300 WEST SUPERIOR STREET | CHICAGO, IL 60654 | 312.722.6447 | mail@galleryvictor.com
Hours: Tuesday -Saturday 11- 5 - Closed Sunday & Monday
Join us for this special event on Saturday, April 13. Reception to begin at 12pm with a reading by the author at 1pm. Reception and Book Signing continues until 4pm. Drinks and snacks. Free and open to the public. RSVP appreciated but not required.
On November 18th, 2017, I had the good fortune to visit the Lincoln Park studio of the sculptor Richard Hunt. Since 1971, Richard has worked on his sculpture and drawings in a former Chicago Transit Authority power substation. That visit inspired a suite of images illuminating the diverse spaces artists use to conceive of and make their work.
After fleshing out my idea with friends and reviewing numerous existing books on artists' studios, I felt confident that I could create a uniquely nuanced book. Making Space was a five-year project, interrupted by Covid, photographing 166 artist studios in Chicago, resulting in around 5000 images. Each studio visit with two hours of photography ended with an hour of recorded conversation with the artist. I explored the studio as a reflection of artists and their practices. In the process, the temperament of creative people and where they work is revealed. To that end, a wide range of artists, in all aspects of gender, practice, and defining circumstances, are included.
The book represents 119 Chicago artists with 94 studio photographs intermingled with 80 artists' quotes. Wide angle, midrange, and closeup views are the basic template for an interpretive approach illustrating an extraordinary diversity of spaces. The conversations touched on all things Art, from the individual artists' relationship with their studio and how that studio models their practice outward to such questions as what art is, why make art, and art's personal and public impact. The combination of quotes and images illuminates the intersections of thoughts and structures, stories, circumstances, and ambitions and their material realization.
12pm: Recepiton
12:30: Artist Discussion, Q & A
2:30: Reception continues
Free and open to the public
Drinks and snacks will be served
Christina Haglid: Tiny Sanctuaries
There has always been an intersection between the process of writing and the act of painting in my work. It has somehow been my guide. In the last four years, during the making of this work, that connection intensified as I started writing short stories and flash fiction while taking online classes. I find the process of writing and painting so different in almost every way, but there is something freeing and generative in writing which helps my painting process. Or perhaps it's a reminder of what painting is for me - something intuitive that needs to be trusted. And what they do have in common is a desire to encapsulate and distill a single moment, a story, about the complexity of our emotions and experiences.
At the heart of my work is the recurring depiction of perseverance, strength of will, and a subtle optimism. Symbolically through the objects, precarious situations depict a moment of possible difficulty, often involving the influence of nature. A paper crane left in the snow. A boat nearly filled to the brim, but not submerged and able to drain its own contents carefully. A slide alone at night which will return to its purpose during the day. My intention is to not show the failure because I imagine all these objects make it through to better times. Allegories of survival. Someone comes by and finds the paper crane, the rowboat owners return and see their boat undisturbed, and the slide during the day brings joy.
Carol Pylant: Into the Ulterior
The paintings in Carol Pylant’s Portals series present quiet and formal spaces inhabited only sometimes by dogs or peacocks, statuary, or figures carved in relief. The titular portals are doorways and windows that open onto landscapes, some wooded, others lake views, some frozen, some misted, and yet others on fire. These places are gorgeously, meticulously rendered—once the artist’s process is understood they could also be appropriately described as painstakingly detailed. In this detail they are mesmerizing, but the illusion of reality that is presented is disorienting. Pylant is a tremendously skilled painter. The power of the works lies not only in their careful style, it is also in the construction of unnerving scenes that operate via a disjunction: although the pictured places are not real and the settings are simply not possible, there is a connection to a reality of some sort, as the works are based on actual places. This disconnect between the real and the imaginary is magical. [Ann Sinfield, from the exhibition catalog]
"The Power of Freedom is a Privilege " says Bruno Surdo of this provocative body of work. His Baroque-Pop style draws from his years of study in Italy and the United States. His work combines old-master techniques contemporary imagery. His large scale, allegorical paintings are included in in an international array of private and public collections.
His work is currently included in POP!ARAZZI - Patrick Burns, Art Shay, and Bruno Surdo
Informal discussion and book signing. Refreshments and snacks will be served—limited edition of prints from the book will be available for sale. A portion of the proceeds from the event will be donated to Lambda Legal - Founded in 1973, Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national legal organization whose mission is to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
In 1994, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, MK Czerwiec took her first nursing job at Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, as part of the caregiving staff of AIDS Unit 371. Taking Turns pulls back the curtain on life in the ward. A shining example of excellence in the treatment and care of patients, Unit 371 was a community for thousands of patients and families affected by HIV and AIDS and the people who founded the unit and provided care. This graphic novel combines Czerwiec’s memories with the oral histories of patients, family members, and staff. It depicts life and death on the ward, the ways the unit affected and informed those who passed through it, and how many look back on their time there today. Czerwiec joined Unit 371 at a pivotal time in the history of AIDS: deaths from the syndrome in the United States peaked in 1995 and then dropped drastically in following years due to the release of antiretroviral protease inhibitors. This positive turn of events led to a decline in patient populations and, ultimately, to the closure of Unit 371. Czerwiec’s restrained, inviting drawing style and carefully considered narrative examines individual, institutional, and community responses to the AIDS epidemic, as well as the role that art can play in the grieving process. Deeply personal yet made up of many voices, this history of daily life in a unique AIDS care unit is an open, honest look at suffering, grief, and hope among a community of medical professionals and patients at the heart of the epidemic.
