Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Bengt Lindstrom








Biegga Galles, God of the Storm Wind












As it turns out -- I'm a big fan of the Swedish painter,
 Bengt Lindstrom (1925-2008)


His stuff drives me crazy.

I wrote about his show here .

Below are some more pictures that I took.

The American contemporary artworld
being what it is,
 chances are I will never see his work again.










The Nordic God, Thor









Little Red Riding Hood
(with a rather crocodilian wolf)











student work,  Art Institute of  Chicago



self portrait, 1970's









The Nordic God, Loke




Women of the Champs Elysees
(one for each side of the box)
















Viking




















Crazy  Person










Red Magic












*****************


and recently it occurred to me that he might like this show.


Bingo!  Hit that nail on head.

He bought a coffee-table book of Lindstrom reproductions
back in the nineties.
For a  while, he riffed on his style
-- examples of which are shown below.



















If anything - he's gotten even wilder.

He seems to have turned his mind  inside-out.








Art Expo Chicago 2019







Amoako Boafo

(MARIANE IBRAHIM Gallery ,   437 N. Paulina St)




The 2019 edition of  Expo Chicago is different -- and better ! -- than the previous seven editions of Tony Karman's international art fairs.

There were some disappointments - like very few landscapes, cityscapes, or still lifes.  And Forum Gallery - often my favorite for mimetic representation - had nothing for me this year.

But overall, the show felt calmer -- more like an art gallery and less like a street fair.  Maybe that's because visitors now enter from the end of the long hall instead of from the hectic middle.

It didn't humiliate the younger, smaller galleries by putting them in a distinctive "children's table" section.

It  accommodated cyclists like myself by giving us a parking area right next to the entrance. Hurrah!
(last year, security personnel  were stationed there to keep bicycles from being chained to a railing)

But  most importantly -- this show seems to announce the arrival of a new mainstream in American painting:  the depiction of black people by black artists (mostly).

There have, of course, been black figure superstars like Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and mostly recently, Kerry Marshall.   But until this year, black figuration has been rare at Chicago's annual art exhibition.

This year is different -  and not just at Navy Pier.   Black artists and black figuration have recently been much more visible throughout Chicago's galleries and museum spaces.  The Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, which just moved here from Seattle, is one, quite promising example.

And since the subject matter is more about life than art theory, I am one happy viewer.




Below are my favorites.

Many others were on display,  however.   Some I didn't like -- and some  I probably never saw.  ( after about an hour of wandering about in this huge hall, I always become disoriented and may well miss  a gallery or two )












Mala Cruz Palileo







Mario Moore






David Antonio Cruz







Cheryl Pope
(this is a kind of tapestry)









Charles DuBack, 1960





Shadi Al-Atallah
the U.K. artist is an Arab from Saudi Arabia






Pat Phillips

Love this dramatically skewed sense of space -- reminds me of Philip Guston





Devan Shimoyama


Many materials went into this confection -- including a real piece of carpet.



Paritosh Sen (1918-2008)






Marcus Brutus

I really like this self taught artist who was discovered after someone posted his work on Instagram



Marcus Brutus









Matthew Stone
(this is a wall-size digital print)






Alex Gardner






Stephane Conradie








John Sonsini







Elizabeth Catlett (1915 - 2012)


  *****************



Now, we move on the depictions of white people:






Celeste Rapone, "Corner Office"






Sandro Chia

It would be hard to imagine this kind of figuration coming from anywhere but Italy or maybe France.

The artist was born in Florence.





Sandro Chia







Danuel Mendez (Cuban)









Nathan Oliveira  (1928-2010)  , 1966


Always a thrill to see good life drawing in these shows.

It's quite rare.





Tom Wesselmann (1931 - 2004) 







Cayce Zavaglia , embroidery









Gina Pellon, 2011






Dae Hun Kwon, cast resin










Milton Avery, 1930
















King Rhee


This was the only landscape that I saw --- it uses two layers of plexiglass to deepen  pictorial space.







Mark Innerst

There were only a few cityscapes -- and these are the only ones that I liked.







Mendes Wood Gallery
(couldn't find the name of the artist)







Michael Reafsnyder






Jim Lutes

So far, this is  my favorite painting by this local artist.





Alexandria Smith




Rashid Johnson

Similar to the banged and burned  panels of Cleveland Dean -- but this one seems more related to abstract painting.





Mary Abbott.  1957

A huge and wonderful piece - the best of her's  I've yet to see.






Jeff Kowatch

Quite large, quite goofy, and quite different from the blurry shapes that he painted below.
(it was executed with oil sticks)





Jeff Kowatch




detail





Paul Jenkins
















Federico Herrero













Carrie Moyer.









John Santoro



Always one of my favorites in these shows.





Angelina Gualdoni







Andrew Holmquist





Andrew Holmquist





Sean Scully







Ad Minoliti





Chung Sang-Hwa

A Go board ?  The ruins of an ancient city?





William Dalziel

A self taught Chicago artist whose work only came out of his basement  after his death.  The subject matter relates to his experience as a ball turret gunner in the Army Air Corps in WWII.


It's anxiety  reminds me of the paintings of Vietnam veteran Richard Olsen who showed at the Zhou B Art Center in 2017.






Vidvuds Zviedris


A monumental, and quite different, piece by one of my favorite local painters.




Scott Anderson









Giorgio Cavallon, 1964








Dexter Dalwood




Dexter Dalwood

(Alan Koppel Gallery)






Freidel Dzubas, 1982







Yvonne Thomas, 1949




the views from the windows of  Navy Pier
are usually better than most of the paintings in the show.

***************







Mary Qian


Mary Qian's galleries do not show at Expo Chicago,
but this painting would have fit quite well
into the predominant theme of  this year's show.




Labels:

<