An exhibition organized by Phyllis Bramson, that deals with contemporary figuration in all forms, chosen from Chicago painters or artists who regularly show in Chicago. Continuing the tradition of using the figure, that began with Ivan Albright, Seymour Rosofsky, early Ellen Lanyon, Leon Golub and Peter Saul, among others showing earlier in Chicago. Using the figure as a metaphor for the human condition, rather then necessarily an exact reflection... and often that reflection, is abstracted OR IMPLIED as well.

Bramson decided to arrange “Tethered to My Word, Contemporary Figure Painting: Location, Chicago”, out of a certain amount of frustration, feeling that there seemed to be little interest in following this thread these days, in terms of organized exhibitions. Choosing painters she has followed throughout the years; early Ellen Lanyon and Nicholas Africano anchor the exhibition, and their work still looks fresh and vital. The work selected varies widely - Judith Raphael’s beautiful craftsmanship is in direct opposition to David Sharpe’s almost childish, albeit very sophisticated painterly moves.

Each of these artists require the figure as a reference, to chart or map the human condition, always looking for a personal connection. Often presenting multilayered situations that can induce many narrative interpretations, the work in the exhibition may walk along various lines between heartfelt sentiment, irreverence and satire.

Finally, Bramson's main criteria was that the paintings communicate to the viewer. There are basic human needs we all experience: the need to be loved, the psychological consequences of being human, and the twists and turns of truth manipulated with duplicitous thinking. The artists included are genuinely intrigued by the changing and challenging peccadilloes of life.

Artists included in the exhibition: Nicholas Africano, Scott Anderson, Phyllis Bramson, Peter Drake, Julie Farstad, Andreas Fischer, Vernon Fisher, Anne Harris, Ellen Lanyon, Judith Raphael, Adam Scott, David Sharpe, Elizabeth Shreve , Caleb Weintrub, Karl Wirsum and Kevin Wolff.

David Maisel: Shadow and Dust will be on view at the UCR/California Museum of Photography in Riverside from August 31, 2010, through January 1, 2011. The exhibition of more than 100 photographs comprising two floors of the museum will feature the first museum showing of David Maisel’s "History's Shadow" on the first floor, and an extensive selection from his "Library of Dust" series on the second floor.
Maisel’s work, as he writes in his essay for the upcoming monograph History’s Shadow (Nazraeli Press, November, 2010), focuses on the “aesthetics of disintegration, and the dual processes of memory and excavation.” His early projects were aerial photographs of desolate landscapes, while his recent work has moved from that macrocosmic view to a nearly microcosmic one. Both “History’s Shadow” and his previous series “Library of Dust” tumble through a rupture in the seam of the world into an altered reality, recognizing remarkable subjects in places where no one had ever thought to look.
In “History’s Shadow,” the subjects are re-photographed x-rays of classical sculpture from the Getty Center, Los Angeles, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The series, begun during a visiting artist residency at the Getty Research Institute in 2007, allows a glimpse inside of history itself. “The ghostly images of these x-rays seemed to surpass the potency of the original objects of art. These spectral renderings were like transmissions from the distant past, conveying messages across time, and connecting the contemporary viewer to the art impulse at the core of these ancient works,” writes Maisel.
“Library of Dust” is a series Maisel created depicting copper canisters that contain the ashes of patients who had died at the Oregon State Hospital. Many of the canisters are coated with vivid multi-colored mineralogical blooms on their surfaces. Photographed at close range, each canister has become a monument to the abandoned and the forgotten.

By Lauren Viera, Tribune reporter
10:45 a.m. CDT, July 2, 2010

It's rare, I think, to experience a local gallery exhibit that has the power to completely envelop the viewer in the way that an exhibit of larger, museum proportions might. Italian-born contemporary artist Angelo Musco's all-encompassing exhibit at Carrie Secrist Gallery is even larger than a museum show, if you can imagine it. Experiencing it is more like a visit to the deep sea tanks at an aquarium.

Collectively dubbed "Tehom," Hebrew for "the deep" or "abyss," Musco's collection of enormous photographic mosaics feature nude swimmers shimmying in sync like schools of fish, intertwined in passion, struggle or both. The largest of the eight works here, which lends its title to the show, takes over two walls of the gallery's front room.

Large is an understatement. Two years in the making, "Tehom" is 12 feet tall and spans a massive 48 feet, wider even than the gallery's longest wall, and one end of it folds into a corner accordingly. Comprising 22 glossy, gorgeous panels of meticulously digitally edited images, the illustrative mural-like work features swimmers disappearing into dark holes that fade into the distance; some swimmers look as though they're fumbling toward the surface while others seem content to go with the flow. There are between 100,000 and 200,000 swimmers in all, and their nude bodies are positioned so gracefully, they have the realistic effect of swimming together en masse, producing imagery that's both beautiful and mind-boggling. (They're not cheap, either: Purchase "Tehom" or any of the other multipanel pieces here, and you're looking at an investment up to $200,000.)

Musco's art is a study in the human figure and their innate relationships with each other, from birth onward (it's noted in the artist's statement that he spent two extra months in the womb, emerging as a 14-pound baby). From a distance, Musco's models seem homogenous (I struggled to find one that wasn't Caucasian) as if they're part of some super-race, caught in the throngs of existence and not sure where to head next. Look closer and individual expressions emerge from the masses. No two are alike.

Angelo Musco, "Tehom," at Carrie Secrist Gallery, 835 W. Washington Blvd., 312-491-0917; secristgallery.com. Through July 10

Use the link below to watch how Tehom was installed in the gallery.


http://vimeo.com/12473326

Permanent Impermanence
an exhibition curated by Larissa Leclair
featuring photographs by Christopher Colville, Todd Hido, Kate MacDonnell, David Maisel, Curtis Mann, and Doug + Mike Starn

June 11-July 9, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, June 11, 6-8pm
Exhibition Hours: Monday-Friday 11am-5pm
Location: Washington Project for the Arts (WPA)
2023 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.234.7103

The WPA is pleased to present the exhibition Permanent Impermanence. This project is part of the WPA's Coup d'Espace series which invites member artists and curators to stage their own exhibitions an programming in its Dupont Circle space. Come enjoy some great photography! Permanent Impermanence explores fundamentals of the photographic medium, through artistic expression in both subject and process. The exhibition will include works by
Christopher Colville from his Emanations series;
Todd Hido from A Road Divided;
Kate MacDonnell from 100 Ways;
Curtis Mann from Modifications;
David Maisel from History's Shadow; and
Doug + Mike Starn from alleverythingthatisyou.

RECOMMENDED
For a pure orgy of fantasia, check out Angelo Musco's mammoth photo-works in which thousands of nude men and women disport themselves underwater in tangled conjunctures and simulations of schools of fish. Musco achieves his undeniably overpowering and shocking effect by taking countless shots of small groups of submerged people, combining them in the computer to compose his gargantuan images, and printing on metallic paper supported by aluminum and plexiglass. Two years in the making, the title work of Musco's show, "Tehom" (Hebrew for abyss), tells the whole story. Measuring 12 x 48 feet, "Tehom" is ample enough for Musco to fill the surface with spinning vortices of bodies separated by a bevy of freer formations. Identifiable individuals pop out of the composition, bearing expressions that run the gamut of human emotion. Italian Renaissance philosophy championed the "coincidentia oppositorum," the conjunction of opposites; Musco's surrealism is right in that line. (Michael Weinstein)
Through July 10 and Carrie Secrist Gallery, 835 W. Washington

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"Greene a relative newcomer, builds poetic, quasi-abstract forms on top of Audubon drawings. She had an impressive show at Pulse Miami last December (Carrie Secrist Gallery, 835 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago., Chicago; 312.491.0917).

Carrie Secrist just had a big opening on May 1st for an artist relatively new to the gallery, and to the world, and now Chicagoans have a few weeks to see the large-scale solo show in the West Loop gallery. The young Italian artist, Angelo Musco, showed his photographs at Secrist's Art Chicago booth in 2009, shortly before a late acceptance into the mega-art showcase, the Venice Biennale last summer. The current exhibition, Tehom, runs through July 10th, but be sure to see this show sooner rather than later. I mentioned Musco in an earlier post about Art Chicago since I was already excited about the opening of the exhibition.


Musco's work leaves strong impressions of birth, life, nature, and order. When you see this show on the large scale in Secrist's West Loop space, the hundreds of swimming, naked bodies are practically life-size, diving and spinning, and staring out at you from the gallery's main 12' x 48' wall. While the subjects are moving in tight formations together under the water, light from an implied surface above is clearly shining through.

The story I got over the weekend was that Musco was born in Italy, and he was in the womb for 11 months after a complicated pregnancy. When he was finally born, he weighed 14lbs! Today, his art is concerned with internal structures, underwater worlds, nature and human life. To create his magical scenes, Musco takes tens of thousands of photographs of 80 nude models and then creates a Photoshop masterpiece.

According to Wikipedia, Tehom, the show's title, is the Hebrew word for 'deep' or 'abyss.'
The dark, glossy backgrounds created in the gallery create a new, enveloping, womb-like environment for viewers, as well as possibly a sanctuary. This is a show you have to see for yourself in person.

We weren't sure how Phyllis Bramson and Judith Geichman would play off one another in a joint exhibition. Bramson's boldly colored mixed-media works feature droll large-eyed cats, Darger-esque girls and glitter-dusted landscapes that recall Japanese ukiyo-e prints. Geichman relies on gestural drips and smears to produce Expressionist paintings in a more subdued palette, which includes diaphanous pastels, hints of bronze and stormy bursts of black and gray.
Despite the differences in the Chicago artists' (and longtime friends') approaches to form and abstraction, "Then Is Now" reveals a sublime interplay between their works. Bramson's paintings fill the first room, their tangled fairy-tale motifs inviting close inspection. In Ring around the Rosy (soon they all fall down) (2008), cats wearing pants cavort with cartoonish girls in a field of poppies. Chains of flowers, some made of delicate sequins, weave through the scene, directing the eye to different areas of the canvas—and even beyond it, to a cluster of gaudy blooms hanging atop the painting.
Homing in on Bramson's details trains viewers to experience Geichman's paintings in the next room. In Herald (2009), forms emerge from seemingly random smears of paint, resembling the fluid, shape-shifting figures of clouds. Even without tactile embellishments, Geichman's works feel dynamic and multidimensional.
The artists present an enchanting collaboration: the painting The Three Melancholy Mystics (2010). The most rewarding aspect of "Then Is Now," however, is the way their divergent practices usher the viewer toward deep contemplation. As in all great friendships, Bramson and Geichman's differences are complementary.


Read more: http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/art-design/84372/then-is-now-at-carrie-secrist-gallery-art-review#ixzz0kQeWTrDp

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