ROREM/ZENDEJAS
@ NEW CAPITAL
3114 W. Carroll Chicago, Illinois, 60612
Opening Friday, September 16th, from 7PM - 10PM
On view through Sunday, October 30th
Noah Rorem and Vanesa Zendejas each seek formalisms role and relevance within the contemporary. Each artist delves deep into the heart of pure formal abstraction, with practices that are at once contemporary and variations on established modes of modernism. There is a common, historic conjecture that aesthetics, beauty and formalism are apolitical. The alternate conjecture is that this refusal is a political position. The dynamism of this issue has been accelerated in contemporary art by the pace and complexity of the disciplines development. Because objects and information are consumed instantaneously and interchangeably, a barrier has been created from history, tradition and the context that traditions provide.
Noah Rorem has remained steadfast in his commitment to an artistic practice rooted in gestural abstraction. He has developed a visual vocabulary that knowingly participates in and develops the painting tradition, both engaging and questioning the role of the artist’s hand, sensitivity to color and composition.
Vanesa Zendejas diligently investigates form, materials and surfaces. She has constructed a formal language that pushes the boundaries of the two-dimensional in sculptural form while pursuing a pure appreciation of beauty.
The individual and their autonomy is as pressing a concern now as it has ever been. Reflection on experience, engagement with space, materials, and the nuance that formal abstraction can provide, casts a needed relief on the nature of the products that have come to fulfill the role of culture. The skill of Looking is necessary for any critical insight. What good are the objects of our age if implicit within their design is the dismantlement of our ability to engage. Perhaps beauty and formalism are exactly what this moment is calling for.
Noah Rorem is an Instructor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Painting and Drawing department where he also received his BFA in 2000 and an MFA in 2004. He has exhibited at Alogon Gallery, Chicago; Julius Caesar, Chicago; Gallerie Art:Concept, Paris; Hudson Franklin, New York, and Shane Campbell Gallery, Oak Park, IL..
Vanesa Zendejas received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 and is currently in the MFA program at Bard College. She has exhibited locally at Vega Estates, Old Gold, LVL3 and Roots and Culture.
Official Website
More events on this date
Tags: East Garfield Park, New Capital
« previous event
next event »