Like I said, there’s a shitload of great stuff happening in town this week. Tonight only, a video program curated by Alicia Eler and Jefferson Godard titled “Performance Anxiety” will screen at Gallery 400 at UIC at 8pm. Here’s how the press release describes it: “a program of short video works dealing with performances of cultural identity. In navigating complicated understandings of gender, race, class, sexuality, or existence in on- and off-line spaces, individuals accept and internalize cultural rules or ideologies and pass; reject them, identifying such performances as a form of cultural oppression; or even scramble and combine rules and codes in personalized constructions. Performance Anxiety (run time: approximately 50 minutes) features the work of American artists Rochelle Feinstein, Kate Gilmore, James Murray, Jeroen Nelemans, Greg Stimac and Stacia Yeapanis.”

I wrote about the films on the blog a few months back – I’m reposting a slightly revised version of that essay below, for those who are too lazy to click. (No judgment there, I myself am often that lazy). Read more

Tonight (Monday, April 4th) Andrea Zittell will speak about her work as well as her unusual studio space in the high desert of California at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in conjunction with the exhibition Production Site: The Artist’s Studio Inside/Out. The talk is co-presented with Gallery 400.  This should be a good one; full details below.

Andrea Zittel: artist

Monday, April 5, 6 pm
Co-presented with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in conjunction with the exhibition Production Site: The Artist’s Studio Inside-Out

Special location: the MCA Theater, 220 East Chicago Avenue
General admission $10, MCA members $8, students with valid ID $6

“Internationally renowned artist Andrea Zittel speaks about her work and describes how her studio in the high desert of California serves both as a space for exploration and as a place for crafting and presenting objects, materials, spaces and ideas. Zittel’s sculptures and installations transform everything necessary for life — such as eating, sleeping, bathing, and socializing — into experiments in living.

Andrea Zittel is an assistant professor of the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, who has had many solo exhibitions worldwide. She has received a Lucelia Artist Award from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; a Coutts Contemporary Art Foundation Award; and an Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation catalogue support prize. Zittel has also organized the smockshop, “an artist run enterprise that generates income for artists whose work is either non-commercial, or not yet self sustaining” by selling smocks; and High Desert Test Sites, “a series of experimental art sites” which “provide alternative space for experimental works by both emerging and established artists.”

San Francisco artist Stephanie Syjuco will lecture tomorrow (Tuesday March 30th) at 5pm at Gallery 400 as part of UIC’s ongoing Voices lecture series. According to the artist’s website, Syjuco is also slated for a solo exhibition at Gallery 400 in September of 2010. Syjuco’s work resides in the realm of the copy: the bootleg, the body double, the knock-off. Commissioned for a piece to be presented at last year’s Frieze Art Fair in London, Syjuco set up a booth and called it COPYSTAND: An Autonomous Manufacturing Zone, where she and other artists busily produced small-scale reproductions of lesser-known works based on other famous art works: third generation copies-cum-tchotkes priced at a fraction of the price of the original. Described on the Frieze Foundation website as a “parasitic workshop,” Syjuco’s copy stand apparently did brisk business at the fair.

COPYSTAND: An Autonomous Manufacturing Zone, at Frieze Art Fair

Recently Syjuco was featured in a solo exhibition titled notMOMA at Washington State University at Pullman, which closed last week. For this show, Syjuco teamed up with Washington State University art students to recreate, by hand, famous works of art from MoMA’s permanent collection. “A fully handmade show,” as Syjuco’s statement describes it, “notMOMA attempts to bridge a gap in students’ understandings of “high art” and invites them to access the works via their own do-it-yourself collective vision. Whether considered copies, translations, or even mis-translations, all resulting works are unique expressions in their own right. As an illicit travelling exhibition “borrowed” from their collection, notMOMA creates a dialogue between WSU’s art department and an inaccessible, perhaps reluctant art institution located on the other side of the country.”

Partial installation view with student-made notMOMA exhibition with approximations of Pollock, Calder, Oldenburg, Richter, Hesse, Warhol, Gober, Mondrian, Eames, and more...

Syjuco also recently started an extremely cool website, particulated matter, that provides a centralized collection of artists books made through print-on-demand processes. She links entries to the publication’s homepage, where they’re available for purchase or download.

Syjuco’s lecture definitely seems worth checking out. The talk will be held in the Gallery 400 Lecture Room, 400 South Peoria Street, and admission is free.

1. Pamela Fraser at Golden Gallery

Golden Gallery, generally a crowd pleaser, is putting up another strong show. This round it consists of works on paper by artist Pamela Fraser. The works (from what I could find and discern) are all abstract, hyper-color pieces. Is “eye candy” a bad word in the art world?

Golden Gallery is located at 816 W. Newport Ave. Opening reception is Friday from 6-9pm.

2. Alumni at David Weinberg Gallery

I went to SAIC for grad school, but I don’t believe that gives me a complete bias for SAIC grad work. However, when I see good work from my fellow alums, I got to give it a shout.  David Weinburg is putting on an exhibition of “recent” SAIC grad work, including that of Amy Mayfiled, Noelle Allen, Helen Maurene Cooper, & Michael Ratulowski. If you haven’t seen their work yet (which, if you’ve been in Chicago a while, is unlikely) make sure you stop by. If you already know their work, head over for a refresher on why they’re awesome.

David Weinberg Gallery  is located at 300 W. Superior St. Opening reception is Friday from 5-8pm. Read more

The folks at Temporary Services are puttin’ on a Fair in conjunction with their current Gallery 400 show, Art Work (January 26 through March 6, 2010). This Friday and Saturday from 12-6pm Bad at Sports will be there, selling t-shirts, giving away stickers, and recording your questions on video for our upcoming exhibition at apexart!

Please join everyone at the Fair for two days of art, books, talks, things for sale, things for free, and more….including short discussions about the work of various participating organizations scheduled throughout the day.

The whos (as in, who will be at Fair):
Antena
AREA Chicago
Bad At Sports
CAFF: “Find us in the real world motherfuckers!”
Gallery 400
Esteban Garcia
Golden Age
Green Lantern Press
Half Letter Press
Terence Hannum
Harold Arts
Imperfect Articles
InCUBATE
Clifton Meador & guests
David Moré
No Coast
Onsmith Dog Stew & Monkey Nudd Wine
Pros Arts Studio
Proximity Magazine
Radah & Team
Spudnik Press
Bert Stabler
threewalls
WhiteWalls

The whens, wheres and hows:

Friday, February 26, Noon – 6 pm
Saturday, February 27, Noon – 6 pm

Two days of art, books, talks, things for sale, things for free, and more!

Organized by Temporary Services in conjunction with ART WORK: A NATIONAL CONVERSATION ABOUT ART, LABOR, AND ECONOMICS • www.artandwork.us

LOCATION
G400 Lecture Room & Gallery 400 at the Art & Design Hall, University of Illnois, Chicago
400 S. Peoria St (at Van Buren)
www.gallery400.aa.uic.edu • 312-996-6114

And while you are there:

Check out The Free Store, a concurrent exhibition at Gallery 400 taking the form of “a nomadic, temporary free store that irregularly visits a variety of Chicagoland neighborhoods.” The Free Store asks you to get involved by coming to the store, bringing stuff you want to give away, and taking stuff that you want. There is no restriction on what you can take. You don’t even have to haggle!  Just take it!

**Items can be dropped off at Gallery 400 during open hours. The Free Store organizers are always happy to accept donations (everything except for people, animals, and illegal/toxic substances).