2024 Art Expo,
I’ve arranged things a bit differently this time around.
Instead of following a path through Festival Hall,
I’ve made separate sections for African and African-American art,
and then sorted out the rest the best I could.
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Sophia Anthony (b. 1997) Flower, Further
The title is puzzling - but the scene seems straight-forward enough: a young woman is initiating sex with a partner who is turned away, probably reading a book on the sofa. Presumably they are college students in a low rent apartment. I cannot read the space of the foreground - as delicious as it is. It enhances the sense of anticipation rather than depicting a possible interior space. An empty chair never felt so erotic.
Nothing else in this year’s Expo combines a deep pictorial space with an upbeat, familiar narrative and natural figuration in perspective . Perhaps it was just a class assignment to paint like a Dutch Master. But wouldn’t it be nice if the student went rogue and kept going in this direction?
Sophia Anthony, Bitters End
In the painting Bitters End, the speed and control of marks varies across the canvas. The glass that moves into the frame from the right side shimmers with Vermeer-like light. In another corner, the shirt and mangled left eye of the main figure are as loosely gestural as Hals. The scratches on the navy sleeve suggest handling similar to Twombly, while the architectural depictions of the top right corner are as geometrically minimal as Newman. These moments of shifting painting styles feel somehow analogous to the structure of a story within a story. Like the embedded narrative of The Grand Inquisitor within Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, moving the reader back and forth between fictions to dramatize the interior conflicts of the characters, the varied mark-making becomes a device that switches the viewer across references, histories, and emotional states..... Sophia Anthony
This artist was shown by DOVA - the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. Obviously, they have attracted a very talented MFA candidate. But I’m not so sure about the scholastic approach to painting evident in the above text written by the artist. It does not appear that all those art history references have enhanced the image. It looks like the young fellow is being served a glass of something toxic - as is the viewer.
Ellen Akimoto, Suddenly Seeing Layers, 2024
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 50 cm
Don’t know what the artist means by "seeing layers". Perhaps the piece was designed within the layering feature of graphic software. As with most abstract paintings, the artist probably began with no idea of what it eventually might express. All I can say is that the figure depicted appears alive, healthy, and purposeful - suitable for religious art of every variety.
Regina Granne (1939-2013), untitled, 1967-70, 72" x 60"
Here’s the work of another young artist ( back in 1970) that pays homage to art history- in this case, it’s Japanese Ukiyo-e. Sadly, however (at least for me) the artist soon turned conceptual.
Gideon Rubin (b. 1973, Tel Aviv), Pond, 69 x 59" oil on canvas, 2021
This scene is more serene than his other work online. After personally witnessing 9/11 from a nearby rooftop, he has never painted a human face ever again. It feels as thrilling and ambiguous as Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe.
Julio Larraz (b 1944) Helen Just a Memory, 2014, 50" x 40"
A fine tribute to romantic armchair warriors of every time and place.
Julio Larraz, Midi, 2004, 40 x 30
Feels like that sunny Brueghel at the Met
Ariel Cabrera, Single Scull, 22 x 22", 2024
Ariel Cabrera (b. 1982, Cuba) The visitor -
from the series A Day Off for the Veterans, 2024, 48 x 48"
Such a bright, airy, free, playful world.
Ariel Cabrera, Humidity Zones #2, 61x 59 ",2024
I’d love to be there..
Erik Parker (b 1968, Germany), Why Not, 72 x 96"
Imagism is not confined to Chicago.
A nice big blast of the pop-comic absurd.
Vicente Hernandez, (b. 1971, Cuba) Peace Train, 24 x 47, 2019
Absurdity is so important in a locked down, authoritarian society.
Hopefully - we’ll never get there.
Sally Michel Avery (1902-2003), Country Living, 1989, 40 x 50 "
Milton Avery. (1885-1965), Relaxer by the Sea, 1944, 22x 31"
A fascinating contrast between similar works of this husband-wife team.
Hopefully someone will buy them both to keep them together,
though at $85,000 each, that may be asking too much.
Eunice Golden (b. 1927), Fabric of Dreams, 1979, 48 x 72"
The first elegant depiction of male masturbation that I have ever seen.
It complements the many fine drawings of female self-play
which I found to illustrate Kandel’s discussion of the
Depiction of Female Sexuality in the early 20th Century.
Anouilh Lamm Anouk (b. 1992, Vienna), Lesbian Jazz #57, 2023
27 x 21"
Erotic art can indeed be tasteful -
though that’s not really my favorite kind.
Tura Oliveira (b. 1990)
Don’t know the title of this tapestry -
so I’ll just imagine that it depicts a female demon devouring some hapless traveler in that great Chinese epic, Journey to the West". It certainly is teeming with energy and life. Is she giving birth to a pig?
It has the beauty, raw terror, and strangeness of some Tibetan thangkas.
Danuel Mendez (b. 1989 Cuba) Venus in a Simulated Garden, 72 x 72, 2023
Juan Cardenas (b. 1939, Colombia) The Yellow Room, 2020-23, 16 x 23
Feels like the world of an expatriot
always asking "who am I ?" and "where am I ?"
Salvador Andrade Arevalo (b. Mexico) Alcatraces, 2024, 48x 36
that’s blooming out at warp speed.
A young local artist fresh out of Yale
we’ll certainly be seeing more of him.
Maia Cruz Palileo,(b. 1979) Mountain Pool, 72 x 64
This is the lush Philippine aesthetic.
Pam Sheehan (b. 1956). Light on the River, 2014,oil on Masonite, 14 x 19
In an art expo of 150 years ago,
this would have been one of many
great plein air landscapes.
Sadly, today, it’s the only one.
She really pulls everything into a feeling of
Right now! Right here!
So much space in such a small painting
John Santoro, Poseidon’s Sneaker Wave, 24 x 24
John Santoro
John Santoro, Backyard Spring Snow, 28 x 24
Yes - I’m in love with John Santoro’s fresh and turbulent natural world.
Fabio Miguez (b. 1962, Brazil)
No surprise he was trained as an architect.
Robert Dukes (b. 1965, UK)
Defiantly straddling the fine line that separates delicate understatement from boring.
A dedicated academic.
.
Nicholas Lambelet Coleman (b. 1998), Harvard of the South, 40 x 30, 2024
Nicholas Lambelet Coleman, Diet of Durham, 40 x 30, 2024
I come from a mixed family – my mother was born in Switzerland but moved to the United States as a child and was raised by her Swiss mother and a black American father who was a direct descendant of William and Ellen Craft as well as William Monroe Trotter. My father, as I have mentioned, is a black American descendant of slaves from a family in North Carolina. I grew up in Durham, North Carolina where both of my parents worked (and still work) as law professors at Duke. While growing up I had a vague sense of the richness of my family history, but I lived in a mostly white community and attended mostly white schools. Notwithstanding that, I generally had ethnically diverse social groups with roughly equal numbers of white, Asian, Jewish, and black friends. At times, I succumbed to the immature and conceited temptation of seeing my circumstances as unique or special, and I think that the coherence of my racial identity probably suffered as a result.
My art has always been an exercise in reinvention and identity-forming in ways both public and private. As I have started to exhibit and share my work with a broader audience, I have been challenged to rethink how I perceive and present myself. In this sense, I would say that perhaps my racial identity has been informed by my art more than my art has been informed by my racial identity. Still, I have a hard time honestly articulating the ways in which my work fits into the larger genre of black art. On one hand, it is easy enough to say that black art is simply any art created by black people. But to do so would be to ignore the complex sociopolitical dynamics that both allow for and necessitate the existence of a separate category within art specific to a historically marginalized group.
Reminds me of the Afro-centric social realism of Hale Woodruff or Charles White - but he depicts college students rather than farmers or factory workers.
Unlike Kerry Marshall or Kara Walker, there’s no bitterness or resentment here among the highly educated elite.
Coleman is quite articulate - both as painter and writer - so it will be fascinating to see how he navigates through today’s highly partisan environment.
He has a fascinating blog about global politics.
Megan Lewis (b. 1989), Everything Begins with a Thought, 48x 60"
Unlike the previous artist, Lewis’s work is not autobiographical - and the student that Lewis depicted above was not born on a university campus. It looks like he’s struggling to make it through high school and into the meritocracy. Hopefully grit and determination will pull him through.
BTW - Here is a mural that Lewis painted in Baltimore.
Liberty is holding a book that reads "Know thy self"
Ronald Hall (B. 1967). Making Sense of a Lullaby 40 x 52", 2024
This is the Kerry Marshall world of dark skin in cool, immaculate surroundings.
Things seem off kilter, however, so this may be satirical.
Braxton Garneau (Canadian, b. 1996-99?) Pitch Lake, 60 x 30, acrylic and asphalt on canvas with raffia
Purchase award by Northern Trust
This is Bouguereau in black face.
It feels cold, dead, and impersonal -
-like a display in a museum of natural history-
even if the title and media relates to the artist’s family history in Trinidad.
William Bouguereau, Bathers, 1884, Art Institute of Chicago
Olivier Souffrant (b. 1994, Haiti) Reclining Nude, 2023, 30 x 30", edition of 10
Ink print enhanced with acrylic
With the Caribbean vibe of a Romare Bearden collage,
tawdry - cheerful - erotic
and just the faintest hint of magic
Noel W. Anderson (b. 1981) The Scream, stretched and distressed cotton tapestry, 40 x 36 2022-24
Checking many boxes for conceptual and resentment identity art -
but it attracts my shameless eye like a trophy shrunken head.
Bob Thompson (1937-1966). Purplela, 1959, 50 x 56
Was Thompson really 22 when he painted this?
A wonderful Arcadian image
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery brought a museum quality collection
of 20th C. African-American art to Navy Pier.
Beaufort Delaney (1901-1978), Armenian Garçon, 1969, 24 x 18
It’s erotic presence is maybe only apparent when it’s surface is seen in person.
Much less suffering than in his self portrait at AIC.
Richmond Barthe, 1901 -1989
Woman Putting Flower in her Hair, 1965, 21" high
Barthe, Feral Bengal, 1937 , 19’’ high
Love these small bronzes - somewhere in between masculine and feminine.
They gently rule their surrounding space.
Just read that the actor, James Garner, was an important patron of the aging sculptor.
Percy Konqobe , (b. 1939, South Africa), 1991, 26 " long
It’s heavy, earthy, inward driving power contrasts well with Barthe.
The artist has had a rocky life.
After getting out of prison, he became a Zulu healer before he got into sculpture
with the help of Sydney Kumalo.
Zanele Muhole (b. 1972, South Africa) Muhole III, 2022
Muhole is a photographer committed to Queer activism - - so I’m guessing that this skillfully modeled portrait was outsourced. The sculptor did a good job - though it does not rise above the good illustration of Social Realism.
Olasunkanmi Alomolehin (b. 1995, Nigeria)
Dare to Dream, 50 x 50"
Grace - thrill - beauty
I like this artist a lot
Everything feels so fresh.
He loves to be alive.
If I had a palace, I would hire this artist to decorate it.
Modou Diang (b. 1967 Senegal) Afternoon in Casablanca, 2021
Looks like a stage set.
Khalif Tahir Thompson (b. 1995) Military Man, 2022, 50 x 37", mixed media
This piece felt so African
I was sure this artist was as well,
but indeed he was born in Brooklyn
and is currently pursuing an MFA at Yale.
He is already entering museum collections,
but I’d say that is premature.
Signage was a frequent issue
and I have no idea who made this portrait.
Michael Goldberg (1924-2007)Still Life, 1955, Oil, paper, and tape on canvas, 76 x 62
A Goldberg piece caught my eye at Expo about ten years ago
so now it;s confirmed I’m a fan.
The detail above gives a better idea of what he’s about:
The thrill of expanding out into space.
Looks like someone was out to make a quick profit
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
‘Absolute Best Trap Painter (Come in! Get out!)
MZH, as the title of this piece might suggest,
is trapping space within boxes
and then going brush wild within them.
The improbably sweet overall design pulls you in
while the impatient interior scrawls push you back out.
Such a passion for exploration.
Mike Henderson (b 1943) Riding the Stick Horse in Search of, 40 x 30", 2021
Another trap painter,
Not with the loving anarchy of MZH,
but with its own sense of grit and struggle,
like the Blues music which he performs.
Ben Tinsley (b. 1981), Telekinesis, 40 x 50 "
My idea of contemporary suburban American life
filled with opportunities and chaos.
Don Totten (1903-1967) Synchrony , 1960’s, 62 x 72 "
A more mellow vision of urban life.
Trudy Benson. (B. 1985), Hello Goodbye, 2023, 61 x 66
Fun - high energy - annoying
Belongs in the lobby of an advertising agency.
Tomory Dodge (b. 1974), December Boys, 84 x 84, 2023
The aesthetics of a crowded closet
Tyler Vlahovich (b 1967)
An isosceles triangle is struggling to emerge.
Belongs in a counseling center.
Uday Dhar (b. UK)
The wacky still life genre
done so well locally by Magalie Guerin
Candida Alvarez
Here’s a small piece from the booth’s back room that I really liked.
So endearingly cheerful.
Larry Poons (b 1937), untitled, 65 x 67, 2024
Feels like the default setting of my mind.
A big hairy soup of feelings and anxieties.
Shara Mays, Squire, 2022, 72 x 60
The inside of another kind of human mind
Ta-Koomba Aiken (B. 1952), Reunion, 2022, 40 x 40
Feels like it could be the masculine companion to the previous painting.
Poojah Pittie, Toward Nightfall, 54 x 54
This feels like a placid stage in Poojah’s spiritual journey.
Flowers floating down a stream at night.
Remy Hysbergue, (b. 1967, France) A60823, 38 X 31"
A majestic kind of beauty that feels too aloof to be American
Jules Olitski,(1922-2007) Romance, 1965, 93 x 67"
Willem de Looper (b. Netherlands, 1932-2009)
A museum guard (Phillips Collection ) makes good.
These, and the other meditative pieces that follow
Were so refreshing in the congested madness of Expo Chicago.
And I’d enjoy them on the walls of waiting rooms.
But I wouldn’t travel very far to see them.
Song Hyun Sook (b. 1952 Korea) 7 Brushstrokes, 2008
The aesthetic properties of Asian ceramics hung up on the walls.
I am at peace.
Park Young-ha (b.Korea 1954) Thou to be Seen Tomorrow, 2023
Esteban Vicente (b. Spain ,1903-2001) The West, 1980 68x 56
Magdalena Skupinska (b. Poland 1991)
The surface - built up with unconventional substances -
cannot be felt in the photo.
There’s a cruel obsessiveness I enjoy.
(On wall). Toshiyuki Kajioka. (B. Japan, 1978) Stream, 2024, pencil and sumo ink on paper
(Foreground). Hiroyoshi Asaka, (b. Japan. 1977) marble
Sculpture that proclaims a sincere dedication to the absurd.
A fine complement to art that tries so hard to be meaningful.
But does it deserve any floor space on its own?
Stream. (Detail)
I could see some high pressure executive staring into this blackness to wind down.
Amanda Williams
.. and then we have a very different kind of blackness.
No flowing water. No relaxation here.
Amanda Williams (b, 1974), What black is this you say - stop crying fo I give you something to cry about - black (03.26.24)- 60 x 60
Quite a surprise to see this politicized conceptual artist make such a sensual piece
Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011)Years Later, 1980, 84 x 54
Also a surprise to see this kind of work from this painter.
Usually she delights me,
but this is a feeling to which I cannot relate.
A tasty detail to a piece I cannot identify.
Possibly by Danuel Mendez.
James Brooks (1906-1992), Kantry, 1967, 54x 60 "
This piece could have been done 50 years later.
Well balanced between disturbance and tranquility.
Jorge Galindo (b. 1965, Spain)
Part floral - part ABX
Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972), untitled ,2012, acrylic on hide 20 x 11
A wonderful piece whose distorted shape is not caused by my camera.
As a Native American he has work in the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis.
Perle Fine (1905-1988). Beneath the Surface, 1951, 31 x 48,oil and sand on canvas
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991)Summertime in Italy, Sketch n. 14, 7 x 5 ", 1970
A very small, lively piece.
Might be a Chinese character for "fun at the beach"
George Vranesh, 1922 - 2014, Scuffle, 1957, 34x28
A jazzy feeling - a bit like Stuart Davi.
But played on the piano, not trumpet.
(This piece should be cover art for some Bud Powell album)
Chris Succo. (B. Germany, 1979)
Raw - dynamic - thrilling
This wall size piece is the only expo choice I had in common
with Mary Lynn Buchanan (Instagram)
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