In the next several works I am planning on presenting some work of a very talented group of Chicago photographers. I hope you enjoy it! Art Fox currently has work up at the Chicago Cultural Center in his first solo show. He helps us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.
In Art's Words...
"How, Why, When, and Where: Walls"
"After food and clothing is shelter. Shelter means walls. Even our great cities are made of walls. The lucky dwellers have four and a roof; the unfortunate borrow one as haven from wind, rain, and man. But think China. Think Berlin. Walls keep you out and they keep you in. And ever since the petroglyphs they are blackboard, mural, signboard, journal. Cold and flat but the very mark of mankind. Walls tell us about people."
"I have always been a collector of the common unappreciated objects of art which fill our world. Ever since childhood I have squirreled away curious rocks, fossils, seeds, odd pieces of wood, or manmade objects, for their colors and contours. Walls are a fusion of the natural and the manmade, and like these smaller things, also present fascinating abstract patterns and textures. Street artists may have used them as a canvas worthy of preservation. Walls are too big to bring home, but they are patient and will wait for me, until the light is right or the car moves on. They are forgiving of depth of field and shutter speed. They are also a convenient stage-set, upon which we can view the people around us. I see myself as a collector of light patterns reflected off the walls of our world."
Here is a review from photo critic, Michael Weinstein from the New City Art
"Shooting in lush, muted color, Art Fox continues the modernist tradition of wall photography pioneered by Aaron Siskind, and redeems the ruins, as Siskind put it, by capturing the enthralling blend of textures, splashes of paint, pock marks and blistering lettering and rust that bedeck weathered surfaces that can exert a hypnotic effect. Fox’s images range from straight representational shots to nearly pure abstractions, the latter of which are the most successful by virtue of our ability to concentrate on composition and color to the exclusion of everything extraneous. Fox reaches the perfection that Siskind sought of besting abstract expressionist paintings in “Wire and Wall,” in which the involving cracked and striated gray concrete surface is broken by a vertical swathe of red, orange and yellow paint within which a rigid black vertical line (the wire) sections off the composition."
Through December 21 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington
In Art's Words...
"How, Why, When, and Where: Walls"
"After food and clothing is shelter. Shelter means walls. Even our great cities are made of walls. The lucky dwellers have four and a roof; the unfortunate borrow one as haven from wind, rain, and man. But think China. Think Berlin. Walls keep you out and they keep you in. And ever since the petroglyphs they are blackboard, mural, signboard, journal. Cold and flat but the very mark of mankind. Walls tell us about people."
"I have always been a collector of the common unappreciated objects of art which fill our world. Ever since childhood I have squirreled away curious rocks, fossils, seeds, odd pieces of wood, or manmade objects, for their colors and contours. Walls are a fusion of the natural and the manmade, and like these smaller things, also present fascinating abstract patterns and textures. Street artists may have used them as a canvas worthy of preservation. Walls are too big to bring home, but they are patient and will wait for me, until the light is right or the car moves on. They are forgiving of depth of field and shutter speed. They are also a convenient stage-set, upon which we can view the people around us. I see myself as a collector of light patterns reflected off the walls of our world."
Here is a review from photo critic, Michael Weinstein from the New City Art
"Shooting in lush, muted color, Art Fox continues the modernist tradition of wall photography pioneered by Aaron Siskind, and redeems the ruins, as Siskind put it, by capturing the enthralling blend of textures, splashes of paint, pock marks and blistering lettering and rust that bedeck weathered surfaces that can exert a hypnotic effect. Fox’s images range from straight representational shots to nearly pure abstractions, the latter of which are the most successful by virtue of our ability to concentrate on composition and color to the exclusion of everything extraneous. Fox reaches the perfection that Siskind sought of besting abstract expressionist paintings in “Wire and Wall,” in which the involving cracked and striated gray concrete surface is broken by a vertical swathe of red, orange and yellow paint within which a rigid black vertical line (the wire) sections off the composition."
Through December 21 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington