William Pope.L

The Renaissance Society

June 2013

The day that “Forlesen” opened, the shiny black helium balloons of Ellipsis (all works 2013) bobbed in the rafters, moored to washers. A few weeks later, they had sunk to the ground and the worst of them looked like rotten grapes, molding… READ ON

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“Afterimage”

DePaul University Museum

October 2012

It is a testament to the generative richness of the Chicago Imagists, who coalesced around the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hyde Park Art Center in the 1960s, that a show about their influence on artists working today is so void of anxiety… READ ON

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Sreshta Rit Premnath and Matthew Metzger

Tony Wight Gallery

May 2012

A property developer in Bangalore named M. S. Ramaiah purportedly believed that he could stave off death with endless site construction, a conceit that, along with the figure of Ramaiah himself, haunts Sreshta Rit Premnath’s solo exhibition… READ ON

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“Feast: Radical Hospitality in Art”

Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago

April 2012

“Feast” greets its visitors with a photograph by Laura Letinsky: Untitled #8, Rome, 2009, which shows the aftermath of a sumptuous banquet: a lace table cloth, scattered ornate dishes, a stack of empty cockleshells so crisply in focus … READ ON

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André Butzer

Rhona Hoffman Gallery

February 2012

In his first solo exhibition in Chicago, the prolific German painter André Butzer provides a concise and gripping recapitulation of his recent work with six canvases painted between 2008 and 2011, ranging from about three by five feet to … READ ON

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Joe Zucker

September 2011

Though Joe Zucker has spent most of his forty-plus-year career in New York, this intimate retrospective homes in on the seminal work the artist produced in his hometown of Chicago, including pieces he made as a graduate student the Art … READ ON

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Theaster Gates

May 2011

In the past, Theaster Gates has couched his work in historical narratives—a 2010 show at the Milwaukee Art Museum, for example, found the artist reimagining himself as David Drake, the nineteenth-century “slave potter” of Edgefield, … READ ON

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“La Carte d’Après Nature”

December 2010

At the entrance to the belle epoque Villa Paloma, newly christened the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, a vinyl seven-inch record twirls, emitting sounds recorded on site by Swedish artist Henrik Håkansson—fragile, chaotic birdsong, … READ ON

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Takashi Murakami

December 2010

French historical institutions have proved willing to experiment with contemporary art installations (a few standouts this year include Miquel Barceló at the Palace of the Popes in Avignon and Mark Dion at the Musée Départemental Arles … READ ON

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“La Carte d’Après Nature,” “Second Hand,” Elina Brotherus

November 2010

Surprise is a legitimate reaction to finding one of the year’s best contemporary exhibitions in Monaco. The inaugural show at the Nouveau Musée Nationale de Monaco’s Villa Paloma, “La carte d’après Nature (The Map After Nature),… READ ON

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