System and Dialectics of Art
@ Madron Gallery
1000 W North Ave, 3rd Floor, Chicago, IL 60618
Opening Thursday, April 4th, from 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
On view through Friday, June 14th
The artwork answers the question!
Madron Gallery’s spring 2024 show brings together fifteen contemporary artists working with different techniques and materials, tackling different themes, all at different stages of their careers and lives. Their point of connection? A small, often-forgotten piece of art history: John D. Graham’s 1937 book System and Dialectics of Art. Written by an artist, for artists, System and Dialectics of Art is composed of 129 questions and answers surrounding the theory and practice of creating art. Madron has taken fifteen of these questions and paired each to an artist whose exhibited work provides one possible answer. There is no need for an artist statement. Every piece and paired question are in dialogue. Tune in to their conversation; come to your own conclusions.
John D. Graham (born Ivan Dabrowsky) can best be described as an “eccentric,” down to even the most basic details of his life. Three different birth dates have been found on three different government documents, resulting in multiple birth years given as reference in cultural institutions around the world (at the time of his death in 1961, even his fifth wife and close friends were unsure of his age). He was a man who told bold-faced lies and expressed conflicting opinions. But he was also known for his generosity, acting as teacher and mentor to younger artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Arshile Gorky. At his core, Graham represented a living connection: between the art scenes of Paris and New York during a time of great change (when the recognized center of the art world was shifting to the latter city), and between the past and future of art.
The questions Graham posed in System and Dialectics of Art—”What is art?” “What is the purpose of art?”—are asked by every generation. Art is subjective by nature, so the answers to these questions change depending on who you ask and when. This group of (mostly) Midwestern-based artists gathered for our spring show have used painting, drawing, sculpture, collage, typography, and photography to provide one set of answers to these evergreen questions. Design, color, architecture, dreams, music, nature, space, love, lust, and light are the subject matters explored. Together, their work is, as Graham would have described, “…an attempt to define questions of art exhaustively.”
-Rachel Wakeman
Director, Madron Gallery
Exhibiting Artists: Andrew Arkell, Zach Balousek, Michael Banning, Shel Howard Beugen, Jess Beyler, Margie Criner, Matthew Cortez, Kara Cobb Johnson, Matt Kuhlman, Ruben Lima, MISU, Alison Mosher, Kristen Phipps, Joseph Royer, and Bruce Thorn
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Tags: Alison Mosher, Andrew Arkell, Balousek, Bruce Thorn, Chicago, Jess Beyler, John Graham, Joseph Royer, Kara Cobb Johnson, Kristen Phipps, Lincoln Park, Madron Gallery, Margie Criner, Matthew Cortez, Michael Banning, MISU, Near North Side, Ruben Lima, Shel Howard Beugen, Zach
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