___place is about times and spaces of revolution, and their effect on visual images. We use convention and tradition to recognize images, pictures and works of art, and because art images interpret our world, they impact how we understand changes in the experience of place, space and time. We only understand visual things in contexts that are historical, geographic and cultural. Artists respond to those factors, and ___place is an experimental exhibition of such responses. The exhibition uses a notion of revolution to emphasize how changes in what, when, and where we see not only changes the character of visual images, but also tells us something about the tools we use to see the world. Exhibiting artists include Steven Carrelli, Anna Kunz, Betsy Odom, and Michael K. Paxton.

Though the Western consumer products market is saturated by “Made in China” products, the design professions in China remain a mystery. Found: Contemporary China Design intends to showcase the exciting developments in design, particularly in product design, in the past three decades in China, to improve the understanding of the impact of globalization on local culture, and to provide a forum to discuss collaborations of American and Chinese design societies.

Time Out Chicago

Could it be that the Avant Garde, still the dominant discussion in new art, and the self-anointed “breaker” of cultural aesthetic rules, has been the creator of a great number of tacit laws that govern the landscape of contemporary art? What is worthy to speak about when one is making “important” art? The Object of Nostalgia contemplates the nature of “sentimentality” and its conflicted relation to contemporary art. Each of the artists represented copes with nostalgia and the condition of longing in a unique and personal way, eschewing both the cold, universalist demands of Modernism and the distanced superficiality employed by Postmodern practices in favor of personal investigation, private narratives, and the full breadth of creative tools and language available to the artist. This exhibition is in conjunction with CAA 2010 and a related panel discussion.

image credit: Marlene Alt

Let there be Geo  takes a contemporary look at visual artists who use geometric form in their work.  While geometric form is not a new phenomenon, geo forms are appearing in some of the most aesthetically progressive work being made today.  The largest advocators of the use of geometric shapes began with Futurism and Cubism moving through the OpArt of the 60s and Neo-Geometric Conceptualism of the 80s.  Predominantly cool and impersonal in approach, through often active with content, contemporary 21st century responses to geometric form employ a variety of styles and media from painting to video to photography and sculpture.  The works in Let there be Geo explore today’s incarnation of geometric form.  Exhibiting artists include Maya Hayuk, Cody Hudson (image credit), Barbara Kasten, Sam Prekop, Geoffrey Todd Smith, and Steven Husby among others.