The Can of Culture is brimming with art choices this week. So much so that we had to overlook writing about several exciting shows. Consider this column a half page torn out of a roster the length of the Cheesecake Factory menu. Whatever your taste, craving or art urge may be, Chicago is the place to satisfy your abstract painting, photography, Pop art, conceptual and performance needs.
Polvo Art Studio
"Aerial Landscapes and Other Observations About Everyday Life"
through March 19
Write yourself a Post-It note reminder to catch this show. Like many artists, Miguel Cortez has to moonlight; he keeps a 9-to-5 office gig to pay the bills. The absurdity and tedium of the work environment have, ironically enough, inspired him to create art nonetheless. This body of work both pokes fun at and exposes the boring mechanization of much of our everyday work experience. One section of the exhibit includes a series of digital paintings called "Read My Palm," in which each painting acts like a film frame, with the viewer following the artist's lifeline with a modern automobile. Another nifty representation of the drab office reality is "Dropped Ceiling," for which Cortez digitally duplicated ceiling tiles and created a collage of walls.
PAC/edge Performing Arts Festival
opening party March 11; 8-10:30 p.m.
Hours: ongoing day and night through April 10
Tickets: $25 in advance; $35 at the door.
Tomorrow night the 3rd Annual PAC/edge Performing Arts Festival launches its month-long festivities with a soiree featuring sneak preview performances and live music by rock-a-billy band Flapperjack. Don't worry. If you can't make the kick-off party, you have four more weeks to check out this growing Midwest festival for performers. In addition to the ongoing performances, several free-of-charge art installations join the festival. "Intermission Machines," self-running, auto generating shadow puppetry contraptions by Rubber Monkey Puppet Company, promise to delight. "Wail," designed by artist Malin Lindelow, will offer you the chance to unleash those buried emotions at the top of your lungs, all for the sake of art. There will be "Wail Recordings" on March 13, 20 and 27 and April 3 and 10 from 5-7 p.m.
Maya Polsky Gallery
"Ed Paschke Memorial Exhibition"
through March 15
There are a handful of days left to catch this tribute to Ed Paschke, one of Chicago's most important artists. Though Paschke passed away in December, his light shines brightly, literally, in day-glo colors via this collection of paintings culled from the inventory of Maya Polsky Gallery, the personal collection of the Paschke family and several private collections. Labeled a "Chicago Imagist" by art history, for being a part of the School of the Art Institute grad students who explored pop culture and American iconography in surrealistic ways in the late '60s, Paschke's style endured for 40 years. Pay your respects to an imagination that is now part of Art History 101.
Chicago Cultural Center
"Chicago, 1964-2004: Photographs by Gary Stochl"
through April 24
Like Ed Paschke, Gary Stochl is a Chicagoan who has been creating images of the modern condition for more than 40 years, though in Stochl's case, no one noticed. Not until two years ago, when he unknowingly walked into the Columbia College Photography Department, thinking it was a sensible place to start showing his work. Thankfully, the Chair of the Photography Department took a serious look at his portfolio and discovered his genius. Through black-and-white images, Stochl has captured a veritable visual history of Chicago culture. His most beautiful moments show city folk as performers in a drama of the everyday drudgery of the work life: The despair and boredom encapsulated in traipsing to and from work is palpable. The fact that Stochl's talent thrived despite the fact that no one, besides himself, nurtured it for so long is almost as fascinating as the work itself.
Thomas McCormick Gallery
"Black"
0pening March 11; 5-8 p.m.
through April 23
Do you see a red door and want to paint it black? Maybe you don't, but Mick Jagger does, and so do the 14 artists currently showing at Thomas McCormick Gallery. Included in this group of abstract expressionists are such American masters as Robert Motherwell and Arshile Gorky. How many different ways could there be to use black in an abstract painting, you ask? You'll just have to go and see it to believe it.
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