FLATFILEgalleries will open MICHIKO ITATANI SURFACE TENSION/TERRITORY. Itatani, who is acknowledged to be one of Chicagoís finest painters, with solo exhibitions ranging from the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art and The University of Wyoming Art Museum to galleries and museums in Japan, Canada, Korea, Spain, and Germany, has been reviewed in ARTnews, Art in America, Art Forum, Artweek, Arts Magazine, The New Art Examiner, and Dialogue, among others. Her work is found in the Public Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Daum Museum, The Museu D'art Contemporaine in Barcelona, The American Embassy Permanent Collection in Brasilia, and museums in Japan, Switzerland, Canada, and Spain. Itatani, who left her native Japan to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received both her BFA and MFA from the institution, has been a professor there since 1979. The work in this exhibit, the second in FLATFILEgalleries striking new space, shows Itatani at her most dramatic.

On Thursday, October 21 at 7 pm, Michiko Itatani will discuss her work in an Artist Talk at the gallery as a program of Chicago Artists Month.

Also opening on October 15, in the galleries lower level, is FOTOWERK 2004, FLATFILE's fifth annual alternate photographic processes show. Featured will be photo-based work by Eleftheria Lialios, Wayne Bertola, Karen Hohman, and Faigie Tanner, with art created via scanner by John F Miller, Kim Kauffman, and Cheselyn Amato, and a Polaroid project room installation by Suzanne Szucs.