Gearing Up For Amsterdam!

This August I will be flying to Amsterdam to install a new public artwork. The event is being hosted by Inkijk Gallery and curated by Jan Theun Van Rees. I met Jan Theun a number of years ago when he was in Chicago photographing his "One Wall Away" series. We have stayed friends ever since and I was thrilled when he invited me to participate in this exhibition / public installation.

Sometimes as an artist, the hardest thing can be too many choices. When Jan Theun approached me with the concept for the piece, he told me that I could do anything that I wanted so long as it somehow drew a connection between Amsterdam and Chicago. Hmmmmm. I've never been to Amsterdam and had no idea how to proceed. Everytime that I thought about my relationship with Amsterdam, my thoughts would eventually circle back to my undergraduate studies of Albert Camus and his novel, "The Fall."

My first copy of the novel had this cover and was borrowed from the bookshelves of my Grandmother's apartment.

"The Fall" is one of my favorite novels and was a central part of my undergraduate thesis. The more that I thought about my piece, the more that I decided it should reference "The Fall" and portray the imagery that Camus created in 1956 and that informed my ideas about the city. Step one was to buy a new copy of it because my old one was overly underlined to the point of illegibility.

Although the majority of the novel takes place in an Amsterdam dive bar, occassionally the main character Clemence leads the reader around the town and to the shores of the Zuider Zee. Upon rereading the book, I decided to focus on the passage that appears at the beginning of this blogpost and to use Lake Michigan as a stand in for the Zuider Zee. I emailed Jan Theun to discuss my plans and he was excited! He told me that he had never read the novel but that he had an old copy of it and it was bookmarked to the exact passage that I was thinking of using. This sealed the deal.


Eric Pickersgill is without a doubt one of the best students that I have ever worked with. We first met when he was in my color darkroom class at Columbia College and he has ta'd and assisted me ever since. Not only is he a great person but he is also really coming into his own as an artist. Eric has been creating large liquid emulsion lightboxes throughout the past year and will be showing them soon at The Light Factory in Charlotte.


For the past couple of years Eric has been working out of an abandoned factory on Chicago's south/west side. He built a gigantic darkroom there and a rig for projecting negatives onto the wall. I had seen his liquid light prints before and decided that this would be the perfect technique for my Lake Michigan image as well. After an initial meeting last thursday night, we met at his darkroom bright and early Saturday morning to get to work.


This is an image of the enlarger tilted on it's side in order to project my image at 8 feet by 8 feet.


Step one was to pin the 8 square feet of fabric up against the back wall of the darkroom. After getting it into place, I sprayed starch on the fabric (this apparently helps the image fix to the fabric) and Eric followed behind with an iron. Once that was finished, Eric applied a bottle of liquid emulsion to the fabric as I guided him with a safe light. Next up, a two hour exposure.


The development of the fabric was far and away one of the most extreme things that I've ever done in a darkroom (no snarky comments please). Eric had built eight foot troughs to house the chemicals and a two person pulley system for agitating the print.


Two hours later, we had a properly processed print (the above is a detail). Here is Eric looking like the tough SOB that he is (twelve hours and one print later):


Next up, hand stencil the text in the studio.

Something I Made Today

Exciting News and Exhibitions

This summer is turning out to be incredibly hectic but exciting as well. This Spring I accepted an assistant professor position at Keene State College in New Hampshire and the family and I are starting to plan for our move to Brattleboro Vermont at the end of July. There are a lot of loose ends to tie up here but also some exciting new:

1. I just learned that I was named an award winner for the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward 2010 competition. I will be published in their catalogue and will hopefully be exhibiting my work at the Magenta Foundation Festival in Toronto in October. My work was selected by Andy Adams of Flak Photo, Amanda Maddox from the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Susan Bright.

2. I will be presenting my piece, "Staring Contest" at the Conduit Gallery in Dallas this August. The show is entitled, "The Program" and is being curated by Charles Dee Mitchell. I'm excited to be sharing the same space as David Askevold, Matthew Day Jackson, Luke Murphy, Jason Rhoades, Erin Shirreff and Bill Viola.

Hot Off The Press!!!

Today was a big day for this project, I finally picked up the finished books from Loveleaf. Last night I had a nightmare that I picked them up and was really bummed out but fortunately, the opposite was true and they look AMAZING!!!!!

Here are some shots of them at the bindery earlier today. This is us burnishing the covers to give them a worn and one of a kind aesthetic:

Ode To Alec Soth

Alec and I became friends a number of years ago and have hung out in Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami and spots in between. It's not often that you find someone who is both extremely successful in their field and also incredibly sweet and down to Earth. I've really enjoyed our friendship and over the years and I have made him a few keepsakes along the way. The first was a baseball card that I created for him a few years back when he came to give a lecture at Columbia College. He had told me that he was jealous of the baseball cards that I had created in my piece "The Quitter" and he wrote to tell me that he wanted a baseball card dedicated to himself as well. Ask and ye shall receive, I granted Alec his wish:


Well last night I headed out to my favorite German bar with the family to indulge in some beer and wurst. Resi's Bierstube is the best beer garden in Chicago and I had recently met Alec there for drinks along with Brian Ulrich and Matt Siber. So I got to thinking about Alec and turned to my wife and said, "I wonder how old Sothdog Millionaire is doing?" Robin was like, "did you just make up that name for him?" and I was like, "Yeah." After dinner with my stomach full of beer and beef, I sat down to create the following poster, my newest ode to Mr. Alec Soth:

Help Support My Book, Get An Inexpensive Print!

I've recently embarked upon a new book project via the website http://www.kickstarter.com

My project for kickstarter consists of publishing five copies of my artist's book "Scavenger Hunt" for the "Hamburger Fotobuchtage Festival" that will be held in Germany this June. My books will be presented by "Kehrer Art Books of Heidelberg". I've self published books in the past but never as one of a kind art objects. My goal is to create a full edition of 50 books and I have found a great local bindery called "Love Leaf Press" who are going to help me out. Each book is going to cost me roughly $250 to make but they are going to look really really good!

You can view my page at kickstarter.com by visiting:
http://kck.st/9n9Z6y

Essentially, I am looking for backers to help me finance this project.
Individuals who donate $25 towards the project will receive a signed 8" x 10" page from the book (page of your choice), individuals who donate $50 will receive a signed two page spread from the book (spread of your choice) and if you are feeling insanely generous, individuals who donate $450 will receive a signed one of a kind copy of the book (again, finished edition of 50). The way that kickstarter works is that in order for me to receive the money and for you to receive your print, I need to meet my minimum goal of $1200 (however there is not a maximum cap) by June 17th. If you know anyone who might be interested in participating, please pass this along.

Young Git In The Magic Factory

1960's IHop Commercial

I dream that one day I'll be able to make a video piece as awesome as this!!!

What I Dream Of Singing The Next Time I Go Out To Sing Karaoke

The Sweet Spot (in progress)

This past month I've been enjoying the winter break from teaching and spending each of my days in the studio (bliss!) I've been working on a piece for my new series entitled, "The Sweet Spot."

"The Sweet Spot" is a piece about finding the spots on the train platform where the train doors have the highest probability of stopping. I charted my morning commute for fifty days in the Spring of 2009 and have been busy trying to visually articulate my data.

The finished series will have a series of charts, notes photographs and video. The piece I've been working on this break is perhaps the most daunting, a 100 inch wide reconstruction of the data collected in my field notes.

For me, this piece has been a real tug and pull. Although I work more quickly with Photoshop than I do with my hands, I wanted this piece to be hand drawn. It has been exciting and nerve racking, I've never worked this way before. In Photoshop if you screw up, you can just copy and paste and the problem is solved. When using oil based paint markers, changing your mind can be a lot more difficult and labor intensive.

As with any piece in progress, I've had about a million moments where I was convinced that what I've been making is crap. At the moment, I'm seeing a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

One of the hardest things about holing up in your studio is that there isn't any external feedback. I'm getting to the point where I am ready to show people the work in progress.

This autumn I have been invited to Amsterdam to create an installation piece inside of an abandoned storefront in an underground train station (here is a previous installation shot of the space). I'm thinking about incorporating some of this piece for that exhibition.

So, that's where I've been spending my days. Back to work, more posts to follow.

Can't Wait To See This Movie!

Two Chicago Events This Weekend

It's been a great Autumn so far: Hanging out with my main man Arch, watching football, mourning the Red Sox and still hating the Yankees. I've also been making new work!

I have two events coming up this weekend, come by if you're able:



1."The Harold Arts Residency Exhibition" will be opening this Friday at Heaven Gallery (1550 N Milwaukee Ave - 7pm to 11pm)

I spent a week this past July at The Harold Arts Residency in Ohio and created the piece, "Out Of This World." I will be exhibiting both the poster as well as the video.


2."West Carroll Open Studios," this coming Sunday (3200 W. Carroll Ave - 12pm to 7pm)

As a part of Chicago Artist's Month, I will be opening my studio to the public along with the other artists who have studios at 3200 W. Carroll Ave. It should be a fun day to see a ton of work in progress, artists will include me, Andrew Ayer, Jared Dreyer, Annie Heckman, Arielle Marq, Anton Mackey, Harold Mendez, Mike Olson, Jennifer Scott and many many more.

I'm in studio 8 on the 2nd floor.

R.I.P. Sweet Captain Lou

Growing up in the 1980's, the World Wrestling Federation was a big part of my life. Sleeping over at my friend Tommy's house to watch Wrestlemania 1, going to the County Center in White Plains to watch matches, buying every wrestling doll that there was, etc etc.

Captain Lou Albano had a special place in my heart: not only was he a central character in the 1980's wrestling scene and a hilarious personality, but he also lived in Mount Kisco NY (as did I). I remember seeing him a number of times at the Mt. Kisco movie theater and being awed by his presence. Here he is in Cyndi Lauper's video, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!" . . . classic Captain Lou (as Cyndi's dad).



Rest In Peace Captain.

Buy Great Photographs And Support A Great Cause!

During my senior year at Marlboro College, I used to volunteer a few nights a week at The Insight Photography Project. Insight was started by my former photography teacher, John Willis. John and I have remained friends over the years and each year I donate a print to the Insight Benefit Auction:

http://www.auction.insight-photography.org/

This year's auction is especially impressive!
If anyone out there wants to buy me an early holiday present, I'll take this print by Danny Lyon:

Vagina Panther and Golden City Riot

I'm a lucky dude to know so many people who make really great music. I first met John and June a few years back through our mutual friend Brian. Brian and John are old friends from Ohio and have been playing together for years. Anyhow, over some beers they started telling us about their new band called "Vagina Panther." Seriously, have you ever heard of a better band name???

John and I met up again at Brian's wedding in Arkansas and picked up right where we left off. He gave me a copy of their new album (amazing!) and invited me to direct a video for them. After watching how incredible the video above is, color me too intimidated.

The second band that I have had playing lately in my house is my friend Eric's band, Golden City Riot. Eric is one of my best friends (going back to first grade) and on my recent trip to Seattle, we spent many an inebriated moment working on a band icon for a set of stickers that he is producing.


Golden City Riot plays out a lot in Seattle, catch them if you know what's good for you. If these two bands ever played a joint gig, I think my head might explode from the pleasure of it all!!!!!!

False Proof at Kirkland Arts Center

Well, Autumn is upon us and it's been off to a hectic start. Two weeks ago I was out in Seattle for the opening of the exhibition "False Proof" at the Kirkland Arts Center. The show was curated by Cable Griffith and was one of the best shows I have seen in awhile. My favorite piece in the show by far was Eugene Parnell's life-sized taxidermed Big Foot. Eugene's Big Foot is the first thing that you see when you walk in the gallery. He is standing on a pile of leaves, digging through a hiker's backpack and eating a powdered donut (observe the white powder on his lips).


The entire show is amazing and I recommend checking it out before it comes down in early October.

Here is a writeup from The Stranger:

Not knowing has two sides: Not knowing is the greatest, not knowing is the worst. In the slight but refreshing group show False Proof at Kirkland Arts Center, not knowing—remaining in a state of possibility, running a continual loop of faith and disbelief—is mostly just great. Nola Avienne paints tiny alchemical symbols drawn from medieval sources using her own blood. She's committed to the mysteries. They stand for themselves, which is why you can't understand them. Eugene Parnell's life(?)-size, big-eyed Taxidermied Bigfoot gobbling the powdered doughnut of a hiker whose clothes and backpack lie at the creature's feet in the gallery is labeled as made of the following materials: "taxidermied bigfoot." Drew Christie's elaborate "historic" display of "evidence" about the Elliott Bay Sea Beast—a toothy Loch Ness Monster—collected and compiled by one Albrecht "Aesop" Ribbentrop is sometimes too cute but mostly irrepressibly endearing in its refusal to try to be convincing. You can hear the sound of the beast (it roars and gargles at the same time), see drawings and photographs of it, even look at instruments made in its honor by sailors just moments before they were eaten by it. Hanging in the middle of the room is the beast's skeleton: a happily false thing made out of barely disguised wood, glue, and newspaper. "I shall be vindicated," Ribbentrop's writings declare. Done.

A trophy twirling around on its head, defying gravity, would be more intriguing were it not happening in video—a medium in which disbelief is a given. That work is by Zack Bent. Jana Brevick's devices for problem solving are not served well here; you need to know that Brevick creates jewelry to fully understand these devices as talismans rather than too-sweet mini-sculptures. (My favorite, because it so clearly doubles as a necklace, is her Optimizer, a choker with a black box machine for a pendant. What's going on in there, who knows?)

In a video and diagram based on the Brady Bunch episode "Out of This World," in which Greg fools Peter and Bobby with a fake UFO (until the authorities are called and Greg is exposed), Chicago artist Jonathan Gitelson debunks the realness of the fake UFO by attempting to restage the hoax himself according to Bobby's on-show instructions. Fail. Gitelson's illustrated how-to diagram leaves intact the secret of how to. It hardly matters whether there is life on other planets when there is the magic of TV, which is not diminished in the slightest by not being magic at all.

Samantha Scherer's photorealistic velvety black watercolor and gouache paintings are on thick paper that curls up at the edges like it's entrapping its only subjects, little white faces peering out from the bottom of the paper's black universe as if they were almost entirely cropped out, à la "reality" video stills or photographs. (Blair Witch style.) Scherer's employing the clichés of horror-vérité but making them work again, much like in an older series where she appropriated the parade of corpses on Law & Order and made them feel individual again in her tiny drawings. Something in her handcrafted and yet utterly mediated approach demonstrates a recognizable struggle: Familiarity and unfamiliarity can be indistinguishable. Which is the worst.
-Jen Graves

Hilarious

A Lot Of Good Art Going On . . .

The other day Archie and I headed to the West Loop to check out some of the new shows. I'd been out of town on opening weekend and was really excited when I read the there was a Mel Bochner show at Rhona Hoffman Gallery. I've only recently become more familiar with Mel's work and he has become one of my all time favorites (right up there with Tom Friedman). The show looked great and it was nice to catch up with Kat and Charlotte and Rhona.


Next it was off to Kavi Gupta Gallery to see the new show by Clare Rojas who is another one of my all time favorite artists. If I had the money, I would of bought everything in the show!


This Wednesday I'm flying to NY to see two openings tha I am really excited about: Brian Ulrich's show on Thursday night at Julie Saul Gallery and Will Lamson's new exhibition at Pierogi on Friday night in Brooklyn.

All of these shows come highly recommended, go check them out!

Guest Blog Entry: By Shawnee Barton

Mondelli's Lounge and the condofication of Chicago

I haven’t always been “anti-condo”. We adored living in the old building on 14th and Michigan, which was once the first private hospital in Chicago, even though it sometimes felt like living in a museum. The condo board protected the original marble floors and 16' tall windows to annoying excess. Moving furniture in and out required a permit, a lecture on conservation, and hefty fee. We’d often have to maneuver, with arms full of groceries, around groups of architectural tourists to get into the building. But doing these things felt right. It was the price we paid for the privilege of living in a bit of history.

Unfortunately though, less than six months after we moved to 14th and Michigan, the earth-shaking rumble of pile drivers started waking us up every morning. In 2005, the city of Chicago limited the number of allowed condo conversions in existing buildings, so developers started leveling entire blocks of the South Loop. Glorious, old buildings on all sides of us were being destroyed, and it felt like a personal attack. When you live in a city, your neighborhood is as much a part of your home as the furniture inside your four walls.

Sadly, it turns out that Chicago has a long history of destroying its architectural history. In 1972, Richard Nickel, an architectural photographer, died while hurrying to photograph historic Chicago buildings before they were demolished. He was in Louis Sullivan's Stock Exchange building when the ceiling came crashing down on him and his camera. An article published in the New York Times a few years ago called Chicago a “battleground” in the “preservation-versus-development debate,” and unfortunately the stalled economy isn’t slowing the destruction down. This past year, the eleven downtown blocks of Michigan Avenue were placed on The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2008 List of Most Endangered Historic Places.

This is all very sad, but I can honestly, and perhaps embarrassingly, say that it didn’t hit home to me until one afternoon when I needed a drink. I headed straight for Mondelli’s, my favorite bar, only to find a crane swinging a wrecking ball into the building. I cried right there on the corner of Oak and State. It truly broke my heart.

Mondelli’s was rumored to be the smallest bar in Chicago, but what it lacked in size it made up for in character. Old Chicago gangster photos lined the walls and busboys shuttled hot and delicious pastas in from the old-school Italian restaurant next door. The raspy-voiced bartenders ditched the typical mini-skirt and boob-revealing uniform and wore sweatpants, 80’s mom jeans, or whatever they felt like wearing. They made a killer drink called the “espresso martini,” and playing the widest variety of good music you could imagine.

Because it was such a small bar, you would eventually end up talking with the folks around you. My favorite regular parked his Harley on the sidewalk right next to the front door and always wore a black leather vest that read “National Hair Piece Designing Champion” across the back, and he wasn’t some poser hipster. He actually was a Harley-riding National Hair Piece Designing Champion.

I’m not quite sure how such colorful individuals managed to find this place in a neighborhood filled with uppity boutiques and trendy night-clubs. It was our own little misfit island, and that’s why I adored it. This place was my Cheers, so it seemed only fitting that it was the last place I visited when our family left Chicago for a new life in California. My husband waited in the loaded-down Honda while I placed a small commemorative plaque and a bouquet of flowers along the fence around the construction site.

The guys on the demolition crew were surprisingly open to my memorial. Several of them asked me about the bar and even told me about their favorite watering holes. I had previously found perverse pleasure in vilifying the workers, but after ten minutes of talking with them, I realized that they were just doing their job. The foreman promised me that my plaque would hang on the fence for the rest of the day, and I got a little sense of comfort knowing that those men knew that the building they demolished was special and that the land they cleared for condos was loved.
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This was posted by Shawnee Barton, an artist who keeps a blog on other people’s blogs. If you have a little nook of cyberspace and are open to welcoming a guest poster, please email her at shawneebarton@gmail.com. She will be grateful. To see where she is headed next, check out shawneebarton.com.

Treblinka

Today I checked out the book "Treblinka" from the Harold Washington Library here in Chicago. I first read the book when I was twelve and in Hebrew School in order to prepare for my Bar Mitzvah. Back then it was an assignment just like any other; however, lately I've had a renewed interest since I'm travelling to Poland for an exhibition in a week and am planning on visiting the camp (it is actually a memorial, the camp itself no longer is standing). I wanted to re-read Treblinka so that when I stand on the actual site, I will have some kind of a connection with the history of the place. The more I read, the more I think that it will impossible to register the connection between the memorial and the history.

Although my ancestors on my father's side were Eastern European Jews, they had long been living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan by the start of the war. My mom's side of the family was a different story. My grandmother grew up in Czechoslovakia on a farm with her grandparents. She was not Jewish but her grandparents owned a farm that the Nazis wanted and they ended killing them to take their land. My grandmother saw her grandparents die and after escaping, she immigrated alone to NY in 1938 at 18 years of age.

My grandparents had different ways of dealing with the war, my mother's mom never talked about it and never had any desire to return to the continent. My father's mom reacted by boycotting German goods until the end of her life (apparently very upset when my parents bought a Volkswagon Beetle in the late 1960's).

As for me, I didn't meet anyone from Germany until I was 22. I was living in Guatemala at the time and shared a house with my dear friend Ute. For me, the war was something of the distant past. I found that I really connected with the Germans that I met and their uniquely dry sense of humor. That being said, I remember the first time that Ute and I talked about the war and to my surprise, the war was still very much alive for her. She still carried a degree of guilt, This was really eye opening and made me feel even more affection for her.

Two years later I travelled to Germany to visit her and have been back since to exhibit my work in Munich. Although I felt removed from the war (my father wasn't even a twinkle in his mother's eye), I was acutely aware of the history of the place. My gallery is on Ludwigstrasse which is the street where Hitler held his early rallies, it was pretty intense to stand on the same spot where the Third Reich was born and I felt it pretty deeply.

And so next Sunday I depart for Poland and to the site of the Treblinka Death Camp. One of the amazing things about Treblinka is that it was one of the few camps to rise up in revolt. It sounds insane to say that I'm looking forward to the experience but it is something that I've always wanted to do and I'm sure that it will be profound. I've found that my relationship with the Holocaust has greatly changed since I've become a father, it has become even that much more unfathomable.

Below you can find a documentary about the events leading up to Treblinka, it is long but interesting. I'm sure I'll post again on this theme after my return.