For immediate release, January 2005:
WESTERN EXHIBITIONS presents
GREGG PERKINS
and
JUSTIN SCHAEFER
Fuzzy Logic
January 22 to February 26, 2005
Opening Reception:
Saturday, January 22 from 6 to 9pm
Gallery Hours:
Saturdays, noon to 6pm
Fuzzy Logic is a two-person show featuring the paintings of Chicagoans Gregg Perkins and Justin Schaefer. The show opens with a free public reception on Saturday, January 22.
Gregg Perkins' recent work fixes ambient lighting situations by tracing and filling patterns of light falling on a canvas in the studio. The painting becomes a permanent document of an otherwise ephemeral moment in the studio - here the studio becomes both the generator of content and place of production in one. For Fuzzy Logic, he's presenting 5 to 7 abstract, process based paintings that address abstraction not from a critical / deconstructive standpoint, but rather to present paintings that engage paint and language as the only constituents in the construction of an image.Justin Schaefer applies paint to a variety of objects, from found placards of ice cream to art and basketball posters to crushed cinderblocks. The applied paints act as protection, point of vulnerability, infiltration, penetration, nostalgia, and separation on many of the "found" objects. It literally protects their surface, encircling the object with a new logic. Schaefer's process (destruction and construction) of image-making leaves the viewer pondering the middle ground, as the artist attempts to locate the point between inspiration and obliteration.
Fuzzy Logic developed out a series of conversations between Chicago artists Gregg Perkins and Justin Schaefer analyzing art production in the last half of the twentieth century. How do we place new ideas in the space between theories, genres, and movements no longer with us? Are these theories, genres, and movements present only as ghosts, guiding us though an uncertain post-historical present?
Perkin's and Schaefer's works are installed in dialogue. The meanings developed between the two bodies of work are contingent, commingled, and difficult to sort out, the content looping back into itself and then on to the next object, the next thought.
Gregg Perkin’s work has been included in shows at Puerto Rico '02 in San Juan, Midway Contemporary in Minneapolis, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin, and NFA Space, The Pond, Bodybuilder & Sportsman and The Suburban, all in Chicago. His most recent solo show was at the Beverly Art Center, Chicago, IL in 2003. Gregg also co-founded The Kit, an organization providing audio interviews with artists, critics and musicians. Check it out at http://www.thekit.org and co-founded Coterie, an art and cultural criticism broadsheet distributed at Chicago galleries and independent spaces. After years of shuttling between Madison, Minneapolis, and Sweden (playing in numerous rock bands including Better off Airport and The Great Depression), he now lives and works in Chicago.
Justin Schaefer’s work has been included in shows at Soo Vac in Minneapolis, Locust Projects in Miami (part of Milhaus’ 4 Color Pen Show), and Heaven, Track House and Western Exhibitions, all in Chicago. He recently spent a year at the Hueyhaus Residency in Santa Fe, New Mexico before his current position as a BFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was born in St. Paul and lives and works in Chicago.WESTERN EXHIBITIONS
1648 W Kinzie, 2nd Floor
Chicago, IL
Contact info:
Scott Speh, director
312.307.4685
send email
ALL IMAGES © WESTERN EXHIBITIONS & EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST
