Three years later, we close the magazine with some sadness, but no bitterness. I feel like we changed the art dialogue in Chicago by broadening the scope of what we felt was worthy of inclusion in an art magazine. As a result, we showcased a massive pool of unrecognized and unappreciated local artists, who had received little or no press. We proved a point – that a large local audience can only be earned by offering diversity, variety and multiple perspectives.

(Chicago Art Magazine Staff, from left to right, Jen Nalbantyan, MK Meador, Stephanie Burke, Jerian Hildwine, Robin Dluzen and Kathryn Born (badly Photoshopped in)

Robin once wisely said that we did the best we could with the resources we had. And within that caveat, I’ll say I’m incredibly proud of the stories we did, and am still amazed how far we trudged with one hand tied behind our back. We cut the budget 80% in 2011 and still almost tripled our traffic the same year.  I say this to illustrate that even if my spine hadn’t crumbled, Chicago Art Magazine would have changed; it was already changing and was adaptable by design. I’ve always viewed the Chicago art scene as a member of the artist community, not a critic looking down from above, but my artist sensibility doesn’t allow me to build the same thing over and over. I create, finish, and go onto the next piece.

If we wouldn’t have had this interruption, I would have been dabbling with BuddyPress, doing more with the Chicago Artist Database, and new software systems. I would have tried working with technology investors and creating new algorithms for art discovery that are completely different than the ones currently used on art sites today.

Chicago Art Magazine was an exercise in infrastructure, publishing, mentoring, and testing the boundaries of our local art industry. The goal was to figure out how to make a sustainable, functioning online magazine with a staff of paid writers and editors. In that respect, I don’t know how many answers I have for the next person who wants to  make a fiscally solvent magazine. Chicago’s art industry is in a tough spot and it creates a difficult ecosystem for any art-related business. So I will continue publishing (hopefully with Robin!) when I recover in 2013, but probably not here in the arts –instead grow TINC Magazine, which is positioned in the middle of the financially vibrant tech sector.

But I digress, I didn’t write this to complain. The point is, Chicago Art Magazine was never meant to go on forever, our goal was “10/10/2010” (see the “Transparency Pages“).  And during that time, we went on a wild adventure: we had good fights, made tons of friememies, got scoops and gossip, flashed business cards, got in free, and dove head first into controversy. The writers became friends and did projects together outside of the magazine. We had a red carpet debacle, turned the magazine into a school, and did 20 articles celebrating artists over 40 as a way for me to cope with my mid-life crisis. We defriended people on Facebook, bought a “Twitter machine”, almost got sued, and helped Rachel Hewitt burn bridges to many future employment opportunities with her investigative journalism assignments. We had adventures, I often got us lost, the site would crash, and we had wacky editorial meetings in a rent-by-the-hour conference room (people thought we had an office; never realizing the tiny conference room was the sum total of our physical presence). And I remember once hobbling into a meeting and couldn’t bend over to plug in my laptop — and MK Meador quietly took the cord and plugged it into the floor outlet for me.

Unequivocally, the most awesome part was watching the writers grow, like the day Robin and I had a “cord-cutting” ceremony when we disconnected the editor’s inbox so it no longer forwarded the emails to me, and she was flying on her own — a tremendous mentor in her own right.

For three years, we felt like a tiny army, forging through a recession in a publishing post-apocalypse.

I am left with amazing memories, and I know these stories will have a way of appearing in the next novel. Chicago artists will keep making art, new publications will come, and all of us will move on to the next “thing”. All the while, the articles will stay on this site, as a testament to what we did.

We were here for a good time, not a long time.

Farewell,
Kathryn Born

https://www.facebook.com/kathryn.born (account is full, but you can hit “subscribe”)
http://twitter.com/ChiArtMachine
http://diamondlifecafe.com

Founding Managing Editor, Stephanie Burke; Editor-in-Chief, Robin Dluzen; Kathryn Born, Publisher (not pictured)

(originally posted 4/3/12)

Chicago Art Magazine will be closing on April 13, 2012. The primary reason for the close is due to the publisher, Kathryn Born, going on an 8-month medical leave. Robin Dluzen, the Editor-in-Chief, could have solely sustained the editorial and operational aspects of the magazine, but not the financial demands.

Running Chicago Art Magazine has been a wonderful experience; it’s been life-changing for those of us who have dedicated our work-lives to the magazine we built in 2009. In the days to follow, we will post some final editorials and thoughts, and the “transparency pages” will complete its mission to offer some degree of analysis of the publication and lessons learned, in an attempt to help the next endeavor.

Chicago Art Magazine will remain online, in its current form, for the next five years as an archive to the 935 posts and 5,260 images.

We leave this magazine in high spirits. We are in a different place as professional artists and writers, and we believe strongly that we helped Chicago’s art world be more prominent on the global map. We have no regrets.

(note: we’re doing a “soft close”, so although we have an official end date, some additional content may be posted after the close)

"moving forward" by Diane Nelson

Art and biology have been inexorably intertwined since the earliest stages of humanity. Historically, humans have used depictions of the human body to not only tell stories, but also to understand our physiology. From The Woman of Willendorf, to Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp to Thomas Eakins’ The Gross Clinic, the search for understanding of the human body has manifested itself through art making.

Following this tradition is the work of painter Diane Nelson, who has made a practice of re-imagining of the integration of biology, medicine and fine art. Nelson’s previous career as a medical illustrator and art director has imbued her skillset with a mastery of representational imagery, as she illustrated medical textbooks, anatomical charts, and courtroom exhibits, and created original three-dimensional models. Since Nelson’s departure from the world of illustration, she has built upon this unique ability for rendering, pushing her practice to a place that is more complex and also more emotive.

In her newest body of work, Nelson takes a unique, multilayered approach to her media, a process that puts her practice firmly within a contemporary context. Beginning with pencil or charcoal, her works are then digitized and layered with digital imagery. The final stage is a selective application of paint over ink pigment printed on canvas, which bear her distinctive aesthetic that is both carefully detailed, and fantastically imaginative.

Pattern and Inspiration

"across time" by Diane Nelson

Representation in contemporary art can be a burden on many artists, for whom the challenge of creating something new from observation can be daunting. Nelson is in a particularly unique position because of her extensive experience looking at aspects of nature that most people do not. Nelson has harnessed the microscopic world that dictated much of her previous career, drawing from it its curious palettes, lines, shapes and movements.

In works like moving forward, the patterns that compose the painting’s background could be the quite literal interpretation of the actual biological forms. The pattern motif then continues as the bent figure is repeated over itself, and patterns swirl in the hair of the representational figure in the middle ground. In this way, the microscopic is brought to the forefront, infusing the paintings with the beauty of the unseen world.

The Figure

"on many layers" by Diane Nelson

Drawing from a Surrealist influence, Nelson’s compositions often contain the strange, hallmarks of a dreamscape: hazy atmospheres, unusual landscapes and an ambiguous sense of space. In her work, across time, the rather androgynous male figure is situated at the forefront of a fluid, violet background. These elements of this unreal landscape seemingly wash away the horizon line, and are even visible through the transparent areas of the figure.

The figure is almost omnipresent in Nelson’s works, occasionally opaque, but very often transparent, as in across time, and cellular element. Sometimes, the viewer can see through the figure to the background, while in other cases, the transparency is enacted as the ability to view the biological inner workings of the figure. In both instances, this transparency entices Nelson’s viewers to look beyond the composition and delve into the metaphorical possibilities inherent in her content.

Nelson has a unique ability to capture notions of humanity through biological and formal elements, as well as metaphorical ones, using the figure to do so. Figures in Nelson’s works are painted in very specific poses; in on many layers, the male figure kneels, reaching upwards and facing away from the viewer, while in beyond herself, a female figure stretches one arm out from a seated position. In both works, the figures maintain calm facial expressions, while their limbs evoke the agency and progressive motion of the symbolic “power” and “freedom” the artist strives for in her practice.

Analysis and Observation

"deepest layers" by Diane Nelson

Though Nelson has departed from much of the clinical aspects of medical illustration, what still remains from that practice is a distinct sense of analysis, as if the artistic process has become the vehicle for investigating the human condition. A vague awareness of physiological analysis can be detected from her medical experience, though a much more prominent feeling of psychological or emotional analysis occupies these works, perhaps a feature from the impact of her studies of Surrealism.

Most science, analysis and observation come from an objective point of view, though one can’t help but feel a subjective, and introspective approach to the imagery of Nelson’s work. While many of her works broach large subjects of humanity and emotion, a few of her current works seem to delve into the space of the artist’s mind. In pieces like, beneath the page, and deepest layers, the artist has depicted an image of a piece of paper with a biological image painted upon it. These images of the papers rest atop a trompe l’oeil wooden ground. This “image within an image” serves as an undeniably contemporary, self-referential act, indicative of an artist looking within. Here, Nelson seems to be taking a look at her past from a new perspective, still from a distance but with the subjective medium of fine art.

Katherine Desjardins Solo Project: A Provisional Proposition

April 5-10, 2012

Performance/Reception with the artist: Saturday, April 7, 5-7pm.

Desjardins creates a site-specific drawing/performance at the intersection of art, meat, and commerce.

Her Chicago debut/performance/mashup on Saturday April 7th brings together a trio of meat packers and a 100-foot drawing with the intention to delight and confound.

Since arriving in Chicago from Boston in 2007, Katherine Desjardins has trained her eye on the city’s industrial/agricultural complex as a nexus of transitivity rich with possibility as both metaphor for the provisionality of painting  (and its relation to commerce)–as well as an experience of the urban sublime. This recent work is experiential: about transition from one place to another, cultural juxtaposition, and the collision between raw and refined, familiar and unknowable material.

Solo Project: Provisional Proposition at Kasia Kay marks Desjardins’ first solo project in Chicago.

Born in New York City, Katherine Desjardins grew up in Rhode Island and has spent much of her life abroad (Sweden, France, Japan; ten years in Italy). She was recently awarded a fellowship to the Bogliasco Foundation in Genova, Italy, where she will be in residence in the late Spring 2012. National/International exhibitions include: Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Florence Italy; DeCordova Museum, MA; M.Y. Art Prospects, NYC. Awards include: Mass Cultural Council; Berkshire-Taconic ART Award; Visiting Artist, American Academy in Rome. She is currently a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. She is represented by the Boston Drawing Project at Carroll and Sons, Boston. Desjardins lives with her husband, composer Lee Hyla, in Chicago’s Fulton Market meat packing district.

Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery is located at 215 N. Aberdeen St. Chicago. info@kasiakaygallery.com

The DePaul Art Museum will feature portraits by the internationally celebrated photographer Malick Sidibé, who has documented life in Bamako, Mali, for half a century, as part of “Studio Malick,” an exhibition that opens March 29. Free and open to the public, the exhibition runs through June 3.

An opening reception for the exhibitions will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. March 29 at the museum, located at 935 W. Fullerton Ave., just east of the CTA’s Fullerton “L” stop.

Studio Malick features lively black-and-white photographs by Sidibé, a Malian photographer noted for his carefully posed portraits and images of the exuberant nightlife in Bamako in the 1960s. Sidibé’s photos capture a unique moment in a time of political transition and cultural liberation as a youth culture of music, dancing and fashion exploded in the once-conservative West African nation of Mali as it gained independence from France.

“Sidibé’s photos are simultaneously intimate and evocative of an extraordinary time and place,” said Louise Lincoln, director of the DePaul Art Museum. “His use of props and the way he posed his subjects present them as they wished to be seen, and at the same time his perception of character makes each image distinctive.”

In recent years, Sidibé has been celebrated internationally for the strength and insight of his photographs, and his work has moved from being family keepsakes in middle-class Bamako homes to adorning the walls of museums throughout the world.

With a diversity of photographic objects—original proofs and recent enlargements of studio portraits, along with the vintage prints displayed in hand-painted frames—this exhibition explores both the art and commerce of Studio Malick.

At the same time, “Andy Warhol: Photographs,” an exhibition featuring 25 original Polaroid photographs and gelatin silver prints, will also be on display. Images of the famous and not-so-famous show Warhol’s fascination with celebrity and his practice of making photos that served as sketches for more finished works of art. The works are part of a gift to the DePaul Art Museum from the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.

The Studio Malick and Andy Warhol exhibits are the second offerings at the DePaul Art Museum’s new $7.8 million home, which opened in September 2011. The museum is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, please call (773) 325-7506 or visit http://museums.depaul.edu.

Sound, Shape, and Color Converge: John Cage’s SONATAS AND INTERLUDES in Conversation with the Prints of Yozo Hamaguchi and Toko Shinoda

On Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 8PM, pianist Eliza Garth will celebrate the John Cage centennial with a performance of Cage’s masterpiece for prepared piano, Sonatas and Interludes, at Floating World Gallery, located at 1925 N. Halsted Street in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. In conjunction with Ms. Garth’s performance of the Cage work, the Gallery will offer an exhibition of works by renowned Japanese artists Toko Shinoda and Yozo Hamaguchi, both contemporaries of Cage. The exhibition is being planned by Elias Martin, Director of Exhibitions at the Gallery. Floating World Gallery, one of the world’s leading dealers in Japanese art, takes its name from the English translation of “ukiyo-e,” referring to images of an evanescent, impermanent world of fleeting beauty. Its serene surroundings make it an ideal setting in which to experience Japanese art and Cage’s ethereal sounds. The performance will be preceded by a conversation with Ms. Garth and Mr. Martin about the art and the music, starting at 7PM.

Admission is free of charge; however, space is very limited and reservations are required. To make reservations, please call (312) 587-7800.

This event is a preview concert for “A John Cage Festival,” coming up in April, curated by Nomi Epstein and presented in various Chicago venues by a.pe.ri.od.ic, a critically acclaimed concert series that presents new and experimental music. To learn more about the Festival, please visit the festival website at aperiodicchicago.com.

An explorer at heart, John Cage (1912-1992) studied with trailblazers — including Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg — and then in turn paved the way for trailblazers, opening up musical pathways that would later be traveled and extended by minimalist composers. In his mature years a disciple of Buddhism, he overturned conventional Western conceptions of the nature of sound and music. He is regarded to be one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Described by the writer James Pritchett as “a big piece with a quiet voice,” Sonatas and Interludes is meditative in its esthetic; the “preparation” of the piano transforms its sound into an ensemble of gongs, chimes, and magical effects.

Work by Toko Shinoda

Toko Shinoda (b. 1913), one of the foremost calligraphers in Japan, is known as a master of the intricate manner of writing tracing back 3000 years. Shinoda began creating abstract work in 1947. A two-year stay in New York in the 1950s introduced her to the work of abstract expressionists and inspired her to go beyond the traditional boundaries of controlled calligraphy and use expansive, dynamic brush strokes. Her work is bold and daring, slashing across the paper’s surface, carving out a landscape inhabited by both warrior and poet.

Work by Yozo Hamaguchi

Yozo Hamaguchi (1909- 2000) is the pre-eminent mezzotint artist of the 20th century and creator of the colored mezzotint. For centuries the mezzotint technique was limited to creating photorealistic reproductions of paintings. This technique was rendered obsolete for this purpose by photogravure, and Hamaguchi recognized the artistic potential for the art form. With the encouragement of the poet e.e. cummings, Hamaguchi began producing mezzotints in the 1930s. Hamaguchi’s prints illustrate simple subjects—a slice of melon, a ball of yarn, a single cherry. Yet they provide great richness and depth to these objects. His subjects glow and become weightless. Lush velvet-like backgrounds hold and suspend his subjects, intensifying their presence, and subtle gradations of color and tone become landscapes unto themselves.

Eliza Garth in concert

Pianist Eliza Garth has achieved international distinction as a performer of the music of our time. Known as an artist with a passionate voice and an adventurous spirit, she has championed some of the most demanding works in the repertoire; these include the complete solo piano works of Donald Martino, which she has recorded for the Centaur label. As stated in the New York Times, “Ms. Garth … has an exquisite ear for piano sound. One can think of no one better qualified to play this intricate, shining music.” Her performance of John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes was recognized with an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2010. Ms. Garth is a graduate of The Juilliard School. For more information about Eliza Garth, please visit www.elizagarth.com

Floating World Gallery, one of the world’s leading dealers in Japanese art, offers private collectors and institutions the highest quality works of art. The Gallery opened its new 8,200 square-foot gallery space in October 2009 and is now actively engaged in helping to educate the public and increase awareness of the rich world of modern Japanese art. Recent, critically acclaimed exhibitions have included “Creating What Has Never Been,” an exhibition of Japanese post-war paintings and contemporary ceramics (Sept. 24 -Nov. 19, 2010); and “Behind Paper Walls: Self-Printed Masterworks by Jun’ichiro Sekino” (Dec. 3, 2010 – Jan. 28, 2011). Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. and by appointment.

For more information about Floating World Gallery, please visit www.floatingworld.com , or for information about this show, please visit http://www.floatingworld.com/elizagarth

Work by Maria Lux

This week’s pick is the unconventional, one-night MFA thesis show at Co-Prosperity Sphere featuring the works of the grads of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It’s great to see the students branching out beyond the academic arena and into the wider Chicago art community. And we’re always excited to see new work from new artists!

The following comes from Co-Prosperity’s exhibition announcement:

YOU, I, YOU SEE
MFA Show: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This isn’t your typical first-year, second-year, or MFA-thesis shows; it’s something more honest, spontaneous, and possibly more thorough. Carrying on last year’s success with artsplosia, MFA students from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign once again are bringing their multi-disciplinary practice to the audience in Chicago. This time the 5,000-square-foot space will showcase 25 artists’ latest work in Metals, New Media, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, and more. It’s a chic ONE-NIGHT SHOW, which means viewers will be in close contact with the artists throughout the show. But don’t overthink it, it’s all about YOU, I, YOU SEE.

Work by Will Arnold

Reception: Friday, March 23rd, 6pm-9pm

Featuring artists: Sara Alsum-Wassenaar, Will Arnold, Bill Berge, Shayna Egan, Justin Farkas, Amy Gilles, Jim Graham, Dan Gratz, Ben Grosser, Hana Hong, Erica Leohner, Hali Linn, Maria Lux, Samantha Persons, Megan Roche, Paul Shortt, Michael Smith, Lindsey Snell, Laura Tanner, Jess Tolbert, Nicki Werner, Scott Vanidestine, Sarah Beth Woods, Michael Woody, Xinran Yuan

Co-Prosperity Sphere is located at 3219 S. Morgan St. Chicago

JASON ROBERT BELL: The One Man Army Corpse

Thomas Robertello Gallery is pleased to present The One Man Army Corpse: a solo exhibition by Brooklyn, New York based artist Jason Robert Bell. The exhibition opens with a public reception Friday March 16, 6:00 – 8:00PM and continues through April 28, 2012.

The One Man Army Corpse presents a highly charged alternative reality in which monstrous totemic paintings and assemblages act as temple guardians to a new sacred text written by Bell: The White Feathered Octopus. This science fiction novel is presented as an element within a sculptural installation. All of the works in the exhibit are directly inspired by this limited edition text, which seeks to describe the superimposition of the human mind upon reality.

Each work presented employs unexpected fusions of abstraction, figuration, and the readymade to confront issues of portraiture, social ills, personal loss, sexual dynamics, metaphysics, and contemporary art making itself, with absurd humor and phantasmagoric abandon. The paintings induce Pareidolia; the psychological visual phenomenon of seeing human faces, by use of materials culled from the discarded ruins of consumerism intermixed with deeply sentimental objects of the artist and fetishes of a world gone wrong. The material and emotional rawness of the work marks a dramatic shift for Bell.

Jason Robert Bell graduated from the School of the Art Institute Chicago with a BFA in Painting in 1995, and the Yale School of Art’s MFA program in 2000. Bell’s paintings, drawings, sculpture, experimental films, outdoor installations, and performances have been exhibited in New York, most recently at Postmasters Gallery and the Fountain Art Fair, Boston, Miami, Washington DC, Baltimore, San Francisco, Tokyo, and many times in Chicago.

Thomas Robertello Gallery is located at 27 N Morgan St, Chicago

"diary of dead bones 1. Word Spiral written in reverse" 22-1/2x30 inches. Conte on paper, 2010

Well known for her longtime engagement with the representation of the female figure, renowned artist, Claudia Kleefeld is presenting a new body of work for her upcoming solo exhibition at Woman Made Gallery. While her connection to the body and the human condition remains, for her works in “Patterns of Nature: The Spiral and Interconnectedness,” the artist incorporates the natural world into both her content and her formal investigations; employing a wide range of aesthetic and conceptual strategies, Kleefeld illustrates an admirable commitment to comprehensive exploration of her subject matter.

With these works, Kleefeld manages to speak to her viewers on a universal, metaphorical level, as well as a deeply personal level. Depictions of the spiral reoccur in Kleefeld’s paintings, drawings and sculpture, from images of violent weather –tornadoes and cyclones—to the spiraling forms found in the human word and the animal kingdom. However, Kleefeld’s exploration is not limited to the representational; in works like unspoken time and diary of dead bones 1. Word spiral written in reverse, the artist’s winding form is composed of handwritten words and gestural lines, bringing both her hand and her voice to the forefront.

The most unique piece in this exhibition, the artist’s only sculptural work for Patterns of Nature, is the ubiquitous spiral, manifested through a floor-to-ceiling stack of found books from the artist’s own inspirational collection. Here, the artist literally offers viewers the opportunity to gaze upon the nuts-and-bolts of an element of her creative process. Book titles like, The Druid King and Morning Song inform us of her spiritual interests, as titles such as, The Six Wives of Henry VIII reinforce the humanity and complex sexuality underlying much of the artist’s practice.

“Book Spiral” Books, Floor to ceiling. 8’ (site specific), 2011-12

The most apparent example of the universal and the personal qualities within this body of work comes into play in Kleefeld’s diary of dead bones 7. Fingertips in which a hand-drawn, enlarged fingerprint is complemented by words in the artist’s handwriting: “Spiral Patterned Fingertips/unique impact lines/in both directions/imprint each other/and change the world.” In this drawing, Kleefeld moves from factual language, pointing out the individualizing nature of the fingertip, to the spiral as a catalyst for duality. The meaning of the fingerprint in this work has indeed gone from a universal notion, into the personal, and out again, as the metaphorical fingerprint commences with the potential to “change the world.”

Works in this exhibition range from rather scientifically rendered studies, to abstractions, to enigmatic narrative landscapes, all illustrating the spiral as a formal and conceptual trope, and also illustrating the artist’s range. If viewers can walk away from the exhibition knowing one thing about Kleefeld and her artistic process, it’s that her ability to explore a topic so thoroughly through different media, subject, palette and aesthetic is a testament to her intellectual and emotional curiosity. This is not to say that viewers will develop a singular, concrete read of Kleefeld’s content; the artist’s practice is all about “questions,” and even as viewers investigate these works, looking for answers, they will inevitably find themselves uncovering new layers of deeper questioning.

“diary of dead bones 7. Fingertips” Conte on paper. 22-3/4 x 15-1/4 inches, 2010

Artist’s Talk

To further explore the historical and hermetical concepts contained in this show and in its content, the public is welcome to attend an Artist’s Talk scheduled for March 4th from 1:00-3:00 pm at Woman Made Gallery. The artist will discuss her historical, aesthetical and intellectual relationship to the “spiral” form present in the works in this exhibition.

“Patterns of Nature: The Spiral and Interconnectedness” is on view at Woman Made Gallery March 2 through April 26, 2012. Woman Made Gallery is located at 685 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago.