Temporary Exhibit [2012 Oak Park Sculpture Walk]

Finish - by Terrence Karpowicz

Terrence Karpowicz's sprinting golden girl "Finish",  tracking through the Oak Park downtown, as part of the Oak Park Sculpture Walk. This summer 12 sculptures are adorning the streets of Oak Park ..

2012 Oak Park Sculpture Walk
The program was developed by the Village of Oak Park and the Oak park Public Arts Advisory Commisssion. For the online brochure, click on the link, click here..
Although all the photographs are taken by me, but the information is taken from the online brochure, including the italicized texts ..

Burst - by Dustry Folwarczny

2011 / Welded salvaged steel.

Location: Oak Park Public Library [ 834 Lake Street]

The sculpture is part of a series of reconstructed pillars, responding to the vertical appeal of the city. In this work, the artist explores the tension between heavy metal and gravity, exposing the raw aesthetic of rust. Dusty Folwarczny prefers to work in public spaces, where the quality of the steel material becomes approachable and accessible.

I Ams what I Ams - by Ron Gard

2011 / Cor-Ten and stainless steel.

Location: First United Church of Oak Park [ 848 Lake Street]

Ron Gard developed his art through his professional experience in custom design and crafting. His sculptures are motivated by the way shapes relate to each other and by tension with negative space. This abstract piece interplays height and lightness within the forms and colors of the different materials.

Entwined Seedlings - by Don Lawler

2012 / Indiana Limestone

Location: Unity Temple [ 875 Lake Street]

The monolithic piece of Indiana limestone is carved into two intertwined, sprouting seedlings. These organic forms are sculpted in the monumental material of stone with a modern geometrical shape. The top leaves are rounded and polished for functional comfort. The complexity of the forms causes the viewer to move around the sculpture. Please feel free to sit!

Dancing with Damocles - by Mike Helbing

1999 / Welded stainless steel

Location: Calvary Memorial Church [931 Lake Street]

The sculptures of Helbing are assemblages of found objects, mostly made of stainless steel. This readymade sculpture reuses materials to give them a new meaning. Humble objects collected from everyday life are rearranged in a new, monumental form. His sculptures are influenced by a range of natural and scientific forms that echo the diverse interests of the artist.

Two Witnesses - by Shawn Morin

2010 / Bronze, granite, steel

Location: Grace Episcopal Church [924 Lake Street]

The art of Morin has migrated through the figurative, the architectural and the abstract forms, moving from an intimate, small scale to a large and monumental one. The sculpture contrasts and reflects the verticality of the architecture and the chromatic palette of the site.

Finish - by Terrence Karpowicz

2010 / Steel and Polymer

Location: Lake and Forest street corner

By joining irregular, organic materials to machine-tooled geometric shapes of steel, the artist creates sculpture with kinetic relationships among the elements — and between the sculpture and its environment. The aesthetic of Karpowicz’s sculpture is rooted in craftsmanship while being informed by the sublime nature of minimal forms and the layering of history.

Lacuna - by Sarah Deppe

Stainless and oxidized steel and natural plants

Location: lake Street and N Forest Ave.

　

The sculpture reminds us of the natural structure of plants from microscopic to large forms. The curves of stainless steel contain pockets for plants, contrasting natural and artificial elements. The organic form given to the steel is an echo of the artist’s concern for nature that the sculpture reinterprets.

Hawk and Dove - by Margot McMohan

2012 / Cast marble

Location: Charles Fay House [216 N Forest Ave.]

McMahon’s sculptures are organic forms and figures in geometric rhythm. These forms are modeled in clay or cast in metal and concrete, welded in steel, or carved in stone. Her work is connected with nature and the environment, just as the ecosystems that form us.

Fleeting Consequence - by Jeff Wilcox

2011 / Stone and steel

Location: the Beachy House [238 N Forest Ave.]

This work is an assemblage of two raw materials — iron and stone —elements common in the environment. The sculpture refers to the geometry of the natural world fabricated through randomness and unprecedented order .

Pod of Sun Seeds - by Don Lawler

2008 / Indiana Limestone

Location: John Leslie Vette House [308 N. Forest Ave.]

A monolithic piece of Indiana limestone was sawn vertically to reveal the interior of the sculpture. The inlayed spheres of Brazilian marble have been bushed or stippled to allow the individual crystals to sparkle in sunlight. Each ‘sun seed’ has a radial pattern carved with a pneumatic chisel. The sculpture has a wide variety of textures to be discovered.

Five - by Dusty Folwarczny

2010 / Welded salvaged steel

Location: The Hills De-Caro House [313 N Forest Ave.]

The sculpture is made of five rings of salvaged steel, painted black. The heavy weight of the black rings is rearranged in a kinetic group of forms. The precarious stability of the tower is resolved in the lightness of the whole. This piece is another in a series of reconstructed pillars made in response to the vertical aesthetic of the city.

Once Around the Block - by Andrew Arvanetes

2011 / Stainless steel

Location: The William H. Copeland House [400 N Forest Ave.]

　

This sculpture is a whimsical object, resembling a machine but with figurative characteristics. The artist’s sculptures have always been object-oriented and narrative in nature, and the mechanical and architectural details are rearranged here in a new artistic form. The result is a new combination of scale, references and details, assembled to stir the imagination.

Referenced heavily from the online brochure., 2012 Oak Park Sculpture Walk, click on the link, click here ..

Near North [The Great Teacher - by Abbott Pattison]

The Great Teacher

Sculptor: Abbott Pattison

Presented to Fourth Presbyterian Church

by The Center For Older Adults..

October 14, 1990..

Location: The sculpture is displayed at the

Fourth Presbyterian Church’s Westminster House entrance on Delaware Place ..

The Great Teacher

 The Fourth Presbyterian Church..

RELATED LINKS
Fountain at the Fourth Presbyterian Church..
The Great Teacher - by Abbott Pattison..
The Fourth Presbyterian Church..

Near North [Fountain at Fourth Presbyterian Church]

 

Fountain at the Fourth Presbyterian Church click here..
The architect for the Fourth Presbyterian Church is Ralph Adams Cram.
But the  parish house, cloister, manse, and garth were designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. The parish buildings were built at the same time as the church and dedicated in March 1914. The Tudor-style parish building has a small courtyard and in the center of the courtyard is a beautiful fountain. [ I have read at some places that it's called Children's Fountain. But I'm not sure]

The words inscribed on the fountain are..

For the Earth Shall Be

Filled with the knowledge

Of the Glory of the Lord

As the Water covers the Sea..

Courtyard with fountain..

For the Earth shall be

Filled with the knowledge

Of the Glory of the Lord

As the Water covers the Sea.

The Fourth Presbyterian Church

 

Near North [The Gold Coast - by Bernard Rosenthal]

The Gold Coast

by Bernard Rosenthal

Location: 1000 N Lake Shore Drive Bldg.



This 20-foot sculpture in bronze, represent people from African Gold Coast. I never understood what this sculpture represents, until I read the book, "A Guide to Chicago's Public Sculpture", by Ira J. Bach and mary Lackritz Gray. here's an excerpt..

"It is made up of stylized tribal warriors throwing spears and beating tom toms and women carrying water buckets on their heads. Above figures is a sunbrust".



Near North [Washington Square Park Fountain and Bughouse Square]

A beautiful fountain  at the center of one of Chicago's oldest parks, the Washington Square Park.
Location:  901 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60610..     
Constructed as part of the 1999 Fountain Program.

The Washington Square Park is also known as the Bughouse Square..

Washington Square Park 1842
Also Known As
Bughouse Square
Chicago's Premier Free Speech Forum
Re-dedicated July 27, 1996
Chicago Park District The Newberry Library.

Christine Rojek at work

Work-in-Progress..

Christine Rojek working on her sculpture..

Select images of Chicago based artist Christine Rojek, as she works on her latest sculpture... I wish I am able to follow through it's completion and installation.. which will happen pretty soon..
Her other works that I have documented are
Rubbed Tipped Crane - by Christine Rojek..
Ecce Hora - by Christine Rojek..

 

Bits and pieces that will soon come together..

RELATED LINKS:
Rubbed Tipped Crane - by Christine Rojek..
Ecce Hora - by Christine Rojek..
Reincarnation - by Christine Rojek..
Contemporary sculptors of Chicago: Christine Rojek..

AIC Temporary Exhibit [Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective]

M-Maybe, 1965
[M-Maybe he became ill and could't leave the studio]

Oil and Magna on canvas

Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective

Temporary Exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago.

May 22 to September 3, 2012

The exhibition is organized by

the Art Institute of Chicago and Tate Modern, London.
James Rondeau is chair, and Frances and Thomas Dittmer Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Sheena Wagstaff is chief curator at Tate Modern, London.

Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective...
The Exhibition includes about 170 works by Roy Lichtenstein between 1950 to 1997. It focusses on his painting, sculpture and drawing. It is the first major retrospective to broadly examine his art since his death.
I love the range the exhibition offers from his most iconic masterpieces,  pop-comic paintings, dead-pan advertisments and also landscapes and sculptures. To me, one of the most interesting galleries was "Art History".  The exhibition has his comic-style rendering of Impressionst, Cubist, Surrealist and Expressionist  styles.  He admitted, "The things I apparently parodied, I actually admire".

The exhibition begins with his 1961 painting,  "Look Mickey.  Note that this "beakhrough painting that announced his Pop Art syle", does not have Lichtenstein's trademark dots and heavy black outlines that developed later..

Look Mickey

1961/ Oil on canvas

Te marker reads..

"It is hard to image that such an image could be so shocking at the time it was made. In this painting Lichtenstein was exploring ideas of mechanical reproduction, specifically the painting process, throught the fine-art language of painting. His palette was limited to the barest essenticals - the three primary colors and white - and he employed hand-painited dots, the standard form for denoting tonality in comics, sparingly on Mickey's face and Donalds's eyes. Yet his style was still in transition. Soon to come would be the heavy black outlines and uniform dots that are the trademark of Lichtenstein's PopArt style, and by 1964 he would have Life magazine where "Look Mickey" was first "shown" to the world, asking,"is he the worst artist in the U.S.?"

Interestingly  although his 1961 painting "Look Mickey" shocked the art community, but soon, between 1962 and 1965, his early Pop-Art are some of his most famous masterpieces; like.. The Ring [Engagement]/1962;  Masterpiece / 1962;  Bratatat! / 9162;  Drowning Girl/1963;   Torpedo.. LOS!/ 1963;  Cold Shoulder/1963;  Ohh... Alright / 1964;   Oh, Jeff... I Love You, Too... But..  / 1964;  M-Maybe/ 1965..

The Ring [Engagement]

1962 / Oil on canvas

Ohh... Alright...

1964 / Oil and Magna on canvas

Some of his early deadpan rendering of consumer advertisment. Keds /1961 [inspired by Sears, Roebuck & Co.], Hot Dog with Mustard, Cup of Coffee [1961]..

Hot Dog with Mustard

Oil and Magna on canvas

Keds

1961 / Oil on canvas

Sunrise

1965 / Oil and Magna on canvas

To me, the most interesting was the Art History Gallery [1951-1990]
The marker reads..
"Through appropriation, repetition, stylization and parody, lichtenstein was the first artist to critically and systematically dismantle the history of modern art, though not without deference and respect. As he admitted early on, "The things that I have apprently parodied, I actually admire". As this was an abiding topic for him, this is one of the two galleries in the exhibition in which the work spans the breath of his entire career."

Sleeping Muse

1983

Based on Sleeping Muse / 1910 , by Constantine Brancusi..

Cubist Still Life

1974 / oil and magna on canvas

Based on "Abstraction [Guitar and Glass]"/ 1913 by Juan Gris.

Drawing for the Red Horseman

 1974

Based on sculpture "Horse" /1914 by Raymond Duchamp-Villon.

There are many more like, "Portrait of Madame Cezanne" / 1962 [based on "Madame Cezanne in a Yellow Chair / 188-90 by Paul Cezanne];  Modern Sculpture / 1967  [based  on Chair / 1936-39 by Frank Lloyd Wright].. and more...

Artists Studio [1973-1974]

Artists's Studio "Look Mickey"

1973

Artist Studio, "The Dance"

1974 / Oil and Magna on canvas

The series was inspired by Henri Matisse's painting Red Studio and Pink Studio, both in 1911

Nudes [1994-1997]

Now coming to the ageless topic of Nudes in arts,

The marker reads..

"Like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse before him, Lichtenstein retured to the motif of the female form late in life. He engaged this enduring art historical subject in provacative ways, with his Nudes in the mid-1990s. Unlike traditional depiction based on live models, these women are inventions. The origin can be traced to the artist's archive of comic-book clippings, some date back to 1960s. While his sources were most often altered to achieve greater composition clarity, here there is one key difference, the originally clothed women are now undressed."

Nudes with Beach Ball

1994 / Oil and magna on canvas

Nude with Bust
1995 / Oil and Magna on canvas..

Interior with Nude leaving
1997 /  Oil and Mineral Spirit Acrylic [MSA} on canvas..

The last work in the series, "Interior with Nude leaving" [1997], not only depicts a departure of the female form, but also announces a change in the artist's graphic style. Lichtenstein trademark black contour lines recede, and the emphatic articulation of forms in space begins to dissolve. This late work points to new developments in lichtenstein's thinking about painting and to the potential for further innovation.

Here are only 15 of the 170 works by Roy Lichtenstein, exhibited in the Regenstein Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago. There is so much more to be enjoyed. the evolution of his brushstrokes and trademark style can be observed. I  will be posting more on this exhibition as I get time..