Chicago has loads of galleries, and museums (see listings in Section 2), and fall is a great time to explore them because of all the openings.
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Other places on the second floor include Bodybuilder & Sportsman (312-492-7261), Chicago’s blue-chip independent space. Started by Tony Wight nearly a decade ago, Bodybuilder showcases what I call Chicago’s “carny” style–art that’s often scuffed, gloopy, and crowded with detail. It may evoke old-timey design, commercial illustration, outsider art, puppets, or circuses. It’s big on figure and landscape painting and on obsessive wood or cardboard models, and the work often combines painstaking technique with slapdash bravura. If it’s truly Chicago, it includes Old Style cans. Bodybuilder is showing Scott Fife’s carefully crafted cardboard celebrity busts. Also on this floor, Wendy Cooper (312-455-1195) has a great paganoid show in the rainbow vein: gothic modernist wall art and videos by Belgian artists Aline Bouvy and John Gillis.
Across the street is 118 N. Peoria, home of Monique Meloche (312-455-0299), currently exhibiting flat, delicate figurative work by Laura Mosquera. Rhona Hoffman (312-455-1990) shows some big names, including renowned hip-hop portraitist Kehinde Wiley this month. At Gescheidle (312-226-3500), which is upstairs, you can see Diane Christiansen’s cartoony paintings and an “expose” of owner Susan Gescheidle by London-based curatorial collective Centre of Attention. Less than a block away, at 835 W. Washington, is Carrie Secrist (312-491-0917), which specializes in polished carny formalism. At the same address, Kavi Gupta (312-432-0708) pays its respects to lowrider and rainbow art in painterly exhibits. In September it’s showing vivid work by superstar San Francisco painter Chris Johanson and attractive, gentle pencil drawings by Christopher Garrett.
The longer you’re in Chicago, the more galleries you see go under or leave town. Help from philanthropists, collectors, and the government is scarce, so most small places are kept alive through sweat and persistence. When you visit a gallery you like, think about donating time or money, buying some art, or telling rich family members about it.
