Review: D O W N S H I F T at Roman Susan
Gary LaPointe Jr. uses an altered toolbox to anchor his exhibition, as each surrounding piece references the materiality of the original object.
All posts filed under: Essays + Reviews
A Tribute to the Sustenance of Friendship: Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems at the Grand Rapids Art Museum
The exhibition Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue offers community and friendship as a framework; a mutual regard and a shared set of values rendered visible.
Our Wild Zones Make Us Real
The queer “wild zone” is defined and interpreted through Jess T. Dugan’s portraiture and Ryan Patrick Krueger’s pre-Stonewall archival exhibition On Longing.
The Wound
Inspired by the book ‘An Apartment on Venus’ by Paul B. Preciado, Riley Yaxley reflects on and writes about the moments of desire, confusion, and self discovery that have shaped their trans identity.
Review of A Vibe Called Death: The Black Afterlife at Cleaner Gallery + Projects
In his solo show A Vibe Called Death: The Black Afterlife, Allen Moore determines how Blackness can be used through the lens of Afro-Futurism.
Review: FEMME at FLXST Contemporary
The six artists in FEMME at FLXST Contemporary demonstrate the divine connection that holds the stories of femmes in small, intimate, and bold ways.
Review: Space to Say at Heaven Gallery
In “Space to Say,” artists Yesenia Bello, Salvador Dominguez, and Yasmeen Nematt Alla hold space for people to speak, listen, feel, and flow within the in-betweenness of language.
Changing the Angle of My Face to Become Different Faces
Cindy Sherman’s photographs become a focal point for understanding the author’s myriad selves.
What’s There to be Proud of in Indiana?
Haley Glickman talks to different folks about their experiences being queer in Indiana while reflecting on the notion of queer utopia.
Review of This House Is Mine by Bob Thompson
Bob Thompson’s searing canvases set the Smart Museum’s galleries ablaze, the same way they lit up galleries almost sixty years ago.
Opal Pools of Milk and the Luzhin Defence: Review of This Too Shall Pass
In This Too Shall Pass at Ralph Arnold Gallery, the artists’ works speak to the knotty impossibilities of living and dying in a world marked by capital and consumption.
Notes on Designing Cultural Change
Three founders of local design studios speak about designing for social and cultural change within Chicago’s communities.
Looking Forward by Looking Back: Dawn to Dusk by Azadeh Gholizadeh
Artist Azadeh Gholizadeh uses geometric abstraction to depict landscapes in tapestries while probing how identities are inextricably tied to the environment.
In My Mother’s House There Is Still God: A Response to the Film ‘to render the infinite’
A lyrical essay inspired by different characters from ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ by Lorraine Hansberry and in response to the film ‘to render the infinte’ by zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal.
The Object as a Lightning Rod For Meaning: A Review of General Objects
Challenging and temporal, General Objects at Heaven Gallery is steeped in art objects that disregard, interrogate, and humor the classification of the object itself.
Review: Crip* at Gallery 400
The exhibition Crip* at Gallery 400 buzzes with pride, celebration, vulnerability, and reclamation from a group of artists identifying as disabled or a non-normative identity.
Our Message in a Bottle, Notes from VEGA: A.J. McClenon
In A.J. McClenon’s exhibition Notes From VEGA, the artist assembles everyday materials of Black life from organic and inorganic matter.
Review: Two Exhibitions at Dragon Crab Turtle
A deep dive into two exhibitions at Dragon Crab Turtle gallery in St. Louis through the aesthetics of “naivety”.
Makeup, Mortification, and Memory: A Review of “Evidence” by Bimbola Akinbola
Bimbola Akinbola’s performance series “tells stories about the unspoken truths bodies reveal in space centering on shame, alienation, and the lingering nature of our existence.”
Review of UTENSIL: Annas’ Exhibition at Comfort Station
Ally Fouts invites you to explore the works and themes in the exhibition UTENSIL at Comfort Station through a series of prompts and thoughts.
Smashing the space between us
The exhibition Smashing into my heart at The Renaissance Society looks at friendship as a condition, a model, and a metaphor for art.
Review: 12 Kalpas from Terrestrial to Celestial and Everywhere in Between
12 Kalpas from Terrestrial to Celestial and Everywhere in Between grapples with complex topics like gender identity and our relationship to the environment by investigating the Buddhist myth-folktale Twelve Sisters.
Review: between all saints day and halloween at Roman Susan
Kevin Stuart’s vibrant paintings in between all saints day and halloween answers the question of what one does in the interim moments of our lives.
Protect Your Magic: A Cautionary Tale of Witchcraft, Anti-racism, Activism, and Commodification
In recent years, Occultism has left the niche world of counterculture and has become part of the mainstream’s obsession with commerce, capitalism, and social recognition.
Devising as Possibility in Links Hall’s Links Lab Project
Links Lab is an ongoing series of performance-media projects devised by Chicago dancers, performance artists, storytellers, musicians, filmmakers, technologists, designers, and multi-disciplinary visionaries.
Vanita Green: ‘Occupying a Space on Her Own Terms’
Vanita Green’s mural Black Women / Racism on the Northside of Chicago celebrates historical and fictional Black women.
Mourning Racial Categories: Why White?
Why White? explores themes of religion and colonialism through the eyes of a veteran who is asked to check his racial category at a doctor’s appointment.
Sixty Years of Filling Homes: A Conversation with Crate & Barrel Co-Founder, Gordon Segal
Chicago-based Crate & Barrel’s influence on interior design coincided with the minimalist movement circulating galleries during the 1960s.
Untitling Pleasures: A conversation with Hannah Levy on tension & sensation
Hannah Levy’s sculptures in the exhibition Surplus Tension at The Arts Club of Chicago exist between the realms of pleasure and repulsion.
In the Pages of Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect
Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect, composed by editor and art historian Romi Crawford, is a meditation, offering, and homage for the Wall of Respect.