No More Worlds
@ Concertina Gallery
2351 N Milwaukee Ave, 2nd floor, Chicago, IL 60647
Opening Saturday, September 12th, from 7PM - 10PM
On view through Saturday, October 10th
Work by Madeleine Bailey, Mark Hensel, Racer Levan, Alex McLeod, Jessie Mott, Shana Moulton and Luke Painter. Curated by Corinna Kirsch and Katherine Pill.
Following an investigative curatorial model, Concertina Gallery’s first exhibition inquires into the simple yet seldom insignificant gesture: the greeting. Although an invitation can take shape in a myriad of forms, the works in No More Worlds invite viewers to enter – through tactile engagement or with the aid of imagination – captivating yet unsettling environments. Featuring artists who use a variety of mediums, No More Worlds showcases works that deftly combine the fantastical and mysterious with elements of the everyday, reminding us that even our wildest ideas of new worlds are anchored in and mediated by our own experiences of reality. Reveling in the unknown surprises of the grotesque or the extraordinary sensuous qualities of the idyll, the impossible tableaux constructed by these artists hover between real and imagined worlds. These liminal environments give way to partially obscured narratives, both enchanting and monstrous.
Toronto-based artist Alex McLeod, for instance, uses 3D rendering software in his digital photograph Jolly Ranch to create a woodland cabin scene that is both inviting and frightening in its highly manipulated construction and lacquered sheen. In her Whispering Pines video series, Brooklyn-based artist Shana Moulton similarly tinges the mundane with the magical as her alter-ego Cynthia explores the surreal and transformative aspects of her kitschy household objects.
Although pleasure can be found in the imagining of new worlds, these works make vivid the fact that there is no escaping our own. Unable to get away from our experience of reality, we don’t want other worlds; we want a mirror, and we shouldn’t underestimate the delight of finding the fantastical in the everyday.
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