1. Hagia Sophia at Spoke

Go and hang out inside a miniature model of the Hagia Sophia. Just think of it as your “safe place.” Hagia Sophia (the model at Spoke, not the Basilica in Istanbul) was created by Gwendolyn Zabicki. This is the closing reception, and your last chance!

Spoke is located at 119 N. Peoria. Closing reception is Saturday from 6-9pm.

2. The Last Unicorn Art Show at The Tattoo Factory

Ok, so, I haven’t seen any images from the show, but how can I not pick this? An entire show that exists solely as a tribute to the Last Unicorn? So awesome. Watch out for the Red Bull, and stay away from the sea shore, if you know what I mean.

The Tattoo Factory is located at 4441 N. Broadway. Reception is Friday from 7-11pm.

3. Printervention: Printing for the Public at The Chicago Tourism Center

Version Fest is back my friends. This yearly art-stravagaza organized by Co-Prosperity Sphere will be popping up all over in the next couple weeks. Head on down and check out this WPA-inspired print event.

The Chicago Tourism Center is located at 72 E. Randolph St. Reception is Friday from 5-7pm.

4. Night Painting 1995-2010 at Peregrineprogram

Paintings by Susanna Coffey that aren’t self portraits? That’s right. Stop on by Edmund’s place, but be sure to write down the number (#727), it can be a little are to find, as the building is HUGE.

Peregrineprogram is located at 500 W. Cermak Rd., #727. Reception is Friday from 6-9pm.

5. In a Paperweight & Home for Hobo Too at Tony Wight Gallery

If you haven’t already been to Tony’s new place, here is another opportunity with a star line-up: Walead Beshty, Sebastiaan Bremer, Daniel Gordon, Tamar Halpern, Barbara Kasten, Sara VanDerBeek, and James Welling in In a Paperweight. In the South Gallery: Home for Hobo Too, work by Allison Schulnik.

Tony Wight Gallery is located at 845 W. Washington Blvd. Reception is Friday from 5-8pm.

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This week’s pick is a long one. Susan Rankaitis, James Welling, and George Baker take the gloves off and  throw down over abstraction in photography.

via the UCLA:

“From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. Artists Susan Rankaitis and James Welling and UCLA Associate Professor of Art History George Baker debate a host of approaches to the abstract photographic experience in this panel discussion moderated by Lyle Rexer, the author of The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography.”

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Philip Von Zweck at ThreeWalls

9/11 Philip Von Zweck at ThreeWalls (M, C) The title of this show is “The Fortieth Anniversary of the First Anniversary of May ’68 (in September).” Von Zweck is a significant and much-beloved figure in the Chicago art scene who ran a highly respected apartment gallery for a number of years. This exhibition marks his return to a more traditional solo artist exhibition framework.

Luis Gispert at Rhona Hoffman Gallery

9/11 Luis Gispert at Rhona Hoffman (C) New large-scale photographic portraits and videos by the Miami-born, Brooklyn-based Gispert that focus on immigrant sectors of the American workforce and the search for expressive outlets outside the realm of labor. A three-channel film focuses on Gispert’s friend Rene, a Cuban immigrant who works in a Miami restaurant supply store.

9/11 Jessica Labatte at Scott Projects (M). Labatte’s exhibition Bright Branches documents found objects collected from Chicago alleys and junk stores.

9/11 Craig Doty: Women at Roots and Culture (M,C). The women in Doty’s new photographic series have been described as appearing “physically exhausted as well as ethically or morally debased,” i.e. a wet and shivering woman looking out past viewers with few narrative clues as to why, etc. Given Choire Sicha’s description of Doty as “a sick little pervert” whose previous body of work was “very John Hughes meets John Waters meets John Lydon,” well, let’s just say we can’t wait to see his approach to the subject for ourselves.

Doug Ischar at Golden Gallery

9/12 Doug Ischar at Golden (M,C). A body of work from 1985, never before seen in its entirety, is the enticement here. Ischar’s show is titled Marginal Waters and features images taken in Chicago’s now-defunct Belmont Rocks.

9/19 Jonas Wood at Shane Campbell Gallery (C). He’s from L.A. and showed at Black Dragon Society, plus he’s collaborated with painter Mark Grotjahn…for now, that’s all I need to know to want to see Wood’s show.

9/19 Jason Lazarus, Wolfgang Plöger, Zoe Strauss at The Art Institute (M). A show of recent photographic acquisitions of these artists’ works by the Art Institute.

9/20 Allen Sekula, Polonia and Other Fables at The Renaissance Society (C). New photographs by anti-globalization hero Sekula that focus on Chicago’s rich labor history, its Polish working-class population along with The University of Chicago’s famous lineage of economic theorists. Heady yet vital stuff from this woefully under-recognized L.A.-based artist.

9/25 – 9/27 Mikhail Baryshnikov at Harris Theater (M). It’s Baryshnikov dude. ‘Nuff said.

Greely Myatt in Heartland at Smart Museum of Art

9/30 Heartland at the Smart Museum (C). Coorganized by the Smart Museum of Art and the Van Abbemuseum, a survey of artists from the Midwest aka the American Heartland. Hopefully it’ll subvert the syrupy connotations of it’s title, or at least be the kind of show that people argue, bitch and moan about rather than simply ignore.

10/2 – 10/4  Western Exhibitions and Golden Age at the NY Art Book Fair (M). The only event to make it to our list that is not in Chicago. If your in New York at the beginning of October check out two Chicagoans holding it down at the Fair.

October, opening date TBA, Carroll Dunham at He Said/She Said (C). Carroll Dunham shows in a suburban apartment gallery: the Oak Park home of Pamela Fraser and Randall Szott. Can’t wait for this.

10/8-21 Chicago International Film Festival (M) In it’s 45th year the film festival the two week festival is the hub for all film fanatics.  This festival might be the only time to catch certain films so be sure to check out their schedule in advance.

Jeremy Deller at The Museum of Contemporary Art

10/10 Jeremy Deller: It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, at the MCA (M) Commissioned by The Three M Project Jeremy Deller will invite numerous participants to discuss their knowledge of the Iraq War. Some guest will include verterans, and scholars.
James Welling at Donald Young (C)

10/10 Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage at The Art Institute (C). I’m a sucker for Victoriana, and this exhibition –the first “to comprehensively examine the little-known phenomenon of Victorian photocollage, presenting work that has rarely—and in many cases never—before been displayed or reproduced” — is probably the one show I’m most looking forward to seeing this fall. A medium mostly practiced by aristocratic women, Victorian photocollage combined human, animal, and botanical forms in all sorts of wacky and whimsical ways, and I’m looking forward to reading the accompanying full-color catalogue to learn more about the ways that female artists of this era approached the form some sixty odd years before Picasso and Braque started playing around with it.

10/13 Alex Halsted and David Moré at Gallery 400 (C). Chicago-based Moré “collaborates” with an elephant nose fish, who emits an electrical pulse as a navigation tool which the artist then amplifies. I love the gallery’s blurb on this show: “This performance duo mixes issues of displacement, communications, commercial sound and inter-species contact in a singularly engaging bio-tech format.” Yep, pretty much says it all.

10/16 In Search of the Mundane at ThreeWalls (M) Organized by Randall Szott and InCUBATE  According to ThreeWalls this series will , “include boozy brunches, a lecture on the art of storytelling, various leisure excursions, and a tour of personal collections.”

Liam Gillick at the MCA

10/17  Liam Gillick Curates the MCA Collection (M, C). We love the way that the MCA is experimenting with the curation of its permanent collection. The MCA has invited Liam Gillick to select works for its next hanging.

11/TBA James Welling at Donald Young (C).  New work by L.A. photographer Welling, whose ongoing interest in the experimental and abstract possibilities of photography set his work apart from contemporaries like Sherrie Levine and Cindy Sherman as well as today’s younger generation focusing heavily on portraiture. Welling’s last show at Donald Young featured photograms of flowers and “torsos” (the latter actually made out of screens sculpted to resemble human curves) made without the use of a camera; the results were gorgeous, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he delves into next.

12/4 Carrie Schneider at MCA 12×12 (M, C)  Often using herself as her main character, Schneider  melds several genres of art-making including body art, performance, self-portraiture photography and film in images that are haunting, creepy, and hallucinatory in their resonance. If someone ever gave Schneider a huge project budget she could give Matthew Barney a run for his money, but for now we’ll look forward to seeing the new short film Schneider plans to premiere in her first solo museum outing at the MCA. According to the MCA’s website, the film, made in Helsinki, Finland while the artist was there on residency, continues the artists’ ongoing exploration of doubled selves and the uncanny.

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