On Sunday July 23rd, I boarded the Green Line to Oak Park and stopped by the opening of an exhibition of work by Simon Ingram and Douglas Melini at The Suburban. It was unlike any opening I’d been to in Chicago. Visitors hung around for hours in the back yard of The Suburban with co-founders Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam.  We sat on seats converted from tree trunks, eating peach pops, generously... 

Honestly, people don’t like to read in general. Art, specifically? From Jenny Holzer’s aphorisms projected throughout New York City to Kay Rosen’s recent Go Do Good installations in Chicago’s Loop, text-based art tends to grab viewers’ attention due to its relatively brazen nature. Contemporary art that is purely image-based is often met with objections of “I don’t get it,” or “Well,...