BEFORE IT CLOSES

This is the last weekend of The Art Institute’s all-too-short-running Drawings in Dialogue curated by Suzanne McCullagh. It is an amazing survey from the Renaissance through early Modernism and surely is not to be missed. On view is selection of 166 of the huge number of 240 works on paper gifted (& to-be-gifted) to the museum by Dorothy Braude Edinburg. If you have art at home that you are thinking of donating to a museum, see this show, and then go back and look at what you have before you consider calling.

Emil Nolde • Portrait of Mary Wigman • circa 1920 • The Art Institute of Chicago

Many of the works are worth discussing in depth, but in particular, is one of Emil Nolde’s notorious “unpainted pictures” created with water color on a tiny 4x6 piece of card and painted on both sides. Here displayed on a pedestal in a two-sided frame, like one of the precious icons elsewhere in the museum. One of the most harrowing and heartbreaking stories in art history is how Nolde, an early party member, received special punishment from the Nazis for being a “degenerate” artist. Belief in romantic notions of race, history, heritage the primitive & the folk obviously differed between Emil Nolde and the Nazi theologists. He was forbidden to paint, and guards were placed outside his home to make sure. Nolde couldn’t resist the artistic urge and created these tiny works in secret.

There is a great quote about them from Nolde:

“Only to you, my little pictures, do I sometimes confide my grief, my torment, my contempt.”

(Source: Degenerate Art PBS documentary, 1995)

The works in Drawings in Dialogue can only be described as a treasure. The Art Institute, and by extension the city of Chicago, is very lucky to be receiving these. Drawings in Dialogue is on view through July 30, THIS SUNDAY.

Otto Dix • Old Woman • circa 1923 • The Art Institute of Chicago •
We were forced to photograph these nice postcards from the show since the AIC site only has a bland detail of an Ingres.

And steps away, also in Regenstein Hall of the AIC is Casas Grandes curated by Richard Townsend, which closes on the 13 of August. Even for thouse who are not the biggest fans of pottery, this show is very worth seeing. From the physical lay out to the onjects themselves, it is simply grand. Normally, a wide opened space with vitrine after vitrine of objects would mean disaster, but here it feels like you are gazing into an architectural dig or looking through a window to the past. The works themselves prove how sometimes a limited palette and humble means can lead to the greatest visual effect. The earthenware pieces are in earthen-tones, but the soft whites and dull grays look like no other pots and vessels seen in museums. The imagery is also fascinating, from stylized figures and animals that some how resonate with a lot of recent trends in painting and drawing, to intricate and mesmerizing patterns of pure abstraction.

After looking at pottery depicting “figures coupling with a stags” you can find a dirty stag party at CvD...

Corbett vs. Dempsey presents DIRTY FOUND LIVE!

Items in italics are quoted from the press release
'Dirty Found is art-filth folk art that proves everybody's sex life is secretly touching.'
-John Waters

'You can take everything ever written about America or Americans by natives or visitors whether fact or fiction since the first pilgrims landed here, and they will all pale as illustrations of the American psyche when held up to these genuine and perfect examples of pathos, anger, longing, and heartbreak (and how stupid and inane we can be), located within these pages.'
-David Cross

Dirty Found Sullies Chicago
Saturday, July 29, 7:30PM at Corbett vs. Dempsey
1120 N. Ashland (just get off Division & head dirty south)
corbettvsdempsy.com

Join Dirty Founders Jason Bitner, Arthur Jones, and special guest star David Wilcox as we celebrate the best lost-and-discovered smut from around the world. Witness a pervy Powerpoint presentation, experience the lewd Dirty Found XXX Survey, and share your smutty finds. For adults only!

And while you're at it, if you haven't seen the current exhibition 'FULL FRONTAL the dirty, lewd, erotic show,' here's your chance. featuring work by Roger Brown, Philip Hanson, Margot Bergman, Robert Lostutter, Tom Van Eynde, Robert Amft, Jim Lutes, Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson and many more.

OR you can stay in and see what happened at the trifling affairs on Art or Idiocy?s Openings Flickr Photoset. Up now are images from last weekend, and there are always more parties to attend, wines to drink and cigarettes to share.