SAIC alums showing art and generally raising a ruckus.

While Here In This Place is, intentionally or not, a multi-generational SAIC alum show. The other catch is that all the artists (Cynthia Muir, BFA 1999; Natalia Ivancevich, BFA 2005; Justin Berry, MFA 2007) in this group show use paper (in so many different ways!) as a primary medium in their work. We’re not talking paper dolls here, either; the three artists all create large installations, using light, decay, nature, and, last but not least, paper! On a side note, the gallery’s website also announces that it will be hosting an intriguing-sounding “art hunt” in July, which sounds like a fun and cheap diversion for the dog-days of summer.

May 11 – June 16, 2007
Lloyd Dobler Gallery
1545 W. Division, 2nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60622

Drowning World is Jenny Kendler’s (MFA 2006) first solo show in Chicago. In her first venture at Nova Gallery, Kendler explores the taxonomic connection between humans and nature, through drawings and tiny sculptures and terrariums, putting us in our very own defenseless, drowning world.
May 11 – June 9, 2007
Nova Gallery
840 W. Washington, 2nd floor
Chicago, IL 60607

Beatriz Albuquerque, MFA 2006 will have an exhibition of her drawings up at the Chicago Cultural Center from May 18 – 27th. Albuquerque will also perform her piece Collaboration I, termed “a fascinating sharing of water” at Links Hall on Saturday, May 18th, at 8 pm.

Stuart Keeler, MFA 2005 is riding the “green wave” currently at its high tide in Chicago urban planning/artistic circles with his “sculptural installation and research project,” Urban Warp/Weft, with Amanda Browler. The two also are keeping a blog to record the project. More information is available online through Gallery 400’s website.

April 24 – June 2, 2007
Gallery 400 UIC
400 S. Peoria
Chicago, IL 60607

Bucket Rider Gallery hosts an exhibition of paintings and an installation by Gisela Insuaste, MFA 2003 entitled cuando llegare, (meaning, “when it arrives”). Insuaste asks how we interact with the urban landscapes around us, and how memory and instinct influence how understanding of these spaces. Her deceptively colorful paintings are spare in their delineation of space, allowing for our own insertions of comprehension and spatial creativity.
May 4 – June 9, 2007
Bucket Rider Gallery
835 W. Washington Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60607

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks (and this may be all too likely), you may have missed the all too well deserved media attention paid to Wafaa Bilal, MFA 2003 as he lives in Flatfile Galleries for a month, with a paintball gun aimed at his living space, controlled by random people on the Internet, in his work, Domestic Tension. Bilal is not only an alum but a professor at SAIC. You too can experience the ability to threaten an isolated person (the artist himself), as a metaphor for the United States’ military action on Iraqi civilians, by visiting www.crudeoils.us. Also at Flatfile is Katie Fizdale, BFA 2006’s Penitence, an exhibition of photographs in a space reserved for young and emerging artists.

May 4 to June 15, 2007
FLATFILE
217 N Carpenter
Chicago, Il 6060

Bilal is a busy man these days. With Barbara Koenen, MFA 1989, Bilal will also exhibit in the upcoming show, To Fear or Not to Fear at The Art Center at Highland Park.

June 1 – June 16, 2007
The Art Center at Highland Park
1957 Sheridan Road
Highland Park, IL 60035

Texas in Chicago? You better believe it! It’s happening at (our favorite gallery) Polvo, with the Mighty Fine Arts group show, which is also the name of a three-year old gallery in Dallas. The show is a sampling of some of the young Texas-based artists represented by MFA (the gallery), one of whom is our very own Candace Briceno, MFA (the degree kind) 2002, whose bucolic sculptural objects seem like drug-induced drawings in 3-D.

May 4-May 26, 2007
Polvo
1458 W 18th Street 1R
Chicago, IL 60608

In Tendency To Pile, Jin Lee, MFA 1988 presents photographs of small piles of dirt, sand, and salt found at construction sites, engaging questions of scale, value, and landscape in mundane circumstances. Also at mn Gallery, Melissa Oresky, BFA 1996 is engaging the notion of “pile” as a verb and a noun. Her drawings/collages are made from left-over detritus from her studio and other artworks in progress.

May 11-June 3, 2007
mn Gallery
3524 S. Halsted
Chicago, IL 60609
Saturdays & Sundays 12-5