Blox Exhibition Review

ARC Gallery Review by Olivia Tym

As an intern at ARC Gallery, I have had the privilege of spending time with the very talented members of the cooperative and seeing their work up close. For almost forty years, ARC Gallery has provided a space for women to exhibit their work. For the October 2012 show entitled “BLOX”, members and affiliates exhibit their work in celebration of the time that this historically and socially important gallery has been in existence. The pieces featured for this exhibition focus on constructing works as a sum of parts, emphasizing ideas of completing a whole.

Upon entering the main door to the gallery, one is greeted by Monica J. Brown’s eight small painted rectangular pieces of wood. Each of the titles of the works is a line from an original poem:

I am the maple leaf, the cypress tree

I am the wind in a gust

…and the silent breeze

I am not the things I have done, but these things have changed me

Am I the things I left behind?

I am not my past, I am not my future

I am the Kewanee dirt, the Georgia clay, the Carolina sand

I am not the dream you have for me

Brown uses each of the lines of this poem in a beautiful and abstract way. The first piece, I am the maple leaf, the cypress tree, incorporates a cypress tree leaf and shows the first sign of the reoccurring motif of a ring. This circular element performs a part in every one of Brown’s pieces and serves to connect them all together. Brown’s use of muted earth-and-sky tone blues and beiges in the first four works is contrasted by the palette of the last four, which focuses more on deep, brilliant reds, dark blues, and black. This contrast conveys the passing of time and change that is illustrated in the poem. Brown’s exploration of life and time is visually represented through minimalistic symbolism, and the result is eight pieces that could not function alone but rather play off of each other as a series.

Monica Brown : Detail from installation

Also displayed in the front gallery space is Michele Corazzo’s Dialogue, a work of ink on paper. This piece is intriguing in part because of its scale, taking up the majority of the wall.  From a distance the clean white paper blends into its backdrop of the neutral white wall, leaving only sporadic scratches of ink. The lines of deep, black ink are arranged in two separate figures with a few lines crossing over between them. The inherent symbolism of the piece reflected in its title make the work even more interesting. Corazzo captures the vicious whirlwind of energy that exists and flows in a conversation between two human beings something that is experienced yet unseen. Some of the ink scratches conjure up images of a polygraph test and are very linear and violent, and some of the spots of ink are darker and much more dense. This dichotomy helps convey the deep and complex set of thoughts that are involved in dialogue.

Michele Corazzo: Dialogue

Neighboring works in the gallery are Iris Goldstein’s six rectangular reliefs entitled Landscape Visions. The works are composed of plaster, aluminum screen, and acrylic paint. There are intrinsic similarities in this piece to Monica Brown’s pieces because of the geometric shape and neat arrangement of the multiple small works. However, Goldstein pushes beyond the two dimensional surface with three dimensional materials. The plaster rectangles are shaped and folded to a little larger than the size of a piece of paper, yet they are thick and appear very heavily textured. The works are painted abstractly to resemble colors that are visible in landscapes. The muted, and metallic hues used by Goldstein conjure up ideas and images creating the sensation of an industrial setting viewed from a distance. The hand of the artist is very visible; one can imagine Goldstein shaping and molding the plaster into organic textures. Some of the rectangular entities seem to have wilted from exposure to the elements.  The works could be artifacts from a time that has passed and a place that no longer exists.

Iris Goldstein: Landscape Visions

The exhibit also features sculptural works that contribute to the theme of showcasing the way that a whole is composed of intricate parts. Michelle Stutts is a Chicago artist who frequently works with found objects. Her work in BLOX entitled Secrets-God-Money is comprised of common everyday objects pieced together to create a miniature shrine to the three elements of its title. As a viewer, I have always been captivated by the concept of using non-art objects in the context of an artwork, and Stutts is a seasoned expert at this process. Her attention to detail on this piece is fascinating. Secrets-God-Money is a work that one can spend significant amounts of time observing the way in which she symbolically chooses small objects that can be read as stand-ins for secrets, god, and money. The shrine-like appearance of this piece alludes to idol-worship and the significance that these material elements play in the roles of people’s lives.

Michelle Stutts: Secrets-God-Money

ARC’s BLOX exhibit showcases work from a multitude of other professional artists and provides a beautiful array of personal styles and statements. I would, in no way, suggest that this short textual review has adequately encompassed all of the intriguing themes and pieces that are on display at ARC Gallery this month. This show highlights the diversity and skills of the gallery’s members, and is a tribute to how much these women (and the ones who came before them) have achieved and worked for in Chicago. The success of ARC Gallery and other cooperative spaces like it can be attributed to the combined efforts and struggles of the women who worked together throughout the years. BLOX is an important commemorative exhibit in the history of the gallery, and I highly recommend to anyone who has not viewed the works in person- come visit the gallery.