Proximity Release Party

Proximity magazine will release issue 003 tonight at the Post Family's space The Family Room in the West Loop. Proximity is a Chicago-based art and culture magazine covering artists, issues and spaces worldwide. If the first two issues were any indication this new one should be just as great.

Friday, December 12, 2008,
7:00 PM - 12:00 AM
At The Family Room
1821 W Hubbard St #202
312.265.6406
$5 cover ($10 gets you an issue of Proximity issue #003 and a complimentary drink).

Santa's Village Part 2...New and Improved! Now with More Santas!

I know nothing about this but it looks like it'll be fun.

Opening Friday, December 12, 2008 6 to 10pm
The Compound
1914 S Jefferson
Chicago, IL

Sacrificial Love Society

Stephen J & M Palmer (the J & M stand for Jesus and Mary) spent the last years of his life in the 1950's creating devotional works portraying Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and illustrations of Christian symbols and saints.

From the gallery's site: Stephen Palmer produced a massive record of Christian faith in the guise of roughly 400 known and recently discovered gouache paintings on paper. As private devotional works, the demonstrate the layered complexity and subversive potential of religious imager. As artifacts uncovered, they speak about an era. As a collective effort, they hold clues to reconstructing the psychology and motivations of an individual driven by an obsessive-compulsive mysticism.



You can see images of the other pieces here.

There'll be an opening reception tonight Friday, December 12, 2008 from 5:30 to 8pm at
Carl Hammer Gallery
740 N Wells
Chicago, IL

The exhibition runs through January 31st, 2009

Ulf Puder at Kavi Gupta Gallery

German artist Ulf Puder has an art opening tonight at Kavi Gupta Gallery in the West Loop. Paintings of partially destroyed structures and roadways suggest the aftermath of floods and other natural disasters.

Opening reception 5 to 8pm
Friday December 12, 2008
Kavi Gupta Gallery
835 W Washington
2nd floor
Chicago, IL

The show runs through January 31, 2009

No End In Sight

Curatorial Practice students from the School of the Art Institute have put together a show of work by artists who are working on projects without definite endings.

This exhibition explores works that are perpetual in nature, including works that have an undefined or unreachable endpoint; series composed of multiples the artist is compelled to continue; and projects that incorporate viewer participation as a way to continue regeneration of the piece. Blurring the borders between life and artistic practice, selected artworks provoke the audience to consider art as an ongoing process, as opposed to a static event.

Some of the artists include Sighn, presenting his ongoing "IT'S OK" wood pieces which he is creating in an edition of one million, Josue Pellot Gonzalez, who will have a coin operated machine displaying mini representations of his family as "Boricuas" in toy form, Burtonwood and Holmes, who create art based on war and consumerism, and Tim Pannell's gun project where he's been making one woodblock print of a handgun to represent each murder victim in Philadelphia.




The show is being held in the SAIC's Sullivan Galleries which is their new space downtown in the former Carson, Pirie, & Scott building on State St. Check out the show's comprehensive site here.

No End in Sight
From December 13, 2008 to January 10, 2009,

Exhibition Reception:
Friday, December 12, 4:30 p.m.
Performance of ks rives and Nicole Kenney’s Before I Die I Want To…

Public Event:
Saturday, December 13, 2 p.m.
Folding party and “Infinite Change” panel discussion

Sullivan Galleries
Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
33 S. State Street, 7th Floor
Chicago, IL
312.629.6635

Just Ain't Gonna Work Out

I'm really digging this new track by Michigan's Mayer Hawthorne & The County on Stones Throw. And it's on a red heart-shaped vinyl record! LImited to 1,000 copies, it's currently still available here.

Tambourine Solo: Take One

Cody Hudson, aka Struggle, Inc, has a new installation opening this Friday at Andrew Rafacz Gallery. Intended as a preview of his two-story exhibition coming up in 2009 at the Hyde Park Art Center, this show features a sculptural piece made up of tambourines and found objects entitled Too Late to Keep the Change, Too Late to Pay. There will also be two video screens to complete the show featuring "themes of hopefulness, euphoria, and doom" backed by a music piece by Caural (Zachary Mastoon).



















Cody Hudson - Tambourine Solo: Take One
Opening reception 5 to 8 pm, Friday, December 12, 2008
Andrew Rafacz Gallery
835 W Washington (in the West Loop)
Chicago, IL

The show will be up through January 24, 2009

Under the Boardwalk

Chicago artist Andrew St. Lawrence has been out in California this month working on some new paintings. Here's a selection of his recent nautical themed work.

Collage of four different glacier paintings, by Andrew St Lawrence.

Other recent paintings include this piece from his Coney Island series...

Sam's Red Hots, by Andrew St Lawrence.

....as well as this new still life.


You can check out more of his work at www.andrewstlawrence.com

Have Yourself a Very Skullphone Christmas

I was happy to see that The Upset's Nicky Dieter caught a picture of a huge Skull Phone wheatpaste by Spazmat in Chicago as well as a Pegasus piece. I've enjoyed seeing Skull Phones in New York the past few years ranging in size from small stickers on store rolldown gates to huge street pieces so it's great to see his presence here.

The photo at the top is of a series of glass ornaments Spazmat had available on his site. It looks like they're sold out but there's plenty of other goodies to be had on there for the streetart nerd in your life.

2333 Skull Phone, Photographed in LA by speedgrafer.

There's an interview with Skullphone/Spazmat here.

El Diablo Loves You

NY-based artist and DJ Robbie Busch, aka McBoingBoing will have a show of new paintings and resin figures opening tonight at Rotofugi.







Robbie Busch El Diablo Loves You
Opening reception Friday, December 5, 2008 6 to 9pm at
Rotofugi
1953-55 W Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL

The show runs through December 20th, 2008.

MIreya Acierto at Looseleaf Lounge

Photographer Mireya Acierto will have an opening tonight at the Looseleaf Lounge. Mireya has an excellent eye for portraiture and photojournalism. I've been really happy to see her work pop up all over the place over the years including in URB, XLR8R, and Time Out Chicago magazines.







Mireya Acierto
6:30 to 9pm Friday, December 5, 2008 at
Looseleaf Lounge
2915 N Broadway
Chicago, IL

BFF & Pizza Dog in Miami

Chicago's Pooper will be performing with her BFF project tomorrow Saturday in Miami. Art Basel is going on out there right now and with it are a million fun side events.

BFF & Pizza Dog
11pm Saturday, December 6th, 2008
at White Room
1306 Miami Ave
Miami, Florida

32nd & Urban moves forward

Bridgeport based gallery 32nd & Urban, in Chicago's south side, is feeling the pressure from the new police station being built across the street from their space on Halsted. After two years full of many great art shows they've decided to move on. From the words of the gallery...

This doesn't mean 32nd&urban is dead. We are very much alive. Peter Kepha and Lauren Pacheco will be keeping Urban alive. They have been scouting alternative locations and playing around with non-traditional gallery exhibition opportunities among other special projects like publications and arts programming.

In the mean time there'll be a closing party at their space this coming Saturday, December 6th, 2008 from 10 pm to 3 am with live art painting. DJ's TREW, INTEL, and PICKEL will perform.

Mess Hall gets Organized

Mess Hall, in Rogers Park, has a show opening tonight called Collections and Archives as a Creative Practice. Mess Hall is an arts space that's been open for several years now hosting all kinds of lectures, exhibitions, workshops, and events.

Info from Mess Hall...

The collecting and/or archiving of objects and information has emerged as a vital creative cultural practice. "Collections and Archives as a Creative Practice" presents the final projects of grad students from this University of Illinois at Chicago seminar that was team taught by Marc Fischer and Randall Szott.

Included are works in a great variety of formats and themes by:

Adam Farcus, Adam Trowbridge, Alejandro Borsani, Andrew Oleksiuk, Erica Moore, Erik Peterson, Faheem Majeed, Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford, Jesse Mclean, Jose Velazco, Maria Gaspar, Maria Jonsson, Mary Robnett, Michael Sirianni, Nicholas Wylie, Olivia Ciummo, Orson Panetti, Rachael Stine, Rebecca Grady, Ryan Murray, and Yuko Kato.

Among the many subjects of these collections, archives and projects: video store identification labels on old used VHS tapes, concert set lists, artists' stamps that have made it through the mail, documentation of empty Chicago storefronts that are available for lease, a massive trove of KISS concert and TV appearances on VHS, examples of "The End" title screens from a large array of old films, documentation of crushed "Crush" cans, African-American G.I. Joe toys, collected regrets by numerous mail respondents, and dozens of representations of Geishas.

An extensive free publication will be available at Mess Hall to accompany the exhibition.



Mess Hall
6932 N Glenwood, 1/2 block south of the Red Line Morse station entrance
Chicago
(773) 465-4033