SCOTT SPEH GALLERY
Gallery
Address:
845 W Washington Blvd.
2nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60607
312.480.8390
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Gallery hours:
Wedensdays thru Saturdays
11am to 6pm
June 2- July 7, 2007
- In
the Main Gallery:
The PAUL NUDD CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE
featuring
Arlene TextaQueen
Aaron Wrinkle
Jason Villegas
Images here
-
In the Plus Gallery:
a two-person exhibition by
STACZA LIPINSKI
and
PAUL NUDD
Images here
This summer, Western Exhibitions presents The Paul Nudd Curatorial Experience, showcasing three artists who captivate Paul Nudd's fevered imagination: Arlene TextaQueen from Australia, Jason Villegas from Texas and Aaron Wrinkle from California, with an opening reception on Saturday, June 2, from 6 to 9pm.
Arlene TextaQueen's "Textadnudes", life-sized felt-tip marker drawings of nude women in the natural environments, overturn the voyeuristic and aesthetically detached tradition of The Nude, conveying an intimate exchange between artist and subject. Initially conceived as drawings for a Manga-esque soft-porn website, TextaQueen depicts female (and very rarely, male) friends in intimate spaces such as bedrooms and baths. Their unique character shows through their chosen attire and environs, such as a puppy suit or as a walrus riding queen, whether drinking champagne in the toilet or as two tangled nudes on a tandem bicycle. Arlene TextaQueen has exhibited widely in Australia, including the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the Mori Gallery in Sydney and has been an artist-in-residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in NYC. TextaQueen received her BFA from the University of Western Australia, Perth.
Jason Villegas is debuting a large wall painting, Ultrabastard Salesmen, portraying salesmen who engage in war crimes, terrorism, shopping, voodoo worship and suicide in order to promote Ultrabastard consumption, the brand name of fictional line of a series of fashionably absurd war machines. Jason Villegas' recent show solo at Plush Gallery is reviewed in the May 2007 issue of Art in American. Villegas is a 2004 Artadia (Houston) grant recipient, was named "Houston's Best Artist" by the Houston Press in 2005 and has upcoming exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UT Dallas, and at the Lima Cultural Center in Peru. He just completed his MFA at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Aaron Wrinkle states of his low-fi sculptural work that it is "art history, it's politics, it's the academic, it's humor, it's process, unfortunately it's irony, it's appropriation, it's sometimes laziness, it's bullshit, it's violence, it's love, it's self-obedience, it's spirituality, it's maybe not even art." Aaron Wrinkle, an MFA-candidate at the California Institute of Art, has shown at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center (solo show) in Kansas City, LAX Art in Los Angeles, Rocket Projects in Miami and Fahrenheit Gallery in Kansas City and his many installations and collaborations include the Dolphin Gallery Billboard in Kansas City, the Yellow Freight Warehouse in Corpus Christi, Texas and the acclaimed "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" with Burak Duvenci at the Lynn Foundation in Kansas City.
In the Plus Gallery, we'll complement The Paul Nudd Curatorial Experience with a two-person show by Paul Nudd and Stacza Lipinski.
Paul Nudd will unveil his first serious sculpture, a mysterious table-top model called "Temple of Greening Flesh (A Graveyard)", an unnamable green monument to death and decay. This sculpture extends Nudd's explorations of the fecund, the funky and not-so-fresh. The work brings his anxious ink drawings, boogery collage paintings and slimy videos into the third dimension.
Nudd's work has been widely exhibited, but this, his second show with Western Exhibitions, marks his debut as a Western Exhibitions gallery artist. Paul Nudd's most recent solo exhibitions include "Pus Lust" at Jack at Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, NY (2006) and "Green Slug & Wet Filth: a Dog's Dream" at Bodybuilder & Sportsman in Chicago, IL (2005). Recent group exhibitions include "Vomitorium with AgitProp" at Gallery 40000 in Chicago (2006) and "Drawing Room" at Western Exhibitions in Chicago (2006). He has a concurrent curatorial effort at Butchershop Dogmatic in Chicago. Paul Nudd received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001.
Stacza Lipinski's "Towhead" is a sprawling delicate assemblage of painted intricate curlicues of cut vellum pinned to the wall in heavy layers. The voluminous curls of painted vellum allude to body parts and bodily functions, much like Nudd's corporeal fixations but with less of an intention to disgust, as well as decorative Victorian patterns. Lipinski will also show several small colorful gouache drawings, curious shapes that refer to plant forms, festooned with heavy strings of painted beads.
This is one of three shows Stacza Lipinski is participating in this summer: she's engulfing the Hyde Park Art Center in an explosively colorful and sinuous installation titled Hang Up that will be on display until August 5th, and she'll be in the group show "Obsessive-Explosive" at the Evanston Art Center that opens on June 3rd. Her recent group shows include 18th Evanston & Vicinity Biennial at The Evanston Art Center (2006) and In Memorium and Works on Paper at Las Manos Gallery in Chicago (2006). Lipinski received her MFA from Ohio State University in 2002.
ALL IMAGES © WESTERN EXHIBITIONS & EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST