FOTOWERK 2003 features the work of three well-known Chicago artists, Jane Calvin, Gail Kaplan and Glenn Wexler. In the project room, gallery artist Carrie Notari with guest artists Cat Chow, G.Rant, Lisa Ruth and Soo Choi will create a collaborative audio/video installation. Gallery II features a group show of various alternate photographic processes, and photo-based artists' books and boxes.
Jane Calvin, who studied at the School of the Art Institute, has taught at Columbia College Chicago for over 15 years. Calvin's provocative work, created through a series of projections which are then photographed, has been shown in the US and abroad, in solo exhibits in a variety of venues since 1983, and in group exhibits since 1978. Calvin has been widely reviewed in many publications including ARTnews, The New Art Examiner, Artweek and Dialogue. She has lectured throughout the US and is represented in the collections of The Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN, The Polaroid International Collection in Cologne, Germany, The Art Institute of Chicago, DIA, Detroit, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Hermes and Reader's Digest, New York, Deloitte and Touche, Chicago and many others. Calvin's work in FOTOWERK 2003, being shown for the first time, is darker and more linear than Calvin's previous work, yet contains the metaphorical and symbolic elements that have made her a darling of both critics and collectors.
Gail Kaplan has recently retired from her longtime teaching position in the photography department of the School of the Art Institute to devote her time to creating art. Kaplan's undergraduate education at Ohio State prepared her for a career in teaching, but an MA in Psychology from Northerwestern and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute laid the foundaiton for the powerful psychological aspects that pervade much of her work. Kaplan's work has taken many paths over time, from straight photography to the Dream Landscapes series shown in this exhibit. However, through all of Kaplan's work runs a thread that she defines as the "fantasy of place". This often branches out into narrative, which she defines as "the fantasy of story." The work in the Dream Landscapes series, shown in this exhibit, consists of chromogenic prints, the negatives of which have been stained and altered prior to printing, creating eerie, hallucinatory images. The locations vary vastly, from the Lake Michigan shoreline to Antarctica. Kaplan has shown in group and solo shows in a variety of venues throughout the US, and has to her credit several purchase awards and fellowships.
Glenn Wexler, who grew up in the Chicago area, has been creating and showing work since the early 1990's. His educational background is in printmaking, which has held him in good stead for the work he makes using a combination of photography and digital media. Wexler's compositions are tight and seamless, often pairing unlikely elements in his search for the unity between man-made elements and nature. Wexler is well known in the Chicago art work for his 2001 Haven project, in which he placed copies of a printed vinyl image of a shell on the walls of various gallery and public art environments. His work for FOTOWERK 2003 once again juxtaposes nature with architecture.
In the project room, there will be a collaborative multimedia installation by Chicago artists Cat Chow, Carrie Notari, Lisa Ruth, Soo Choi, and G.Rant. The piece blends Carrie Notari's Graffiti Bodies work with Cat Chow's garments and G.Rant audio. A DVD of the piece will be available for purchase.
In addition to the three featured artists, the Gallery II space will hold a variety of photo based work by an assortment of artists, including boxes by Jane Fulton Alt and books by Shauna Angel Blue and Martin Brief. |
