courtesy of the Renaissance Society

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Just before last Sunday’s opening of Cathy Wilkes’s exhibit “I Give You All My Money,” Renaissance Society staff briefly convened to determine where the installation’s borders were supposed to lay. One staff member suggested that gallery-goers should be permitted to step over the small purple roses scattered on the floor. Another staffer agreed, but suggested using the disintegrating pink rubber mat as a limit. Guests could approach the small pile of matted hair and shattered pottery on the floor, but probably should not go behind the abandoned counters of the supermarket conveyor belt.

As anticipated, the boundary between art and gallery space was re-drawn as each viewer interacted with the piece. One man bent down to pick up a rose and was promptly informed that touching was not allowed. Later, a young girl gleefully approached a stovetop and reached for a worn plastic fawn resting atop the burners—only to be reminded by her mother that she shouldn’t grab at the toy because “this is art.”

“I Give You All My Money,” nominated for the Tate Modern’s prestigious Turner Prize in 2008, certainly defies any singular reading. Painted mannequins draped with rags are juxtaposed with food containers with crusty residues of marmalade and porridge, creating a scene with an uncertain narrative. “I am not interested in trying to be objective in a work of art,” Wilkes said in a talk with curator Hamza Walker last Sunday. “There isn’t a point to thinking what somebody else might think as I’m working.”

Though scattered bowls, an old stroller, a stove, and the exhibit’s title certainly address the issues of consumerism and womanhood, the objects in her installation do not insist on a singular interpretation. Wilkes says she was inspired by the notion of attention, “a contemplative openness without any thoughts, a non-aggressive thinking.”

In creating “I Give You All My Money” Wilkes says she drew from her own experience as a woman, a mother, and a Christian. Repeated motifs in the installation raise some objects to icon status, serving as vehicles of communion for their viewers. “There is a type of presence in repeated actions,” she explained in the talk with Walker. The image of a basket, for example, is included both in the form of a birdcage hung over a mannequin’s head and as a shopping basket, which serve as signs of entrapment in the role of a homemaker. Yet, according to Wilkes, it also references the basket Jochebed used to send Moses down the Nile representing the ultimate maternal sacrifice.

As viewers contemplated the installation components of “I Give You All My Money,” three untitled paintings lay on a wooden table on the other end of the gallery, largely ignored. The small canvases, abstract compositions with colorful undulating lines and amorphous forms, displayed a thick buildup of paint, smeared like mud on the image surface. Though these paintings seemed at first a far cry from the other symbolic objects in the exhibition, their placement on a table suggested that they, too, should be viewed as objects rather than fine art. But as Wilkes discussed how her paintings would accumulate layers of detritus from use as impromptu notepads and coasters, the paintings began to emerge as readymades in their own right.

By taking objects out of her own life—whether pots, pans, or paintings—and inserting them into the sterile “white cube” of the gallery space, Wilkes successfully transforms them. A viewer can recognize the objects as functional or sentimental reminders of home, but the desire to touch and use them is blocked by their status as art. “A feeling of alienation or not alienation with objects is important,” Wilkes says, later adding, “I was putting them inside a cosmic space, apart from the physical world we live in.” By suspending quotidian objects in a realm of contemplation and confusion, Wilkes encourages her viewers to reconsider the relationships and borders between people, objects, and the art we often take for granted.

The Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Avenue. Through Mar. 4, 2012, Tuesday-Friday, 10am-5pm; Saturday-Sunday: 12-5pm. (773)702-8670. renaissancesociety.org

Sasha Tycko

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Clad in sequined jackets, thick-framed glasses, animal prints, and the like, Chicago’s hippest 20-somethings came out for a night of art and beer at the Octagon Gallery’s latest show last Friday. Housed at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport, the venue offered an ideal scene for people-watching, which was fitting (and a bit ironic) for the closing reception of “Society of the Spectacular.” The exhibit takes its name from Guy Debord’s 1967 “Society of the Spectacle,” a Marxist meditation on society’s obsession with illusions. His definition of the spectacle as “not a collection of images,” but “a social relation between people that is mediated by images” was an appropriate theme for the night.

The lively show overwhelmed the small space. Vibrant canvases, television sets, and a video game competed for viewers’ attention. The overload of images and sounds underscored the idea that we live in an overblown, spectacular society. Works made by over nine artists were on display, all of which confronted the tensions of living in a digital world and its effect on our perception of reality. Throughout the night videos playing loud rock music were projected onto the far wall. From 7-9pm, two artists played music from turntable.fm and various Internet DJs, followed by a live broadcast of local band American Draft playing from an Andersonville studio. For the final hours of the event, the band Volcano took the stage in front of a webcam that was hooked up to Chatroulette. The digital element of the music was a consistent motif throughout the exhibit.

“I tried to choose artwork that had a skeptical and curious take on our digitally mediated experiences,” said Octagon Gallery curator Jake Myers.

Myers noted that the exhibit wasn’t meant to be a condemnation of today’s society: “Instead of simply pathologizing these digital trends,” he said, “I just wanted people to step back and think about them in a different light.” In one piece, entitled “Mashup,” Doug Smithenry painted still frames of YouTube videos in which individuals came out of the closet. In his work, the Internet is seen taking on a supportive and protective role, qualities not often attributed to the World Wide Web.

Humor played a role in many of the other works. Eric Fleischauer’s digitally altered photograph “Universal Paramount” replaced Los Angeles’s famed “HOLLYWOOD” sign with the word “YOUTUBE.” Several other artists contributed irreverent MS Paint printouts, one simply of a cat saying “Meow.”

Despite the heavy message of Debord’s book, the light mood suggested that the show intended to disorient rather than attack, illuminate rather than disapprove. It encouraged people to be skeptics of society, not cynics.

One of the highlights of the show was “Marco Solo,” an interactive piece commissioned for the show that rendered a startling intersection between digital and analog life. Created by Aaron Orsini and Adam Rux, two wicker basket-turned headpieces were worn by gallerygoers. Inside these odd helmets the wearers stared at an iPad, which streamed a live feed of their surroundings. Literally forced to experience life through a screen, people stumbled around the space, groping at their friends as they tried to orient themselves.

“You put on the helmets and immediately when you’re with another person the first impulse is to look them in the face and try to touch their hand,” said Rux. “In the digital sphere you don’t have that, you don’t have an obvious person to grab hold of.”

The artists began by putting the iPads inside empty PBR boxes and staggering around Orsini’s apartment. They eventually settled on the wicker baskets because, as they explained, an artisanal craft like basket-weaving was one of the most analog tasks they could think of. The idea of a tangible product is nonexistent in a digital world. By producing something physical, they attempted to resolve the gap between virtual reality and our physical lives. “It’s almost like an homage to real life,” Orsini said. Their work uncovered the inhuman aspect of a society consumed with digital spectacle. “After we spent so much time in these helmets,” Orsini continued, “We were like, I hate digital. I hate it all. I just want to be able to look you in the eye, talk to you straightforward, and touch your hand.”

Upon stepping into the exhibit’s space at the back of the gallery, the viewer is at once struck with the skin-crawling beauty of the objects spread throughout the room. Centered on a pedestal in the middle of Marenco’s room is a pretty piece of old metal craft: a small iron resting upright, its petite grip still attached to the body. But the familiar domesticity comes with a dark underside: a litter of metal spikes rise out of its bottom, facing the doorway. This piece, “Homage to Man Ray,” directly recalls the work of the well-known surrealist, who also stuck nails into an old iron and called the new, unusable object “Cadeau” (Gift). Those frightening spikes recur throughout Marenco’s show, throwing off the comfort found in ordinary household articles and inviting dark and disturbing connections.

Deeper into the room, along the dark painted walls and seated on another low pedestal, is an expertly crafted hobbyhorse—or rather, a hobby-bull—titled “The Little Bull for the Baby Pain.” A cute and lovely display of woodwork; but, there again, a host of masochistic spikes jut out from the seat of the plaything. Similar in both prickliness and material, a piece titled “The Last Step,” is fastened onto the dark-blue wall next to the bull. A pleasant match, the inside of this open-faced shoebox is a weathered pair of loafers turned toes-to-the-ground, their insides filled to the brim with the spiny “gumballs” of sweet gum-trees. Perhaps the most discomforting intervened item, though, is “Toothbrush,” a smooth white wooden brush with teeth growing out from where the bristles should be.

Marenco constantly plays with the tension between daily comforts and the uncanny nastiness they obscure. There’s an undeniable, creepy comedy to all of it. In this exhibit, he riffs on puns at one moment (“Toothbrush,” for instance), and revels in absurdity the next, as in “Hairball Machine,” a rusted gumball machine filled with tangles of the artist’s girlfriend’s actual hair). The viewer’s gut reaction to all of these surreal pairings is a combination of a scoff and shudder. But under the surface of these works, which evoke art movements of years past, is also a distinct, personal experience—a story of the artist himself.

Marenco manipulates many childhood staples in “Objetos Intervenidos,” but the ones central to the artist’s own memory seem to be placed in the limelight. “Slingshot for an Altarboy,” for example, transforms a rosary into a slingshot with a leather-strap and a T-bone handle. Next to it hangs “The Voice of Silence,” a corroded tin lid with the silhouette of the Virgin Mary in its center, recalling traditional portraiture in a striking, almost perverse way. Both works reinforce an understanding of the artist’s childhood under Mexican Catholicism, but “Objetos Intervenidos” unfolds for the viewers, allowing them to dredge out buried thoughts. These items of mixed-together elements and odd material house the pains of childhood, both personal and universal, well addressed or still unresolved. With some strange pleasure, they at last pull back the veil on absurd connections that sprout up there. Or so said the umbrella to the ironing board.

33 Contemporary at Zhou B. Art Center, 1029 W. 35th St. Through February 11. Monday-Thursday, 10am-5pm; Friday, 10am-7pm; also by appointment. Free. (708)837-4534. 33collective.com

Fast-forward five years and it seems that this artistic ménage à trois has disbanded.

In preparation for his debut at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in the West Loop, Butzer gave a presentation last Wednesday at the Cochrane-Woods Art Center that demonstrated a reactionary shift in his style.

In the dim light, Butzer gripped the lectern, a cable-knit cardigan draped over his thin shoulders. “I have something entertaining for you,” he began, “something that is entertaining for both you and for myself.” Appearing before the crowd in round wire glasses, corduroys, and a striped polo shirt tucked conspicuously into Jockey boxer briefs, the artist looked like a more stylish Buster Bluth. He removed a stack of folded paper and explained he would read lines from the writings of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus—first in German, and then in English—in conjunction with slide images of his work. “So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.” The audience perked up their ears in anticipation.

He paused and flicked on the projector to reveal an image of one of his paintings: smoke gray with two rectangular outlines encroaching on one another.

“The sun is wide as a human’s foot,” he read. After clicking for the next slide, Butzer slowly turned over a new sheet from his stack of paper.

“If everything that exists should become smoke, even nostrils would still distinguish it.” The audience squirmed as he deliberately read the phrase forcefully in German, paused for effect, then repeated the phrase in English.

Butzer’s recitation held the audience in rapt puzzlement. Each slide deviated only slightly from the ones preceding it—a slight thickening of the ubiquitous black rectangles, a miniscule variation in the gray hues.

These paintings are nothing like the vibrant cartoon-like work he completed in the mid-2000s. In fact, it seemed as though his work had undergone a complete genre swap: Butzer’s self-proclaimed “Science Fiction Expressionism” now reads as stark non-fiction. But Butzer insisted, “I see [the paintings] as similar to everything I did before. [The audience] should react and be irritated by it.”

The exhaustive exploration of the formal black and gray paintings is essential to Butzer’s artistic process. “If it seems familiar to you then it’s new…[The repetition] is how you can get closer to the birthplace of painting.”

When asked about his shift in aesthetic, he answered without batting a lash: “I wanted to escape the dualism of polychromatic and monochromatic.” He looked at the projector screen, and said, “These works inhabit color. They are primary colors living in the painting inside—not being added on the surface.” The audience gazed blankly at the flat gray paintings, trying to fully comprehend this assertion.

An attendee asked about the black rectangular forms, but Butzer see it that way. “I have never painted a rectangle in my whole life because I do not believe in earth-bound geometry,” Butzer asserted, somewhat opaquely. “I calculate coloristic values rather than geometry. I would call the paintings round, even. I paint over these laws and calculate every bit of it and paint over again and again. It’s about annihilation. It burns away measurements because they are round.”

Continuing the theme of annihilation, Butzer told the crowd that he only draws inspiration from dead artists and cited Raphael as his latest artistic muse. “I cannot accept the [artists] that live,” he said. “It’s not my job to like other artists.”

Kit Wise, Arcadia, 2011, video still, assisted by Darin Bendall

For an Englishman living in Australia, artist Kit Wise has a lot to say about ecology and sprawl in America. In his new piece “Arcadia,” which is on display at the Hyde Park Art Center through April 8, he uses dynamic high-definition digital collages of aerial photos to explore the relationship between ecology and urban forms.

Translucent photos of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 Mississippi River floods are overlaid to form a surreal landscape. Dozens of photos are projected across the screens simultaneously. They drift and merge. The superimposition is disorienting and unsettling, as discrete sets of images overlap along the length of the projection screens. Displaced houses float along wind-slapped highways. Down a few screens, cows and cars peer through images of damaged forests. Vast bodies of water suddenly become ravaged subdivisions. The transitory and transitional nature of the projections produces an otherwordly effect that highlights the limits of human control.

The exhibition’s title, “Arcadia,” is an intentional misnomer. The term, which conjures visions of idyllic pastoral life, makes an ironic statement when used as a descriptor for a piece that foremost showcases images of destruction. Wise’s collage harkens back to a work by French classical painter Nicolas Poussin. Poussin’s piece “Et in Arcadia” depicts four shepherds amid tranquil wildlife peering into a tomb. The title, which means “even in Arcadia,” is meant as a reminder that even in paradise, death and destruction are imminent. Wise’s “Arcadia” reflects and reiterates this theme. As skyscrapers and subdivisions merge with inundated streets and ravaged forests, Wise reminds us that at any time nature can break through the veil of civilized order. For Wise, like Poussin, destruction is a constituent part of utopia.

Continuing his tradition of producing site-specific pieces, Wise’s digital collage was created especially for HPAC’s Jackman Goldwasser Catwalk Gallery.  Located on HPAC’s second floor, the Goldwasser stretches, like a bridge, above the larger gallery below. On one side, viewers have an aerial view of the artwork and museumgoers on the first floor; floor-to-window ceilings flank the other side. “Arcadia” is an evening-only exhibition. At 3pm, as the sun begins to set, these massive windows of the Goldwasser Gallery are covered, and the shades become projection screens for Wise’s piece.

Viewing “Arcadia” in this setting is a curious experience. For one, it is difficult to avoid drawing parallels between the aerial nature of Kit Wise’s piece and the aerial view the catwalk provides of the gallery below.While looking down over the gallery conjures feelings of omniscience and control, looking at “Arcadia” spurs a sense of smallness, confusion, and distance. The piece’s translucent, overlapping bird’s-eye-views offer no real perspective of the places it depicts, and instead of the viewer feels a palpable loss of control, as if being consumed by nature. This effect is undoubtedly enhanced by the viewer’s proximity to the piece. Since the Goldwasser is at most three paces wide, visitors are forced to stand close to the vast screens. From this perspective, it is impossible to view the entire piece at once. Instead, the viewer must turn her head and crane her neck to keep up with the shifting landscapes. Occasionally, visitors to the gallery even come into contact with their own shadow outlined against the light of the projector, a subtle reminder that their own action or inaction, too, is implicated by the destruction of Arcadia.

Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Through April 8. Reception February 12, 3pm-5pm. Monday-Thursday, 10am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 10am-5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. Free. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org

Founded in 1893 near the corner of Van Buren and Michigan, the company supplied its plaster decorations for many of Chicago’s most opulent buildings , including, structures built for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. They also crafted the ornamental plaster for movie palaces across the city, including the Ramova Theater in Bridgeport, the ceiling medallions at the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas, and the decorations for galleries in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Now, much of their work involves producing set pieces and decorations for movies like “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “The Cotton Club,” and “The Untouchables.”

While the company has changed over the years to meet new demands, their process remains the same. While a recent order of columns and flourishes for a late-night TV set may not be equal to the resplendent White City, the decorations are hatched from the same hand-carved wood molds. Whether it’s a home fireplace mantel, or columns for a scene in “The Dark Knight,” Decorators Supply still creates their pieces from the patterns it used in the late-19th and early-20th century, according to its president, Steve Grage. This is in part because mold crafting is a disappearing art form, he says, but also because the designs are as historically accurate as they come.

“I still hear from customers who I remember ordering from our company 33 years ago,” Grage notes. He also points to the important role that family has played in the company throughout the years. Today, the third generation of Grages runs the business. Steve Grage fondly recalls when he first started at Decorators Supply, he worked and learned alongside his grandfather, who joined the company as a teenager and was still working at age 90.

Grage says that Bridgeport, where they moved in 1909 before settling in their current location in 1963, has been very important to the development of the company. “It made sense to be in Bridgeport—it’s an industrial neighborhood, and being near the railroad, river, and roads, it’s easy to get materials in and out. And it’s a tough blue collar area, where you could find a good workforce.”

There may be a touch of irony in the fact that these elaborate creations were constructed in a district not historically noted for its elegance. But in Bridgeport—once called Hardscrabble for its rough reputation—many local businesses have thrived. Old-school meatpacking plants like Chiappetti’s and Allen Brothers have found a more stable market in upscale restaurants, and while the recession hit 121- year-old Butler Street Foundry hard, it tried to reinvent itself as an artisanal metallurgy business, teaming up with the Art Institute for some projects.  Bridgeporters may not be born with silver spoons in their mouths, but they were probably the ones who made them.

Despite Decorators Supply’s upper-crust appeal, Grage says that they are still struggling to survive in this economy. “Our products go into buildings,” he says, but “even though they’re high end, there just aren’t that many houses that go up.”

When building does happen, Grage notes, the company is still battling a powerful sociological force—changing taste. Their finely crafted ornaments—once sought-after markers of wealth and glamour—have fallen out of fashion after modernism’s “less-is-more” aesthetic. “I’ve seen a change towards a modern style, away from the highly decorated. Every now and then you see people throw in a Corinthian column, as a little splash.”

The company is doing their best to keep up with the changing marketplace, producing and selling “transitional-style moldings” that aren’t overly florid. But without carving new patterns, the most the company can do to accommodate the trend is to find the least ornate templates out of a collection of around 12,000 designs.

But Grage says that the company is ready to adapt. He says he is underlining their biggest assets: the tremendous selection, high-quality products, superior customer service, and the company’s reputation as an environmentally friendly,  family-run business.

His strategy echoes a familiar refrain from a new class of businesses on the rise in Bridgeport—artsy, charming, green, and hyper-local. But while pasty shops, craft-whiskey bars, and organic restaurants have been saying it for months, only Decorators Supply can say they have been doing it for more than a century.

“It’s like classical music. Other music comes and goes, but classical, and its fans, stick around.”

Decorators Supply, 3610 S. Morgan St. (773)847-6300

courtesy of ACRE

“These two are my favorite,” artist Courtney Weber says, pointing to the back right corner of the small room at ACRE Projects. “I started drawing the pattern for this one at the Residency and to me the symmetry and colors are really beautiful.”

The piece in question is untitled, as are all of the pieces in her exhibit “Other Flowers.” It is simply distinguished by its dimensions, 22-by-30 inches. This particular “Untitled” is by far the most detailed piece in the gallery, with dark floss outlining the four corners of the paper, coming together to form a cross at the center of the diamond-shaped body. The patterns filling in the paper are formed by a series of stitches resembling the letter x, laid next to each other until the individual stitches disappear into the larger image.

The second of Weber’s favorites is aptly described by a fellow observer as a sunset when viewed from the right and a mushroom when viewed from the left. The 18-by-24-inch piece is the only asymmetrical embroidery floss-on-paper piece in the collection and stands out like the only light haired child in a family of brunettes. In a room full of cross-stitch patterns that could have been made centuries before this piece, its unrefined yet striking appearance is distinct to both the pastiche and the artist.

Weber originally intended “Other Flowers” to be comprised entirely of embroidered cross-stitch patterns on paper. The embroidery is made not with the thin string typically used for sewing but rather with “floss”—the material commonly used by children to make multicolored friendship bracelets. The display of seven untitled floss-and-paper pieces is seemingly interrupted by three jars filled with rusty nails resting on a shelf on the back left wall, and a row of nine groups of thread of varying colors on the right wall. On this Sunday afternoon, Weber’s cheetah print loafers clink on the un-buffed wooden floors as she walks toward the jars. After taking a sip of her Pabst, Weber points to the jars and explains their liquid contents: iron liquor (a substance formed from the reaction between the nails), vinegar, and water. She used the amber liquid along with plant dyes to color her embroidery floss at the ACRE Residency in rural Wisconsin, where she made most of the art.

Weber walks in front of a row of brass hooks, each holding a bundle of thread. From each bundle hangs a manila tab, the name of the plant responsible for its color written in felt marker. The labels range from “untreated,” dangling on white thread, to “Black Eyed Susan,” delineating a darker sand-colored bundle.

When observed and appreciated at length, the jars, embroidery samples, and hanging bundles of thread come together to form a coherent whole. The objects that upon first glance seem anomalous are in fact at the heart of the exhibit. The rest of the works fall somewhere between the mesmerizing symmetry of the 22-by-30-inch piece and the daring otherness of the 18-by-24-inch floss-on-paper sample.

The venue fits well with the artist’s self-proclaimed theme of “place”—ACRE Projects comes across more as a home with artwork on the walls than a gallery hosting an exhibit. A white, orange, and black cat strolls across the floor among the gallerygoers and takes its place in the windowsill. One of the attendees wearing an unofficial uniform of chunky knits and jeans carries the tabby out of sight to a back room. As a group of fellow artist huddle in a corner, wine and beer in hand, laughter fills the tiny room.

It is easy to imagine that, rather than an exhibit opening, people are gathered for a house warming party. The homey approach is only appropriate, since the goal of the exhibit is to show a “connection to place and history faded by time and memory.” Yet while the sound of the attendees’ laughter fades, Weber’s iron liquor and plant dyes leave permanent stains.

ACRE, 1913 W. 17th St. Through Friday, January 21. Hours by appointment. Acreresidency.org

courtesy of HPAC

Bibiana Suárez’s latest exhibit—an installation piece that combines the voluptuous rear-end of Jennifer Lopez, three glittery cowboys, vintage maps, and hand-painted signage—is an exhibit that attempts to speak for the growing sentiment of latinidad. The notion of a pan-ethnic solidarity amongst people of all Latin American origin became pertinent to Suárez in 2000, when it was announced that Latinos had become the largest group within the minority population of the United States. Ten years later, Suárez is proud to present “Memoria (Memory),” 108 squares spread across three walls of a large, industrial room in the Hyde Park Art Center. Each square is a piece of a puzzle, a part of a game.

Based on the ubiquitous children’s game Memory, the installation is divided into three parts. The viewer looks straight onto the central wall, where some squares are “turned up,” presenting a colorful image and others remain “face down,” showing what appears to be a generic pattern on the backs of cards, but which is actually string of words the Hispanic community uses to refers to themselves and others. One player’s winnings of matching pairs are displayed on the south wall and the opponent’s are displayed on the north wall, the pairs of matching images fully revealed.

Yet, upon further examination, the matches are not identical. The pairs are somewhat recognizable—the matches feature the same subjects, the same composition, or the same words—but the colors, language, and details vary. One pair is JLo’s backside rendered in two different color palettes. Another is a technicolor mango, sliced in one image, intact is its complement. One poignant match is made up of two portraits: one of a smiling Latina girl, black hair and brown skin, the other of a Caucasian girl, blonde hair and white skin. Both smile the same toothy grin and wear the same plastic beads around their necks. The opposite wall has a similar pair, with images of a young boy—one white, one with café-colored skin.

Allison Peters Quinn, director of exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center says, “It’s exactly that! The children of the same ethnicity could be matched together, but they are not. The matches aren’t always obvious. Suárez wants us to think and make connections beyond the obvious.” She points to a pair of matched cards. One reads, “Se Habla Inglés” and the other reads “We Speak English.” Both players have matched the two different signs to each other. “See?” says Quinn, “You can swap the English and the Spanish signs with each other…What is that saying? There is content behind the matches.”

Six different squares in the game feature a black silhouette of a bird with dashed lines—the indication of a flight path—overlaid on an aged map. One of the birds is the hummingbird, the national bird of Puerto Rico (Suárez’s birthplace) and the other is an eagle, the national bird of Mexico. “Suárez is creating a play on migration, trying to show how people end up in different places. It’s all about play for her, the aesthetics of play,” Quinn explains.

Suárez’s installation engrosses and engages, as each unsuccessful turn in the memory game entice players to make another attempt. The revealed but unpaired cards offer multiple combinations for the viewer to select: a square of choppy seas with a three-dimensional canoe titled “Elián” (referring to the 2000 Elián Gonzalez custody and immigration controversy) can be paired with several images—a steamboat, a fleet of canoes, a black and white anchor among them. But the anchor could be paired with the image of a swaddled infant, evoking the “anchor baby” and birthright citizenship debate. Several other cards, made of various media, have several possible matches.

“She was always thinking about the pairs as she was creating “Memoría,” this idea of the pair, the duality. It speaks to the mutuality of the American and Hispanic identities and voices,” Quinn says. She clarifies, “Suárez is a painter, but here she branches out to use all sorts of materials, in a way trying to capture the many voices of latinidad.”

Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Through March 25. hydeparkart.org

The concept behind “Head” has been incubating for quite awhile, Hopkins says. Hopkin’s original inspiration for the collection of head studies is an incomplete sculpture of Jeffrey Grauel, a friend and longtime collaborator whose capacity at Slow is listed as “Handyman/Silent Partner/General Antagonist.” The decade-old red clay bust of Grauel, which Hopkin digs out of plastic wrapping and hefts in his right hand as he speaks, was originally intended for use as a slip mold, from which he planned to cast a porcelain nightlight as a reinterpretation of Brancusi’s “Sleeping Muse.” But life interrupts even the best-sculpted plans, and the head was never quite finished. Hopkin describes with a rueful laugh how the specter of neglect has kept him tethered to the clay’s upkeep; he says he’s doted on the head too long to stop looking after it now.

In keeping with the dynamic between sculpture and sculptor, the show’s head studies examine the fuzzy divide between what is finished and what is under construction. The collaborative nature of the show unify the installations: Davis and Holmquist repeatedly exchanged and modified each other’s pieces, and the senior Bellas contributed to his young son’s work. The art on display covered a vast range of materials—foam core, Cheetos, scrap metal, plastic grapes, decoupage, and digital vide—and subject matter, including the late-night TV show “Dharma and Greg,” the human profile, an apparent variation on Viking armor, and of course, no shortage of one- and two-term presidents. The variety made for a climate not of informality, but rather of relaxed inclusion and an endorsement of experimentation.

Hopkin’s enthusiasm for piquant, provocative art is contagious. Davis, Holmquist, and Homer are eager to describe the unorthodox art practices that brought their work to Head. After Homer sold a few of his portraits, he approached Hopkin about featuring the work at Slow. The accretive process that produced the Davis and Holmquist pieces was no less informal; both artists attest to the played-by-ear quality of their contributions.

Conventions of formal presentation are shunned at Slow, where multimedia refers not merely to a hodgepodge of artistic disciplines, but a diffuse variety of physical materials, edible and non-edible.  For Hopkin, the show “asks questions about what is okay and what is not okay” to present to a critical and consumer audience. When prodded for a specific definition of what is presentable, what qualifies work for display, Holmquist notes that, “A way to know when a piece done is when…there’s a nice scale of elements, a range of textures, maybe the colors are buzzing off each other, or it makes you laugh, or maybe provides a counterbalance to what came before it.” But unlike a pot roast or a pancake, when—and whether—a piece is done is entirely subjective and, given Holmquist’s criteria, difficult to characterize.

Rather than answering the question proposed by Hopkin about what is acceptable and meaningful art, the heads on display at Slow are more aptly described as revelations of process. If Head has one virtue, it is its ability to draw attention explicitly to the singular processes of its contributors.

Courtesy of the artist

On a Friday night at Blanc Gallery, a visitor unabashedly ran her palm along a series of seven panels. Her fingers first grazed scraps of black roofing paper, continuing to another panel of hot-pink vinyl stretched over studio debris, and ending their run on pieces of Bazooka bubble gum laid out like tiles. The cardinal rule of any art gallery—Do Not Touch—was suspended.

Connie Noyes’s exhibit “Pink | Space” invites the viewer’s touch. In fact her art thrives on interaction, for example with the artist herself. On November 18, dressed in a tiered tulle skirt and a webbed black top, Noyes mingled with visitors at the opening of her show. Her white wig bobbed as she went from person to person and piece to piece.

The genesis of the “Pink | Space” exhibition was a simple question. Noyes asked herself, “What is my space?” To come to an answer, she looked inside humanity for something we all share: the color pink. “It’s the internal color of muscles and organs unconcerned with external racial, class, gender or spiritual differences,” she says. “It is the color of humanity—the color of universal love.”

To express her own “pinkish physical self” for “Pink | Space,” Noyes uses what she describes as “trash from the floor.” One piece titled “If you can’t hide it, decorate it” consists of scattered, irregularly shaped bulges affixed to the wall. On the opposite wall, squished pieces of pink bubblegum hold together a cracked porcelain platter. White, black, and neutral shades are incorporated into the works, interacting with the pink by blending together and contrasting with the feature hue.

Another piece takes a more personal route, featuring a chopped-up bride doll. Recently divorced, Noyes came across a doll at a garage sale that resembled the frilly moppet she had as a child. The doll’s banged-up condition seems an apt symbol of vulnerability following the end of a marriage.

This exploration of material inspired Noyes to develop a second endeavor based on the human connection that pink represents. The phrase, “in the pink,” can mean both the pinnacle of a moment and being in prime condition, especially in terms of health. These simultaneous meanings created the starting point for a much larger project.

“At this very pinnacle moment,” she explained passionately, “we need to come together to do something better.” Noyes’s second pink-based project is “In the Pink: The 1,000,000 people art project,” centered on a website currently under development. The site aims to connect one million people around the globe, across many backgrounds and disciplines, to network and create dialogue about projects they are passionate about. The project is an extension of Noyes’s personality. She explains less than modestly, “I connect a lot of people together. It feels like I’m a resource.”

Noyes kicked off the first “In the Pink” dialogue two Saturdays ago at Blanc Gallery, titled “Symposium for Change.” A medical doctor, a steel manufacturer, and a composer were asked to share their passions. Noyes said the symposium went well, with “really interesting talks and thoughtful questions from the audience.” She hopes to put an edited recording of the discussion online.

The two projects go hand-in-hand, as Noyes engages in conversations of her own through her artwork while fostering a larger dialogue in her forum. Noyes encourages viewers to interpret her work through their own perspectives. “I’m putting myself out there, and through that vulnerability people can come towards me. It can be very powerful,” she says. Whether by encouraging visitors to touch her artwork or asking them to click and post on her website, Noyes’s talent of engaging the viewer in her art goes hand in hand with a willingness to expose her own life.

Blanc Gallery, 4445 S. King Dr. Hours by appointment only. (773)952-4394. blancchicago.com