February 23 – March 9, 2013

Opening Reception: Saturday February 23 6-9pm

Artist Discussion: 8pm on the night of the opening

Open Hours: Saturdays and Sundays 2-5pm for the extent of the exhibition

Autumn Space Presents Michaela Murphy

Pray to that

Saturday December 15, 8-9pm

Visit by appointment or January 5, 2013 2-5pm

Open Hours cancelled for extent of exhibition

Autumn Space Presents Kritin Nason: “Decoy”

Opening Reception Saturday November 17, 6-9pm

Artist Discussion at 8pm night of opening

Open Hours Saturdays 2-5pm or by appointment

From November 17 through December 8 Autumn Space will present the work of Chicago-based artist, Kristin Nason, featuring works from her current series of sculptures, Decoy. This is the artist’s first solo show in Chicago since graduating with an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and the largest showing of the series to date.

The exhibition gathers ten large-scale works from her ongoing series of found-object sculptures, offering viewers an opportunity to view a wide range of these works which have previously only been shown individually or in small groups. Nason’s pieces each stand at approximately human height, tenuously occupying the space of a figure. Referencing the military strategy of deploying look-alike objects to increase advantage, Nason makes a nod to this tactic by fabricating her own stand-ins from discarded urban materials. Created from cast-off objects such as chairs, tarps, plastic wading pools and children’s toys, the array of miscellaneous objects reflects the artist’s exploration of the schizophrenic state of contemporary life.

The series is a response to the contemporary pressures for multiplicity and dispersion. These human-scale objects – assembled from readily available consumer goods – function as tactical placeholders in a kind of on-going, simulated war game. Often constructed in haste, these mounds of materials serve as barely adequate fill-ins or covers in a playful defensive strategy of evasion and substitution, addressing the demands of a culture wherein singularity is a liability.

The decoys emerge like a wake left behind an ongoing sequence of evasive maneuvers. These unmanned Frankenstein drones of cobbled parts function like autonomous prosthesis- wireless extensions of the body, deployed into hostile territory. They are of the city, formed with it’s rejected materials, suddenly turned against it in revolt.

Like a tragicomic character desperately straddling two sides of a steadily widening divide, the work reflects the struggle to maintain toe holds in both the ground of the physical and the stream of the virtual. It addresses the point at which the ease of dragging and dropping in the digital realm comes back to bite us, and our bodies are called in to fulfill the commitments made by our various “user” selves. Eventually, the real work falls back onto the bones, frustratingly limited by their materiality. The gritty immediacy of boots on the ground complicates the smooth plans made on the slick screens of the war room.

Leif Sandberg
“TiO₂”
October 20 – November 10, 2012
Opening: Saturday, October 20, 6-9pm

Artist Discussion at 8pm on opening night

The litany: overexposure, overproduction, false rebellions by a false community, faux-play circumscribed by codes, data dumps and reiteration, image aggregate management, experience-formatting analysis, conceptual-consulting quants, endless affirmative repetition, content generation and content agglomeration.

It goes through you like a worm through a vegan iguana, know what I mean?

The difference between an indie band and an indie artist is next to nothing. And why should they be so different? Daniel Buren, put a bird on it.

In the endless smooth zone, no ideas present or viable. Only a hardened image.

Why not one all-purpose image?

You are providing research and development for the next display at Urban Outfitters.

You are upwardly mobile citizens of city-states, beyond nationality and class.

Me, you may ask?

I’m stuck, stranded out in Shitsville.

From various bus stops across the city I’ve peered into new townhomes and all I see are large flatscreens flashing lcd screen blue.

And these are not even the people with the actual wealth, just the latest influx of the new burghers of the cosmopolis.

And that is what you want to be.

Intrinsically, the book press release has small merit, except in as far as it presents and describes facts witnessed by the author artist. Even these are not always faithfully reported. It might be called a controversial document because of its violent partiality and hostility. It does not notice mitigating circumstances, and ignores what is good when it does not suit the author artist.

Leif Sandberg is a Chicago based artist. Sandberg received his MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012

Ron Ewert and Josh Reames
“Conventional wisdom”
September 15 – October 6, 2012
Opening: Saturday, September 15, 6-9pm
*The night of the opening we will hold a raffle for all works in the exhibition. Tickets are limited; there will be one raffle ticket per painting. Tickets for the raffle are $30.00. The raffle will take place around 8:30*
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, states, “Conventional wisdom is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted as true by the public or by experts in a field. Such ideas or explanations, though widely held, are unexamined. Unqualified societal discourse preserves the status quo.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_wisdom)

Why are paintings hung at eye level?

Why are paintings on canvas?

What is canvas?

Why is oil paint better than acrylic paint?

Why are individual paintings better than editioned prints?

Why is bigger better?

Why, if it aint good, make it red?

What’s the difference between a series and a multiple?

How did the painting cross the road?

Who wrote the book of painting?

Who in particular decided that walls should be white?

What is the ideal flooring material, texture, and color?

Funny how? What’s funny about it?

Match destination formatting?

How did we get here in the first place?
This show will feature 30+ collaborative paintings by Ron Ewert and Josh Reames installed on customized display units.

Josh Reames is an artist currently based in Chicago. He recently received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his BFA from the University of North Texas. His work has recently been included in exhibitions at Meulensteen (NYC), Dittrich & Schlechtreim (Berlin), the Green Gallery (Milwaukee), and the Hyde Park Art Center (Hyde Park). Upcoming shows include Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago), Monya Rowe (NYC), and Circuit 12 Contemporary (Dallas) His work has been reviewed by Beautiful Decay, Artinfo, artcritical.com, and Chicagoartreview.com.

Ron Ewert is currently based in Chicago. He recently received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent exhibitions include Peregrine Program (Chicago), Freies Museum (Berlin), Murdertown (Chicago), and Green Gallery (Milwaukee). Upcoming shows include Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago), Monya Rowe (NYC), and (NYC) and Circuit 12 Contemporary (Dallas).

We’re excited to announce our exhibition schedule for Fall 2012:

September 15 – Josh Reames & Ron Ewert

October 20 – Leif Sandberg

November 17 – Kristin Nason

December 15 – Michaela Murphy

Autumn Space presents Kyle Schlie: The Things Behind the Things in Front

May 26 – June 16, 2012
Opening Saturday May 26 6-9pm (Artist Discussion at 8pm)
Open Hours Saturdays 2-5pm

Kyle Schlie examines the interior of art practice and the exhibition: the props, the language, and the stereotypes. Using humor and a fascination with the common object, Schlie assembles a rich and poignantly thorough theater of human cultural production. The result is less an institutional critique than it is a curious narrative whose protagonists are frames, pedestals, rocks, playing cards, lab videos, curtains, etc.

*Featured in the show will be work from Kurt West.
**The first 26 people who bring a rock to the show can trade it for a Risograph print made by the artist.

Kyle Schlie lives and works in Chicago

Autumn Space Presents Nicholas Cueva “Dolium Volvitur: Art Movements throughout history”Opening Reception Saturday April 28, 2012 6-9pm

Artist Discussion at 8pm

“Our tools and modes have changed, but the rudimentary behavior appears to be the same. A child with a crayon and a child on computer may draw the same things. The oldest sculptures known are of nude women, as are some of the most contemporary. We may tell ourselves that the reasons we make things now are different, but can we say they are only different insofar as the mode of language use and the tools are different? Isn’t the hardware still the same?
Can’t it be said that art that does well at its job usually finds the more novel approaches to the art object and idea? This can work to the extent that the art object can even cease needing to physically exist. But doesn’t it still work with the same ideas and images, only with fancier tools and more contemporary language.
An alien species observing our history wouldn’t easily recognize what we call irony or critique. Wouldn’t they just see centuries of people making pictures of food, bodies, tools, landscapes, geometry, etc.? Is the language game we play just a way to excuse ourselves from knowing we are making the same things over and over, without this realization?
I love historical artifacts. I love souvenirs and keepsakes. I love factoids. I don’t love them because of themselves… just the fact that they betray something really human. I love them like I love chess pieces. They are tools we make to play a game and ultimately I love the game.”

Nicholas Cueva received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives and works in New York.

Sean Ward
“Gutless Wonder”
March 17, 2012 – March 31, 2012
Opening: Saturday, March 17, 6-9pm

Artist Discussion at 8:00pm

Space and expanses allow for the promise of a souvenir, a snapshot. A time without lapse from a short walk to attain a continuum of movement, reevaluating your own relationship with time: overlapping, repeated. Engagement with the native landscape concerns the closely observed locally and inflected, where anonymous is almost named. Anticipating the call and response with such a landscape yields a desire that is unplanned in structure – possibly sublimated sensation. Only in this insistent circling of ‘nascent logos’ and the body moving can perception think, feel, rest and lie. Whether we move towards the horizon or find our feet standing still watching the horizon (perhaps both are the same) culls our gutless wonder. 

 Autumn Space
www.autumnspace.com
1700 W Irving Park #207
Chicago, IL 60613
Hours: Saturdays 2-5pm and by appointment
autumnspacegallery@gmail.com
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