Katy's Canvas: "What do these clouds mean?"

Geometer remixed by Jonwayne

New destination:

The Crystal Palace, Madrid

I’ve been having the time of my life interning at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Not only am I surrounded by the creative thinkers that make the shows possible, they have me writing press releases and sending out exhibition and performance listings to all the biggest media in Chicago (the Tribune, SunTimes, Chicago Magazine, etc etc.) Sometimes I wonder how I got myself a position with so many responsibilities, given that they trust my writing to get the word out about things.

This week I’ve been working on a press release about Jose Lerma, an artist who was in his final year of law school when he freaked, dropped out and decided to pursue a career in art instead. It is no surprise, then, that his work often mocks those with political power. Choosing subjects such as “infantile kings who evoke both the heroic and the pathetic” or “aristocrats who rise to power before falling from grace”, Lerma creates a landscape of humorous portraits of bankers and presidents that take the idea of a political cartoon to a whole new level.

Mocking the way historical portraits were always carefully-crafted to give the sitter a certain look of prestige and power, Lerma enjoys abstracting images of political figures so much that you can hardly see anything “real” about the person at all…

The sponsor of his MCA exhibition is BMO Harris Bank. So, for the show, Lerma decided to make a gallery-sized portrait of the man behind the BMO and Harris Bank merger out of carpet. The funny part is, this allows visitors to walk on the banker’s face as they peruse the gallery. I just love the metaphor.

Speaking of the MCA, I was leaving the other day and got a couple ominous pictures of some fog rolling into the city. The first shot is especially creepy with the “MOTHERS” sculpture disassembled on the ground.

The John Hancock building:

If you’re as interested in internet culture as I am, you might want to look into twohundredfiftysixcolors, a new film by Chicago-based artists Jason Lazarus and Eric Frieschauer that is made entirely of gifs. Presenting these fragmented, infinitely looped images as a profound reflection of today’s culture, twohundredfiftysixcolors forces the everyday(seemingly meaningless) gif into the realm of artistic contemplation.