Rotting flesh and chemicals aren’t exactly what you might consider “cute,” but that was the reaction of Defibrillator Gallery director Joseph Ravens when he initially heard the term “Bubbly Creek.” This nickname describes the part of the Chicago River on the western border of Bridgeport where gases still occasionally bubble at the riverbed from animal waste dumped more than a century ago. Once Ravens learned where the nickname derived from, he said he was “both disgusted and delighted.”
The Gerber Hart Library and Archives opens up its archives for Pride
The Gerber Hart Library and Archives (6500 N. Clark), which houses records of LGBTQ individuals and organizations, is hosting the exhibition “Out of the Closets & Into the Streets: Power, Pride & Resistance in Chicago’s Gay Liberation Movement” through September 19. A free open house, Out of the Closets & Into the Exhibits, will be held Saturday, June 15, from 11 AM to 3 PM.
In a Studio International interview, Donovan said, “I wanted viewers to experience a sort of epiphany when they realised the field of material spread out before them is actually constructed of an object quite familiar – the ‘Aha!’ moment, if you will.” When looking at the grand scale of a Donovan piece as a whole, we see hues of blue, and glints of metal, and the object appears heavy and robust. But examining the work more closely exposes objects from your work shed: small nails chaotically clumped together to form the perfect square.
Cameron Clayborn’s work looks at his personal identity as a Black gay man and uses sculpture to expand on themes of physical exercise and meditation. Aviv Benn and Herman Aguirre‘s self-portraiture both feature thick layers of paint and symbolism; Benn’s work specifically yokes humor and trauma together through symbols like astrological signs or parts of the body.
