The Search & They Both Ride Horses

Work by Jason Lazarus and Cody Hudson, respectivily.

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

Culte

Work by Rob Carter.

EBERSMOORE is located at 213 North Morgan, #3C. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Homework

Work by the collaborative Public School.

The Family Room is located at 1821 W. Hubbard St. Suite, 202. Reception is from 6-10pm.

Overkill

Curated by Jefferson Godard, with work by Candice Breitz, Manon de Boer, EJ Hill, Diego Leclery, and Casilda Sanchez.

The Mission is located at 1431 W. Chicago Ave. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Untitled

Work by Ed Valentine. Tom Van Eynde in the project space.

Linda Warren is located at 1052 W. Fulton Market. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Dazzling and Bright, Alexandra Walrus, and Outlaws and Patriots

Work by Lorraine Peltz, Doug Smithenry, and Bill Harrison, respectively.

Packer Schopf is located at 942 W. Lake St. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Lovesick

Work by Nathan Vernau.

Robert Bills Contemporary is located at 222 N. Desplaines St. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Mystical Outlaw Rebel Baaddaasss Drawings and Mutinous

Work by Jason Robert Bell and Bret Slater, respectively.

Thomas Robertello Gallery is located at 27 N. Morgan St. Reception is from 6-8pm.

Ineluctable

Work by Barbara Kasten.

Tony Wight Gallery is located at 845 W. Washington Blvd. Reception is from 6-8pm.

Stan Shellabarger & Maria Petschnig

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

A Porous Space, COD Gahlberg Gallery Installation, View shows Painted Wood Singing Platform, 10' diameter, divided in two by the Faults Strip, which runs along the gallery's underground fault line, and Book of Faults, unique painted book of the artist's personal faults supplemented by those donated to the project, 2010

A few days ago I paid a visit to Deborah Boardman’s studio. Having made my way up to Rogers Park, I walked down a side street into a neighborhood that brimmed with pre-summer activity; lawn mowers and birds both seemed endlessly active and I thought about how we’d all emerged for an after-winter stretch before the heat set in. On this street lies Boardman’s house. At the front door I was greeted first by two dogs and then the painter. We climbed up the stairs to her studio on the third floor. Windows on all sides. Leafy, green trees billowed around us where they caught the wind and it was impossible to see the street below. I felt like I was in a green cloud. Boardman has been painting in this room for the last 15 years: a light-addled attic with one, tallest wall where she paints. Other walls are either interrupted by windows or fall at angles defined by the peaked roof. The floor is wooden, spattered with paint. There is a sink in one corner of the room and everything smells vaguely like turpentine. What struck me immediately was the way the light in Boardman’s paintings matched the light in her studio. I understand that usually happens—paintings reflect the space they were produced in, but I always forget that light has variant qualities, depending on where and when it shines. This was a palpable, pervasive shim of light. I’ve never thought of light having density before, but in this room it did. And in Boardman’s paintings the light also has body. It defines the space between lines and marks.

Her work is in constant communion with this place, whether literally depicting the studio as a subject, or by using its same palette and wind. Motifs repeat like patterns as she paints from life in oil, then transcribes that painting multiple times, again and again, with different variations into gouache on paper. While looking over her work, I began to learn the language she uses–to parse clusters of marks from other lines, differentiating what lines referred to the wooden trunk standing against another wall of the room and what series of marks described another painting. I was able to see how the depiction of the trunk lost it’s literal authority as, time and time again, it was redrawn in ever increasing abstraction. Other motifs were similarly repeated—the sink, a bottle of dish soap, paint brushes, other paintings, photographs, books and vials. The most prominent window is also a regular image as are the objects it boasts: small vials, a meditation cloth, books and small, skeletal remnants of a bird, an entire crayfish, the jowl of a fish. Different paintings feature the tree outside with leaves or bare with winter. To start understanding Boardman’s work is to spend time in this space, in her studio—a place so integral to her process it becomes not simply the location of work, but also its subject. She also paints patterns. Patterns are painted onto canvases and paper; where sometimes they stand alone, in other instances one pattern abuts another pattern, in still other instances a patterns lies, like a veil, over domestic landscapes. Sometimes those landscapes are represented simply, without a pattern, but there is a dialogue between those choices. It’s a dialogue about seeing and how we see and how we locate ourselves within what we see. What follows is an interview I embarked upon with her. We talk about painting and the canvas and pattern and windows.

Winter Studio 18, Gouache on paper, 2011, 22" x 30"

Caroline Picard: Can you talk a little bit about how your painting practice has developed over time? Do you notice a consistent investigation of themes or ideas?

Deborah Boardman: Definitely there are themes I return to over and over again.  One is my relationship to painting in which it becomes evidence of my physical body and my hand conveys a kind of emotional warmth, no matter what image is represented. Another is my love of other people’s paintings, whether artists like Watteau or Manet or Noland, or friends’ paintings. I find the emotional timbre in the works of my friends gives me a sense of affirmation, like singing along to a great song. I often find myself connecting to the work of others by copying them, rendering these works as cluster of notes I am examining in my studio, including my own.

CP: I’m interested in how you talk about the canvas/painting as an emotive,
expressive front. I was wondering if you could describe more about what that
is like, for you. Does a painting inspire warmth for you? Or is it the act
 of painting? And, if it’s possible to ask, why?–where does the emotion come
from for you and what is it for?

DB: I can say that both looking at painting and the act of painting elicit similar feelings of warmth, excitement and vigor. There is usually a struggle with self doubt in both circumstances…the great painting that I want to emulate, but can I and my own paralysis when faced with the unknown and what feels like sometimes overwhelming inadequacy.

Where it comes from is harder to answer. I think there is both a physical recognition through bodily memory, especially if the one looking at painting also paints, and empathy. Yet I know people who don’t paint at all who have looked at my painting and got that physical recognition. It’s a kind of resonance, a pleasure (and often pain) we feel in common.

Book of Faults (Some of Mine Some of Yours), Painted Book, 2010, Detail, gouache on paper, 17" x 36" Contains images of paintings of Boardman's studio, her own personal faults and those of others contributed to the project.

CP: How do you think about pattern in your practice?

DB: Pattern is everywhere, sometimes it is more obvious to us. I love when painting reveals something fresh about the coherence in the world which sometimes I observe and sometimes is just subtle sensation. When I paint patterns, I focus on the color and the size and weight of the brush stroke, and the variances that occur when my hand wobbles, or when the water blurs, things that I try not to control and that surprise me. The focus painting patterns brings is very different than looking at my surroundings, which in some ways is more difficult, and requires greater discipline. I like combining the two in my studio paintings.

CP: I feel like this is a question I’ve been meaning to ask for a long time, actually. I started wondering about it when I noticed all of your paintings of your studio. I then thought about it again when Chicago was doing its city-wide studio investigations (via the MCA and Smart Museum). How do you think about the studio as a source of inspiration?

DB: Yes, quite a long time ago, I decided to counter my tendency to make very curvy, gestural images out of my head with attempts to ground myself in the present world. The most obvious place to start was my studio and that led me naturally to Matisse and his studio paintings. I also stumbled upon a painting by a student of David’s one summer visiting the Louvre. The painting depicts about twelve of David’s students painting in a small, dimly lit studio. I was so struck by the state of absorption and evident pleasure represented in the painting that I copied it many times and also researched other versions of artists in their studios, mostly from the 19th century. I think I found affirmation and reassurance through these paintings in what is often a lonely and doubt-ridden pursuit. I think the studio is a concrete stand-in for the self and ultimately what one deals with as an artist is the weight and sum of how to find meaning and connection to others through ones work.

CP: When you talk about the studio as being a representation of the self, I’m
immediately curious about what your physical experience is like, when you
enter your studio…like how does that feeling of being inside your studio
compare to being in a classroom where you teach, or a room in your house?
And then, too, what is it like for you to walk into the studios of others?

DB: My studio is deeply familiar and generally feels good to be in. Sometimes there are periods when I am working out of a particular palette that I end up disliking and crave the antidote. I make periodic purges of work, editing and cleaning out, which refreshes and opens up the space again.

My studio doesn’t need to accommodate others, at least at this point, and in that way is very different from the spaces I share with others, like my family or students. I really dislike the classroom studios at saic, as they are overwhelmingly gray and anonymous. I tend to love the studios of friends and of artists I admire that I may not be close to, like Byron Kim. I love to see the ordering of the space, and what is prioritized and valued.

CP: What happens to the studio space when it becomes public? (whether being
presented in an exhibition, or in a painting or via an open studio?)

DB: The public studio space is less intimate, and becomes an artifact of itself, and therefore theatrical. An exhibition is always in some aspects, a version of the public studio space.

A Porous Space, 2009, Installation at Heskin Contemporary, New York, Gouache on paper paintings function as stained glass in gallery windows.

CP: How does a canvas relate to a window?

DB: While my canvases evoke the renaissance ideal of looking through a window into another world, they also remain very much objects in the physical world. I am less interested in the illusion of space than alluding to other spaces, while reinforcing the material and physical conditions of the body.

CP: How do you negotiate ideas of failure? I was thinking partly about *The Book of Faults* and the LaLaLa Singers, for instance—in that instance it seemed like an idea of failure became a collaborative performance that was then able to transcend itself…?

DB: It was such an epiphany to learn about Xavier Le Pichon’s idea of geological faults being necessary to the health and wellbeing of the earth as a living being. He makes the analogy that human frailty is also necessary for our survival as a species and reveals to us our essentially interdependent nature. It is a very different model than the competitive, survival of the fittest, only the “best” artists or “best” anything deserve our attention. I love how Le Pichon’s theory dovetails with the modernist idea of failure, as a kind of heroic risk taking one must experience despite of ones anxieties and belief that artistic perfection, let alone trying to make anything worthwhile, is impossible to realize in the modern world

What singing with the La La La Singers reminds me again and again, is that connecting with other human beings, singing in harmony is a kind of effortless, pure joy that creates the kind of warmth I crave.

I also find working with ED JR. relieves an enormous amount of the anxiety about self worth. It is easier to trust the instincts of our collective minds, and a heck of a lot more fun. That said, I am not giving up my “day job” as a painter in the studio, as I find the solitude and introspection it brings, also essential to my clarity and growth as an artist.

This Sunday, on May 29th, Deborah Boardman’s collaborative group, ED JR (also Edra Soto, Jeroen Nelemans and Ryan Richey) will present their performance, Painting is Dead from 3-7pm at the Charnel House. With special guests Charles Mahaffee, Diego Leclery, Kayce Bayer, Chris Lin, Hannis Pannis, La La La Singing, Laughing Eye Weeping Eye (Rebecca Schoenecker and Patrick Holbrook). Painting is Dead is part of an on-going series called Five Funerals.

There is just too much good stuff this weekend, 5 spots aren’t enough. Here’s what I think everyone should see, in chronological and alphabetical order:

Friday (4/1) -

UIUC MFA Show: Artsplosia at Co-Prosperity Sphere

Work by Will Arnold, Jung Eun Chang, Justin Farkas, Karri Anne Fischer, Motoko Furuhashi, Amy Gilles, Jim Graham, Dan Gratz, Ben Grosser, Ben Hatcher, Dan Krueger, Katie Latona, Erica Leohner, Maria Lux, Nick Mullins, Kerianne Quick, Michael Smith, Paul Shortt, Laura Tanner, Jessica Tolbert, Nicki Werner, Sarah Beth Woods, and Michael Woody.

Co-Prosperity Sphere is located at 3219 S Morgan St. Reception Friday from 6-10pm.

Weaving Healing Waters at Fill in the Blank Gallery

Work by Maria Calderon.

Fill in the Blank Gallery is located at 5038 N. Lincoln Ave. Reception Friday from 7-11pm.

That’s Odd, I Feel So Alive at Packer Schopf Gallery

Work by Casey Riordan Millard

Packer Schopf Gallery is located at 942 W. Lake St. Reception Friday from 5-8pm.

6/6/6: SIX ARTISTS, SIX CITIES, SIX CONNECTIONS at Lloyd Dobler

Work by Jeff Badger, Carl Baratta, Amanda Curreri, Joanne Lefrak, Kathy Leisen, and Dan Schank.

Lloyd Dobler is located at 1545 W. Division, 2nd Fl. Reception Friday from 6-10pm.

When the Cathedrals Were White at Thomas Robertello Gallery

Work by Peter Allen Hoffmann.

NOTE NEW LOCATION: Thomas Robertello Gallery is located at 27 N Morgan St. Reception Friday from 6-8pm.

Saturday (4/2) -

Country Club Presents ‘Abstract Location’ & Anthotypes at Andrew Rafacz Gallery

Abstract Location features work by work by Steven Bankhead, Katarina Burin, Fritz Chesnut, Jacob Dyrenforth, Freeman & Lowe, and Ryan McGinness. Anthotypes features work by John Opera.

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

No Joke at LVL3

Work by Andy Cahill, Alan & Michael Fleming, Yasi Ghanbari, Danny Greene, Joe Grimm, Marissa Perel, Arron David Ross, and Michael Vallera.

LVL3 is located at 1542 N Milwaukee Ave #3. Reception Saturday from 6-10pm.

Sunday (4/3) -

Irritable Abstraction at Julius Cæsar

Work by Joe Baldwin, Timothy Bergstrom, Brian Calvin, Federico Cattaneo, Edmund Chia, Dana DeGiulio, Dan Devening, Cheryl Donegan, Judith Geichman, Andrew Greene, Magalie Guérin, Antonia Gurkovska, Seth Hunter, Michiko Itatani, Eric Lebofsky, Diego Leclery, José Lerma, Jim Lutes, Rebecca Morris, Sabina Ott, Noah Rorem, Erin Washington and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung.

Julius Cæsar is located at 3144 W Carroll Ave, 2G. Reception Sunday from 4-7pm.

Because I have a four and three quarters year old daughter, I was intrigued by the email I received from The Suburban announcing a one-day only “Holiday Experience” for kids and grownups alike. We were invited to come and Sit On A Polar Bear’s Lap. The event was billed as “a project by Diego Leclery,” a well-known Chicago artist who also co-runs the alternative space Julius Caesar.

Since The Polar Bear looms large in our house (my husband runs the endangered species program of a national environmental group) I thought, what the hell, I’ll bring my daughter and check it out. It couldn’t be any creepier than Santa Claus, could it? (Since we’re Jewish, my child has never had the terrifying privilege of being forced to sit on Santa’s lap whilst bored teens in elf costumes took her picture). But since I wasn’t sure what to expect, I kept it vague and told my daughter we were going to do “this polar bear thing” during the afternoon and left it at that. A part of me was worried that the project–whatever form it took–would feel cynical in some way, and though I’m all for overturning fake holiday cheer in appropriate contexts, I didn’t want my kid to be the butt of the joke. But this Polar Bear was nothing like that at all.

In fact this Polar Bear…I’m not (too) embarrassed to admit that this Polar Bear was truly magical. At least he was for my daughter. She couldn’t get enough of the huge, cuddly fellow and I literally had to drag her out of the room so that other kids (and adults) could have their turn sitting on his lap. She got in line to visit the Polar Bear three separate times.

“Is the Polar Bear a machine?” she kept asking me. “No,” I said – “he is a living creature. Can’t you tell by the way he was hugging you?”

“So it was alive?” she asked. “Yes,” I responded, “he was alive. I’m pretty sure it was a he anyway.”

“But how did a Polar Bear come all the way from the North Pole?”

“Well,” I said, thinking fast — because she already knows Santa isn’t real and I kinda wanted to give her something — “well, this is a special kind of Polar Bear. That’s why he’s here. He is different from other Polar Bears.”

“Yes, mama…he is sooo kind! If he was a different Polar Bear he would probably try to kill me.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

For me, the Polar Bear brought a number of things to mind–from Temple Grandin’s “squeeze machine” to the culture of fear that the media has built around children and adults and physical expressions of affection, to the fact that environmental groups crafting media campaigns are forced to rely on a few highly photogenic “charismatic critters”–like the Polar Bear–in order to get the general public to care about environmental issues like species decimation and global warming.

But for my daughter, the Polar Bear wasn’t conceptual or referential. It was real, and it made her so happy. So thank you Polar Bear. That was a really sweet thing you did.

Sorry for the missed week, I was rocking out in the lovely and exhausting Yosemite, climbing waterfalls, almost falling to my death (I shit you not, and it was completely my fault), looking at Pileated Woodpeckers (the Woody Woodpecker ones), drinking lots of Tecate and burning lots and lots of firewood. But now I’m back. It’s getting into that summer session, where things get lean. But as always quantity does not indicate quality, and following that, I give you my weekend picks. Mmmm, tasty!

1. Open Crit at Hyde Park Art Center

Wanna take part in an art critique? Here’s your chance. Artists presenting work: Tom Burtonwood, Takeshi Moro, and Cameron Harvey.

Hyde Park Art Center is located at 5020 S Cornell Ave. Crit Friday, from 6-8pm.

2. 30 Days of Dinner Time at Art on Armitage

Your last opportunity to see this month long event created by artist Kimmy Noonen.

Art on Armitage is located at 4125 W. Armitage Ave. Closing reception Friday, from 6-9pm.

3. LÜX at Lloyd Dobler Gallery

How long has it been since you visited Lloyd Dobler Gallery? It’s been a while for me, so I’m heading back to one of the first galleries I visited in Chicago, and still one of my favorites.Solo show of Sebastian Vallejo.

Lloyd Dobler Gallery is located at 1545 W Division St, 2nd Fl. Reception Friday, from 6-10pm.

4. Me at Monument 2 Gallery

Different from what I’m used to at M2, and looks good. Just be sure to get there early, that place gets fucking packed! Work by Tim Louis Graham and Diego Leclery.

Monument 2 Gallery is located at 2007 N. Point St. Reception Saturday, from 6-10pm.

5. The Pentagon Saves The World at Pentagon

I’d make a joke about the title if it weren’t already such a depressing fucking joke. Bound to be some good work though. Work by Deborah Stratman, Jim Zimpel, Jesse Avina, Daniel Baird, Jake Myers and the Pentagon Education Collective.

Pentagon is located at 961 W 19th St., 1F. Reception Saturday, from 7-11pm.