Chris Smith @ Eastern Expansion

July 10, 2009
Chris Smith Installation
@ Eastern Expansion
244 W 31st Street

Opening reception July 10, 7-10pm

Philosophical Husband-Tetsuo
Christopher Smith
A sculptural adaptation of two Japanese films made in the early 1990’s level the ecology of its images with that of post consumer waste. A dystopic landscape of obsolete electronics, various polymer based products and the few remainders of something once organic will [...]

Sal-Ch Ex @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

“Salad, Church, & Exercise” @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

July 4th, 2-6pm

“Salad, Church, and Exercise.” aka Sal-ChEx
SALAD-CHURCH-EXERCISE
A show about self-improvement through self-denial

Featuring work by:

Michael Bancroft
Noah Berlatsky
Dayton Castleman
CThrough Outfit
Chelsea Culp
Derek Erdman
Gina Grafos
Jacob C. Hammes
Jaime Lynn Henderson
Hideous Beast
Thaddeus Kellstadt
Paul Mack
Rachel Pollak
Yvie Raij
Oliverio Rodriguez
Christopher Santiago
Dewayne Slightweight
Edra Soto
Bert Stabler
Matthew Steinke
Susannah Kite Strang

Curated by Bert Stabler

Opening Saturday, July 4, 2009, 2-6 pm at the Co-Prosperity Sphere
3219 S. Morgan, Chicago. Massive salad potluck– come hungry!

Open hours 1-4 pm Saturday July 11, Saturday July 18. Closing party Saturday July 18,

While large-scale organs of control, such as schools, hospitals, and prisons, enforce the social contract through a restriction of choice and a remote delegation of authority, personal or cultural techniques for redirecting and mastering libido, the inner primordial chaos we carry within, can be found in the options represented by salad, church, and exercise. The deep loyalty and repulsion aroused in modern hearts by these three everyday pursuits, and their heroic and perverse obsession with denying the desires of the body, is the starting point for the works in “Salad-Church-Exercise,” fantasies that are channeled into a polymorphous menagerie of audiovisual media.

Three classic texts that have instructed the bodies of our ancestors can be found online at these URLs, and will be available in hard copy at the show.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises.
http://www.jesuit.org/Spirituality/Spiritual+Exercises/default.aspx

John Evelyn, A Discourse on Sallets.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15517/15517-h/15517-h.htm

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn: A Treatise on Gymnasticks.

Fensler at Eastern Expansion

Eric Fensler's installation at Eastern Expansion gallery may have been the cause of Michael Jackson's recent heart attack. the work will be on view until July 4, 2009.

Opening Friday!

Sleeping Around
works by Anni Holm
Opening Reception: Friday, June 19, 7-11pm

In the creation of Sleeping Around Chicagoland based Danish artist Anni Holm explores personal relationships prompted and/or developed by sleeping in someone’s guest room. For her installation at Second Bedroom, Holm collaborates with friends and family to recreate specific objects from these spaces in order to explore their commonalities and divergences.

Anni Holm is a conceptual artist working with photography, installation, performance, and collaborative art. Born in Randers, Denmark, Anni holds a Studenter Eksamen in math from Randers Statsskole, Denmark and attended here after Krabbesholm Art College. She graduated with a BFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago 2004, where she received the Albert P. Weisman Memorial Scholarship twice. In 2005, she received an artist residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, was a Featured Artist during the Chicago Artists Month in 2006, and was named a Break Out Artist in Newcity Chicago in 2007. Anni has performed and exhibited her work at various locations nationally including Ohio University Gallery, Ohio; Waterloo Center for the Arts, Iowa; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, New York; Space 301, Alabama; along with the Glass Curtain Gallery, the National Museum of Mexican Arts, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, all in Chicago. Since 2006 Anni has also toured the country with the ever-expanding NetWorking knitting project. International exhibitions include the group exhibitions at Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark, Hafnarborg Institute of Culture and Fine Art, Iceland, Amos Andersons Konstmuseum, Finland, Ljungbergmuseet, Sweden and Norsk Folkemuseum, Norway. Anni co-founded Art Walks Chicago, an annual public performance art series on the streets of Chicago, with former performance partner Nyok-Mei Wong in 2004. She is the founder and curator of the three-day multimedia art exhibition artXposium and artINcorporators umbrella arts organization, both based in West Chicago, Illinois, where she also resides.

*Image: Anni Holm, Bedroom window, DeKalb, 2009

Eric Fensler @ Eastern Expansion

May 30, 2009
6-9pm

Eric Fensler will create an installation for Eastern Expansion Gallery.
Eric will be hosting the opening so stop by and have a Groslch with him.

Afterwards go to the Co-Prosperity Sphere for the Cardboard Show.

The installation will run through June 17, 2009.

Opening @ Second Bedroom

Ben Brandt
Warm/Cool Decorator
Opening Reception: Friday, May 22, 7-11pm

The role and criteria of the interior designer is uprooted and then rerouted to accommodate a bedroom bathed in urgent blue police light. In doing this, the boundary between the body and architecture is blurred with floral arrangements, flannel, site-specific paintings and sculpture. Ben Brandt received a B.F.A from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has shown at Contemporary Art Work Shop, Caro d’Offay Gallery, Estudiotres Gallery and others. Ben lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.

Coming up at Second Bedroom

The High Mayors of Chicago

works by Kevin Jennings
April 18 – May 15, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday April 18th, 7-11pm

Second Bedroom Project Space presents The High Mayors of Chicago, a group of works by artist Kevin Jennings conflating the powerful Irish mayors from Bridgeport and the High Kings of Ireland. The artist will explore the link between the history of the Irish mayors form Bridgeport and the mythology surrounding the High Kings of Ireland and their coronation process, which, according to Irish legend, occurred when the Stone of Destiny on the Hill of Tara would give a roar that could be heard all over the island when touched by the true High King.

Kevin Jennings lives and works in Chicago. He received his MFA from UIC in 2004. Locally, he has shown at places like Experimental Station, C.O.M.A., VONZWECK, Old Gold, 312, and 1/Quarterly. Kevin currently works for the University of Illinois and teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.