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Past Events for "Perfect Exhibition" artists | Cat Chow | Spirals & Ellipses: Clothing the Body Three-Dimensionally
Solo exhibition Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator (traveling)
Cat Chow: Alterations (solo) Cat Chow: Second Skin (solo) Cat Chow: Material Girl (solo)
| Anoka Faruqee | Hotel California (group)
Past Perfect Exhibition Venues Lockport Gallery Illinois State Museum Southern Illinois Art Gallery/Artisan
Shop Perfect : a group exhibition Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts | www.uica.org
| Chicago Cultural Center in the Michigan Avenue Galleries
Obsessions form the art October 14, 2005 At the exhibition "Perfect," viewers are met with a curious collection of work seeking to transform objects and actions of the everyday into the extraordinary. Organized by Chicago artist Marci Rae McDade, the show includes abstract work by 13 artists based in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York who attempt to make manifest the complexities of their individual obsessions. Michael X. Ryan's "Where did I travel within the Chicago city limits from mid-February to early March in the years of 1999 to 2000 to 2001?" traces the steps of the artist throughout his daily routine in the form of a cartographic diagram. Sinuous red and blue lines mark Ryan's passage as he records various journeys to the grocery store, the laundry, cafes and home again. Ryan's precisely charted meandering becomes all the more engaging for the resulting map's elegance of form. "Drawing #11" (2004) is Matt Irie's diary-like rendering in ballpoint pen of his first year of teaching, the vicissitudes of being broke, and various postulations on art and philosophy. In its entirety this journal resembles a section of parquet flooring, its geometric patterns created from the text's varying gradations of black and gray hues. Susie Brandt's "Dainty" (1991-1992) and "After Albers" (1995-1998) recycle discarded textiles into sewn and woven wall hangings that make playful reference to works of modernist art history. The scraps of found lace and old doilies in "Dainty" make a textured patchwork of intricate floral and snowflake patterns. Its mottled color scheme of off-white and beige recall the early neutral-hue works of Brice Marden, while the interlocking squares of "After Albers" -- black and brown pantyhose were used to painstakingly construct this woven tapestry -- adroitly give a nod to the more vibrant exercises in color perception of Josef Albers. Vincent Como's "Untitled (Reinhardt)" is a staggering work of compelling grace, its monochromatic surface the result of the artist's drawing with black ballpoint pen on paper in emulation of the all-black works of 1950s artist and theorist Ad Reinhardt. The individual marks of Como's pen become discernible at close distance, imperfections that increase the appeal of the work. A neurotic energy permeates the space, with each piece embodying the devotion to detail that fuels these artists in their pursuit of perfection. By and large these are dogged acts of repetition, and one is impressed by the labor that each piece required, which then provokes the question of whether they were brilliant or maybe a bit off their rockers for having taken up their chosen tasks in the first place. Either way, the results of their mania offer an intriguing presentation of aesthetic harmony. 'Perfect' At the Art Museum of The University of Memphis, today and Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Copyright 2005, commercialappeal.com - Memphis, TN. All Rights Reserved.
Perfect Sense Don't let the title of the current exhibition at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis put you off. The works by the 13 Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City artists included in "Perfect: a group exhibition" are not limited by static designs or fixed visions. Chicago-based curator Marci Rae McDade's vision of the ideal is perfectly odd. Complex process, common materials, and unexpected imagery were McDade's prerequisites for considering work for this exhibition. Amy Honchell's contribution, Perfect Specimen, fits the bill. Honchell stretched nylon around six hula hoops. Beneath this curvaceous body, a bright-red fishnet stocking loaded with marbles makes contact with a spot on the floor that is marked by a bright-yellow hoop. Whether this is a newly charged synapse, connective tissue, blood flow, or a new life form, Perfect Specimen is a wonderfully whimsical, original piece of sculpture. Sculptor Ben Butler's 58-inch wood circle, Growth, consists of more than 30 bands of concentrically circling, jig-sawed plywood. A slight space between each of the bands creates snaking shadows on multiple wave patterns. Anyone looking at it for any length of time is guaranteed to experience a feeling of motion. It's mesmerizing. Transcendence is a recurring theme. Conceptual artist and fashion designer, Catherine Chow achieves transcendence by thinking through some of the hidden agendas and gender stereotyping in fashion and advertising. Chow creates one-of-a-kind dress-wear out of materials such as sandpaper, dollar bills, sales tags, and twist-ties. Through her piece, Consume, she explores the multifaceted dynamics between art, fashion, and commerce. Vincent Como finds his own transcendence by completely covering 63.5 square inches of drawing paper with marks made by a ballpoint pen. Untitled (Reinhardt) is a shimmering square of oil-based ink (black maroons, gray mauves, and dark coppers) that hangs on AMUM's white gallery wall. It's a unique variation of the black-on-white geometric paintings of Ad Reinhardt and Kasimir Malevich. Como describes his dark, nuanced field of color as a meditational space. There's another black-on-white Reinhardt variation (in this instance, black-in-white) in the display cases in AMUM's entrance hall. With "Caseworks: Terri Jones," Jones complements and caps off "Perfect" by tossing five black squares into five white cubes. As usual, this Memphis artist says much with little. Like Reinhardt, Jones pares down the world. When you step back, the five consecutive, eye-level cases look like a series of film stills that tell an elemental story about relationship to space and the effects of gravity. Here, within the pure white of the display cases, the black squares sit up, kick back, and slump into a corner. Consider it something akin to performance art, because it's hard not to project yourself into these cubes -- to mimic the moves and the moods reflected in the squares' postures. Date created: 10/14/2005
Rearview Mirror by John Burnetti "Perfect: a group exhibition" Group shows of contemporary art at the Chicago Cultural Center can often feel like scorecards to all-star games, a means of charting the hot artists already given validation by the less visible network of dealers, collectors, curators, and critics. There is nothing inherently egregious about the tone of these shows, the prevailing thought being that both the larger public and the artists will benefit from this Downtown venue's high visibility. Yet, at times one feels that they are entering a stadium in which the game has already been played. The energy that should be generated by the interaction between cutting-edge art works can appear absent as the tenuous curatorial themes that bring such artists together frequently dissolve amidst the art crowd's recognition of whose "in," while leaving the broader public perplexed. "Perfect: a group exhibition," however, reveals that the most effective shows are often the result of the cumulative energies of artists whose works feed off the complementary methodologies that surround them, suppressing egos for ideas. Organized not by a curator or critic, but by one of the participating artists, Marci Rae McDade, this multi-generation show is noticeable egalitarian in tone. This is as much the result of the 11 artists' shared obsessive and meticulous absorption with patterns generated an immersion in the banal as it is by the low-key nature of their careers. The names of Amy Honchell, Michael x. Ryan, Ben Butler, Vincent Como, Mark Murphy, Timothy Ripley, Matt Irie, Anoka Faruquee, Teo Gonzalez, and Chris Uphues may be familiar, yet their work derives its strength from cultivating a deliberate sense of anonymity. Individual distinction would be anathema to a group of artists whose work addresses the dissolution of identity. Compulsion as expressed through repetitive physical activity assumes the structure of flawed logic in many of the works in "Perfect." Following a redundant process to a conclusion that ultimately provides no concrete answers, only more ambiguous questions, many of the artists suggest that their obsessive systems are the closest one will get to "perfection" in an imperfect, fragmented world. One artist who exemplifies this theory is Michael x. Ryan. This mid-career artist, whose refine drawings have always incorporated time as an important element in depicting entropy as related to the human body, has taken his peripatetic movements throughout Chicago as an impetus to locate a sense of himself in the ever shifting urban matrix. In his large ink on velum drawing, Where did I travel within the city limits from mid-February through early March in the years 1999-2000-2001?, Ryan creates a sensuous topography of serpentine blue and red lines layered on top of a grid of Chicago, documenting his destinations and routes of travel. Accompanied by a meticulous journal that categorizes every one of his movements according to his family's and his personal needs, Ryan's work absorbs one into the innocuous rituals of daily life that result in an evanescent tracery of motion that is as much as one can expect as evidence of his or her existence. While the open weave of Ryan's circuitous routes of travel continues to tease one with the promise of a final destination that does not reveal itself, Vincent Como's impenetrable surface of accumulated ball point pen marks in his drawing Untitled (Reinhardt) (2001) appears to suggest that accumulated movements are a destination in and of themselves. Como's homage to the New York School painter Ad Reinhardt and his minimalist black cross paintings is imbued with a zealot's conviction as one contemplates how many narrow pen marks were laid down by Como to create an impenetrable, shimmering, 60 x 60 inch surface that oscillates between a dark copper and a black maroon. The tactility of the heavy drawing paper that Como uses, its subtle sags and puckers, grounds his work in the physicality of his labor intensive activity, not in a transcendent state outside of the body. Como's drawing, unlike the Reinhardt is derives from, expresses the existence of its maker through the stubbornness of the most pedestrian of writing instruments. For Como and Ryan, the artist's gesture is no longer the capable of the modernist search for the self, but instead evokes the apoplexy of our current postmodern condition.
Chicago Tribune by AlanArtner "Perfect" Everybody should see the group exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center called "Perfect". It presents the work of 11 young artists, in the words of catalog preface, "have all found ways to transform the familiar and mundane into the fantastic." Thirty years ago a similar urge led to the crossbreeding of surrealism and Pop art that led to Chicago Imagism. But each new generation has it's own ways, and the one on view in "Perfect" has adopted an abstract rather than figurative approach to produce what is, in the main, a meticulous, squeaky-clean sort of kid stuff. Of course, there are exceptions- Vincent Como, Anoka Faruquee, Teo Gonzalez- but their pure abstraction looks more sober and, in consequence, less hip. Here a Saturday morning cartoon experience seems to have dictated the attitude of the moment, resulting in an unlikely combo of upbeat, bubble-gum fun and obsession. That some of this should have a retro-50's look is not surprising. It stands for the winking sort of "innocence" that makes art from Hula-Hoops, jigsaw puzzles and a confectionery logo. The sense of play is, however, balanced by obsessive technique, which in turn, is diminished by the absurdity of having it exercised to such banal ends. Who ever expected that any abstract art would prompt cries of "grow up"?
Chicago Sun-Times review by Margaret Hawkins Perfect, no on view at the Chicago Cultural Center, is a group show featuring the art of the obsessed. The title hints at the compulsive nature of artists who want everything to be just so, who massage details and repeat little marks endlessly in their drive for perfection, The work on view is the opposite of the broad stroke and the big picture. These works which are process-orientated and repetitive, make a case for ignoring the forest so as to happily inspect the minutest details of the trees. Michael x. Ryan focuses his tunnel vision on mapping his comings and goings through the city of Chicago over the last few years. Using various colors of ink, he marks his routes and destinations on a map with dots and then charts his travels with looping lines that are labeled with street names. Elsewhere, he lists his destinations, also color-coded by neighborhood, including friends' houses, restaurants and the various buildings of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The idea here seems to be that behavior patterns translated into visual patterns reveal a meaning that reflects back onthe original behavior. Similar in concept to the work of Ron Laboray but less painterly and more compulsively map-like, Ryan elevates daily life of orderliness that can only be understood when seen from afar. Ben Butler's "Growth" also charts orderly progress, in this case imitating the way trees register a year's growth in concentric rings visible in the cross-sections of their trunks. His flat plywood sculpture is an abstraction of this natural phenomenon that is both simple -- just a jigsawed piece of wood -- and hypnotizing, like a poor man's mandala. Marci Rae McDade, who organized the show, makes a different kind of mandala, a stitched circle of green on a swatch of fabric. So perfectly ever are her stitches that the work looks like a drawing until we get up close and see the bit of nubby texture that is yarn and realize that what seems an unobtrusive bit of cloth could be a sampler made by an obsessive-compulsive sewing student. Mark translates pop culture into pattern by turning his comfortingly polka-dotted leftover Krispy Kreme doughnut box into a jigsaw puzzle. Amy Honchell is the most freely inventive artist in the group, transforming rubber balls, nails, fishnet stockings and hula-hoops into loosely fitted whimsical sculpture that creeps up the wall and hangs from the ceiling. Honchell's work is looser and more playful that the rest of the group, seemingly less worried about making a mistake. I'm not even sure it belongs here, but it is delightful for the sake of contrast, if nothing else. Chris Uphues' paintings are also playful but not compulsively so, consisting of tightly rendered bundles of detailed, oddball icons. These patterned proliferations of stars, robots, flowers and smiley faces condensed all of what is good about this show into hazy bubble of obsession. Uphues and his fellow perfectionists show off their propensity to focus their attention so intensely on the trivial that they render it significant through sheer force of will and imagination.
Chicago gallery displays ordinary as exraordinary by Lauren
Stone A tube stretched nylon and vinyl is hung from the gallery wall. Part of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts label is pasted atop a blurry background of dots in a collage in the next room. An abstract pencil drawing titled "Pop Punch Ale" is mounted on another wall nearby. These works of art are part of a new exhibit that runs through March 21 at the Chicago Cultural Center's Michigan Avenue Gallery, 78 E. Washington St. called "Perfect. A Group Exhibition," the show feateres the artwork of Mark Murphy, an art theory and practice professor at Northwestern, and two NU alumni, Timothy Ripley and Matt Irie. Eleven total artists from Chicago, Los Angeles and New York presented their contemporary abstract artwork Friday night at the show's opening. "Everyone's work was insanely intense and, turning around the room, everthing seemed to make perfect sense," Murphy said. "Most of the artists spend a lot of time on these pieces even though they don't look complicated." Marci Rae McDace, the exhibition's organizer and curator, chose to combine artists' varied perspectives and talents to attempt to create a show both intimate and profound. The works are spread throughout two rooms in the Cultural Center's gallery. The show is centered around the artist's tranformations of ordinary images and objects into something unrecognizable and fantastic. The works are of varying sizes, ranging from large installations to the tiniest intricate designs. Irie's minute "Drawing # 10" is a board divided into grids and covered in meticulous cursive describing the ideas of Foucault, Descartes and other philosophers. Murphy, the artist of the Krispy Kreme collage, said the spots on the doughnut box inspired him to create a puzzle inducing feelings of both order and chaos. "I look for consumer goods that display visual clues that are related to a product's desirability," Murphy said in his artist's statement. "The manipulation of visual desire as a constructed utopia where a product is enlarged to show texture or in suspended animation in order to raise the consumer's hope for perfection is the starting point for these pieces." A crowd of close to 50 students mingled at the gallery opening, sipping free wine, seating fruit and discussing the works on display. "The show is about banality, the everyday and finding something exquisite inside something familiar," said Maura Brewer, a 19-year old fiber and material studies major at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, who was there to see the work of her professor Michael X. Ryan. Carissa Owen, 19, a sculpture major at The Art Institute, said she thought each piece fit into the exhibit's theme. She also said incorporating individual works into a group show is a challenge. In a written statement, McDade said the idea for "Perfect" began in 2001 with artist Chris Uphues' "Deathstar," which includes cartoon characters, flowers and stars. The piece inspired her to exhibit the work of artists who shared Uphues' vision of distorting ordinary images. Gregory Knight, director of visual arts at the Chicago Department of Culturual Affairs, presented the show. He said the show was one of the few times he has promoted the work of artists not part of the Chicago Cultural Center's staff. "It is a well-conceived show and a good selection," Knight said. "It brings to our attention and to the public's an interesting group of young artists, which is our mission." 'Perfect: A Group Exhibition'
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