Issue No. 231: In the Garden

Deep Red Holes

For his second solo show at Western Exhibitions, “In the Garden,” Dutes Miller presents an installation of new works on paper and sculptures that invokes an ecstatic vision of nature in which homosexuality is not only included but is the norm. Miller re-imagines Eden as gay cruising grounds, a carnal paradise populated by homosexual fauna that hunt one another amongst phallic flora. Although playful and imaginative, his recent work critically engage with the mythologies surrounding human sexuality.
 
The show opens on Friday, December 14 with a free public reception from 5 to 8pm.

Continuing his exploration of appropriated sexual imagery, Miller’s new works on paper consist of pages torn from gay porn magazines, which the artist has altered by painting over the men with acrylic and gouache. In the resulting images, the figures sometimes stand out starkly, other times they disappear into their environments. The effect is whimsical, evocative, and eerie. The anonymous figures, identifiable mainly by the color with which each is individually embellished, evoke aspects of gay sexual practices such as cruising and the coordination of desire by strict typology. These works also allude to the continuing invisibility of actual homosexual desire in mainstream media despite increased acceptance of gay culture.

Miller’s gallery of monochromatic men overlooks a garden with an Astroturf floor, planted with strange fungi and over which distended fruit dangle. These fleshy plant forms comprise clusters of cast wax fingers and objects produced by filling condoms with silicon or plaster. A fountain, “Lingam” provides the centerpiece of Miller’s polymorphous perverse patch, its title referencing phallic sculptures that represent the Hindu deity, Shiva. Other works on view augment the charged atmosphere of sexuality, nature, and spirituality. “Dicks In,” for instance, shows a collaged arrangement of anuses in the form of a mandala. In several works, such as “Target Practice #2” animal forms predominate, suggesting a zoology of queer desire.

Dutes Miller’s first solo show at Western Exhibitions in 2009 was reviewed on Artforum.com, Time Out Chicago, New City and the Chicago Tribune and was named one of the “Top 5 Shows of the Year” by the Chicago Art Review. Miller’s work has been included in exhibitions at White Flag Projects in St. Louis (reviews here and here) and the Ukranian Museum of Art, 40000 and COMA, all in Chicago His collaborative work with his husband Stan Shellabarger, as Miller & Shellabarger, won a 2008 Artadia Award and a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award.. Miller & Shellabarger have been written about in Artforum.com, Art & Auction, Frieze, Artnet, The Art Newspaper, Flash Art, TimeOut Chicago, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Miller received a BFA from Illinois State University and is an accomplished pastry chef. He lives and works in Chicago.

From official press release. The gallery is located at 845 W. Washington Blvd. 2nd. Floor. Chicago, IL.

Issue No. 229: LAST NITE: Nothing Lasts Forever

Erik R. Peterson & Student Work

2., 1. & 3. by Erik R. Peterson

4. by Erik R. Peterson flanked by his students' work

Kelley Schulke (background left: work of George Keller)

Krissy Schulke

Krissy Schulke (detail)

Krsissy Schulke

Krissy Schulke

"Nest" - Krissy Schulke

Krissy Schulke (installation view)

Krissy Schulke (obverse view, detail)

Krissy Schulke (installation view)

Krissy Schulke (exterior/obverse installation view)

Krissy Schulke (exterior/obverse installation view)

Krissy Schulke (exertior/obverse installation view)

The asTHMatic

Celina Paddock & Damion

Allen Vandever & friends

Damion & Pinky

Issue No. 224: EXTENDED! Curated by Allen Vandever (9/22/2012)

All photos: Erik R. Peterson

Issue No 221: Contemporary Examinations of Drawing

Bruce Nauman, Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square, 1967–68. 16mm film on video, 10 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.

In the fall of 1971, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA) hosted Sol LeWitt as a visiting artist and lecturer. Not a fan of public speaking, LeWitt's 'lecture' instead encouraged students to work with him on a new piece, Wall Drawing #118, comprised of "fifty randomly placed points all connected by straight lines," his first wall drawing in Boston. And now, for the first time in more than forty years, Wall Drawing #118 will be drafted and installed at SMFA once again this fall. Its display will serve as the catalyst for Something Along Those Lines, a dynamic group exhibition bringing together artists who blend conceptual, sculptural and performative engagements with the formal elements of drawing.

On view in SMFA's Barbara and Steven Grossman Gallery, the exhibition features video, installation, sculpture, performance and multiple forms of wall drawing by international artists Adel Abdessemed (Sphère 1m69), Ann Carlson + Mary Ellen Strom (Four Parallel Lines), Carlos Cruz-Diez (Physichromie 2385), Gego (Untitled (Bicho)), Felix Gonzalez-Torres ("Untitled"), Sol LeWitt (Wall Drawing #118), Bruce Nauman (Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square), Fred Sandback (Untitled) and Lawrence Weiner (WITHIN A REALM OF RELATIVE FORM).

"This exhibition concerns itself with drawing as much as with drawing connections, marked by modern and contemporary examinations—and expansions—of form," says Evan J. Garza, SMFA Exhibitions and Public Programs Coordinator and curator of the exhibition. "It is incredibly exciting to connect distant points in the history of the School in this way, especially through the influential work of Sol LeWitt, which will be explored further in the 2012 Beckwith Lecture with LeWitt scholar Veronica Roberts."

The entire exhibition will be on view September 13–November 3, and the general public is welcome to view the installation process of Wall Drawing #118 September 13–19, which will be executed by a LeWitt drafter and SMFA students. A reception on September 20 from 6–8pm will celebrate the work's completion.


Related events

Wednesday, September 19, 6pm
SMFA Beckwith Lecture "Boston's First Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing"
Veronica Roberts, Director of Research, Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing Catalogue Raisonné and Adjunct Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art will discuss the challenges and rewards of researching LeWitt's unique body of conceptual art, highlighting the special importance he attached to his collaborations with art students around the world.
Alfond Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Thursday, September 20, 6–8 pm
Reception celebrating the completion of Wall Drawing #118
Barbara and Steven Grossman Gallery, SMFA

For more information, visit www.smfa.edu/something-along-those-lines.


About the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:
Founded in 1876 and accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is one of only three art schools in the country affiliated with a major museum—the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Our mission is to provide an education in the fine arts—for undergraduate and graduate artists—that is interdisciplinary and self-directed. This education values cultural, artistic and intellectual diversity; it embraces a wide range of media; it stresses the development of individual vision and its relation to culture in general; it values equally the knowledge gained by thinking and doing; it is deeply engaged with the world as a whole. If the mission is constant, its practice is always transforming.

Issue No. 213: TITS! Lucia Martinez de la Rosa Trickles Down.

 

Advert. Circa: 1970s.

Lulu Martinez & Duggie Fields. Circa: 1970s.

Lulu & Fields' Painting. Circa: 1970s.

Duggie Fields, Companions & Vivienne Westwood

[Boy] George O'Dowd & Lulu Martinez. London.

Duggie Fields' Reference Photo of Lulu

Duggie Fields with Painting of Lulu in Living Room. London.

Oscar Suleyman 1999

Lulu in New York Apartment

Lulu in her New York Apartment with her Paintings

Danielle Scutt S/S 2007

Danielle Scutt S/S 2007

Most images courtesy of Blitz Kids.