“Tweeting” the Art Fair Weekend
Art Chicago and NEXT officially begin tomorrow night, and so does our weekend of event “tweets.” As usual, you can take a look at our upcoming events page to plan your weekend (which also includes Our Literal Speed, a number of openings and the tail end of Version). Additionally, while you’re out you can also follow us on Twitter, where announcements will be posted an hour before any event, lecture, opening and party.
Photos: Openings April 17-25
Including Robin Cameron at Golden Age, Myth in Material at Alogon, Luke Dowd at Tony Wight Gallery, Regina Mamou at Spoke, Too Big to Fail at April Gallery, Now That’s What I Call Painting at Scott Projects, Jared Madere at New York City Gallery, Tim Ridlen at Knock Knock Gallery and NFO XPO at Version.
Photos: Openings April 3-10
Including Geoffrey Todd Smith at Western Exhibitions, Judith Brotman at ThreeWalls, Ill Communication at Heaven Gallery, Josef Strau at Rowley Kennerk Gallery, Christopher Michlig and Gerd Borkelmann at Devening Projects + Editions, Judith Geichman at Julius Cæsar and Ali Bailey at Golden.
Photos: Openings March 28-29
Including Luke Dowd at Normal Projects, Spencer Finch at Rhona Hoffman, Vaguely Papery at Kavi Gupta Gallery, Cody Hudson and Corey Arnold at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Jasmine Justice at 65Grand, I Don’t Believe You at Roots & Culture, The Box Game and In Real Life/In Real Time at Golden Age and Elizabeth Weiss at New York City Gallery (Gold Coast).
Special thanks to Vincent Uribe for photography.
Picks: School of the Art Institute of Chicago BFA Show
The Spring 2009 BFA show turned out to be the strongest I’ve attended during my time here at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Here are some of my favorite works from the show.
New Look for On the Make
Starting today, On the Make has a new look and comprehensive calendar system. Not only can you view all upcoming events, but you can also use the Chicago art spaces listing to navigate to your favorite spaces’ listing to view their events. If you are looking for the March calendar, it can still be found here.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be streamlining the new design, adding new features and posting our own documentation of Chicago’s vibrant visual art scene. As always, we would love to hear your ideas or suggestions at mail@onthemake.org. You can also now become a fan of On the Make on Facebook.
Stay tuned!
Interview: John Friel and Tim Graham of Alogon
Alogon is an apartment gallery started by School of the Art Institute of Chicago students in 2005. Brad Troemel speaks with two of its residents and collaborators. Alogon is located at 1049 N. Paulina St. #3R.
Performance documentation of Only Dear Blue Lonely American, curated by the collective I.E., 2008.
Describe Alogon’s history, when and why it was created, who you were looking to as a model for running a gallery out of a living space, whose been involved over time, how it’s managed, etc.
John Friel: Alogon was started four years ago by some friends of ours from undergrad: Max Schubert, Jake Brown, Bless Tive—and I think a few other people who rotated in and out. Two years ago, they were moving out while Tim Louis Graham, Justin Berry, Ben Fain and I decided to move in and run the space. We changed the programming and structure but kept the name. Last year, Justin moved out and two more people, John Jines and Dan Osediacz moved in. That’s our current line-up. We are all roommates and we run Alogon democratically, as a team.
We all have different models we’ve been looking to and reasons for wanting to run a space; my own primary influence is my experience as a teenager with independent music. For as long as I’ve been involved in creative production, I’ve been involved in independent or alternative modes of dissemination, so it seemed very natural to me to apply that to the display of art.
Links: February 1 – March 4
HPAC cuts back – Time Out Chicago
Chicago Reader | The Business: Flatfile Flatlines: The economy’s toll on the arts is no longer theoretical. By Deanna Isaacs
Artist of the Week: Erik Wenzel | WHAT TO WEAR DURING AN ORANGE ALERT?
FY09 Fellowship Awards
The Illinois Arts Council is honored to announce the fiscal year 2009 Artists Fellowship Award recipients.
Chicago Reader | The Business | As arts and culture organizations angle for a piece of Obama’s stimulus pie, local museums brace for bad times. By Deanna Isaacs
March 2009 Calendar
Interview: Esteban Schimpf
Esteban Schimpf was born in Bogotá, Colombia, studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and recently moved to Los Angeles. He was part of the group show Bad Moon at Andrew Rafacz Gallery. I asked Esteban some questions about different cities and art.
Esteban Schimpf, Floating And Going / 3 Artworks, 2008.
You were a super active student while you were in Chicago. You made plenty of work, showed plenty of work, traveled, launched a website and were involved in the local art scene. What is the purpose of getting a BFA at SAIC? Is it necessary and how did you use the school? Do you have graduate plans for the future?
I chose a dedicated art school over a university because I wanted to be immersed in and surrounded by artists. I wanted to go to a place where art was the most important thing, not a supplement or a distraction. I learned an incredible amount while in school and I am very grateful for the irreplaceable knowledge passed on to me by my instructors. That being said, I don’t think an arts education is a necessary requirement for an artist to be successful (in the studio or in the market). The idea that an artist has to have a BFA or MFA to be an interesting practitioner is a myth. I think graduate school is ideal for someone that has been working diligently in their studio for 5 or more years refining and honing an individual objective that they can take on the road with them. From my observations, it seems too many of us rush into school looking to come out with that refined studio practice. That can only happen in the real world.
