Selling art in Chicago has long been an aleatory business, since the city’s position smack in the middle of the States makes weekend buying trips to New York or LA a convenient getaway for serious collectors. In fact, the phenomenon of local galleries uprooting for the seemingly greener grass on eitiher coast (Feigen, Donald Young and Feature gallery, to name a few) has been a chronic problem for the Chicago gallery community, leaving those who remain to carry on the task of exposing local audiences to the art of the new.
So a group of galleries, identifying common goals, banded together to pool their promotional efforts and resources in an attempt to side-step the meagre pace of the early 90s art market. Rhona Hoffman Gallery’s successful collaboration with not-for-profit Gallery 312 on an exhibition of young British art last year meant moving her well-heeled operation to 312’s industrial neighborhood off the city’s beaten path. Now the galleries have agreed to collaborate four times a year. 312, an exhibition space established to benefit children (it has used its proceeds to donate $136,000 to children’s causes) takes as its motto the William Blake phrase “Every night and every morn/Some to misery are born.” This month it provides the space for one of the monumental cinder-block pyramids by Hoffman artist Sol Lewitt, a work which the artist has been unable to show for the last several years with Hoffman, due to her own gallery’s space limitations.
This collaborative spirit follows the lead of four up and coming dealers who all began separate galleries five years ago under the collective moniker Uncomfortable Spaces, referring to the minimal mod-cons of their venues. Uncomfortable Spaces has lost one member, and the remaining three, Ten-In-One, Tough and Beret International have captured the attention of local critics and collectors.
The city’s River North gallery district hosts an assortment of shows by artists concerned with formal issues. Perimeter Gallery presents its first exhibition of works from the estate of Margaret Ponce Israel, a New York artist known for her Modernist ceramics, clay sculpture, drawings and watercolours. There is a faithful recreation of the artist’s studio on the gallery’s lower level. Ann Weins continues to mine the fertile territory between abstraction and representation with her deft depictions of insects crawling on Op-Art grounds at Byron Roche Gallery. But for a real reality bite, head to the RX Gallery to glimpse AimeeBeaubien’s current body–literally–of work, featuring photographs of the artist squeezing herself into clothing several sizes to small!
Chicago’s top contemporary galleries
Richard Gray Gallery, 875 Michigan Ave. (+1 312 642 8877)
High above the fray on the 25th floor of in the Modernist John Hancock Tower, this venerable gallery hosts a progamme including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jennifer Bartlett, Barry Flanagan and Louise Nevelson, along with a “Who’s Who” of modern masters. Approximately thirty sculptural works by Nevelson are currently on show, including the artist’s ongoing investigations of reliefs and boxes. The serenity of this year-old space causes one to linger, providing the works of art with the contemplation shows of this calibre deserve.
Carl Hammer Gallery, 200 W. Superior (+1 312 266 8512)
Hammer promotes a self-taught “outsider” style by both trained and self-taught artists, such as Henry Darger (see The Art Newspaper, No. 69, April 1997, p. 22), Lou Cabeen, Hollis Sigler, Ken Warneke, Spencer Dormitzer and Eugene von Bruenchenheim. Currently staging “Portfolio ‘97,” a group show of gallery artists.
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, 312 N. May (+1 312 455 1990)
Regarded as the doyenne of contemporary dealers, Rhona Hoffman’s blockbuster exhibitions of the late 80s showing the likes of Barbara Kruger and Peter Halley made this one of the city’s more star-studded spaces. However, last year’s “No. 10,” a group show included sculpture by Jake and Dinos Chapman, as well as their video “Bring me the head of . . .” seems to signal that Hoffman is primed to turn up the volume.
Zolla Lieberman Gallery, 325 W. Huron (+1 312 944 1990)
This River north staple features an eclectic programme including some of Chicago’s finest draftsmen and painters. Recent shows have included works by Buzz Spector, Deborah Butterfield and Nic Nicosia.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as ‘Galleries co-operate to keep collectors'