Friday, June 29, 2012

Texploitation: Art, Guns, Girls, and BBQ




“Texploitation: Art, Guns, Girls, and BBQ”
Artists:  Cirkit of Mythos: Steve Cruz, Omar Hernandez, Eddy Rawlinson,
Ryder Richards


Opening Friday July 27 from 6pm-10pm
July 27- August 25, 2012

Dallas artist group examines Texas clichés and big egos at Antena, Chicago.


“We can’t help it. Living in Texas makes us better than you. Just look at the art. We deal with real issues, like chicks, engines, guns, and sex. None of this political pantywaist, hand wringing, and whining about ourselves or crying about the earth or any of that hippy shit. We make work about real stuff. Like how men jump in head-first, breaking shit and fucking anything, and how lame it is that people get all caught up in power when all you need is a warm hole to holster your gun in and some wind in your hair.”

Or not…

Exposing the dialectic of hypocrisy entrenched in stereotype, the Dallas based art group Cirkit of Mythos presents “Texploitation: Art, Guns, Girls and BBQ,” an examination of cliché as the ambiguous prophet of truth. Focused on personal mythology as environmentally determined, the Texas artists take on the icons of the West and modern masculinity as politically charged and contentious while heralding a warning of extremity and romanticized notions of power. Held at Antena in Chicago on July 27- Aug 24 , 2012 the exhibit will feature a series of small paintings and drawings proving that not everything is bigger in Texas, ya’ll. Please join us for the reception on Friday, July 27 from 6-9 PM.

Cirkit of Mythos (est. 2008) formed as a collaborative exercise to increase dialogue between Dallas based artists. “Texploitation” developed from conversations about importing culture as an exotic penchant for the locals. Embracing our inescapable origins, Cirkit of Mythos revels in the Texas commonplace as highly undervalued and over scrutinized. Shrinking our work size to accommodate tourism style gifts, we display our works as the quaint other embalmed in political incorrectness and rebellious turmoil.

With a cast of rotating members this exhibition features works from four artists: Steve Cruz (Director of MFA Gallery, Dallas), Omar Hernandez (Professor at El Centro College), Eddy Rawlinson (Dean of Arts and Sciences at El Centro College) and Ryder Richards (Gallery Director at Richland College). Cruz’s paintings present a series of characters humorously struggling with sin and the consequences of spiritual and sexual stagnation. As a moral corollary, Hernandez offers a series of constructed pieces featuring retro-pop imagery reanalyzed in light of current global and community values. Rawlinson’s vivid paintings of cultural icons re-examines the plight of outlaw and outcast as the sacrificial hero necessary for the continuation of spirit amidst a civilized bureaucracy. Concerned with the subliminal influences embedded within Western culture, Richards gunpowder drawings examine the romance of violence.

Antena
1755 S. Laflin, St.
Chicago, IL 60608
antenapilsen (at) gmail.com
Hours: by appointment
(773) 340-3516

Monday, June 25, 2012

7/1: CHROMA PHOBIA // new works by TONY BALKO & BENJAMIN FUNKE

CHROMA PHOBIA
new works by TONY BALKO & BENJAMIN FUNKE
July 1-2, 2012

Opening Reception: Sunday, July 1, 4-8pm
Open Hours: Monday, July 2, noon-4pm

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street, Chicago 60608
CHROMA PHOBIA
Color ain’t nothin’ but a numba… or a temperature, or a perceptual phenomenon. However you want to think about it, or whatever it means to you, put that business on hold and indulge in an evening of chromatic freak outs! Allow Ben Funke and Tony Balko to horrify/please you with some prismatic vibes, courtesy of film loops and computer programs.

 Tony Balko, Color Wheelie, 2012
Custom Software and Video Projector.

Exploits one of the ways computers can represent color to dubious effect, asking if you can ‘name that hue.’

TONY BALKO is an artist and educator from Smithton, Pennsylvania, USA. He works primarily in the moving image, dealing in crushing grooves, heavy psychedelia, and transcendental rainbows. His work has shown throughout the United States and internationally in museums, galleries and micro-cinemas including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Milwaukee Art Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), 21C Museum (Louisville), Jefferson Presents… (Pittsburgh), Green Lantern Gallery (Chicago), New Nothing Cinema (San Francisco), and Stereo Underground (Seoul, South Korea).

BENJAMIN FUNKE (British, b. 1980) is an image and audio producer living in the state of Indiana.  He received his B.F.A. from Columbia College, Chicago in 2005 and his M.F.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 2012.  Past exhibitions include “ISLANDS IN THE STREAM” at Johalla Projects in Chicago, IL, “Transient” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., “Ethnographic Terminalia” at the Eastern Bloc for New Media, Montreal, Quebec, “Imaginary” at the Simutan Association, Timisoara, Romania and “New Prints” at the International Print Center, New York City, New York.
More information about Benjamin Funke can be found at www.benjaminfunke.com.

Monday, June 11, 2012

6/17: MAY OR MAY NOT // new works by LEE DELEGARD & ALLISON WADE

MAY OR MAY NOT
new works by LEE DELEGARD & ALLISON WADE
JUNE 17-18, 2012

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 17, 4-8pm
Open Hours: Monday, June 18, noon-4pm

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street, Chicago 60608
 
 left: Lee Delegard, right: Allison Wade
details of may or may not, 2012, mixed media, dimensions variable
In MAY OR MAY NOT, everyday objects and materials—paper, ceramic, fabric, surveyors string, concrete and gum—are neither transformed nor transcended.  Rather, they are used for what they are, evoking a material logic that thwarts definitive coherence or resolution.
Both Delegard and Wade juxtapose disparate found materials with haptic sculptural elements.  Each cultivates a visual language that traffics in contingent opposites; objects are industrially handmade, precariously stable and aesthetically functional, familiar yet foreign, meticulously haphazard, and exist simultaneously as both image and object.
By exploring the blurred boundaries between spaces, materials and objects, the artists invite viewers to negotiate their own subjective position amongst these various contradictions.
Lee Delegard received her MFA from UNC Chapel Hill in May 2012 and her BA from Beloit College.  She has completed residencies at Artspace Studios in Galway, Ireland, and ACRE Projects.  Delegard grew up in Minneapolis Minnesota.
More information about Lee Delegard can be found at www.leedelegard.com
Allison Wade is an artist based in Chicago.  She received her MFA from the Fiber and Material Studies department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this spring and earned her BA in English literature from Stanford University. She has been awarded residencies at ACRE, Mustarinda (Finland) and the Vermont Studio Center.  Wade was born in Dallas, Texas.
More information about Allison Wade can be found at www.allisonwade.com

6/15: A LONG TIME COMING // works by COLE ROBERTSON, ELINA MALKIN, ELISA “POOPER” HARKINS, MARVIN ASTORGA and VIRGINIA ABERLE

A LONG TIME COMING works by COLE ROBERTSON, ELINA MALKIN,
ELISA “
POOPER” HARKINS, MARVIN ASTORGA and VIRGINIA ABERLEJUNE 15 – JULY 8

Opening Reception: Friday, June 15, 7-11pm Open Hours: Friday, Saturday + Sundays, 2-6pm 
Heaven Gallery1550 N Milwaukee Ave Chicago 60622
A LONG TIME COMING“Alchemy. Creation. Beginning. Mastery of the four elements of fire, earth, air and water. The Magician is the Master Creator with her ability to forge a new path with seeming effortlessness. The magic of the Magician in that she uses all the tools in her possession to create what she wants and the elements bend to her will. With the universal symbol of infinity over her head the Magician’s power is endless.”
As the world theoretically draws to its oft-projected conclusion, the need for new realities presses on our collective unconsciousness. Whether these predictions are true or not, the possibility that the world will end presents the opportunity to fall in love with your world again, turn language inside out, and revel in the absurdity of experience.
A LONG TIME COMING presents an alchemical vision of hidden histories, trash culture, and synchromysticism.  This group show aims to dispense with the austere and the hyper-analytical. We are asking the hidden realms of the mind to come out and play. Create your own reality, open yourself to possibility, and embrace the unimaginable.
COLE ROBERTSON was born in sunny Arizona, and moved to frigid Chicago in 2003. He received his BFA in Photography from Arizona State University, and a Photography MFA from Columbia College Chicago, and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Working in practically every type of photographic medium, including 19th century processes, type-C, digital imaging, and video, he often attempts to seduce his viewers with beauty and humor, sometimes subtly playing with their brains (as so many seductions do). His work explores the spaces between, before/after, around, or attendant to the photographic image. Through transmutation, alteration, animation, destruction, etc., he disrupts the transaction between viewer and image, hoping to provoke analysis and hinder absorption. He currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Photography and Art History, Theory, and Criticism departments.
More information on Cole Robertston can be found at www.colerobertsonphoto.com
ELINA MALKIN is a Pennsylvania based artist who creates multimedia works spanning the mediums of video, photography, collage, sculpture, performance, and installation. Her most current work examines spiritual pseudoscience, including Wilhelm Reich’s Orgone theory, Plastic Shamanism, or the inauthentic New Age appropriation of Native American and other rituals, as well as her own spiritual background, which includes practices of Judaism, Quakerism, Tibetan Buddhism, and other more occult and mystical interests encouraged by family and studied academically through the lens of ethnography. She experiments with different forms of divination as tools for personal insight, eking out gems of genuine enlightenment from illusion and abstraction. Her works hover emotionally between a sincere desire to trust in the power of these tools and a rational view of their actual effectiveness. Elina received her BFA in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005, and and MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011.

ELISA “POOPER” HARKINS
 is a Native American composer and artist originally hailing from Miami, Oklahoma.  In 2010 she had a life-threatening bike accident, and during her recovery she was mostly bed-ridden and turned to electronic music as a creative outlet. Her music, animation, paintings and paper mache sculptures investigate Native American stories, rituals, and spirituality through a the lens of someone raised on pop culture and computer games.  She has shown her work at the MCA Chicago, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Club Nutz, ACRE Projects, Secret Project Robot Room, Design Miami, and Locust Projects Miami.  She is currently bailing out NYC.  Pooper wants to be your friend.  BFF ’til the very end.
More information about Elisa “Pooper” Harkins can be found at www.pooper.co

MARVIN ASTORGA 
is a Chicago-based artist originally from El Paso, TX, and part of the band/collective Xina Xurner. His work embraces the pathetic, worthless, absurd, and abject, and uses the language of failure and futility to cast a critical eye on the value systems in place in contemporary art practices and discourses on identity. His interdisciplinary practice uses futility as a starting point for creative reinvention of the artist’s identity. Marvin received his BFA from Yale University in 2004.
More information about Marvin Astorga can be found at www.marvinastorga.tumblr.com
VIRGINIA ABERLE was born in Miami, Florida, and currently lives and works in Chicago, IL. Her work combines painting, sculpture, sticks and trash to make talismans, exploring object-making to fulfill desires both extraterrestrial and trivial. She received her BFA from the University of North Carolina in Asheville in 2010. She is co-director of Roxaboxen Exhibitions, a 6,000 square-foot facility in Chicago.

Monday, June 04, 2012

6/10: CONSTRUCTING PLACE // new works by KRISTEN NECESSARY

CONSTRUCTING PLACE
new works by KRISTEN NECESSARY
JUNE 10-11, 2012

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 10, 4-8pm
Open Hours: Monday, June 11, noon-4pm

ACRE Projects
1913 W 17th Street, Chicago 60608
CONSTRUCTING PLACE is a search to find the elegance, the humor, and the humanity in our constructed environments. Necessary explores the ways people structure place and how, in turn, a place can shape a people. Investigating this interdependent relationship of place and identity, with a focus on domestic space and vernacular culture, is the foundation of this exhibition and her artistic practice.

An acute awareness to the influence of place on identity developed as a direct result of Necessary's upbringing in the coalfields of Central Appalachia. This background in an area that is heavily stereotyped and otherwise constructed by the assumptions of both locals and outsiders has proven to be an influential presence. Now, as she travels in and through vernaculars, the digital camera assists in collecting the traces of an experience in a place. In the studio, photographic notes and bodily memories create compositions that catalogue, conflate, and distill images of the everyday. In this process, representation becomes re-presentation with the intent of provoking awareness to the quotidian core of life experience.

The work is constructed by combining various methods of printmaking, drawing, photography, and collage. Merging traditional fine art techniques with the language of decorative craft culture, these explorations exhibit as installation, works on paper, and artist books. 

Support for this event has been provided by the Iowa Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
KRISTEN NECESSARY can presently be found Iowa City, Iowa. Born and raised in the coalfields of southwest Virginia amidst the cultural region of Central Appalachia, this experience continues to exert a strong influence on her artistic work and conceptual awareness to the influence of place on identity. Kristen spent several years living in Richmond, Virginia where she earned a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She then studied Printmaking and Drawing at The University of Iowa and was awarded an MFA in 2011. Her work is shown in national and international exhibitions and located in many collections, including the Denver Art Museum. Kristen Necessary is currently in Iowa City working with Public Space One, a progressive non-profit arts space, to establish a new open-access workspace and print shop dedicated to fostering a divergent community of makers and thinkers. 

More information about Kristen Necessary can be found at  www.kristennecessary.com