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Aftermodern proudly announces that it is endorsing Barack Obama
for President.
Aftermodern believes that Barack Obama is the type of charismatic,
intelligent and courageous political leader that America
needs. Obama reminds us of Bobby Kennedy and his oratorical
and inspirational skills remind us of another famous man
from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. MORE
We are pleased to publish Saul White - The Last Beat Artist to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Saul’s death in May 2003. Few American artists participated more broadly than Saul White in both the early abstract expressionist art movement associated with Venice West in Los Angeles as well as the New York School. Uncannily, for reasons spelled out below, Saul managed to stay under the radar for most of his life while he outlived most of his more famous friends. Saul White lived life large and ran with such beat generation luminaries as Charles Bukowski, Wallace Berman, Stuart Perkoff, John Altoon and Lawrence Lipton, among many others. This is Saul’s story:
The legacy of the Beat Generation continues to resonate from east to west, with palpable roots in New York, San Francisco, and Venice Beach. Artists of various disciplines and philosophers of unconventional creed formed a subculture in unabashed rejection of the materialism and abundant consumption of mainstream America. A once modest enclave of creative vanguards forged a defining movement in American culture through their fervent advocacy of extreme liberalism in politics and lifestyle. MORE
Pink Worlds and White Icing, a collection of poems written by a twelve-year-old girl in late sixties, stands as the point of initiation for this collection of recent work by artists Carlson and Gehweiler. Awash in preteen nostalgia, strangely baroque as well as alternately naive, precocious, and deeply introspective, these tiny poems are about “color, the Beatles, bubblegum, nature and the universe”. They lend both a perfect title and a rich backdrop to this exhibition of candy-colored dreamscapes and imaginary narratives within the realm of head-in-the-clouds teenage psychedelia. The paintings engender a nuanced sensibility of the pastoral, pretty and pop while simultaneously embracing subtexts of dark comedy.
Widely considered a major influence in the recent explosion of young feminine art in the United States, Fawn Gehweiler’s aesthetic hinges on a delicate balance of past and present, building obsessive narratives through personal artifacts that reflect the imaginary worlds of little girls, treading the fine line between wide eyed innocence and dark fairy tales.
Dana Carlson enhances traditional painting techniques with embroidery, beadwork, and appliqué to create hybrid, handiworked dream worlds. Her intricate paintings conjure up a pretty, Romantic absurdity that is part down-home psychedelia, part angst-infused gesture painting, and part earnest teenager.
Aftermodern is pleased to present Ethereal Realities, an exhibition of new work by San Francisco painter Molly McCracken Kumar. Following the artist’s opening reception on Friday, April 11th from 6 to 8pm, the show will be on view at the gallery through May 14th.
Stemming from her inquiry into the unending processes of birth, death and rebirth, Molly McCracken Kumar specifically portrays moments of emergence and regeneration in this new body of work. Fluid atmospheres surround the abstract forms of plants and cells, much like the primordial waters from which the cultivation of new life becomes possible. The large format images depict constant states of flux and equilibrium through the presence of biomorphic clusters, both emergent and dormant.
In an exploration of transient experiences, the paintings embrace the permanence of beauty as they metaphorically suggest the renewal of idealized possibilities and the energy of seasonal change. Through the painting process, the artist provides a conduit to a celebrated sensuality resonant with the role of nature’s growth cycle. As a corollary to this overarching cycle, the meticulous layering of paint is ultimately both a celebration of an opening to the present as well as a meditation upon desire.
Aftermodern is pleased to present Resemblances, an exhibition of work by New York photographer Caroline Shepard. Following the artist’s opening reception on Friday, March 7th, from 6 to 8pm, the show extends through April 9th.
In this exhibit Shepard references not only the many separate pieces from which each photograph is digitally assembled, but also the mimetic nature of the final image as a representation. Resemblances come to exist between the individual parts and the constructed whole, a relationship of empirical reality and transcendent ideality as shown within personal living spaces, urban interiors and their inhabitants. The images engage complex dialogues of the real and the possible, the actual and the supposed, suggesting the ambivalences of perception within a visual fabric of the imaginary. From Shepard’s immediate circle, it is ultimately the human subject that psychologically anchors the photographs as they elude expectation through interpreted light and perspective.
Shepard’s work was recently chosen by American Photography 23 to be included in the Best Images of 2006 presentation on their website, and also was included in Oprah’s 2007 “Best Of” anthology. Her work regularly appears in New York Magazine as well as other publications. A native of New York, she is one of the regeneration 50 photographers of tomorrow.
Reception: Friday, January 25th, 6 - 9pm
Aftermodern is pleased to present Grandma, a group exhibition of original works by Libby Black, Chris Bogia, Matt Borruso, Hein Koh, Deb Sokolow and Ann Toebbe. An exploration of metaphoric forms steeped in the intricacies of personal narrative, the exhibition opens on January 25th, 2008 and runs through February 23rd. An artists’ opening reception will be held on January 25th from 6 to 9pm.
What stereotypes and personal associations do we attach to the word “Grandma”? Who can recall Grandma without considering old age, loneliness, fulfillment and death? This exhibition invites six artists to contemplate their own experience of family, memory and the cultural divide separating youth and old age.
Libby Black constructs paper replicas of her grandmother’s toiletries, jewelry, and Chanel perfume. Chris Bogia uses string, glue and yarn in an homage to the 60’s craft movement, homemakers, and his miniature pinscher Olympia (named after his grandmother). Matt Borruso offers a grotesque school portrait of a young-old person with a huge red nose and oversized ears. Hein Koh remembers her grandmother’s native country and the endless chili peppers she dried on bamboo mats in the living room. Deb Sokolow maps the paranoid delusions of questionable tenants in a Chicago apartment building and its gossipy eighty-year old superintendent, Abby (a.k.a. “Grandma”). Ann Toebbe channels Grandma Moses in faux-folksy paintings of her childhood memories of her grandmother’s farm in Southern Indiana.
This project is supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
