Chelsea Knight, all images are stills from “The Breath We Took” (2013) (All images courtesy of Aspect Ratio)

CHICAGO — What does it mean, bodily, physically, emotionally, mentally, and perhaps spiritually, to be what Simone de Beauvoir deemed “the second sex,” to be a woman and, moreover, to be a mother? These are questions that Chelsea Knight explores in her latest video work “The Breath We Took” (2013), now on view at Aspect Ratio.

…Knight creates a duality akin to “right versus wrong” or “good verses bad” — as if the “natural mother” is more valuable to her offspring, more available — a “good” mother, yet another constructed cultural ideal.

The 22-minute video blends Knight’s philosophical musings about motherhood with a curious montage of personal biography, fictional references, and documentary-style interviews with her mother and grandmother about how they married and when they became mothers — or became aware of their roles as mothers. These conversations about motherhood and the blood relationships between generations of women are cast against the social construct of marriage mostly through other women’s and the artist’s own weddings. The video itself utilizes a dreamy, stream-of-consciousness aesthetic style, making this work flowing and fluid — like fragments of poetry snipped from the page and translated into the moving image.

The artist’s look into her friends’ wedding ceremonies feels unemotional, and not at all nostalgic; Knight has already been through this experience, yet continues to relive it through participating in their weddings. In fact, her lucid detachment trails throughout the film; it is unlike what we see through the artist’s own brutally honest mother who came of age during the 1960s, and proudly owns her hippie roots. Knight’s mother talks about how much she absolutely hated motherhood, how she wasn’t cut out for it, and that birthing Chelsea was in fact “probably the worst birth ever, and it’s probably the reason you’re an only child.” She says this all with a smile, and a chuckle. Knight, however, appears vulnerable and still seems to be processing what motherhood means to her. She reflects, “The birth wasn’t scary, but the becoming a mother part was really scary.”

Read the full story on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/70312/on-being-an-artist-and-a-mother/

Peregrine Honig, Twin Fawns via twinfawns.net

Slipping the fur skin of a dead animal over a perfectly crafted taxidermy form produces a visual illusion of life, much in the tradition of a trompe l’oeil painting. In traditional taxidermy terms, the relationship between man and animal is that of a hunter conquering nature. The tradition of taxidermy as art dates back to English Victorian-era taxidermist Walter Potter, who created anthropomorphic dioramas of squirrels playing cards in a parlor, a classroom of rabbits seated in rows of long wooden desks, and many other assorted scenarios that more closely resemble illustrations from a Beatrix Potter children’s book than Damien Hirst or Maurizio Cattelan’s respective, well-known animal form artworks. In the works of taxidermy art by AC Wilson and Peregrine Honig discussed here, however, the taxidermy of a young animal (or, in human terms, of ‘children’) locates the work in a tradition much more akin to Walter Potter’s delicate dioramas. Wilson and Honig’s works stand in contrast to the more brash, cynical nature of Hirst and Cattelan’s works by allowing the darker underbelly of childhood fairytale and fantasy to speak through their forms.

Walter Potter was initially inspired to create his taxidermy dioramas by his sister, Jane, who showed him a book of nursery rhymes. He displayed his taxidermy works in his very own Walter Potter’s Museum of Curiosities, located in Sussex, England, which first opened in 1861; by the time of his death in 1914, the museum housed about 10,000 taxidermy objects. Potter’s dioramas embodied a sort of morbidity of childhood, which coincided with the Victorian era’s idealization of childhood, as evidenced by Charles Dickens’ portrayals of children as ‘innocents’—the symbols of all that was “good in the world,” before the onset of adulthood institutions and behaviors.[1] Quite literally speaking, the perceived morbidity of childhood is subject of a vast visual tradition, established and popular throughout England in the late 1800s, known as post-mortem photography. Contemporary artists Peregrine Honig and AC Wilson harken back to these visual representations of dead children in artworks that suggest the absurd, circular proximity of life and death.

Read the full essay on the OPP Blog: http://blog.otherpeoplespixels.com/opp-art-critics-series-the-child-is-dead-taxidermy-art-as-resurrected-victorian-post-mortem-photography

Abigail DeVille, XXXXXXX, 2013, reclaimed lumber, accumulated debris, plastic tarps, tar paper, dirt, sand from Lake Michigan, skeleton, dimensions variable.

Abigail DeVille

ICEBERG PROJECTS
7714 N Sheridan Road
April 13–June 1, 2013

If “X” marks the spot, and three Xs mean “poison, do not drink,” the seven Xs that make up the title of Abigail DeVille’s exhibition suggest a marking of double the poison, plus one drop for location. The socioeconomics of place are at the heart of DeVille’s site-specific detritus installations, which act as land art for the twenty-first century. In this installation at the intimate gallery on the far north side of Rogers Park, DeVille collects the remains from a disemboweled foreclosed home, and reinstalls them inside four white walls. Salvaged items include discarded wooden beams, a velvet-covered chair with broken legs, a loose, hanging doorknob lacking a door, and a collage of ripped-up black garbage bags. Installed in the shape of a circular maze, her work is like an inverse, small-scale Spiral Jetty, made of trash instead of earth and wrapped into a clean white space that induces claustrophobia rather than evoking the magnificence of sprawling nature. Walking through the path paved by broken strips of wood—navigating from margin to center—viewers narrowly avoid loose nails, trudge over sawdust gatherings, and traverse constantly cracking floorboards. A garbage-bag sky is punctured with slits and holes that create stars for this shanty-like enclosure. Apart from a single skeleton embedded in dirt, no traces of humanity, not a single discarded hairbrush or a loose doll head, ever exist in DeVille’s site-specific installations. Instead, these raw materials outline the social failings of cities and their propensity to displace inhabitants. The chaotic, overflowing space of excess is born from urban decay, and will one day end up back in the earth, with our own remains.

—Alicia Eler

Read the piece on Artforum.com: http://artforum.com/?pn=picks&section=us#picks40857 OR http://artforum.com/archive/id=40857

Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For more than 20 years, John O’Brien’s Dolphin Gallery has been a cultural and community epicenter for Kansas City artists. Located in a huge white wall space in the West Bottoms, a historical area in downtown Kansas City, the Dolphin is the size of a barn, and embodies the charisma of an established Chelsea or Chicago River North gallery.

In addition to representing more than 50 artists, including NYC-based Kacy Maddux, soft sculpture pioneer David Ford, sound and performance artist Mark Southerland, Brussels-based artist/musician Christina Vantzou, and Richard Serra, Dolphin Gallery also functions as a framing service. The gallery’s artists are either based in Kansas City or have strong ties to the city. Dolphin also gives back to the local creative community by employing artists, many of whom are typically working a combination of odd jobs. All of this will end with the closure of Dolphin Gallery.

“There is something very solid and comfortable about Dolphin Gallery,” says Cara Megan Lewis, former curator at Cara & Cabezas Gallery in Kansas City and current Associate Director at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago. “Though I never attended one of their annual barbeques, I coveted the routine nature of this annual event — an easy liaison between the gallery’s ‘white cube’ and the American Royal rodeo down the street. [This is] quintessential Kansas City.”

Read the full story on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/70796/dolphin-gallery-kansas-city-art-world-stronghold-to-close/

We are pleased to announce The OPP ART CRITICS SERIES, a new collaboration with OtherPeoplesPixels.

In the spirit of continuing to explore/explode Mr. Walter Benjamin’s idea of the “aura,” artist-run website portfolio service OtherPeoplesPixels is tackling the idea of asking art critics to examine art through websites rather than in a gallery or museum setting.

We were inspired to start this series because of a simple truth: We all look at art online. We spend time on artists’ websites, search artists’ names on Google Images, lurk on their Facebook pages, reblog and heart art we like on tumblr, and organize collections of our favorite images on our iDevices.

In fact, nowadays most of us probably encounter a great deal more art online than in museums, galleries, artist-run spaces and as public art installations. We think of the work of our favorite artists, but perhaps we’ve only seen it on the Internet, never IRL (that’s “in real life” for Internet newbies). Nevertheless, this work continues to be inspiring and meaningful to us.

How would an art critic, whose job and duty it is to write intelligently and analytically about visual art, write and think about art they see only through the lens of a website? We posed this challenge to seven outstanding art critics, and they accepted. Look for the first post on May 14; the series will continue through August 2013.

OtherPeoplesPixels (OPP)is a portfolio website service made by artists for artists, and includes web-hosting, personal domains and an email address. The websites are intuitive, easy to set-up and a breeze to update. OPP’s motto goes like so: “Spend time on your artwork, not on your website!” The OPP blog showcases the work of OPP artists through interviews and documentation of artworks made especially for the web.

Check it out below, or go to Rebecca’s website here: http://www.rebeccaschoenecker.com/tarot.html 

High Priestess tarot card created by Rebecca Schoenecker

ABOUT

I create music and read Tarot under the name Laughing Eye Weeping Eye. The name comes from a folk tale about a little boy who uses his kindness to overcome defiant and tricky spiritual entities. As Laughing Eye Weeping Eye, I channel information from the ethereal into physical form. The Tarot readings I give are divinatory messages, offering guidance, insight, hope, and inspiration.

I became interested in Tarot because it ties together many of the ideas I explore in my creative practice. Spanning cultures and religions, Tarot uses a universal language, exploring themes such as: enlightenment, judgment, resurrection, life, death, the wheel of fate, feminine and masculine power, and love.

I wanted to fully immerse myself in the meaning of Tarot. To bring out its vision, I created my own 78-card deck inspired by the Rider-Waite Tarot. Using a blend of Medieval and animal symbolism, I created the Laughing Eye Weeping Eye Tarot deck, which I use for my readings.

I have always been prone to strong visions, intuitions, and dreams. Laughing Eye Weeping Eye helps guide these visions. As a spirit, LEYE WEYE travels between realms, bringing back incantations and messages from worlds both old and new.

Edited by Alicia Eler

Kathy Halper

Packer Schopf Gallery

May 24 – July 6 2013

It is that moment at the school prom when the hot football player flicks off the camera before he gets wasted, and then falls between his high school sweetheart’s legs for the first time. The freshly pricked former virgin, sitting in her parents’ living room the next day completely hungover, reaches into her purse and uncovers a bag of Oreos labeled “EMERGENCY.” She wonders: How did those get there? Then she posts that question to Facebook. Semi-private moments that were once meant for a few select sets of eyes are now public and online for the person’s social network audience. From parents who happen across teenagers’ Facebook news feeds to real-life friends given access to this information to Internet trolls jonesing to bite off another reddit comment thread, these are the types of visual and auditory vulnerabilities that spread fast on the social web, giving those privy the opportunity to react, respond or simply ignore. But SRSLY, who doesn’t want to talk about what’s on their mind today?

Kathy Halper, Bon Jovi Concert, 26″ x 23″, Hand Embroidery on Linen (2013)

Kathy Halper’s work mirrors adults’ ongoing fascination with youth culture, imbuing it with today’s hyper-social-networked edge. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan predicted the advent of the Internet, suggesting the future of living in a global village that acts and reacts to the pulse of culture. He notes that it is not adults, but rather youth that instinctively and intuitively understand this type of “electronic drama.” This is where Halper’s work begins. Creating embroidered drawings from photographs of adolescents that she finds on social networking sites, Halper’s work questions the disappearing space between public and private online, the subversive use of fabric, needle and thread, and the role that technology plays in shaping adolescence. Her work questions the ways we look and observe, and how adults connect with the youth of today. These questions stem from both her personal experience as a parent, a love of the homemade craft, and an awkward relationship with the Internet.

The artist’s decision to use embroidery rather than painting is paramount. For her, reclaiming this supposed “women’s work” is a radical act, resulting in an empowering, labor-intensive product made by a woman who is also a mother. Much in line with women who have embroidered before her—from the Victorian era onward until today—Halper’s decision to use embroidery rather than painting or photography, provides commentary on the role of women in society today. Her work continues the dialogue around the ever-evolving construction of femininity that “contains its own curious power,” as Rozsika Parker writes in The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. “The stereotype of embroidery as a vain and frivolous occupation, like the stereotype of the silent, seductive needlewoman, controls and undermines the power and pleasure women have found in embroidery, representing it to us negatively.” Additionally, embroidery is a practice specifically attached to mothers and daughters—and as Halper’s daughter appears on occasion in her social media-inspired embroideries, the familial connection is strengthened or, as it were, sewn into the fabric as skin tones, memory, relationships, and perhaps drops of blood that bleed onto the fabric as she furiously sews.

Kathy Halper
YOLO (You Only Line Once)
14″ x 11″
Hand Embroidery on Fabric
2013

Painting these images would be too easy, though certainly time-consuming. By choosing embroidery rather than paint these of-the-moment images that pop up on social networks, Halper calls into question time as we experience it online. Halper’s work flips the fast-paced social space, where decisions are made faster than synapses spark, to a meditative, labor-heavy cloth canvas where subversion and empowerment are threaded. In an age of instant gratification—shopping online, liking and sharing quickly and without further thought—Halper’s embroideries stand in deft opposition to the mediums from which they appropriate their images, daring to stand the test of time.

Halper’s fascination with youth culture isn’t a result of the social networked era. Joseph Sterling photographed adolescents in the 1950s and 1960s, shortly after the term was first invented. Indeed, before this post-World War II era, the idea of “teenager” as we know it did not exist. Halper’s work literally needles in our culture’s continued fixation on and commodification of teens and tweens. And much in line with Marshall McLuhan’s thesis that, thanks to social networks we are all becoming one global village again, Halper’s discovery of teenagers in their online sanctuaries happened serendipitously after her kids’ friends friended her—and presumably other mothers—on Facebook, the world’s largest social network. Photographs of what happened last weekend, or even just last night, are readily available and even freely offered by teenagers for their entire network to see.

This type of easy access is both a parent’s dream come true and their worst nightmare simultaneously. But is it really teenagers’ fault? Blame it on the medium. Authenticity lies in Halper’s embroideries of fleeting adolescent moments, and are readily depicted through a medium that mother knows best.

—Alicia Eler

Chicago, Illinois

April 2013

Kathy Halper, Family Portrait (in progress)

“World’s Fastest Talker Attempt – 650 WPM” (YouTube video via duh.gurldontbedumb.com)

CHICAGO — What happens when blogs GURLDONTBEDUMB and WEIRD DUDE ENERGY face off in the reblogosphere, dueling it out in a viral battle-of-the-sexes? This post compares these two Tumblrs, both of which index hyper-gendered pop culture tropes, readily spinning off memes for the easy consumption of an A.D.D.-addled web audience.

GURLDONTBEDUMB (GDBD) is comprised of Eileen Mueller and Jamie Steele, two Chicago-based artists who maintain separate practices in addition to this experiment in collaboration. WEIRD DUDE ENERGY, a collaborative Tumblr started in 2008, is run by Los Angeles-based Christine Boepple, a project manager who also runs 22 other Tumblrs, and Kerry McLaughlin, a writer who also works on music videos.

GDBD takes a concerted approach to visual representations of silly, squeamish, and gross girlish excess at its best. The project is neither a feminist response to the amount of misogynistic images found online nor does it cast itself as anti-feminist. It is a curious collection of internet-specific imagery that reflects how users perceive the realm of the “feminine” —  signifying femininity via a gamut of visual referents: cute animals, anything pink, politicians, pop stars, paintings, and YouTube memes.

A collaborative project that operates under a unified curatorial premise both on the Tumblr and offline in art spaces around the Midwest, GDBD is related to co-founder Jamie Steele’s art practice, which satirically subverts feminine stereotypes by using über-blinding, hyper-gendered colors and objects. In her 2012 video, “Buff,” for instance, Steele amplifies the audio on a video of herself rubbing together patent leather neon pink high heels. The result is five nearly-insufferable minutes of that fingers-against-the-chalkboard squeak.

The video is reminiscent of the work of performance artist Kate Gilmore, who dons feminine attire such as a tight dress and immaculate high heels, and then places herself in physically strenuous situations and environments that she must then escape (see Between a Hard Place and My Love is an Anchor). Her work, like Steele’s, comments on the social construction of femininity, and operates in an endurance-based performance space slightly akin to Vito Acconci and Marina Abramovic. However, GDBD extends such metaphors beyond the gallery walls. As a collective, they are interested in the types of visual messages that already exist on the internet, with a tongue-in-cheek nod toward their one-dimensional, oh-so-dumb nature.

The latest internet fodder for comment threads and message boards is Charles Ramsey, a man who helped rescue three Cleveland women who were thought dead more than a decade ago. As of less than 24 hours ago, Ramsey was trending #6 onwhatthetrend.com. Yet watching this video calls to mind the problematic stereotype of the “hilarious black neighbor,” as noted by Slate:

It’s difficult to watch these videos and not sense that their popularity has something to do with a persistent, if unconscious, desire to see black people perform. Even before the genuinely heroic Ramsey came along, some viewers had expressed concern that the laughter directed at people like Sweet Brown plays into the most basic stereotyping of blacks as simple-minded ramblers living in the “ghetto,” socially out of step with the rest of educated America. Black or white, seeing Clark and Dodson merely as funny instances of random poor people talking nonsense is disrespectful at best. And shushing away the question of race seems like wishful thinking.

Ramsey’s awareness of racism in the American media is most definitely clear through this statement, which made the plump white ABC-7 anchorman and everyone else laugh uncomfortably. Says Ramsey when discussing the rescue: “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway!”

Read the full story on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/70642/the-awkward-laughing-moment-of-charles-ramseys-hero-tale/

Philip Toledano, “Monique” (2008) (via mrtoledano.com)

CHICAGO — Move over, John Currin. Your paintings of disproportionate, not symmetrical picture-perfect bodies pale in comparison to the photographs of Philip Toledano, whose images portray women, transgender women and men with extreme cosmetic surgery. As a matter of focus, I’ll only look at images of those who identify in a feminine gendered space.

In our image-oriented consumer culture that places great emphasis on the body yet asks you to indulge every single one of your face-stuffing food fantasies, it’s curious to make a connection between the young-girl tattooing herself as a means of asserting autonomy, whereas the woman undergoes plastic surgery to in fact become “young” again — or at least, in the hopes of looking young again. The transgender woman poses another set of questions around gender; Toledano’s subject “Allanah” identifies as transgender, and has gone through multiple plastic surgeries. Her reasons for going under the knife are not motivated by an interest in recapturing her past as the young-girl, but rather to transform herself, physically. In this case, the term “girl” is used more fluidly, echoing a BuzzFeed interview with trans fashion model Arisce Wanzer who notes that coming out as transgender helped her to “start living as the girl I felt I was.”

Toledano photographs his subjects in classic, art historical poses, borrowing poses from images by Renaissance German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger.

The idea of portraying the older woman modified by plastic surgery yet posing her classically is a curious departure from Dutch artist Hendrik Kerstens’ work, who takes his teenage daughter Paula, who is a ciswoman, as subject matter. She poses with contemporary consumer objects adorning her head and neck — a doilie replaces a ruff, toilet paper rolls replace what would normally be giant, curled white hair. Creating her in an elegant pose, he looks at her as a father and imbued with the light of Dutch master paintings.

Read the full story on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/70581/body-modifications-of-the-woman-born-from-the-young-girl-nsfw/