Nicholas Africano’s sparse and redolent pictures depict things that are hard to name, but that are immediately recognizable by their indeterminacy of emotion and hint of crisis. His poetic images reflect small and precise revelations; they are sentient illuminations into the recesses of the heart. Whether very large or very small, the 20 paintings on display here follow a basic format wherein a figure—usually alone—is set against a richly textured, grisaille background of tan or gray. The figures are rendered in a washy monochrome that betrays Africano’s sensitivity to anatomy and posture. Every

In this show, guest curators Jeanne Dunning and Hirsch Perlman presented work that balks, stutters, or is painfully shy; that is plugged, reversed, or on idle; work that gets stuck in the throat, caught in the filter; that flaps and makes a noise—rackety, rackety, rackety—and won’t go down. Rather than ably and dutifully “communicating,” i.e. presenting solutions to esthetic problems, this work problematizes the very idea of esthetic solutions, and gives the lie to the notion of linguistic or textual transparency. By resisting an easy read, the work transfers the reader’s attention to the material

333 West Wacker Drive is one of Chicago’s most distinctive post-Modern buildings.Its sinuous curve follows the curve of the Chicago river and its shimmering green glass is the color of iridescent silk, of certain shades of water—and, now, of corporate office space. Stephen Prina’s work, which was installed in the first floor gallery of this building (an additional site for the Renaissance Society) seemed to have been infected by this ubiquitous green. Monochrome Painting, 1989, consists of 14 green canvases painted with the same acrylic enamel. This green stops light, stops illusion, stops