I worked at Art Chicago for a few years, including the year it moved to the Merchandise Mart. Today it was great to just see the finished product instead of dealing with the behind-the-scenes chaos (which was definitely prevalent before the Mart took over). Today all I had to do was get my VIP pass and enter the show, and look at whatever art I wanted to, without being obligated to anyone to get work done or answer questions.
NEXT has the usual rough, edgy pieces, and even some that seem amateur, insecure, and immature, but there are also a number of works that are quite interesting, deep, and thought-provoking. One piece even made me laugh, and if I can sneak a camera in there, I'm going to try to take a picture of it tomorrow.
The pieces I'm not crazy about are what I call "pop culture redux", where the artist re-interprets or re-packages cultural icons or items, without assigning a "message" to them (though I'm not crazy about stuff that seems too obvious, because then it becomes hyper-conceptual), or simply going for the obtuse to make a non-statement, which really ends up being a statement of detachment and apathy. So whenever I came upon such works, I walked past them, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on their potential "significance" or "relevance".
But there were definitely some works that stood out, and I'm going to go back there tomorrow to get some more details about them to post the info here. Today was just a quick overview, and what I initially saw was a refreshing break from what we usually see outside. Plus, the show is a lot larger than a few years ago, so we can find the gems among some of the shlock.
~Margaret L
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment