SCOTT SPEH GALLERY
Gallery Address:
845 W Washington
Chicago, IL 60607 USA
(312) 480-8390
Gallery hours:
Wednesday- Saturday
noon to 6pm
send email
July 29 to August 26, 2006
- in the Front Gallery
PAINTALLICA (images)
featuring Dan Attoe, Jesse Albrecht, Jamie Boling, Tim Bowman, Brandon Buckner, Jeff Decker, Bill Donovan, Jeremy Tinder, Josh Wilichowskiin the Drawing Room
Experiences & Activities | images
artist books from Julia Hall & Chrissy Leggio, Angee Lenard, Patricia McFadden, Kristen Romaniszak, Becky Suss
On July 29, Western Exhibitions opens two new group shows, "Paintallica" in the main gallery and an artist book show, "Experiences and Activities" in the Drawing Room, with a free public reception from 6 to 9pm. These shows will run through August 26th, and gallery hours are Wednesday-Saturdays, 12-6pm.
installation view, Easter 2004
Paintallica is a roving collaborative group of artists founded and directed by Dan Attoe, Jamie Boling and Bill Donovan. The sole mission of Paintallica is to mold random crap into something cool. Paintallica shows, influenced heavily by pop culture, incorporate drawing, painting, sculpture plus things, as well as stuff. Their materials come from Wal-Mart, lumberyards and garbage bins and their members from all over. For their show at Western Exhibitions, the men and women of Paintallica will utilize the talents of a video artist, a cartoonist, an editor of a nudist magazine, a ceramicist/Iraq war vet, a video game designer and a Fulbright scholar/designer, among other trained artists. Four of them ride Harleys. There is no predetermined direction to a Paintallica installation, which always start with a drawing session, followed by a trip to get supplies, then an all-nighter of alchemy. The resulting collection of artifacts easily fills a space and often incorporates the gallery walls, ceiling and floor. Some elements are site specific and some exist independently.From the Paintallica manifesto:
Don't be fooled though, we don't give a shit about your art, your politics or your whiny, black-horn rimmed, Prada-wearing ass.
We are Paintallica
installation view, Halloween 2005
Experiences and Activities shows artist books ranging from coloring books to a pop-up book about Jack the Ripper to a diarist account of working on Christo's "The Gates".Julia Hall & Chrissy Leggio's "Slaves of Christo" recounts their experiences as $6.25-an-hour wage slaves toiling on the installation crew for Christo and Jean-Claude's Central Park installation, "The Gates." Angee Lenard contributes "The Lennards: An Upper Middle Class Social History" a heavily researched (with detailed bibliography!) coloring book narrating her family history amidst the backdrop of the cultural shifts of the late 20th and early 21st century. Patricia McFadden's pop-up book on Jack the Ripper combines whimsical drawings, interactive three-dimensional elements, and original text written in iambic pentameter with the gruesome exploits of the legendary murderer. Kristen Romaniszak's autobiographical comic books also marry whimsy with disgust, as she details her experience with a tapeworm; her dream about losing her lower lip; various body odors; and a log of drawings depicting 30 days of bowel movements. In Becky Suss' coloring book, "Swell", pages zoom in and out on a tight cluster of cartoonishly drawn houses. Flipping the book fast causes the images to pulsate, like a wave or, well, a swell.
Angee Lennard
The Lennards: An Upper Middle Class Social History
Angee Lennard
The Lennards: An Upper Middle Class Social History (detail)
ALL IMAGES © WESTERN EXHIBITIONS & EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST