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Report from 3Oaks

Recently some friends and myself went on a weekend retreat to Michigan. It just so happened that we were right in the vicinity of 3Oaks, Michigan, and so we went to check out an art scene being compared to Saugatuck. (?)

It is a mixture of "Main Street America," folksy kitschy art, and some of the highbrow stuff. What lends the most credibility to the scene is the arrival of Aron Packer’s satellite gallery. It is a beautiful space, with more room than the Chicago locale. Packer has brought out some items not strictly confined to the “Art” realm-vintage objects. He had shown them in the past, but has stopped doing so in Chicago. They work well in the Three Oaks space. What bridged the gap between the genres was an installation of crime photos. They were displayed in a former walk-in freezer that closely resembles a jail cell. And upon entering there was a wire-shelving unit that had the feel of prison bunk beds.

I particularly liked the tiny and precise interiors by Nicholas Sister. They bring to mind Peter Halley and Al Held. The highlight, though, was the text piece by an artist whom I’m gonna go ahead and categorize as “outsider,” Jesse Howard. His painting of black text with a white ground on plywood, in the standard outsider mode is called The Masses Are Asses, and reads thusly:

“THE MASSES ARE ASSES
...PANTY RAID TURNS INTO NEAR RIOT…G’S ROUGHED UP
$1OK DAMAGE 3K PARTIC. BED’S WERE OVERTURNED...HOUSEMOTHER KNOCKED OVER”

Hilarious, because it can either be read as a joke, or as a serious old bitty style of moral outrage, which you can also laugh at, but from the platform of superior and worldly intellect.

We headed down the main street, lined with American flags, and filled with cute shops, and the half dozen or so galleries. There was also a run down gun club shop. I crossed paths with two women debating something. One said to the other, “no, I thought Flag Day was earlier in the year.” Could you get anymore quaint? Being buzzed on gallery wine, my worlds were colliding. The revelry of an evening of art openings was mixing with postcard perfect Americana. It seems almost unbelievable. Flag Day is June 14th, by the way.

The other galleries had a few nice things here or there, but nothing great. I did like two small paintings that I think were called “Something On my Mind 1 & 2.” They were loose, funny cute little pictures. Each a portrait, with a limp bunny draped across the person’s head. They were completely unpretentious and uncutesy and executed in a clever style like British artist Martin Maloney, except without all the pompous bollocks.

I noticed a lot of artists were touted as being from not-Michigan. And most were based in Chicago. It made me feel good to be based in Chicago. But it also made me think of the Chicago complaint about how lots of spaces “don’t show enough Chicago art.” I immediately came up with some Onion-like story about

“Local Artists Up In Arms Over Lack of Representation in Area Galleries.” There would be a quote from a grizzled Three Oaks bohemian talking about how there are too many Chicago artists in the galleries. There would be a bunch of towny artists planning on starting a Three Oaks art foundation to examine, chronicle, exhibit and advance the art and culture of Three Oaks.

Aside from Aron Packer, the other solid space which lends credo to the area is the Judith Racht Gallery. Here the vibe of high art colliding quaint Anytown, USA really is prevalent. The gallery is a former two-room schoolhouse that has been nicely converted to an art space complete with white walls and blonde wood floors. When we arrived there, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, it was closed. But like typical art-whores, we walked around the building peeking in every window to get a good look at what was inside. The show was Modern Prints of the ‘60s ‘70s ‘80s and featured excellent examples of work by Josef Albers, Jim Dine, David Hockney, Jasper Jones, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt and others. After we finished snooping, we hopped in the car and headed home.
-E. Wenzel

Visit Aron Packer

Visit Judith Racht

In Brief

UPDATE: 7 • 18 • 5
Apparently Folding Chair is back. Maybe it was temporarily removed from public view? A server error? Who knows. Other Blogger blogs were unaffected. At any rate, you can now view the "TENbyTEN Gone Under?" post here.


UPDATED 7 • 15 • 5

Folding Chair Folds
It appears that the Chicago artblog, Folding Chair is no more. The infrequently updated weblog was known for its postings on art auctions. But is perhaps most notable for first breaking the story of TENbyTEN folding in a post about finding cases of the magazine abandoned on street corners. RIP, everybody. Folding Chair is survived by Iconoduel, Houndstooth, Freshpaint, NotIfButWhen #2 and Art or Idiocy? In a final, ironic note (we checked, it is definitely ironic) TENbyTEN’s final issue, and current website, feature the theme of luck.

TENbyTEN Only Mostly Dead
Hopefully TENbyTEN is only temporarily out of service. Shortly after Folding Chair’s post, Deanna Isaacs, in her Chicago Reader column, The Business (4/15/2005), reported that TENbyTEN had laid off seven of its ten staff members and that publisher Margaret Malone had halted production until further notice. There has been no further notice as of yet, but TENbyTEN appears to be promoting subscriptions, and the website makes no mention of a shut down. Editor-in-Chief, Annette Ferrara, has most recently been seen penning art reviews for TimeOut Chicago. TENbyTEN was just what Chicago needed in a flashy, stylish piece of “art porn” along the lines of Tema Celeste or Contemporary, but more compact.

Venus Nolonger Between Us
Another local publication, that is definitely finished, is Venus. Venus reportedly has closed up shop not for lack or money or distribution, but because the Editor & Publisher, Amy Schroeder, who also launched it, has just gotten tired of doing it. It was started off as a fanzine, which explains why it came off as being mainly a LeTigre/Stereolab fan magazine at times. The website makes no mention of an impending closure, and in fact, anticipates a fall issue, although TimeOut Chicago (TOC #10, May 5-12) ran a story about its official demise following the Summer issue. Perhaps it has been bought out, as Schroeder openly wished for in the TOC piece. Or maybe she has had change of heart. It is also likely, though, that th website is just behind. Publications such as this seem chronically plagued by lack of information. How had is it to post a little bulletin about what’s going on? Venus has been building steam, and growing its profile, so it would be a shame for it to disappear. Most importantly, Venus has come out regularly and stayed on schedule, unlike other local magazines.

Art or Idiocy? has been keeping an eye on the looted Edvard Munch paintings story, and now there are some new things to report.

If straight art criticism is more your thing, you can read the extensive break down of works on view at the Art Institute here.

Contact via the electronic post? artoridiocy@yahoo.com

FORT MUNCH

Scene of the crime last August.

On Sunday, August 22, 2004, armed robbers stole The Scream and the Madonna from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. It was been almost a year after the bold daylight robbery of the two Edvard Munch masterpieces and still no developments.

The Munch Museum has reopened its doors after several months of closure. The museum underwent a massive security overhaul with a price tag of NOK 40 million, or $6.5 million. The Munch Museet is being called “Fortress Munch” for its upgraded security, including airport style checkpoints and bulletproof glass "glazing" over important artowrks. Unfortunately, it is essentially fixing the barn door after the horses have run away.

It had been hoped that they would be recovered in time for the reopening of the museum. There have been five arrests in connection with the theft of the Munch Museum’s versions of The Scream and Madonna, neither have been recovered. The Norwegian authorities remain optimistic and the FBI is now also involved. A spokesman from the Federal Bureau of Investigation said, in that typical crass Fed way, that there is a very good chance that the works will be retrieved if they haven’t already been destroyed. A newspaper, the Dagbladet, has reported that, according to underworld sources, the two paintings have been incinerated, but there is no credible proof to the claim.

On Friday, June 17, the Munch Museum reopened to a private gala for the new exhibition “Less Famous Paintings by Munch that We Still Have.” Actually, the exhibition is titled Munch by Himself–the Artist’s Self Portraits. It is reported that it took so long to make it through the security checks that eventually people were just allowed to walk right in to save time.

On view in place of the lost works are a pastel version The Scream, and a lithograph of the Madonna. The pastel Scream is one of four versions of The Scream, there is another pastel owned by a private collector, and two paintings. The most famous of which hangs in Norway’s National Gallery which was stolen in 1994 and later recovered.

Read the Art or Idiocy’s SCREAM Report

And an update with lots of vivid photos. (Please scroll down, sorry we can’t be more tech savvy than that)

In other Munch news, the Progress Party of Norway wants to rent out Munchs in the way the Boston MFA has.

Sources for this article:
Aftenposten, Norway • CBC News, Canada • Cleveland Plain Dealer • Indymedia Ireland • Reuters, UK • San Diego Union Tribune