lula's walls

Winter Show 2012

2012-02-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

The winter show at Lula comes from our friend Aron Packer atPacker Schopf Gallery.

Aron has a greateye and represents some amazing contemporary artists and outsider artists so wewere really excited to pick through his collection. To dig through his stock room is a unique experience. Weuncovered delights that reflect Aron’s longstanding interest in outsider work such as theCowboy Drawings of Harry Young as well as the very contemporary and highlycrafted work of Renee McGinnis.

McGinnis' epic paintings can be seen in the dining room. The dilapidated structures she paints are surrounded by topiarygardens of a misdirected beauty, suggesting man’s desire to control nature.

Along with themacro approach in the epic scenes of broken ships, McGinnis also takes a microapproach as she dissects and magnifies the life found in the lush greentopiaries. In her Unified Field Theory work McGinnis places the viewer directlyover a circular symmetry of insects. When you see these precise paintingsyou’ll wonder if you are seeing a close up of an atom or the universe itself.

On display in the bar is the The Harry Young collection as well as works by L.C. Spooner. The former includes a number of handmadefigures on cardboard that were found in a large wooden box with "HarryYoung, 38 Inkerman, St. Thomas, ON" scratched on the inside. The boxoriginally included over 350 cardboard figures of cowboys, lawmen and horses. The vastmajority are hand drawn, though here are a handful of figures that have faces collaged from newspaper ads for cowboy movies.The box also contains a number of other miscellaneous items, including a wearableMarshall's badge and a small, handwritten book of "laws," whichestablishes rules for cowboy life, morality and justice.

The second artist in the bar, L.C. Spooner, was an inventor of the practical and thefantastic. His artistic production, created between 1911 and 1934, blueprints for machines and everyday life objects based on theprinciple of self-propulsion (self-propelled motors, self-propelled trash cans,self-propelled scales, self-propelled finger-lifter, etc.). The triumphs ofindustrial development in the beginning of the 20th century were, without anydoubt, the source of inspiration for those who have been called "crazyinventors". L.C. Spooner signed his drawings "L.C. SpoonerInventor".

The Winter show will be up until April 20 with a reception to be held on April 17, 6-9.

2011-10-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ceremonial Portrait - Girl

Ceremonial Portrait - Boy

Todd Baxter

Owl Scouts: Lost in the Woodsseries

October 1, 2011 - January 17, 2012

Closing Receptions, January 10, 2012 from 6-9pm

Lula is pleased to be showing a selection of ToddBaxter’s latest series titled “The Owl Scouts: Lost in the Woods.” The series portraysa fictional narrative about two co-ed scouts who get lost deep in the woods ona scouting trip. On their journey they encounter a series of challenges (aflashlight fallen into an owl burrow, a dangerous river crossing, a tornado,and an encounter with a bear) that test their survival skills.

This stunning collection of large format photos wascreated over the course of three years. Prior to photography, Baxter worked in paintingand collage, both of which have influenced his approach to making photographic art.Baxter’s photographs involve digital collage of elements from different photosinto a single frame, creating spectacular, unified images that are at oncefantastical, and convincingly real. Baxter was inspired by Victorian portraiture, classicchildren’s novels, Native American imagery, and taxidermy.

To construct the elaborate world of the Owl Scouts, Baxterused the help of a team of Chicago artists including, Ander Nilsen, DebbieCarlos, and Marjorie Bailey. Withtheir help, Baxter refined the narrative, and was able to realize his vision tocreate a detailed design for the scouts’ uniforms, right down to hand-embroideredOwl Scout patches.

Challenge 2: River Crossing - Drowning

Although we are not able to present the entire series ofthe photographs for this show, the photos on display reveal critical moments ofthe series and will leave you begging for more.

These photos are sold in a variety of sizes. For pricing or more information please contact curators Anders Nilsen, ndrs@hotmail_dot_com or Marianne Fairbanks, mfairb@gmail_dot_com

For the closing reception Lula willprovide hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar featuring drink specials.

Amy Honchell: Soft Infrastructure

2011-08-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

Reception: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 6-9pm

Exhibition: July 13-October 3, 2011

Here at Lula we are excited to get the chance to have a solo show featuring the new work Amy Honchell titled Soft Infrastructure. This work reveals a soft landscape—created from layers of cloth that are stitched into strata—supporting traces of failed (hard) architecture—dilapidated mining structures, hunting blinds, and communication towers. The improbable, rickety structures stand in opposition to the soft landscape that provides support to them.

Blind, Muscle Memory (detail), 2011

Topology, sewing, and elements of mapping underscore the parallels between the structures and functions of the human body, architecture, and the landscape. Honchell invites viewers to cross unseen boundaries and discover new territories while exploring the sense of touch in a visual way.

The work in Soft Infrastructure explores memory, navigation, and landscape. Honchell was raised in a section of northeastern Pennsylvania known at the Endless Mountains. The small coal mining towns along the mountains in this area are not particularly notable but traveling through them shaped her. The bends and turns of the roads and rivers are etched into her memory as physical sensations, stories, and imagined adventures.

Signaling Point (Red Tower), 2010-11

Her work embodies the idea that drawing is an extension of touch, the hand. Whatever the medium for drawing—pen, thread, wire—Honchell thinks about the haptic gestures made and recorded on, in, and through a surface. For the past year she has been engaged in studio investigations of drawing in this vein that that attempt to invert notions of soft and hard, fixed and malleable, structure and collapse.

Rickety Structure X, 2010

New Spring Painting Show- Leslie Baum and Surabhi Ghosh

2011-02-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

Opening-- Tuesday, March 29, 2011 6-9pm
Please join us for the opening of the Spring Show at Lula Café which features paintings by two artists, Leslie Baum and Surabhi Ghosh.

If you can't make the opening come by any day to see this exhibition which runs through May.

In the dining room of Lula you will find Axis Mundi, a nonhierarchical presentation of paintings by Leslie Baum. This body of work addresses the idea of the image and the fracturing of image. The paintings depict a collaged space where no one formal element is privileged over another and include large oil paintings and watercolors on arches paper. Baum bases her compositions on the innocuous groupings of pottery shards and stones encountered at archeological sites in New Mexico. Her paintings place the image fragments in a neutral context and in front of an audience never imagined by those who created of the patterned pottery. While acknowledging the mystery of the original messages, Baum’s paintings present an opportunity to make new meanings and associations.

Axis Mundi, 2010

Oil on canvas, 72" x 96"

My Way or the Highway, 2010

Watercolor on arches paper, 30" x 22"

In the bar we have displayed the recent work of Surabhi Ghosh which centers on how pattern and decoration can act as meaningful though often unrecognized signifiers within spiritual, political, and domestic narratives. Through recurrent or systematic use, motifs become codes and patterns become language; only members of a community can fully understand their meaning. But in some instances a symbol (e.g., the circle) holds similar meanings across disparate locations and histories. Her work taps into these shared authorless codes and embodies the mysteries of connectivity found in decorative patterning. Focusing on circles, dots, and borders, she transforms the peripheral into the subject by filling the picture plane with meticulously detailed patterns, reclaiming decoration as valuable rather than disposable. The work of Surabhi Ghosh represents both the tangible and the unknowable while prompting viewers to concentrate on what is often overlooked or undervalued.

Orb 1, 2010

Acrylic and acrylic gouache on panel , 12" x 12"

Earthwork, skywork, 2010

Acrylic on found panel, 14"x11"

For more information and prices contact curators; Anders Nilsen, ndrs@hotmaildotcom or Marianne Fairbanks, mfairb@gmaildotcom

Lula Café - 2541 North Kedzie Blvd - Chicago, IL 60618

Wandering Cloud -- The Photography of Debbie Carlos

2010-10-13T17:13:00.000-07:00

For our fall show we are hosting an exhibition titled Wandering Cloud, featuring the photography of Debbie Carlos. With her uncanny eye for light and detail, Carlos is able to capture the ephemeral beauty in moments of quiet. This exhibit features a poetic series of photos that focus on a hand--covered in fur, holding an egg, or subtly stained with beet juice. Also on display will be a range of Carlos’s work that transports the viewer to a variety of places including an orange field of flowers, a rock carved river gorge, and a train station in Kyoto. It is our pleasure to host the first solo exhibition of Carlos’s work, featuring over 20 of her photographs.

Please join us on October 26 from 6-9 p.m. at Lula Café for a reception celebrating the opening of Wandering Cloud. This exhibition runs October through December.

Hand Fluff, 2009
Taroko Gorge, 2009

Tokyo Flowers, 2009

Sprout 1, 2007

Engine Manual

2010-08-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

We made a little catalog for the Car Engine show, featuring images of each of the artist's work. Proceeds from sales of the catalog will go to benefit Tommi Musturi and Marijpol, whose work was damaged in the flood at Lula a couple of weeks ago (see left to order). Below is the first spread.

Laura Park

2010-08-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure exactly how I came across Laura Park's amazing and beautiful sketchbooks on Flickr. As a Chicago cartoonist I knew her, vaguely, as friends of friends, and had seen and admired her mini-comics. But they didn't prepare me for the breathtaking and playful color comics and drawings in her sketchbooks. It felt like peering down a rabbit hole in the woods and realizing it's filled with gold. Several of these will be on display in the bar cases at Lula through December, installed in time to be featured along with the Car Engine Show for Lula's first proper art opening (Tuesday, August 24th, 6-9). In the months that follow, pages will be turned now and then as the mood strikes us.

Amanda Vahamaki and Michelangelo Setola

2010-08-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

Concurrent with the Car Engine Drawing Show this Summer is a show of pencil drawings by Finn Amanda Vähämäki and Italian Michelangelo Setola both of whom are connected to the italian comics collective Canicola. The drawings are partially collaborative, many have appeared in their artists book Souvlaki Circus, published in the U.S. by the late, lamented Buenaventura Press. The drawings are little gems of narrative image making. They are mysterious, understated and dreamlike. They are being seen in the U.S for the first time (Lula's show follows on the heels of a show at Home Gallery in Hyde Park), and it may be a while before these artists work will be seen here again. Reception with wine and food August 24th, 6-9.

The Car Engine Invitational Drawing Show (and a flood)

2010-07-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

The Summer show has two parts. The first is made up entirely of drawings of car engines. I draw comics for a living, and so I occasionally attend small press comics expos. There's a funny phenomenon that happens at these things. Fans go around to different artists at the show with blank sketchbooks and ask for drawings of a favorite subject. Batman, say, or Bart Simpson. It occured to me that it might be interesting to ask people to draw something that was sort of impossible, something no one really knows how to draw, but that might lend itself to interesting interpretation. So I asked a bunch of people to do drawings of a car engine. Amazingly 23 people contributed work. Following are some installation shots of the show and then a few individual pieces.

Shown above are pieces by Marc Bell, Dan Zettwoch, Jeffrey Brown, Chi-Hoi Lee, Jay Ryan, Gabrielle Bell, Esther Pearl Watson and Andrea Bruno. Also in the show are Marijpol, Tommi Musturi, Jordan Crane, Sammy Harkham, Mark Todd, Anders Nilsen, Peter Thompson, Luke Ramsey, Doublenaut, Michelangelo Setola, Sonnenzimmer, Justin B Williams, Nick Petersen, Doug Shaeffer and Ron Rege.

THE FLOOD

So, it's been a rainy summer in Chicago. Two trees on my street have been blown down over the last month or so, and the strange colors of the sky and the lightning shows have been frequent topics of conversation this year. Last weekend it rained and stormed for a solid eight or nine hours, all night long, very unusual for Chicago, who's storms generally come and go fairly quickly. And the basement of Lula flooded. Like, 3 1/2 feet, with freezers picked up and dumped out, computers and files and wine bottles floating around in an apocalyptic mess. Among the casualties were a number of pieces of art--from past shows and a few pieces waiting to be hung for the opening reception. Of these, most have proved more or less salvageable, a number have spent several days pressed between layers of newsprint and under stacks of heavy art books in my living room, and early indications are that they might make it. But two pieces in particular, by Marijpol and Tommi Musturi (shown above) having been stored in rolls which collapsed, were torn in places in addition to being swamped. Prints by Jay Ryan and Jordan Crane were also affected. My intention is to hold a silent auction at the opening, or perhaps online to benefit Marijpol and Tommi, possibly for a private commissioned drawing from them or something. More on that as details are ironed out in the next few days.

There is also a concurrent exhibition of small pencil drawings at Lula right now, by Amanda Vahamaki and Michelangelo Setola. More on that show, including images, also soon...

Spring Show 2010

2010-03-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

Spring Show 2010
Alysia Kaplan, David Schalliol and Alyssa Miserendino

In the new spring show at lula we are featuring 3 artists whose work addresses the issues surrounding the economy and housing. In the bar you will find work by Alysia Kaplan including her Million$House series that calls into questions the true value of a home in this fluctuating market. The dining room will feature two photo series; David Schalliol’s Isolated Building Study focuses our attention on one building whose neighboring buildings are missing, clashing the urban structures with a seemingly suburban setting, and creating a strange and poetic tension. Alyssa Miserendino’s series Our World Inside Out takes us into homes that are in foreclosure. Each house is in a different state of emptiness with small details left behind that hint at the stories of the former occupants.

David Schalliol
Selections from Isolated Building Studies: Revealing Meaning Through Recontextualization (2006-Present)
Alyssa Miserendino
Harper Attic

Check out this short segment on Chicago Tonight that features Alyssa and her project Our World Inside Out...

Alysia Kaplan

HalfMillion$House, Happey Valley, OR

2008

Current Show: Winter 2009-2010: Stephen Eichhorn

2009-12-09T10:22:00.000-08:00

We just put up the new show last night. The day before was the first day of snow here in Chicago, and while we were at lula measuring walls and hanging work there was a classic nasty winter sleet storm outside, with slush collecting an inch deep on the sidewalk and flakes the size of postage stamps dropping onto the windows and slowly dissolving into streams on the glass. For the next few months, while winter howls outside, Lula is going to be a little safe house for spring.

We're super happy to have Stephen's collages up. It has to be seen to be believed. This is not photoshop. There is no shortcut here. He has literally hand-cut every leaf and petal from his source material of old magazines and weird seventies forest wallpaper. Stephen has shown as far away as the U.K., as well as both coasts. For a little more about the work, take a look at this little video (about 2 1/2 minutes). Below are a couple of images from his studio. The green stuff in those trays is a pile of stuff he's cut out, waiting to be applied.

And a couple more of the images:

Show: Fall 2009: Kim Jae Young and Jeremy Bolen

2009-09-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

The new show at Lula features photographer Jeremy Bolen and printmaker and book artist Kim Jae Young.

Until recently Jeremy Bolen was a singer and guitarist in local Chicago art pop act Chin Up Chin Up. He's also a photographer. He's spent the last few summers
taking pictures in the Northeast, in what used to be referred to as the
Borscht Belt, and in the Salton Sea in Southern California. Both areas were once thriving resort areas, now abandoned.He's been chased, yelled at and has fallen through decayed flooring to get pictures for the ongoing photo project Leftover and
Leaving. This fall Lula is showing just a small sample of something that is going
to be epic.

Kim Jae Young is a native of Seoul, South Korea, currently working on an MFA at the School of the Art Institute. Her work is meticulous and highly labor intensive. The mandala-like Bottom series includes three screen prints of 16, 20 and 23 colors respectively, recreating the subtle gradations of light as seen through the bottoms of plastic beverage bottles. The intricacies of her book works in the bar cases are similarly obsessive and even more dramatic.

The present show is scheduled to be up through November of 2009. Jeremy's photographs are $750 mounted, $600 for the photo only. Jae Young's Prints are between $240 and $360, with two, Bottom #4 and Bottom #5 priced at $550. All of them are framed. For more information and sales contact Anders or Marianne (see left).

A Benefit for 46 Million (plus)

2009-08-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

Several artists who have shown at Lula in the past along with a number of other local and nationally recognized artists, are participating in an online art auction to benefit efforts to pass real, substantive health care reform with a strong public option. For more information about the auction see curator Anders Nilsen's web journal, the monologuist, as well as coverage in the Reader and Time Out.

Artists associated with Lula include: Cheryl Weaver (Sky photo pictured above), Jeffrey Brown, Kyle Obriot, Stephen Eichhorn, Sonnezimmer Print Studio, Jordan Crane, Anders Nilsen and Todd Baxter. Among the other artists are Dan Clowes (author of Ghostworld), Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, Ivan Brunetti, and Genevieve Castree (her watercolor "Because the Night" pictured below).

Show: Summer 2009

2009-08-13T11:33:00.000-07:00

The current show is made up of the double exposed Polaroids of Kyle Obriot. The photos are made with a Polaroid Land Camera, for which the company no longer makes film. Kyle hunts down old film and improvises his double exposures in the short time allowed by polaroid's instant chemistry. He just has a minute or two after the first image, to find a second to lay over it. Kyle is a photographer and film maker from the Detroit area, currently living in Chicago.

Todd Baxter is a transplant to Chicago from New Mexico. He makes a living in commercial photography, actively pursuing his own work in his home studio looking out on Humboldt Park. He grew up in New Mexico, lived for a while in Oman and then Budapest before settling in Chicago where he's lived for the past eight years or so. As a student he worked mostly in painting and collage, and both closely influence his approach to taking pictures. Much of his work involves painstaking digital collage of elements from different photos, like tapirs and astronauts, together into single seamless pictures. The monumental scale of pictures like the one here don't really translate on a computer screen.
Todd is currently working on an incredibly ambitious multi photo narrative series about two kids (owl scouts) who get lost in the forest and their misadventures. Some of the progress of the project, and the objects and constructions he's making for it can be seen here.

Jae Young Kim is a native of Seoul, South Korea. She is currently a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jae Young is presently showing several sculptural books and other constructions in the bar cases. More of her prints and other works on paper will be shown in the dining room in the Fall.