Loop drop in, there are two shows opening. The afore mentioned porn is part of The Ecstasyis,work by Dutes Miller. Also opening is they will not ruin us through the things that we like, a show curated by Philip von Zweck and featuring the work of Joel Dean, Anthony Elms, Carol Jackson, Andy Moore, Mindy Rose Schwartz, Deb Sokolow, Amy Vogel. Two for one, and in the West Loop. Sweet. See yout here with Grolsch in hand. Opens Friday night, from 5 to 8.

5. The weather is better down where it’s wetter, under the sea (in a window on Armitage).

Art on Armitage is a strange place. It’s a window, rather than a whole gallery, and shows an array of work some good, some…Well, this week we’re going for a trip under the sea. Usually I’m not big into crafty work, but this stuff is just friggin’ cool looking. A whole coral reef made by knitting? How can you hate on that? Drive by, or stop and take a closer look ( and drink some wine) Saturday 2 to 5.

Bad at Sports » Deb Sokolow

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