Intro Blog

On October 22, 2010, the department of Art and Art History went on a trip to Chicago.

The first museum I visited was the Art Institute of Chicago. I thought that it was hilarious that the font on the stone sign had a “v” instead of a “u”, so it looked like “The Art Institvte of Chicago”.

From there, I went to Millennium Park where I saw the fountains (which were turned off, boo!) and the bean (otherwise known as Cloud Gate).

Next, I ate lunch at a nice Italian restaurant off Michigan Ave. I scarfed down an entire plate of calamari, and boy, was it good!

After that, I went to the Cultural Center.

From there, I set off in search of the Dick Blick store.

Gallery time; I walked to the River North gallery district, and visited Schneider Gallery, Perimeter Gallery, Roy Boyd Gallery, ECHT Gallery, and the Carl Hammer Gallery.

Then, it was off to American Dog to get a Chicago Dog, go back to Millennium Park, and the Art Institute.

Pictures from Chicago 10.22.10: Art Institute and Millenium Park

The traffic going into Chicago. I was really excited after a long buss ride to finally get there. I took this picture through the front window of the bus as we were driving down Lake Shore Drive. There was so much activity and we weren't even in the heart of downtown Chicago. This picture captures my excitement with the cars trying to get down the street, but because we weren't there yet, the red street light signifies waiting.

These sculpture heads were part of the first exhibit I went to that featured artifacts from Asia. These heads are the heads of Buddha, Bodhisattva, and a female deity. The heads were daunting, in a way because they were once full bodied sculptures, but all that is left are the heads.

A man riding a goose… what could be better? This piece was very interesting to me because I have no knowledge about the culture of 12th Century Korea, so I viewed this piece within the context of my own culture. The label for this piece gave no information about the importance of this piece, or how it played a role in Korea, but it did say that liquid could be poured out of the bird's beak.

Still Life with Many Objects, 1923
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret
This piece really stood out to me. It is a pastel drawing with shapes that are flat, yet have three dimensional qualities to them caused by the shading and perspective.

Untitled, Late July - early October 1929
Joan Miro
This piece reminded me of a flying saucer soaring through space as space junk drifts alongside. The cone-like shape in the middle throws off the organic nature of this drawing, which, according to the name label, was a reoccurring feature in this series of Miro's drawings.

Untitled c.1915
Vasily Kandinsky
This watercolor is vibrant and alive. It is abstract and painted on a piece of paper about the size of a greeting card. I chose to take this picture, and research this artist, because it was the most colorful and happy piece in the room. The name tag's description of the painting says that the sun is "exploding with light" while the painting exists "in an unstable realm between abstraction and representation".

Four Figures, July 1946
Jean Dubuffet
Personally, this picture rubs me the wrong way (Get it? Because it's drawn on sandpaper! Hah!) with its creepy one dimensional smiling children, who may actually be adults because one is wearing a bow tie. It reminds me of the Little Rascals... all it needs is a dog and the people in this drawing can go attempt some elaborately planned shenanigan.

American Gothic, 1930
Grant Wood
To see this famous painting was an honor (even though anyone in the museum could see it). I felt a special bond with this painting because, only having seen it on posters or in books, the impact of the colors and details are so much more prominent in real life. What I really focused on were the polka dots in the woman's dress and the wrinkles in the man's undershirt. These features fall flat on posters, but in reality, the oil paint makes the painting have volume from a side view.

I took this picture while on my way to Millennium Park. The buildings in Chicago are so tall that from this angle, they almost look like they're ready to tip back and topple over. I took this picture because the morning sky was so blue, and with the sun shining off the buildings, the city looked so happy. Mornings like this energize me, and make the day a little bit easier to start.

This dinosaur has "Made in China" on it's belly. It was part of an installation in Millennium Park with was made up of large scale statues of toys that were made in China. To me, this installment addresses the issues of importation and outsourcing and how something as simple as a child's toy can come travel thousands of miles before it even reaches its consumer base.

Pictures from Chicago: Cultural Center

Girl With Bicycle, 2008
This photograph was so sad. I am not sure who the photographer was, but it was part of the collection of pictures by the same artist in the Cultural Center. In the photograph, the children are so happy even when the world around them looks run down. It makes me grateful for what I have because they can be happy with something as simple as a scooter or bike.

This is a picture I took of one of the skylights in the building. The stained glass ceiling was so grand and made me feel like I had stepped into the past. It is amazing how someone could care about the integrity of art so much to preserve it throughout the years.

This is a closer detail of one of the skylights in the Cultural Center. I'm not sure if this was the same dome as the picture above it (but now that I look at the details, I'm pretty sure it was the bottom half of the dome), but the same goes for this picture in that I commend the people who preserve history. The stained glass reminds me of the details in the windows of the Titanic.

There was a metal gate hanging from the wall in one the Louis Sullivan exhibit, and it overlapped out onto the window. I decided to play with the focus of the shot to bring the foreground clearly into the picture while leaving the city background blurry.

Here is a second picture I snapped of the gate. This time, I tried to get the background into focus while leaving the detailed gate blurry. I don't like this picture quite as much as I like the one above it because I think the abstract qualities of the other picture make it more interesting. This picture points out the obvious that there is some sort of detail in front of a city, while the other one leaves the city as something to be interpreted after the whole of the picture is taken in by the viewer.

This is a detail from a chimney designed by Louis Sullivan. I loved the swirls and even though it is abstract, it reminds me of a horned owl. The top swirl could be the owl's face with two feathers sticking out from the head. The bottom swirl could be the owl's body.

This picture captures Jeff Zimmermann as he sets up an overhead to project an image on the wall. After this, he started outlining the diamond shapes with black paint. It was very interesting to see an artist at work because art is usually made in a studio away from public eyes.

The artist was installing his piece right there at the Cultural Center. I thought it was amazing to see how it is actually done by people who are respected in the art world. The paintings were of people, and left me wondering who these people were and why they were important to the artist.

This is one of those pieces where I was just like.. yes. I loved this piece and I chose to take a picture of it because just this piece told a bigger part of the story. It was in a hallway with papers and letters stapled to the wall. I was not sure of the point of the project, but it looked like the letters and notes were written by different people. Some of the papers were hand written, and some were typed. This particular paper stuck out because of the light behind it.

Pictures from Chicago: On Our Way to Dick Blick

This was a window display in a store front on the way to the Blick store. It was made from folded paper and extended all the way into the second or third floor windows. My eye was not drawn to the clothing on display in the window, but to the window as a whole first. That was really all I had time to look at while I was walking by the store. This could have actually been bad planning on the store's part because fancy window displays are usually meant to be advertisements for products, but all I walked away with was a huge cascading paper flower display.

I loved this building. The way the slanted windows caught the sunlight was beautiful and the curtains in each window filled me with wonder as to what could be behind them. The building in the bottom right corner is interesting too because of the streak of light hitting the different slanted angles within its architecture.

Blick had so much cute stuff! I wanted to buy this guy (along with the rest of the toy section!) and make him into a super cute addition to my dorm room. Too bad he was so expensive (I would still like to get a smaller one).

Pictures of Chicago: Galleries Ahoy!

This was the sign outside of the Schneider Gallery in Chicago.

This was the door to the front of the gallery. I loved the space because although it was small, it was well lit. This gallery was a for profit gallery specializing in photographs. The studio space had several fake walls going back which sectioned off the different artists to create a separate space for each artist.

Yara at Dorms, 2009
Natan Dvir
This was a photograph at the Schneider Gallery. The artist had taken several photos of teenagers from different parts of the world. This gallery was featuring another artist who also took photos of teenagers in the rooms.

The ECHT Gallery was in the process of changing out their displays so a lot of the artwork was on the floor or in boxes. I still got to see some great works, but as to who the artists are, I'm unsure.

I thought this piece (I think it's a painting) was beautiful. I love beaches and chose to record this piece because it looked so serene and I wanted to jump in the painting and just lay out on that beach. The way the sunlight streaks the trees in the left hand side of the picture plain is beautiful.

This was the sign outside of the Perimeter Gallery. I was less excited for the gallery and more excited to be near the Onion headquarters.

This was a closeup of a sculpture at Perimeter Gallery.

The woman inside of the Carl Hammer Gallery was quite cold when it came to answering questions, greeting visitors, or dealing with people in general. The pieces of art that were featured at this time were hand drawn butterflies in weird patterns that looked like an eight year old drew them.

The woman in the Roy Boyd gallery was so welcoming and super helpful. She explained a little about each of the artists they were featuring and offered to answer any questions I had about the artwork I saw. This was the only gallery with two floors open to the public (the Carl Hammer Gallery had a second floor with a sign that indicated that it was open, but the lady was cranky and told us it was closed).

The elk and gnome heads above the door of the Roy Boyd Gallery. I only noticed these features as I was leaving the gallery. They look like they were made out of metal and attached to the front of the building with nails or screws.

These are hand crocheted tubes that have been filled with rocks. The artist does a great job of using organic shapes and nature to create a unique sculpture. These sculptures remind me of worms or a Dugtrio Pokemon.

Untitled XX, 2009
Mario Trejo
This is a drawing made from India ink and white acrylic. This artist creates layers and layers of his materials and then uses the opposite color to create his desired effect. Close up, it is very chaotic, and far away, it feels like it's under tension. I can almost feel the ripping of the strand of white as it is pulled in two different directions.

This is another one of those knitted rock socks.

Here is a neon sign for a flower shop. There is something about neon signs that take me to the past. There's something very urban and cool about neon signs.

This was a mural on the side of a building. I thought it was really cool because it was a musician playing a guitar in a bar. This is an example of some of the public work that can be found around the city.

Another great neon sign; this one is for the Stop & Drink Liquor House.

I loved this building. Its windows were one of my most favorite shades of blue and the shape of the balconies and roof made the building look so grand in the middle of the open sky.

I loved the Weber grill on the side of the building. I wasn't sure exactly what it was made of, but I don't think it was an actual grill because it was HUGE! If I had extra time, I would have totally gone into that store to look at grills because that grill sculpture was so unique. Overall, I thought it was good marketing on Weber's part.

This one made me laugh so hard! Haha, I have a thing for neon signs and this one made my day. Rock Bottom is a brilliant name for a brewery.

The buildings are so huge in Chicago. I felt like they were creating a cocoon of windows. The building on the left was really cool because its windows catch the light very well.

When nature meets the city, we get happy little flowers in window boxes. These flowers were in an urn outside of a hotel while I was walking to the gallery district. I chose to take the picture like this to bring the focus on the nature withing the city.

On the way to the galleries, I saw this parking garage! It reminds me of a mud wasp nest and the valets must be pretty talented to park all of those cars with their back ends facing outwards.

This bike was parked outside of the Blick art store. It was pretty cool and that's one of the only reasons I wanted to take a picture of it. I'm not sure if it is just meant to be something cool and artsy, or if it is an actual functioning bike. (I bet it belongs to a giant...)

Pictures of Chigaco: Back to the Institute

At the top of the steps leading to Millennium Park, the sun was setting and the street lights were coming on. The city was alive with lights and people. The following pictures were some of my favorite of the day. I love dusk pictures because everything is so beautiful, especially with all of the city lights.

The Bean was alive with tourists as I sat on a concrete bench in Millennium Park. I was playing around with some of the features on my camera and I loved the way this picture turned out. The people are blurred in their movements, but that is okay, because I didn't care about the people as much as I cared about the horizon reflected within the sculpture.

This picture is of the Art Institute of Chicago while the sun was setting. The building itself is so beautiful with the lights and windows. There is a man on a bike up ahead, and in the shot taken about two seconds before this one, he was right next to me, but blurred. His movements were so fast and swift compared to the people around him. He can be seen in this shot, still in movement, way up ahead of everyone else in the background.

Crossing the street to the Art Institute; after an action packed day, I was pretty much relieved to head back to the bus. In this picture, I tried to capture the cars as they zoomed over the busy crosswalk. The colors of Chicago at night are stunning.

While I was waiting for the bus, I took this picture of the city. The honey color of the streetlights with the deep blue sky complement each other to make the white windows of the buildings stand out. The Art Institute was far enough away from the tall buildings to hold onto traces of nature with the hedges, so this picture also shows a contrast between city and nature.

My last picture of Chicago; I loved how the cars sped by and how even though my trip was about to end, there were people in the city who were just beginning theirs.