Peter Saul: Stupid Arguments and Brian Calvin: New Paintings
@ Corbett vs. Dempsey
1120 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
Opening Thursday, January 27th, from 5PM - 9PM
On view through Saturday, March 12th
Since he emerged in the early 1960s, Saul has been one of the most singular and important painters in America. His first solo show was, in fact, in Chicago, at Allan Frumkin Gallery in 1961. Saul’s association with Frumkin, along with his dedication to figurative painting and his aggressive, uncompromising sensibility, have made him a particularly significant figure in this city; even though he’s never lived here, he’s often spoken of as if he was a Chicago painter. (An early work of Saul’s is included in the companion show to the upcoming Jim Nutt exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.) Saul’s work is never easy. He deals with resolutely un-P.C. images, his figures often contorted into impossible shapes like salt-water taffy, his themes delving into the deepest recesses of psycho-sexual and political life. Over the last decade, Saul’s profile has risen sharply; he’s been the subject of sweeping museum retrospectives, as well as a recent gallery survey, 50 Years of Painting, at Haunch of Venison in New York. Reviewing that show in The New York Times, Roberta Smith wrote: “Saul is a closet formalist…It is a feral version of Abstract Expressionist all-overness that gradually starts making excruciating narrative sense.” At CvsD, Saul will debut two major new paintings, as well as a selection of new drawings, which are achievements in their own somewhat different, but equally edgy, manner.
A 16-page catalog including an interview with Saul will be available.
In the East Wing, CvsD welcomes Brian Calvin back to Chicago. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute, Calvin has risen in the last 15 years to become one of the brightest, most promising painters in the U.S. Now based in Southern California, his work also has a distinctive Chicago-ness—no doubt a byproduct of his years as a star student of Ray Yoshida. Indeed, an early Calvin work is included in the Yoshida retrospective currently hanging at the Sullivan Galleries at the School of the Art Institute, 33 S. State St. Calvin has created some of the iconic images of hipster culture, often portraying young women whose gestures and faces speak emotional volumes. Like Saul, his interest in the figure is a foil for his painting, which is spectacularly rich and daring, bristling with unexpected color choices and brilliant brushwork.
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