they will not ruin us through the things that we like curated by Philip von Zweck
with
Joel Dean Anthony Elms Carol Jackson Andy Moore Mindy Rose Schwartz Deb Sokolow Amy Vogel
Show Dates: June 12 to August 1, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, June 12, 5-8pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm
More info: 312.480.8390 scott @westernexhibitions.com
Western Exhibitions will open two new shows on Friday, June 12 with a public reception from 5 to 8pm. In Gallery 1, Dutes Miller will show new collages, assemblages and discrete objects and in Gallery 2, we turned over the reins to artist and curator Philip von Zweck who brings together the work of Joel Dean, Anthony Elms, Carol Jackson, Andy Moore, Mindy Rose Schwartz, Deb Sokolow and Amy Vogel for the group show, "they will not ruin us through the things that we like".
Dutes Miller's first solo show at Western Exhibitions, "The Ecstasyist", features a new series of collages, artists books and phallic sculptures that examine the spaces where an inner life intersects with mass culture and the queer subculture. Miller appropriates images from pornographic websites, magazines and his own personal imaginings to investigate alternative standards of beauty, self-presentations of lust and desire found on the internet, and power dynamics in sexual relationships.
In this latest series of erotic collages, individual photo spreads from gay pornographic magazines are dissected and reassembled to depict the same model in similar poses from different angles in the fashion of cubist portraiture.
A series of large-scale figure studies on paper are realized from images posted by large men ("bears") on internet pick-up sites, further complicating ideals of beauty and desire - the men in these drawings are not the buff hunks from the porno mags, but nonetheless project a raw sexuality.
"In the Garden" depicts an erotic battle between two figures collaged together from queer porn and pro wrestling magazines. Pro wrestling stars have figured greatly in Miller's work. The use of these iconic figures humorously project queer fantasies into mainstream pop culture and reflect upon power relations based on sexual desire. In 1998 Miller wrote an art review that described his fascination with these larger-than-life cartoonish warriors: "WWF wrestling was the only erotic material available to me (as a teen). The anticipation of waiting to see some intentional man-to-man genital contact, no matter how violent, was always in conflict with being found out as a faggot by anyone who happened to see my growing enthusiasm."
Other works in the show include the hand-made artist book "The Ecstasyist", composed of altered ink-jet prints, ink drawings, and watercolors and Miller's sculptures, perhaps best described as fetish objects, that are made by filling condoms with either plaster or silicon, and hung from meat hooks to allow gravity to determine the shape as the material solidifies.
This is Dutes Miller's first solo show at Western Exhibitions. Miller's collages have been included in exhibitions at Western Exhibitions, 40000 and COMA. His collaborative work with his husband Stan Shellabarger, as Miller & Shellabarger, has been well received locally and nationally, winning a 2008 Artadia Award and a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award. Western Exhibitions has presented solo projects of their work at the NADA Art Fair in Miami and the VOLTA show in Basel, Switzerland in 2008. Miller & Shellabarger have been written about in Artforum.com, Art & Auction, Frieze, Artnet, The Art Newspaper, Flash Art, TimeOut Chicago, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Miller received a BFA from Illinois State University and is an accomplished pastry chef. He lives and works in Chicago.
In Gallery 2, we turned over the reins to Philip von Zweck who brings together the work of Joel Dean, Anthony Elms, Carol Jackson, Andy Moore, Mindy Rose Schwartz, Deb Sokolow and Amy Vogel for the group show, �they will not ruin us through the things that we like�.
Anthony Elms is an artist and writer, whose drawings have been called �cryptic and quietly cunning�. As an artist, Elms' works have been exhibited at Boom (Oak Park), Gahlberg Gallery (Glen Ellyn), Mandrake (Los Angeles), and VONZWECK (Chicago), among others. His writings have appeared in Art Asia Pacific, Art Papers, Artforum, Artforum.com, Cakewalk, Coterie, Interreview.org, Modern Painters, New Art Examiner, and Time Out Chicago.
Joel Dean is a recent BFA recipient of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the summer of 2008 he was a recipient of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship and a student at the Yale University Summer School of Music and Art in Norfolk, CT. This summer he will be a Fellow at the Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist Residency in Saugatuck, MI and will be showing his work in the upcoming exhibition at Corbett vs. Dempsey, Big Youth: New Painters from Chicago.
Carol Jackson�s Sheet Music series, carved and painted leather works, begun in 2006, is inspired by original sheet music covers created during the 19th to mid 20th century, the oral culture and the MTV of their era. Jackson has exhibited at the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, Gallery 400, Van Harrison Gallery, and Ten in One, all in Chicago and her work has been written about in Frieze, The New Yorker and the New York Times.
Andy Moore�s sculptures, drawings and other works attempt to traffic in clarity, transparency and honesty. Moore�s first show in Chicago was at Beret International and his last was at Butcher Shop/ Dogmatic. The work presented in this show is part of a project begun in 2003.
Mindy Rose Schwartz creates objects, installations and drawings. She has exhibited at the Renaissance Society, Gallery 400; Hyde Park Art Center; Northern Illinois University Gallery; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Spertus Museum; Rose Art Museum.
Deb Sokolow�s text-driven drawings map the obsessive, inner-dialogue of a nameless, paranoid narrator who speculates on various topics relating to popular culture, conspiracy theory and human nature. Recent projects include site-specific installations for the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Inova in Milwaukee, the Spertus Museum in Chicago and an upcoming group exhibition at the Smart Museum at University of Chicago in fall 2009.
Amy Vogel is a Chicago-based artist. Recent solo exhibitions include Larissa Goldston in NYC, Paul Kotula Projects in Detroit and her solo show at 40000 in Chicago in 2007 was reviewed in Artforum, where her practice was described as �engaged in a kind of rustic Conceptualism�.
Curator Philip von Zweck�s projects include the on-going Temporary Allegiance at Gallery 400 in Chicago and Something Else radio program at WLUW; the VONZWECK gallery in Humboldt Park; The Fryvalry with Kevin Jennings; the [Exchange] artist book series; Vomitorium with Agitprop at 40000; Sounding Off, curated with Lorelei Stewart at Gallery 400; and the legendary �honk if you love silence� bumpersticker. Philip von Zweck won a Richard H. Driehuas Foundation Individual Artist Award in 2007 and produced and narrated perhaps the best ever Bad at Sports episode, on New Orleans, in 2008.
