MCA programming edgier than a basement party in Pilsen
THE MCA IS OOC
In her recent AFC review, Robin Deluzen wrote that the MCA is “on a roll” and What’s the T? couldn’t agree more.
This Tuesday will mark the opening of Jason Lazurus’ much anticipated and hotly discussed 12×12BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works Exhibition. The exhibition appears to actually be three in one and has more programming than Michigan Avenue has drunk people on St. Patricks Day. The schedule includes (but is not limited to) signs for strolling, piano performances, a gif film screening (April 18th at Gene Siskel Film Center/ Conversations the Edge), and sign-making tutorials. The exhibition(s) and performances will be on view through June 18th.
Next Tuesday, March 26th, Chicago’s White/Light will be performing with [freaking] Kim Gordon. The only thing more exciting would be a Sonic Youth secret reunion show, but WTT? isn’t complaining. Tickets are free (!), but space is limited. Get our your camping gear out, this will be one for the ages.
As if all that and a bag of chips wasn’t enough, Oak Park natives, Tavi Gevinson and Jonah Ansell will be at the museum on April 23rd to discuss their work on the animated short, Cadaver. No offense Jonah Ansell, but OMG TAVI! The event includes a screening of the short and a discussion with Gevinson and Ansell moderated by Heidi Reitmaier, the MCA’s Beatrice C. Mayer Director of Education.
Oak Park Suburbanites, Gevinson and Ansell
Reading is Fundamental
because we know your feed has been awash with #SXSW and #Pope Whoever updates
Don’t let his deep commitment to the creation of a sustainable music scene fool you. Chicago free jazz impresario, Mike Reed, initiates plan to take over the world…
If you’ve ever walked by The Mutiny, you’ve probably noticed the “Bands Wanted” notice prominently displayed in their front window. If you’ve ever actually been inside the Fullerton Ave bar, you probably know why.
Regardless, a consortium of artists from The Hills to The West Pilsen Sculpture Garden have somehow managed to further expand their practices and are now “with the band, man.” The innocuously named “Chicago Music CDs showcase / CD release party” promises to be a glorious happening of music and stuff.
The show will feature “emerging new chicago music and experimental performance talent” such as FREE THE UNIVERSE (members of Fish, New Capital, Auditor), Fish (members of FREE THE UNIVERSE, Auditor), Ghosts (members of My Bad) and My Bad (members of Ghosts), amongst other bands no one has ever heard of because they probably didn’t exist until this show.
At least it’s free.
Thursday, March 28th at 8PM. The Mutiny 2428 N Western Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60647.
Michelle Obama has bangs!
100 characters on 100 paintings
Brandon Alvendia’s Sofa King What?
Show was worth the trek to Bridgeport. His practice invigorates others and that’s what’s important.
‘Over the line’ and ‘Hey motherfucker, we’re that Spic band’ aren’t two expressions you might simultaneously hear unless you like The Big Lebowski and Los Crudos. But you may have heard it at some point in the 1990s while bowling your mediocre 104, eating a pizza and watching an iconic hardcore punk show at Fireside Bowl. Seldom do you get the productive slippage between national slacker pastime and radical teenage angst that would have been a mainstay at Fireside. This modern gem modularly clad in red-and-white metal tile façade, symmetrically planned with bowling on one end and horizontal circulation on the other, activating corner spaces where the action happened – stage left and bar right – looks more like a Firestone than a punk bowling alley.
Los Crudos show, 1999
Beginning with its 40 ft signage that is part pop-advertising, part surrealist call-to-bowl, Fireside’s modernism plays out in typical plan, allowing basic front-to-back bowling to occur next to stage dives, dog piles and circle pits in a circulatory space no wider than 15 ft – folding slow-paced sport and high-energy hardcore into the same form. Sporting seedy bar décor and MS-DOS-like scoring machines, Fireside’s ability to transport you to a time you never experienced is uncanny. Built in the 1940s, no doubt typified by modernist aesthetic leanings, Fireside is a monument to simplicity of a pre-digital era, where you could’ve killed two birds – bowling and slamdancing – with one roll.
Night shot of Fireside facade
Fireside still has shows, although not as iconic or plentiful as this show list from the mid 90s. Take a gander, go to Logan Square and be a shitty bowler, while this building still exists between eras, pastimes and subcultures, easily annihilating any validity to cosmic bowling.
The Fireside is located at 2646 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago, IL 60647.
Alvendia and Sofa King proprietor Christopher Smith speaking with a visotor at the opening.
Comfort Station regains will to comfort
Local Hang to Offer Year-long Programming
The much-beloved Logan Square Comfort Station is much-missed during the winter months when the tiny art shelter is too cold to host their usually full schedule of exhibitions, screenings and musical performances. As a result of actual community effort, the 1915 structure is embarking on a much needed and environmentally friendly weatherproofing, funded in part by a Kickstarter and in-partnership with Logan Square business, Biofoam, a sustainable insulation company.
Comfort Station Logan Square has impressively reached their Kickstarter goal with over a week to go, but if you donate now you still have a chance to get the most Logan of Squares tote bag possible and your name on a list alongside Chicago art luminaries and trendsetters (this reporter included).
* Which is, thankfully, not in conflict with the April 7th two-hour Mad Men Season 6 premiere.
Curated by Adelheid Mers, with work by Becky Alprin, Nadav Assor, Deborah Boardman, Lauren Carter, Sarah FitzSimons, Ashley Hunt in collaboration with Taisha Paggett, Judith Leemann, Kirsten Leenaars, Faheem Majeed, and Emily Newman.
Hyde Park Art Center is located at 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Reception Sunday 3-5pm.
Work by Barron Storey, Elizabeth McGrath, Jeff Gillette, Carlee Fernandez, Laurie Hassold, Jen Heaslip, Shane Guffogg, Sandra Yagi, Clive Barker, Eduardo Villacis, Jessica Curtaz, John U. Abrahamson, and Gabor Ekecs.
Bert Green Fine Art is located at 8 S. Michigan Ave. Open house Saturday, 12-7pm.
Work by Lauren Anderson, Vincent Como, Antonia Contro, Alex Gartelmann and Jonas Sebura, Angelo Musco, Jamisen Ogg, Javier Pinon, Liliana Porter, Joel Ross, Alette Simmons-Jimenez, Paul Anthony Smith, and Dietrich Wegner.
Carrie Secrist Gallery is located at 835 W. Washington Blvd. Reception Saturday, 5-8pm.
Work by Nicolas Africano, Norman Bluhm, Roy De Forest, Carroll Dunham, Philip Guston, Robert Hudson, Elizabeth Murray, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Elizabeth Peyton, Joel Shapiro, David Smith, William T. Wiley, and Terry Winters.
Russell Bowman Art Advisory is located at 311 W. Superior St. #115. Reception Friday, 5:30-8pm.
Bad at Sports is pleased to have Martine Syms of Golden Age as a guest blogger with her picks from last week’s New York Art Book Fair. “Martine Syms is a conceptual entrepreneur based in Chicago, Illinois. You can usually find her doing “research” (reading blogs) in the back office at Golden Age or watching television shows on DVD. Golden Age is a concept shop, founded in 2007, that sells publications, music, apparel and other editioned works created by artists. Golden Age makes a statement about an alternative mode of making and selling art; that it can be straightforward, accessible, and moderately priced.”
This year Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair claimed all three floors of P.S.1 to present over 200 international booksellers, galleries, and independent publishers/artists including art luminaries Dexter Sinister, Peres Projects, Electronic Arts Intermix, and E-Flux. Unlike most commercial art fairs this year, the NY Art Book Fair managed to escape the shadow of the recession. Everyone seemed to be having fun amongst the many DIY initiatives that have been doing so much with so little for so long. However, similar to most art fairs, NYABF was incredibly overwhelming and I couldn’t possibly see everything. Here are some highlights from last weekends event, if you want to link to projects that I missed, please do so in the comments.
A Modest Proposal For A Serving Library – Dexter Sinister
A Modest Proposal For A Serving Library - Dexter Sinister
A Modest Proposal For A Serving Library, Nick Relph and Oliver Payne Dexter Sinister [http://dextersinister.org] (designers Stuart Bailey and David Reinfurt) presented a very heady not-so-modest proposal for taking over an abandoned library in Los Angeles that is also the site of the newest video by Brits Nick Relph and Oliver Payne. In the video, books are chroma-keyed onto shelves, and the librarian’s serve red wine. Over the weekend the Serving Library also hosted a screening of Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 with an introduction by my favorite Dot Dot Dot contributor Rob Giampietro.
The Werkplaats Typografie
Werkplaats Typografie
The Werkplaats Typografie, a Dutch post-graduate design program, brought all 17 students to New York for the fair. Across from a wall displaying their most recent graphic output, the students set up studio in which they would bootleg any of the Werkplaats’ catalogs for a mere $5.
A print by John Baldessari in the exhibition Learn To Read Art: A History of Printed Matter.
Friendly Fire | Work from Lauren Anderson, Paul Cowan, Alana Celli, and Derek Chan on Golden Age’s wall.
The wall from LA’s Ooga Booga, featuring Amy Yao, Raymond Pettibon, Sara Clendening, Mended Veil, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, Max Krivitzky, and more.
The print-on-demand workshop of NY-based creative studio The Holster.
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First: This week Duncan checks in from Roots and Culture and interviews Oli Watt and Jamisen Ogg about the show they put together with Lauren Anderson. Lauren could not make the taping session and Eric May (The Director of Roots and Culture) steps in to make sure the world know
what great work she does.
Next: From NYC! The Amanda Browder Show features three conversations from the Volta Art Fair – NY 2009. Amanda talks with Noah Singer of Imperfect Articles (Chicago), Tracy Candido and Tara Strickstein of Sweet Tooth of the Tiger (NYC) and Joshua Callaghan (LA). All three discuss the hardships of being stuck in a booth all weekend on what happened to be one of the sunniest days all winter. Read more
