• Carrie Secrist, 2002.
    Photo by Bob Black/Sun-Times.
    From the Chicago Sun-Times, April 14, 2002

25 Years: Carrie Secrist Gallery

November 4—December 23, 2017


25 YEARS:

In celebration of its 25th anniversary, Carrie Secrist Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of gallery artists who have created work to commemorate this milestone. The artists included in 25 Years are: Whitney Bedford (LA), Ryan Fenchel (LA), Shannon Finley (Berlin), Diana Guerrero-Maciá (Chicago), Andrew Holmquist (Berlin), Anne Lindberg (NY), Liliana Porter (NY), Michael Robinson (NY/LA), Min Song (LA), Dannielle Tegeder (NY) and others.

This comprehensive installation includes a wide range of media and each artist is represented with artwork that includes, or relates to, a metallic theme. This motif offers a contemporary twist on a tradition, dating back to the Roman Empire, of exchanging symbolic elements for specific anniversaries. In this case, the element of silver and it’s reflective capacity will honor the interactions of the gallery, its artists and its audience in present time as well as over a quarter century of evolution.

A HISTORY:

Established in Chicago’s River North gallery district in 1992, Gallery A (becoming Carrie Secrist Gallery in 1996) sought to re-imagine an enlightened salon by creating an environment rich with conversation. Initially focused on emerging artists and local makers as well as large thematic exhibitions such as Amused (a 2001 group show with 68 artists that investigated the notion of humor in contemporary art, opening just 2 days before 9/11/2001), this first iteration of the gallery emphasized an engaging environment for discovery and experience.

In 2003, Carrie Secrist Gallery relocated to its current location in the West Loop, a 5,000-square-foot space on Washington Blvd. The new space allowed Secrist as curator to exhibit larger scale artworks as well as the opportunity to formally develop investigations around her aesthetic interests. Survey exhibitions, in particular The Last Seduction: A Welcome Surrender to Beauty (a 2007 exhibition featuring 25 artists that explored the power of “beauty” within a tenuous conceptual and historical context), partnered internationally known artists alongside those mid-career and emerging. The dialogue between the vast range of media and artists demonstrated Secrist’s commitment to pushing the envelope within Chicago’s art community as well as forging relationships with national and international markets.

Carrie Secrist Gallery has continued a process of reinvention with an emphasis on the development of a propensity towards visual literacy. Through the incorporation of conceptual and academic ideas, the original intention of making visible the artist hand, regardless of medium, has intensified. As the definition of contemporary art evolves at an ever quickened pace, the gallery, instead of following market trends, focuses on a collaborative engagement with our artists from the studio to the gallery walls to institutional presentations. Ultimately we remain committed, now and in the future, to offering an environment for our talented artists – emerging, mid-career and established – as a place for a multitude of voices to be heard and seen.

For a full check list of artworks, please click here.

Images

  • Whitney Bedford
    The Anniversary, 2017
    Ink and oil on panel
    30 x 42 inches

  • Ryan Fenchel
    Theory and Practice, 2017
    Oil, acrylic and pencil
    36 x 72 inches

  • Shannon Finley
    Stellar Wind, 2016
    Acrylic on linen
    70 3/4 x 70 3/4 inches

  • Diana Guerrero-Maciá
    Staring at the Sun, 2017
    Wool, canvas, Belgian linen, cotton, oil paint, India ink, and damaged American quilt back
    70 x 58 inches

  • Andrew Holmquist
    Space Suit, 2017
    Oil and acrylic on canvas
    150 X 130 cm (51.25 x 59 inches)

  • Anne Lindberg
    so quiet, 2016
    Graphite and colored pencil on mat board
    24 x 40 inches

  • Liliana Porter
    To See Blue (detail), 2007
    Drawing and collage on paper
    15 x 11 inches (19 x 15 inches framed)

  • Michael Robinson
    The Dark, Krystle, 2013
    Standard definition video
    Various dimensions, 9:34 minutes

  • Min Song
    One, Two, Three, One Two Three Four, 2017
    Wood, burlap, linen, spray paint
    24 x 27 x 1.75 inches

  • Dannielle Tegeder
    Infrastructure, 2016
    Steel, stained glass, and wood
    108 × 44 × 70 in
    [Installation image: Montclair Art Museum]

  • 25 Years, Installation View, 2017

  • 25 Years, Installation View, 2017

  • 25 Years, Installation View, 2017

  • 25 Years, Installation View, 2017

  • 25 Years, Installation View, 2017