International Art News

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung Scalps in French, 2011 Oil paint, spray paint, caulk, Plexiglas, old paintbrushes and string on canvas 16 x 34 x 5 inches (40.6 x 86.4 x 12.7 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Anna Kustera Gallery, NY

From May 1 to Jul 24, 2012 – Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung’s innovative explorations of materials and process-based abstract painting make her one of Chicago’s most promising emerging artists. Fresh from her New York gallery debut, the artist presents new paintings that incorporate collage, found objects, and sculptural elements in unexpected ways that push the work beyond traditional notions of painting. BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works: Molly Zuckerman-Hartung is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition.

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung Fluid Spine, 2011 Oil, acrylic, latex, spray paint, glitter, nails on hand-dyed canvas 30 x 26 inches (76.2 x 66 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Anna Kustera Gallery, NY.

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung was born in 1975 in Los Gatos, California, and grew up in Olympia, Washington. She received her BA in 1998 from the Evergreen State College in Olympia and her MFA in 2007 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago . She is a co-founder of Julius Caesar, an artist-run exhibition space in Chicago and is currently an adjunct instructor at the School of the Art Institute and Northwestern University.

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Scott Reeder. Narcissus Cop, 2010. Courtesy of Luce Gallery, Torino, Italy

From Nov 1, 2011 to Jan 24, 2012 – The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Scott Reeder’s first solo museum exhibition includes new figurative paintings in his signature idiosyncratic style—for instance, anthropomorphic foods, fruits, and plants smoking cigarettes or enacting the myths of Sisyphus and Narcissus, and, most recently, abstract paintings made with cooked and raw spaghetti. Reeder’s faux-naïve approach complicates the gravitas of his subject, namely the history of painting and the macho, academic nature of much of that history, with saccharine colors, atypical materials, and oddball subjects. At the same time, his work challenges established tastes and values. For this exhibition, Reeder creates a large-scale, site-specific wall painting from his abstract spaghetti series for the second-floor lobby wall and screens his first feature-length film, Moon Dust, a futuristic story of a failing resort located on the moon.

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Dan Gunn: Trickster Mechanism No.2. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery.

September 3 to October 2, 2011 – Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Gunn’s abstract objects simultaneously inhabit the realms of painting and sculpture. In his three-dimensional compositions and installations, he explores perceptual phenomena using materials such as glitter, tinsel, chair caning, holographic paper, and patterned fabrics. His structures echo forms of display and domesticity while incorporating familiar found objects. For his UBS 12 x 12 presentation, Gunn explores the “depth” of painting by embedding a series of objects in a large horizontal surface.

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Jim Nutt: Plumb, 2004. Private collection. Photo courtesy of David Nolan Gallery, New York

Until the 25th of May – Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Since 1990, Jim Nutt has focused exclusively on female heads in spare line drawings and rich, detailed paintings. This exhibition is a retrospective of Jim Nutt’s work that emphasizes the development of these important paintings through their precedents in his own work. Acknowledging the groundswell in interest in this unique American artist’s work, this will be the first major presentation of Nutt in over a decade. Nutt’s history as an important artist dates to the mid-1960s where in Chicago he was a chief instigator of the irreverent “Hairy Who” group, now better known as the imagists.

While it was undoubtedly inspired by mid-twentieth century pop culture, especially comic books, advertisements, jukebox and pinball machine art, and street signs, Nutt’s art also explores the formal devices and techniques of historical painting. Northern European portraiture of the 15th and 16th century; Colonial American painting; the color and line explorations of Henri Matisse and Joan Miró; the quirky individualism of such artists as John Graham, Max Ernst, Arshile Gorky, and H. C. Westermann all offered lessons as Nutt has matured over four decades of artistic development. A fully illustrated catalogue is planned. This exhibition is organized by MCA Curator Lynne Warren.

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Luc Tuymans, Ballroom Dancing, 2005. Collection of SFMOMA, promised gift of Shawn and Brook Byers; © Luc Tuymans; photo by Ben Blackwell; courtesy David Zwirner, New York

Until January 9th 2011 – The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
This exhibition marks the first U.S. retrospective of paintings by Belgian contemporary artist Luc Tuymans—and is the most comprehensive presentation of his art to date. One of the most significant painters working today, Tuymans (b. 1958) draws on the historical traditions of northern European art and the more recent heritage of photography, cinema, and television. He frequently explores issues of history and memory, as in works that address the lingering effects of World War II, the postcolonial situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (a former Belgian colony), and the global aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

One of the most influential artists to emerge in Europe at the end of the 20th century, Luc Tuymans is only now becoming more familiar to an American audience through this retrospective of more than 80 paintings from 1978 to the present. Dubbed the “Tuymans effect,” the artist’s unique approach to painting—using photographic source materials, working in series, and oscillating between representation and abstraction—has influenced countless artists of a younger generation. Tuymans often uses banal imagery to depict highly charged subject matter relating to significant historical events such as the Holocaust, the Belgian colonization of Congo, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, reminding us that things are not always what they seem to be.

His work poses critical questions: what do we remember and how? How does one represent and relate to significant events of the present as they are becoming part of history? What is our role in these events?

Tuymans frequently cites artists such as Flemish Renaissance painters Jan Van Eyck and Pieter Bruegel as important forebearers; yet, referring to Tuymans as an artist, instead of a painter, underscores his work’s strong relationship to photography, film, television, and the internet as sources of imagery. Tuymans was born in Belgium in 1958, and his paintings and films reflect the worldview he formed while growing up in Europe during the aftermath of World War II—a time when unthinkable tragedies had become reality and nations struggled to move forward. Tuymans is also of the first generation to grow up with television. The early and abundant exposure to this mediated experience and the banality of TV culture, along with his background in filmmaking, greatly influence the appearance of his work. He bases his compositions on photographs from existing sources such as Nazi wartime propaganda magazines, as well as Polaroids he has taken of objects and places from everyday life, but his process of mutation and distortion renders these sources unrecognizable. His faded palette has become a hallmark of his work—pale blues, grays, greens, and browns allude to the ungraspable quality of memory and underscore our inability to fully comprehend the complexity of historical and current events.

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