Cleveland SGS

, originally uploaded by ClevelandSGS.

Cleveland, Ohio collective Cleveland SGS will have a show opening tonight at the Asterisk Gallery. Cleveland SGS anonymously documents the retail and cultural history of Cleveland by photographing people, signage, and buildings throughout the city.

Friday, November 14th, 2008
Asterisk Gallery
2393 Professor Ave
Cleveland, Ohio

BFF at Darkroom

Chicago's BFF will be performing next week as part of the Cease to Resist night at Darkroom.

BFF is a performance project composed of Hunter Husar of Mahjongg and Pooper (Elisa Harkins) mixing music and video to create a fuzzy wuzzy dance party.

Do the Ham Dance with Pooper's Yeti and Polar Bear characters here...


Wednesday November 19th 9pm
$7 21+
Darkroom
2210 W Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL

Chris Kerr's Amphisbaena in Beasts! Book 2

Chris Kerr has just completed prints of an Amphisbaena, a mythological creature which is said to have spawned from the blood of the Gorgon Medusa's head. The print will be part of the Beasts! Book 2 show curated by Jacob Covey at Fantagraphic's Seattle store and gallery in anticipation of the release of their new book. Beasts! Book 2 will have illustrations of mythological creatures that are claimed to have been spotted by one civilization or another over the years. Over 90 artists are taking part in this sequel to the first Beasts! book.


December 13, 2008 6 to 9 pm
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 South Vale Street (at Airport Way S.)
Seattle, WA

ITS OK Slim Limb Edition

Chicago's Sighn and Chris Kerr have teamed up to create this year's must have Secret Santa present. An edition of 50 ITS OK's hand painted with the faces of people you may or may not know. Each ITS OK comes with its own silkscreened "bed". You can also obtain a print containing all six bed options for your ITS OK's pleasure.

ITS OK is a phrase cut out of wood by Sighn in a limited numbered edition of one million. Sighn has surpassed the 2,500 mark and estimates that it will take him approximately 50 years to complete the edition. Get one before they're gone! You don't want to be art patron #1,000,001 and walk away dejected and empty-handed.


The ITS OK collaboration released today was produced for the cover of Argentinian art magazine Atypica and is available at Multi Polar Projects.

Ben Jones goes solo

Ben Jones, 1/3 of the art collective Paper Rad, has just released a book of his work. Published by Picture Box, Ben Jones: Painting and Drawing features his striking art as well as several pages of pencil drawings at the end that prove his work doesn't just come out fully formed from a computer.

The Exquisite City

Curator Kathleen Judge has put together a huge cardboard city featuring work by over 40 artists. Artists were invited to create their own buildings and city blocks out of cardboard and other materials which all come together tonight into one united city. The show will be up in the Viaduct's 3,000 square foot space. This sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun to check out.

The Exquisite City at The Viaduct Theatre
3111 N Western Ave (1/2 block south of Belmont)
Chicago, IL

The opening is tonight Friday November 7th from 6pm to midnight and will continue through December 12th, 2008 More info at their site www.exquisitecity.com

Everything Fails: Mike Budai at Rotofugi

Pittsburgh's Mike Budai will have an opening tonight at Rotofugi featuring new paintings and screenprints.

Rotofugi
1955 W Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL

November 7th, 2008 6 to 9 pm.
Show runs through November, 29, 2008
The artist will be in attendance

Edra Soto at Rowland Contemporary

Edra's got a show of new work up tonight at Rowland Contemporary. From their site...

Puerto Rican pop cultural references abound in Edra Soto's continuing examination of Iris Chacon, the iconic 1970's Puerto Rican television star. The Chacon-Soto Show: Featuring 'The Greatest Companions' examines the role of the once immensely popular Chacon, whose highly sexual personae, provocative dancing and amateurish singing combined to become a high-camp Las Vegas-style revue, complete with backup male dancers.

Soto captures Chacon's celebrated role through a series of gouache paintings, reappropriated plastic toys, and simplified stage sets designed to emulate the campy styling of her television show. The paintings capture Chacon as she was on stage, outlandish and bawdy, and always with her dancers. Here the dancers are rendered with gorilla-like masks or even as gorillas which are meant to diminish the abhorrent male archetype to secondary status. In some instances Soto replaces Chacon herself, a doppelganger of sorts, in an attempt to assume the role of the Latina in popular media and the seemingly endless need for self-overexposure. One can only ask, just who is the beauty and who is the beast?

I really loved this painting she had up at the Co-Prosperity Sphere earlier this year....



I really enjoy the varied work she produces. She had a huge installation several years ago at POLVO Gallery composed of hundreds of large milagros she'd made out of tin featuring contemporary objects instead of the traditional hearts or other body parts that milagros usually represent.

November 7 - December 13, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, November 7, 2008, 6-9pm
Gallery Hours: Friday - Saturday, 11a.m - 5 p.m. or by appointment
Rowland Contemporary
1118 W Fulton Market
Chicago, IL

Peanut Butter Wolf at the BK Studio

Yeah, yeah, yeah it's Burger King's street art cred art thingy space but at least they've been bringing some great artists in there. Tonight's a free show featuring Peanut Butter Wolf (who plays really great sets) and Chicago's DJ Intel as well as new art by TEWZ, REVISE CMW, Artillery, Flip, Toxik, and Yunicorn.

First

I just came back from voting at 6 in the morning. There were already 20 people ahead of me when I got there before the polls opened. Everyone was in a good mood. I'm just glad that this 8-year long mess is almost over and that we're finally going to have someone intelligent and levelheaded in office. It seems like Obama is really going to win but I won't breathe a sigh of relief until it's over. Here's hoping that all goes well today.

By the way, the print above is by Chicago's Ray Nolan, aka CRO. It's available on his site www.gotellmama.org Ray has truly been in this for the long haul. He independently began creating Obama posters and putting them up around Chicago in the fall of 2006, long before Obama was a household name in the rest of the country. Seeing his efforts manifest themselves both on the internet and on the street these past two years have made me happy and given me hope that this could really happen. Thanks Ray.

Vote Baby, Vote

I remember when Deee-lite put out this short video for Rock the Vote in 1992. I was always happy to hear something new from them. Even if it was only 35 seconds long.

Three Chicago Art Shows today

Today​'​s the last day for my show,​ FOTOF​LOW,​ at the Believe Inn from noon to 6 pm. The Belie​ve Inn is at 2043 N Winch​ester​ in Chica​go'​s Buckt​own neigh​borho​od.​ One block​ north​ of Armit​age and one block​ east of Damen​.​ Come see what made the Chicago Police Department say "what is this?"
Leftover Hallo​ween candy​ and Coca-​Cola in littl​e glass​ bottl​es will be serve​d.​




Painter and graffiti artist CHUCHO will be presenting his show Day of the Dead at the Montana Shop and Gallery, 417 Harrison St in Oak Park. The opening is tonight from 6 to 9 pm.

Also,​ tonig​ht is the only showi​ng for "​Slate​d for Demol​ition​"​ a huge 2 floor​ galle​ry show showc​asing​ photographs of Chica​go'​s forgo​tten struc​tures​ and peopl​e by REBRUM.​ It's from 7 to 11 pm at the Black​ Walnu​t Galle​ry,​ 212 N Aberd​een St. Aberd​een is 6 block​s west of Halst​ed,​ betwe​en Fulto​n Marke​t St & Lake St. in the West Loop/​Greek​town neigh​borho​od.​

Hope to see you at some point today or tonight if you can make it!

Fire cloud....

Photograph by delicious soup on Flickr.

....floating by dispensing evil cloud justice.

Jenny Holzer projections

From the Museum of Contemporary Art's site...

For the first time in Chicago, artist Jenny Holzer presents a series of temporary outdoor projection works in conjunction with the exhibition Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT. Texts selected by Holzer, who is renowned for her compelling use of language in public space, will be projected on the facade of the MCA Thursday and Friday, October 30th & 31st. Projections will begin after dark and will conclude before midnight. There will also be three projections on public buildings around Chicago:
Saturday, Nov 1: Lyric Opera and Riverside Plaza
Sunday, Nov 2: Tribune Tower
Monday, Nov 3: Merchandise Mart

Get Your War On tonight

Cartoonist David Rees will be reading from his new book collecting all of his Get Your War On comics which dissect the screwed-up path our country has gone down including our current endless war. Spanning the years 2001 to 2008 Get Your War On is created with a palette of old corporate clip art paired with angry, yet funny, dialogue.

He started out about eight years ago with the comic strips My Fighting Technique is Unstoppable and its follow-up, My Filing Technique is Unstoppable. The characters in My Filing Technique is Unstoppable then moved on to become Get Your War On where David began tackling the absurdity of the current war in Iraq as well as the other crap this current adminstration has brought upon us. I was really happy to see his cartoon get picked up by Rolling Stone magazine several years ago because that meant that his point of view was going to be shared with a much larger audience.

He's started posting videos like this one [NSFW]

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

on his site www.mnftiu.com

David will be reading from his work tonight, Tuesday, October 28th at the Second City's E.T.C Theater in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood at 1608 N Wells. The event is free and begins at 7 p.m.

Author John Hodgman, who plays the "PC" character in the recent series of Apple computer commercials, will be reading from his new book as well. More Information Than You Require is a sequel to his previous book, The Areas of My Expertise.

Here's John recommending David's new book...