Your Pal, Cliff presents Westermann with a mix of biography and insight into his craft.  The  show melds together  a mix of art, objects, and archival documents that provide a unique insight into the artists sense of craft, use of materials and decision making process.  The H.C. Westermann Study Collection at the Smart Museum of Art is one of the most significant public collections of artwork and archival material related to Westermann’s life and work.  This is a wonderful view into that collection and is on view now through September 6, 2009.

Curators: Rachel Furnari and Michael Tymkiw

From Smart Museum:

Horace Clifford (H. C.) Westermann (1922–1981) created a meticulously crafted and highly personal body of work that defies easy categorization. He blended imagery born of profound personal experiences—especially apparent in the Death Ship and other motifs related to his searing experiences in World War II—with bawdy, absurd, or unsettling elements from contemporary American material culture. This comprehensive and revealing new exhibition offers fresh insight into the work and life of this singular American artist.

The Smart Museum

Lollapalooza
AUG 7 – 9

Among the accidental thieves was a curator from another Denver museum, Brandl said.

Visitors were encouraged to handle the paintings and several photographs of the event feature people with the pieces casually in hand. Once the thefts were discovered, the museum sent out an email calling for the return of the missing art.

So far, 15 pieces have been returned, some with “letters of deep apology,” Lerner said. The museum is working on identifying and contacting the rest of the art snatchers through taped surveillance of the event.

Brandl said the missing paintings are worth between $300 and $500 each and were already promised to a list of collectors and a final show at another museum.

This couldn’t be a more timely review of heavy weight constructivists at a time when the term, and meaning of the movement are constantly being thrown around (See Shepard Fairey/ObamArt).  The ideas of constructivism are often not sited directly as the movement itself and ideas behind it are often lost in the coopting of the term for the needed purpose.  That’s precisely what makes the Tate show so special.  You can see first hand, what the movement was about, how it was embodied in these two leading figures and how its spirit was defined by the philosophy that drove this work.

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The Constructivists challenged the idea of the work of art as a unique commodity, explored more collective ways of working, and looked at how they could contribute to everyday life through design, architecture, industrial production, theatre and film.  In addition, constructivists sought to speak directly to the ‘common man’  and give something tangible through art to everyone.

Of course, one might argue that figuration and representation are a more common language than abstraction, but constructivism at its core has a rather Utopian world view.  A new Russian Utopia, rising from the ashes of its past.

For more info on this be sure to check out the Tate exhibit in person or online here.

There are also some good articles on the subject here:

Two Coats of Paint

The Times UK

The Times Waldemar Januszczak

Colescott’s work employs a wonderful sense of perspective and narrative that belies its simple drawing style and overt childlike cartoonish treatment.  His paintings are snapshots of historical events, places, re-creations of famous paintings, or creations based on politics, current events and perhaps mixed with  his own fantasy.  They are incredibly facinating narritives, packed with insight, historical detail that allow you to revist these works over and over and find something new.

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Bio from Annex Galleries

Warrington Colescott was born in Oakland, California in 1921. His parents, Warrington, Sr. and Lydia Colescott moved to Oakland from Louisiana in 1920. Earning his B.A. and M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, he continued with studies at the Grande Chaumiere, Paris, and the Slade School of Art, London. He received prestigious fellowships with a Guggenheim in 1959, followed by a Fulbright in 1966, and National Endowments for the Art Artists Fellowships in 1976, 1979, and 1983.

Colescott was a Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin at Madison between 1949 and 1978 and was named Professor Emeritus in 1986. His early graphics were abstractions created in the medium of serigraphy. By the early 1960s he turned his focus on intaglio printmaking and his imagery evolved into social satire and commentary. He has produced a number of narrative satires, including one on the history of printmaking.

Perimiter Gallery
210 W. Superior Street, Chicago, IL 60654
(312)266-9473   fax: (312)266-7984
Tue-Sat    10:30am-5:30pm

For some insight into the “Not What You Think” campaign, take a look at their flickr page

From the Reader by Alison True

The Bird Machine’s Jay Ryan will be on the panel judging the Chicago Public Library’s design contest. The library’s trolling for a poster to promote its new url, chipublib.org, and its Not What You Think campaign, which the library says “challenges perceptions and highlights the library’s less well-known free services such as music and audiobook downloads, new release DVDs, and free Wi-Fi.”

Entrants need to be “residents of the Chicagoland area eligible for a Chicago Public Library card.” Click here for the rest of the offical rules of entry.

And for profiles of many of the artists who could enter, and samples of their work, here’s a screenprinting scene roundup by Liz Armstrong.

January 30 to April 27, 2009 Eero Saarinen was one of the most prolific, unorthodox, and controversial architects of the twentieth century. By exploring Saarinen’s entire output of more than fifty built and proposed projects–including St. Louis’s iconic Gateway Arch–Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future will be the first opportunity to understand the architect’s collective work in the larger context of postwar modern architecture through full-scale mock-ups and a selection of drawings, models, photographs, films, and other ephemera. Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future features materials offering an in-depth look at Saarinen’s greatest designs, which encompassed a varied range of architectural scales–lighting, furniture, prefabricated elements, curtain wall systems, residences, religious and educational buildings, corporate headquarters, airports, campus and community designs, and urban planning. Deploying progressive construction techniques and a highly personal, exuberant, and at times metaphorical aesthetic, Saarinen’s work defied modernist orthodoxies and gave form to the postwar American ideal of an open-ended society of unbounded choice and diversityan ideal that persists to this day. The exhibition reveals facets of the architect’s diverse network of friends, family, and colleagues. Film, press clippings, documents, and photographs by Ezra Stoller and Balthazar Korab will paint a portrait of a man guided by a vision of modern life as a constant collaborative dialogue infused with clear purpose.

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Related Information
1,000 Arches Video Project >>
Share your unique perspective on the Gateway Arch!
Educational Resources >>

From ArtForum:

In an era when designers of all stripes are mining the relationship between sophisticated technologies and architectural form, the resurgence of interest in midcentury modernist Eero Saarinen should come as no surprise. In his day Saarinen was often seen as an eclectic, and many of his iconic works, from the TWA terminal at JFK airport (1962) to the ubiquitous Womb Chair (1948), deployed cutting-edge technology to produce expressive, mathematically rigorous, curvilinear buildings and furniture that defied high-modernist orthodoxies. The Minnesota iteration of this major traveling retrospective (Saarinen’s first) will span the galleries of two institutions, offering viewers a unique opportunity to engage the complete oeuvre of this great master of both the ars and the techne of architecture. Also on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

— Kevin Pratt

Their current project was commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.  The Screen Tests are silent film portraits that Andy Warhol shot at the Factory between 1964 and 1966. The subjects – both famous and anonymous – were visitors to Warhol’s studio.

The live show is a multi-media presentation, where Dean and Britta perform onstage with their band ( Anthony Lamarca and Matt Sumrow), while the Warhol films are projected overhead. 13 Most Beautiful… will be released on DVD by Plexifilm in April, 2009.

From Chicago MCA website

Indie pop darlings Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips bring their languid lyrics and hypnotic harmonies to Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, rarely seen silent film portraits of fixtures of the 1960s New York art scene, including many well known celebrities such as Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, and Baby Jane Holzer. This multimedia performance features large-scale video projections with live music by Dean & Britta and their band.

Dean & Britta
13 Most Beautiful… Songs from Andy Warhol’s ‘Screen Tests’
March 7, 2009
New show added

Saturday, March 7, 7:30 pm  SOLD OUT
Saturday, March 7, 10 pm

Tickets $25, MCA members $20
Buy Tickets Online

Needless to say, he’s an incredibly interesting character and as a bonus, he’s got some really great art too.  Surprisingly, there’s a good amount of info online about the artist.  Its hard to tell where fact and fiction overlap, diverge and even fade into fantasy.  A line the artist was very careful in blurring.

Check out the show at PS.1

A good New York Times article from 1990 at Gino

Gino De Dominicis: Invisibility and Immortality

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Bio

Gino De Dominicis was born in 1947 in Ancona, Italy and lived in Rome until his death in 1998. He had many solo exhibitions, including Galleria L’Attico, Rome, Italy (1970, 1971, 1974); Galleria Pieroni, Roma (1979); Galleria Pio Monti, Rome (1977, 1980); Galleria Toselli, Milan (1995); Galleria Mazzoli, Modena (1998);  Palazzo Taverna, Rome, Italy (1972, 1977); Galleria Lia Rumma, Naples, Italy (1988); The Murray and Isabella Rayburn Foundation, New York, NY (1989); Centre National d’Art Contemporaine, Grenoble, France (1990); His work has been included in group shows, including Biennale Internatzionale della Giovane Pittura, Bologna, Italy (1970); VII Biennale de Paris, Parc Floral de Paris, Bois de Vincennes, Paris (1971) ; Documenta V, Kassel, Germany (1972); 8th Biennale de Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville et Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (1973); Italy two: Art around ’70, Museum of Philadelphia Civic Center, Philadelphia (1973); Prospectretrospect Europe 1946-1976, Stadtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, Germany (1976); 40th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (1980); Identité italienne, l’art en Italie depuis 1959, Centre George Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (1981);Fiera d’Arte Contemporanea Internazionale, Milan, Italy (1988); 44th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (1990); 45th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (1995); 47th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (1997).

If you’re in the area and want to see one of the best bands to ever rock the U.S. by way of Sweden, come on out and join the party.  TSOOL puts on a great show, and if want to know more about them, just google them already.   They are supporting their new album, Communion, and will be performing one night only. 

Here’s a recent video release by the band for a Sister Surround, featured on Behind the Music.

the band website

http://www.doubledoor.com/

Friday 13 March 2009 at 9:00pm