THE FRANKLIN is proud to present Depress Mode, the latest work of Chicago artist Mike Rea.

Opening reception: Saturday, September 3 from 6-9PM
From September 3 to October 15, 2016

Depress Mode, an exhibition of new sculptures that explore a variety of topics. To name a few subjects included: ISIS (or Dash if you prefer), Chicago, online dating, the patriarchy and paranormal activity.

So, if you are sick of having sex with ghosts, radicalization through gentrification and the “Man;” this could be the show for you.

Mike Rea has conflated the notions of working hard and playing hard for over a decade with his bombastic wooden sculptures. Replicated and reinvented moments of cinematic horror, science fiction, comedy and drama intermingle with memory to form bizarre personal narratives. Over the years, each uncanny conglomeration of familiar objects and themes has both thrilled and confounded audiences. The delight in the experience of Mike Rea’s vision is the balance between a feeling of understanding that is quickly replaced by new, surprising discoveries. Whether as conventional sculptures standing alone, or as props in interactive installations and performances, these often-massive objects reflect a culture of humor, violence, vulgarity, and sensitivity

Mike Rea was born and raised in the south suburbs of Chicago. Rea received his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the past decade Rea has explored pop culture and the American identity through large garish sculptures, installations, and performances constructed from wood. Rea’s work often employs a wry sense of humor combined with a meticulous and compulsive constructive process. Rea has exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX, Western Exhibitions, Chicago, IL, Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA, the Scion Gallery, Culver City, CA. , and the Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL among others. Rea participated in the international exhibition/residency Forest Art, Darmstadt, Germany. Rea participated in the Power of Making exhibition at The Victoria Albert Museum, London, UK in 2012, and the curate exhibition 10,000 Hours at the Kunstmuseum Thurgau, Switzerland. More recently Rea collaborated with Kelly Kaczyinski in the Odie-Off at Threewalls, Chicago IL, and with Geoffrey Todd Smith on the drawing project/exhibition/book, Sharks, Dicks, and Drugs, Gold Star Bar, Chicagho, IL. Rea had solo exhibitions at DEMO Projects in Springfield, IL, EbersMoore and Devening Projects in Chicago IL and at the Devos Art Museum, Marquette, MI. Rea currently teaches Sculpture at Northern Illinois University.

+ At the FLAT SCREEN: Nelly Aggasi

Nelly Agassi is a multi-disciplinary artist who works with performance, installation, video, textile and works on paper. Her work deals with materials, body and space. She is particularly interested in public spaces in relation to architecture. Agassi often works site-specifically, combining a performance that is held as a one-time event, and an installation that remains in the space for the entire duration of the show. Her works are both small-scaled and monumental. Hence, one may say that the elements of emphasis, radicalization, and deviation are an integral part of the conceptual tactics underlying her work. Agassi’s works thus demand a unique, different attention, whether due to the intimate, excessive proximity required in order to read them, or due to the fact that they dominate different parts of the public sphere of the exhibition spaces, transforming them into quasi-private intermediate realms and undermining conditioned perceptions of the relations that may form between the various elements present in situ.

Agassi’s works echo traditional, domestic female crafts – handiwork, embroidery, sewing, knitting – her use of these tools is not conventional, certainly not functional, and it acquires a different resonance that stems from the disillusioned awareness of the moment of choice. Thus, Agassi does not practice embroidery, sewing or knitting as acts identified with femininity or with the scope of domestic activities as such. Her works are executed as part of modernist work procedures and in affinity with the contemporary art world, while constantly problematizing the interrelations between her activity in space and the notion of the “white cube.” Thus, for instance, her work touches upon the strict minimalist rhetoric, as defined in the 1960s and 1970s, yet disturbs its order by introducing narrative, biographical or private elements, alongside the use of soft materials. In doing so, she deprives the minimalist sculptural act of the element of impersonal abstractness that is at its very core, while at the same time depriving the act of performance of the potential anti-matter aspect characterizing it.

About Nelly:

Born 1973,Tel Aviv
Lives and work in Chicago
works in performance, installation, video,textile and paper. Her artwork addresses the idea of the body and notion of intimacy within public space in relation to architecture. Her work engages both the personal and emotional as well as universal concepts. Agassi is a 2001 graduate of the MA program of combined media in Chelsea Collage of Art and Design, London, UK. She has received the Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation for Israeli Art Prize and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art award for artistic encouragement from the Israel Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport. Agassi shown her work extensively throughout the world – in sites such as the Israel Museum, Doritto Rovesscio, Milan Triennial, Poor Farm, usa, and at the Tate Modern in London.

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Tags: Chicago, Depress Mode, East Garfield Park, Flat Screen, Mike Rea, Nelly Agassi, The Franklin