(image by Brent Garbowski and Joe Mault)

It ain’t over…

April 28-May 26, 2012
Opening Reception Saturday, April 28, 6-9 p.m.

Civil disobedience. Maybe it doesn’t always stay so civil. Maybe we’re not so civic minded.

There is no way for me to play Switzerland in this one—this is me taking one for the team. This is illuminating the comings and goings in my bed. This is a power f**k. These gestures are direct and directed at me. This is the wrong people speaking out, having their say. This is singing like a canary at the top of your lungs. This is sidestepping the dirty laundry; this is just dirty. Laughing in your face. Going for blood. Putting your cards out on the table.

The works of Barbara DeGenevieve, Brent Garbowski, and Joe Mault challenge the rules; up end structures. But not every challenge is militant. You may change the way you think about that other person’s body, the things that come in or go out of your mouth, or your relationship to power. But you might just sit a while and laugh.

(images by Joan Goldin, left, and Susannah Papish, right)

Escape Into the Briar Patch

March 31-April 21, 2012

Joan Goldin makes images that take some queues from medical TV—the feel of gut and liver. The sound of a dramatic prop organ plops into the medical tray. Wet and somehow failing, there is an aura that we need to act quickly or give ourselves over to dire consequences. But Joan’s photos aren’t imitating. There isn’t a story line. More ordinary than surgery or dissection.

Note taking. These images are observed, maybe repeated. Each version has a scrawl that directs us to pay attention to another part. Joan seems to have a system, but we’re not let in on that information. So many artists look at science as unknowable, as a kind of beauty. Joan works like someone who knows her science. She is thinking faster than the experiment. Revelation. And though there is darkness and danger, the rupture generated by her dashed reminders are as much about play and humor as they are about the stuff they are running from.

Susannah Papish generates her images rather than dashing off notes, so they come at a slower pace. Methodical. Most of the time, things arrived at slowly are deadly serious. But Susannah’s images could be inspired by a 50’s mermaid dance party. Even when you realize the decorations are all internal organs and cancerous growths they are glimmery and lickable and add the perfect pop to your flouncy dress.

There is a tendency in nature related to bright markings: they tend to communicate things. One example is the don’t-fuck-with-me message worn by a venomous species. Susannah’s lovely flowers both bear witness to their own poisonous inflections and are an exterior reflection of an embattled interior. Wet and dark recesses are illuminated in synthetic color arrays. It is an alien world, and not at all peaceful. Tumors and parasitic cells and the last throws of life. Drowning.

[images by Maggie Haas(top) and TJ Proechel(bottom)]

Slow has again partnered with ACRE to host Auntie Em’s Mobile Home as a part of ACRE’s year-long series of exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents. This exhibition features new work from ACRE residents Maggie Haas and TJ Proechel.

Auntie Em’s Mobile Home

February 25-March 17, 2012

There is the bleak and the before.
 
A place in between. Until it gets better. We know the assumptions that go along with the trailer park. Perhaps they just moved into the smaller apartment, or have a home whose toilet functions only by pouring a bucket down the hatch to imitate a flush. They may still host a really awesome dinner party. Even trashy homes embellish; there is decor. There may be pejorative terms like lipstick on a pig, but there is something about improving upon the meager, the ugly and the compromised. Finding beauty where it is. Or making beauty with what you have.
 
Stories have a way of beginning with few resources, uncertain characters, and unremarkable ethics. There are certain kinds of stories that begin with a character’s hard work. Perhaps the hero will find something from within that will drive her toward a cause, a choice. The act of deciding will better the circumstance. Perhaps the outcome is less clear than better. Good guys enter the adventure out of desperation as often as by choice. Surviving the eye of a storm. And the after.
 
TJ Proechel and Maggie Haas both tell stories that leave out trivial things like the plot, or even distinguished characters. There are whispers of getting things done—accomplishing. There are raw spots and signs of struggle, and limitation. Subjects are vaguely old school, but could just as easily be the hipster re-make. Theirs are stories of our times. Ultimately relatable, but not triumphant or redeeming.
 
TJ and Maggie enter the fray at different points—Maggie is perhaps more interested in compromised normalcy, coping with uncertainty and failure. TJ flirts with becoming a criminal or superhero, maybe both at the same time.

Slow has partnered with ACRE to host Not Cool or Stoic as a part of ACRE’s year-long series of exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents. The exhibition features new work from Chuck Jones and from ACRE resident Matthew Schlagbaum.

Not Cool or Stoic
January 27 - February 18, 2012

Colored theory. Not color for color’s sake, but named colors for linguistic associations.

Matthew Schlagbaum begins with greyscale, a faux grisaille, and slips in a technicolor magic schism. Unlike the filmic precedent, Matthew is invested neither in generating delight, nor affirming faith in humanity or individuality. More like Matthew is illuminating the shameless manipulations that drive familiar stories.
 
Glittering gold. Black and white and read all over.
 
Chuck Jones, a gorillalike hulking man always decked out in Carhartts and work shoes, spins a yarn with earnest ennui. Deeply sentimental moments become meditational gems. But his laser focus meanders—the moment was truly heart-felt, but Chuck is open enough to respond just as deeply to the next. Follow his lead and you may end up with your emotional guard puddled around your ankles, not knowing the differences between true grit, heart-strings, or even what is funny.
 
Chuck and Matthew both reside somewhere shaken, somewhat glum. Not cool or stoic. Each embraces his own direct emotional responses, and calls upon a viewer to dive into a moment. But each is driven toward a view of reality that pulls back the curtain to reveal something as it is complete with contradictions, flaws and untidy conclusions.

Being a curatorial project and an alternative art space, we don’t have any money but we wanted to give all of our fans a special holiday treat. So here is a remarkable recipe that we invented just for you, Chocolate covered caramelized Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. It’s kind of like spicy Cracker Jacks dipped in dark chocolate. Divine! We hope you enjoy!

Chocolate Caramelized Flaming’ Hot Cheetos, A Holiday Treat from Slow

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1 stick of butter (NOT MARGARIN)
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• one bag of Hershey’s dark chocolate chips
• one bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos

Time: about 1 hour

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Add the sugar, butter, and cream of tartar to a sauce pan and cook over low heat. Stir continually for about 20 min. Add the baking soda once the mixture has become liquid and a nice caramel color. Poor over the Cheetos and mix. Separate the individual pieces and then bake for 10 min. Separate the pieces and then return to the oven, repeat until the caramel becomes crispy. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Place the caramelized Cheetos on a pice of wax paper and poor the melted chocolate over them. Let cool and enjoy with your favorite adult beverage or your favorite adult or just your favorite beverage!

If you’re too lazy to make your own, stop by the gallery (2153 West 21st Street, Chicago IL). We still have some left from the video shoot. Then you can also check out our current exhibition, HEAD, and pick up some John Henley and Theodore Horner drawings that make wonderful holiday gifts for everyone you love.

Happy holidays from Slow!

P.S. We would like to give a big shout out to Paul’s mommy, Amy Sedaris, Maangchi, and Cooking with Dog for being such great inspirations. Thank you!

HEAD

November 18-December 17, 2011

Theodore Horner has been studying American History. He has been drawing portraits of 18th and 19th century presidents. He has also been collaborating with Jason Dunda. To ensure that his collection of portraits is cohesive, Theodore drew Jason as an 18th century man. Theodore’s decision asks something about the past and power, and the result is uncanny and funny as hell. Archer Bellas is 3 and very aware that his presence has power. Archer has fought his dad for the title artist. Benjamin Bellas works from his very personal stories, but has figured a way to tell the personal parts without that walked-in-on-him-in-the-bathroom revulsion. None of us is sure if Benjamin’s work is even in this show, but he worked with Archer, so it is nice to talk about him. Laura Davis often pretends that there is no figuration in her work, but its surfaces and presence occupy a personage’s presence even when there is no one there. She gave up her hallmark brilliance in working with surfaces to Andrew Holmquist this time around. Andrew plays with the atomization of presence; everything running through your brain goes through a wood chipper onto a canvas with thick bold fat paint. He is also rather brilliant in working with surfaces, although his versions of surface are quite distinctive from Laura’s.  Maybe I’ll convince you to ask me to show you the portrait I have been working on for the last 5 years.

Two heads are better than one; where do we land with half a dozen? Engaging portraits are always a little about what the outside looks like and a little about what the inside thinks and feels like. Or the social identity of the subject. Or is that object? The one who is looked at is both, right? Who is the one doing the looking?  Why do we get weird when the one looking somehow shifts or challenges? This collection of portraits rejects the mind body polarization so widely embraced, and repositions the portrait in the guttural and sexual body. This body of heads promises to be a little messy, propose a problem or two, and leave it all out there on the gallery floor.

As soon as it is clear that there in an investment in avoiding a classic structure, there is call to explore that classic structure. Slow is thrilled to announce its first-ever solo exhibition featuring the paintings of John Henley.

John Henley can’t stop

October 1 - November 12, 2011

There are many ways that a whole becomes fragmented. There are explosions, surgeries, and reductions. Sometimes there is challenge and dissolution that is more part and parcel of the every day. A nugget of paint has fallen off the wall. That nugget will never be news, nor will the thing revealed behind the fall. But the chip is something.

People are at their very most interesting when they are flawed, complicated, relatable, and yet very distinctive from their neighbors. One of the lessons learned from the human genome project is that genetic information is far more complicated than previously imagined. Like the languages we speak, it’s prone to a mistake or two, and equipped to respond to different contexts. DNA can even re-group in response to mistakes.

John paints like that. And he can move himself some paint.

Extraordinarily human, complicated, embodied, sexed, situated in nature, driven by social norms, cosmopolitan, wanting the latest gadget, and fully loaded with neuroses, anxieties, sadnesses, desires, joy and love. Not deconstructed, not reductive. Repeated and reproductive. John’s painting comes from relentless observation, trying it over again, looking at the next step, taking a leap of faith, skipping a beat, making the best of available resources, acknowledging the weak places, throwing out the crappy ones and sweating the small stuff.

the toy formerly known as…

August 6-September 10, 2011

The name ‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. It’s our name and it’s our ideal.

LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Brick configuration and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group. © 2009 The LEGO Group. © 2009

Toys are designed to direct play, and to teach children the rules. We are directed. Play trains us. Instructions on the box; pictures of what it is supposed to look like. The rules.

But we don’t stay in those lines.

Images of play that revolve around destruction may upset the adult crowd. For adults, edgy is a value system. The best of us learn to harness the design to transcend itself. Well-designed play inspires, but the kids seem to do just fine bringing their own broken rules to the game. Perhaps the outlaw and the artist have always been linked because rules have to be broken to discover the new.

Featuring artists Tom Burtonwood, Joseph Belknap, Sarah Belknap, CC Ann Chen, Todd Chilton, Meg Duguid, Jason Dunda, Brent Garbowski, Jeffrey Grauel, Brad Johns, Susie Kimball, Larry Lee, Allon Lieberman, Mican Morgan and Shannon Schmidt.

The low down

Caroline Allison, Danica Favorito, Jeffrey Grauel

April 30-May 28, 2011

Part of our American legacy is the truism that there are two sides to every story. Some illuminated soul claimed the third side: your way, my way, and the Truth. Became lyrics to a bunch of songs in the 90’s. Subjectivity remains contested, and so we have stories from endless points of view. Sometimes there’s still a melody.

Famous people have the tell-all because we know there is a truth they conveniently left hiding. We don’t trust that we have the real deal until there is something unexpected, uncanny. But how much space is there for demanding something novel inside the story of things we already know? How do we recognize revelation? After all, the truth of some things isn’t there unless it is gilt and florid because that’s how we found it. Stark is edited as much as pretty things are decorated. And the truth doesn’t just float above the world, separated from situation and nuance. 

Caroline Allison tells us stories we think we already know, and gleefully squares us off with uncanny discoveries. Danica Favorito tells us such small fragments that we only have responses left to hold on to, and then she taunts us for trusting our emotions. Jeffrey Grauel also toys with not telling us anything. Unless, that is, we believe him. If we do there are lifetimes at stake. Each artist has edited to the point that cold and hard rings consistently true. Each artist dances with lushness and layer, texture, unexpected beauty, scars, lingering leftovers, and suspension of disbelief. At the end of it, though, we are left holding our own bag. What remains inside that we are so willing to carry?

© Cheng-Yung Kuo 2010 All Rights Reserved

Lock the doors

Laura Davis, Jason Dunda

April 2-23, 2011

Look what the cat dragged in. Truth AND consequence. If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

Laura Davis is playing domestic, but the comforts of home have turned on themselves. Embellishment generates tension and devastates traditional notions of appropriate beauty. Intension rules the day: there is no way to ignore the savvy design structure that supports her domestic agenda.

Jason Dunda intends his devastations too. Each dilapidated structure desperately slammed together is carefully, almost lovingly, rendered. What is it about the Law? Stockholm syndrome, atonement, or is he on the other side of the justice equations?

One begins to worry about neighboring either artist. Are these telltale signs of psychopathic violence? Both push hierarchy into unknown terrain. Each in her own way pushes us to encounter some pretty uncomfortable assumptions. We are left bewildered or bemused or maybe to act out ourselves.

burnt sugar

Jason Jozwiak, Clayton Merrell

October 23-November 27, 2010

Bruce Smith, a provincial Utah painter, was lecturing passionately about art and its ideas. He said art creates a space that cannot exist without its creation. More than a thought because it is grounded in material reality; different from reality in the obvious ways. Art’s product can be experienced by anyone. Anyone can be confounded by the collapse of logic in a cubist painting without understanding its history, because it’s there. Objects are visible from simultaneous vantage points; solid planes of color hang in the atmosphere and appear hefty and important right there in plain sight.

Most folks know that toffee is simply caramelized sugar, maybe a little butter thrown in to help the browning. My grandmother made a candy she called lassie jack. Same ingredients, same process. Just pushed the process a little further until the candy is the color of black coffee. I think there was a little molasses in the mix too. Draws out that hit of bitter that keeps you coming back. It isn’t just sweet.

Clayton Merrell’s paintings are built on contradictory messages. Vantage points are all mixed up and occupy conflicting and impossible layers. His view is sweetness and harmony. Harmony that boggles because it should be a mess. The obvious conflicts work like that bitter note in my grandmother’s candy. 

Jason Jozwiak embraces the moment of encounter, like all good post-minimalists. His objects may not always remain discrete. He paints outside of the canvas lines. His materials are not color and picture plane, despite direct reference to traditional painting presentation. The work may keep moving, and sometimes he “paints” with failures from the kitchen. At the end of the encounter, you’re left a little unsure that you saw art at all.

We learn that minimalism rests on the phenomenological encounter with a form. Folks speak of that moment, the ah ha. Once that lesson in synthesized into our vocabulary, all of art becomes the moment of encounter. There is only a viewer looking at art. The funny thing is, both of these painters work so that the moment is drawn out, or happens under the radar. Something shifts, something about viewing changes, but I’ll be damned if I can point out just where and when the shifts happen.

plain plane

Todd Chilton, Mike Peter Smith

September 4-October 2, 2010

Mark Rothko reminds us, “The romantics were prompted to seek exotic subjects and to travel to far off places. They failed to realize that, though the transcendental must involve the strange and unfamiliar, not everything strange or unfamiliar is transcendental.” 

Todd Chilton paints utilizing a vocabulary that is often understood through its connections to pure form and universal principals. But Todd’s approach is anything but pure. He carries a pragmatic realism into his patterns by celebrating imperfection, awkwardness, and sometimes dissonance. Todd avoids old school narrative about something in favor of being something. His results are neither the high-minded attempts to become transcendent, nor the familiar snarky, ironic dismissal of the same we so often see in post minimalism. He manages to embody an earnest exploration of paint as itself, the here and now, while still challenging the bloated self-proclaimed absolutes of the past.

In short, Todd is planted squarely on the flawed material plane we all live on.

Mike Peter Smith navigates a parallel route. He conjures bombastic characters who are wildly attached to romantic arching searches for the TRUTH. But Mike’s conclusions are not so much those arching truths. Rather, he illuminates the drive toward absolute truth as a weakness. Mike’s musing on life and death is a decorous indulgence. Upon first glance, Mike’s character John reads as a lone genius, but he ends up feeling more like a self-absorbed slob. Mike’s real romance lies in the street vendor generating a viable way of living the dream. Paradise reveals itself as a childish fantasy, and we are left feeling vulnerable for being taken in. Sympathy rests with familiar human frailties, the idiosyncrasies of a particular vantage point. Focus on the impulse to seek is the perfect foil for the romance of it all. If there is enlightenment, it comes with accepting things as they are, and feeling at home as our awkward flawed particular selves.

booze and bacon

July 24-August 21, 2010

Summer is best used nursing a cocktail on the veranda, not for stewing over challenging concepts. 

Booze and Bacon is my personal foolproof recipe for crowd pleasing. A group of dynamic people indulging in simple pleasures is both the desired outcome and generative of the next. It’s like that kiss good night after a really good first date: enough of what you want to get you hooked for the second. Maybe we don’t learn that much along the way, but it sure is a hell of a ride.

This show will feature artists who have been exhibiting for years, sometimes in really important venues, and very young artists who have never shown anything outside of a school setting. There are too many artists, but it opens that space where you can try that ridiculous thing. It promises to be a good time. 

Brooke Barnett, Benjamin Bellas, Tola Brennan, Judith Brotman, Christopher Bungart, Ann Chen, Laura Davis, Meg Duguid, Jason Dunda, Kirk Faber, Brent Garbowski, Max Garett, Jeffrey Grauel, Matt Harrison, John Henley, Andrew Holmquist, Fred Holland, Michael Hunter, Carol Jackson, Brad Johns, Larry Lee, Kirsten Leenaars, Mican Morgan, Helen McElroy, Chris Naylon, William Newhouse, Susannah Papish, Laura Prieto-Velasco, Scott Ramon, Tim Schade, Sarah Wild, and Philip von Zweck. There maybe others…

ject [ sub, ob, ab, in, inter, pro, re]

Andrew Holmquist, Zack Stadel

May 2-July 10, 2010

Zack Stadel builds paint until it becomes an entity. No id. But there it is. As with a minimalist cube, it is the thing, not about the thing. Funny how that common impulse leads one group of artists toward purity and another toward the sewer. Zack’s paintings have the presence of a someone, but not the essence. Confrontation with this lump that resembles a head generates ambivalence. There is something alien and oddly threatening. But what can be learned if caution is thrown to the wind and the significance of this thing is allowed to become the field of focus?

Andrew Holmquist is a different sort. More interested in the way of life. And he’s not toying with whether there is someone who is on (or in) the way. There is definitely a someone. But the rest of it may not be so clear. There are all kinds of ways that a concise person is bigger than they are. Sloughing skin, technological embellishments that extend functions of astounding varieties. Words generate presence though we all know the author, the source, the body has been rotting away for years. Perhaps these conversations start Andrew’s investigations, but like celebrities in mug shots, these folks have something to hide. There’s something about what is left rather than something that is building. Nothing is happening, so there is discomfort in assuming that an event is the proper context.

The temptation is there to pronounce this a pair of portrait artists. They are colorists and painters. The paintings are exuberant with the right amount of cocksure bravado. But none of these really gets to the flavor of just how these two artists are dealing with identification. 

FREE LOVE

Mican Morgan, Porous Walker

Curated by Jeffrey Grauel

March 28-April 24, 2010

“Love”, like “art” doesn’t have a single simple meaning. Every song ever written, every play, movie has tried to figure out what it is and how to deal with it. All of this collective brooding has reduced the language and images about love down to a few we recognize right off, hearts and broken hearts. Artists Mican Morgan and Porous Walker use this lexicon and suggest a slightly new one for an idea refresh and a necessary laugh. Love is not stale; it’s free.

Mican Morgan manipulates relationship clichés like her sculptural materials. She pulls them apart and sticks different bits together with results that continue to be familiar yet slightly off. Nuggets of base wisdom and metaphors to love by become objects and vignettes. Getting “hitched” and braiding are scrutinized as actions of affection, but things aren’t always rosy. Expect a few bombs to drop. Cue Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield.”

Porous Walker’s artwork depicts the parts of life and relationships that make us uncomfortable or exists only in fantasy. He makes them accessible like bathroom graffiti or a note secretly passed amongst schoolboys. Indecent and hilarious, his distinct style invokes psychedelic imagery from the 70s and exists somewhere between Dr. Seuss and R. Crumb. Porous’ drawings seem like they haven’t matured past adolescence, and that is a good thing. They never should. They have a fresh wisdom to impart. Sometimes as simple as, “Don’t do this.”

Mican Morgan is a lady and Porous Walker is a dude. Mican lives and works in Chicago and Porous on a houseboat in Northern California. Mican is the keeper of the Thorne Miniature Rooms at the Art Institute. Porous Walker is not Porous’ real name. Mican earned her MFA from UIC. Porous’ artwork has been featured in magazines and galleries all over the world.

language is my second language

James Kubie, Jinn Brown Lee

February 21-March 20, 2010

Perhaps if they met at a party James Kubie and Jinn Bronwen Lee wouldn’t have all that much to say to each other. James practices every word. Jinn Bronwen hangs back and waits for the conversation to unfold. 

James Kubie has been approaching initiatory fraternal societies. He isn’t trying to join, but neither is his project an ethnographic study. Like one of my eccentric great aunts, James also tries to re-write the cannon of medical protocol. But my aunts were trying to improve their odds of healing. James embraces a theatrical extravagance over statistics and practical science. But he does his homework. He meticulously researches oddities, processes, and histories. But it is geekery, a carny’s studied act meant to shift expectations under your feet. 

Jin Bronwen is more matter of fact. She jumps into the middle of a conversation; says what she has to say. There are no book reports to prop up her assertions. But neither is she challenging proscribed histories. There is an earnestness that brings some gravitas, but one would probably avoid descriptions like heavy.

So now I have a problem. If I clarify James’ reportage or Jinn Bronwen’s directed meander, I do disservice. These artists masterfully allow content to reveal itself. Inevitably the place you land is not where you thought you were heading. The approach of these artists is built on accentuating what isn’t said. When they get to the best of it, their art illuminates that place somewhere in between being something and being about something.

for the time being

Benjamin Bellas, C.C. Ann Chen

November 1, 2009-February 13, 2010

Benjamin Bellas’ repertoire of everyday objects and videos seems to be built on a philosophy similar to that of a Japanese home cook. One does as little as possible, allowing each ingredient to reveal itself in the best possible light. Unlike the Japanese, he avoids the rarified or refined ingredient. C.C. Ann Chen transforms her source material in the mode of a French chef. It is clear we are seeing her view, and her mastery uncovers the unknown in very familiar territory. Chen’s photographs, paintings and drawings deny the truism that seeing is believing. These artists’ styles could not be further apart, but the work occupies similar footing. Humor is great, but not pastiche or sarcasm. Thoughts, but not issues. Never too much or too heavy, never flimsy or trivial, they quietly persuade you away from the prevailing winds of standard thinking.

Paul WHO?

August 23 - October 11, 2009

Curated by MOLAR Productions (Larry Lee)

Paul Hopkin is slow.

But everyone knows that. Or so you would think because if not, they will soon. And to make sure, why not advertise this fact with a really big show on August 23rd starting around 6pm or thereabouts where

Carrie Gundersdorf, Judith Brotman, Susannah Papish, Carol Jackson, Brooke Barnett, Jason Dunda, Mican Morgan, Gwenn Ael Lynn, Michael Hunter, Platform Projects (Michael Langhoff), Andrew Holmquist, Sarah Wild, Megan Powell, Jeffrey Grauel, Gabriel Bizen Akagawa, Todd Chilton, John Henley, C.C. Ann Chen, Chris Naka, Michael Rocco, Nika Levando and (Backyard) August Gallery (Jamilee Polson)

a motley crew of artists, friends and cronies (but no relatives) Paul likes, or at least is intrigued by, who loosely investigate the cult of personality and myth of what drives the man himself 

answer that burning question: “Paul WHO?”

All this from the long-awaited return of MOLAR Productions just to inaugurate his (Paul’s) new storefront gallery… slow.