www.designboner.com

Design Boner is a humble design blog.  Co-creators Porcelain and Cardboard (IRL: Katie Brown and Jessica Bartlett, respectively) enjoy the anonymous editorial freedom to lean poetic against fabric samples or type a little smack about dining tables.  This selectively chatty duo fancies themselves artists, writers, style scouts (and/or rebels), and now – maybe most consistently – a couple of damn fine photographers.

6 & 7, a project in progress since February 2007, was initiated as a challenge to find visual interest in the everyday.  The “rules” are simple: both Porcelain and Cardboard must take one photo every Saturday (6) and Sunday (7).  This exhibition showcases the best of each blogger’s individual images, as well as a sampling of successful four-panel mosaics, each of which have been published on designboner.com, post-weekend.

…blah blah blog….

Join us as we shutthehellupwithourwords for one night and allow our imagery to speak for itself.

A VJ is a performance artist that manipulates video as an art form. Typically, VJ's mix video live and in conjunction with electronic music at clubs, festivals and "illegal" underground parties called "raves". Seth's VJ work combines video found in the public domain, samples of uncommon film footage and video he shoots of objects and subjects of interest.

Musical Performance by Trenchdigger and 0+1=Everything and Afters Cool Society

Motion/Vision/Transition begins a new conversation about movement, appearance, and constant flux in the world around us. In this exhibition, visual artists Nick Haas (+Nate Winter), Kurt Kreissl, and Shellie Fiocca explore familiar, everyday subjects—the urban environment, the female form and modern advertising—to visually remove them from the familiar and present them in a way that’s anything but.

A pastiche of digital photography, digital imagery, video, oil painting, graphite and ink constructs new visual contexts that re-form the way we view the city, the feminine and the media. The result is a collection of innovative perspectives that fascinate, inspire and engage us with the familiar as if for the very first time.

June 26th - July 3rd, 2009
Opening Reception Friday June 26th
7 PM to 10 PM

For more information please see the show's website.

After the success of his first solo show last year at The Chicago Art Department, Chris wants to show the art world his level of growth since then as an artist, designer, and as a person. With that growth came a newfound bravery to display art in (and on) whatever he felt comfortable with without worries of failure, judgment of others, and loss of “identity”.

Drawing inspiration from daily life, childhood memories, stories of the past, and visions of the future, the artist allows himself to portray images as he sees them in a raw, organic, almost childlike form or complex shapes that twist and turn without warning to express the unpredictability of life and the ranges of emotion within it.

This second time around shows the artist not identifying with anything other than being an artist.. Not black, not male, not heterosexual… Just the artist he should be seen as.

www.afterscoolsociety.com
 www.tapedek.wordpress.com

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, June 12, 6-10pm

CLOSING PARTY: Friday, June 19, 7-11pm

CAD co-founder and resident artist Mike Nourse will exhibit his recent collection, "City of Found Children" Friday, May 8th at the Chicago Art Department.  Mike's art aims to speak about old and new; about our transformation into a digital world. Nourse's work involves using old materials and mixing them with new tools and techniques. His videos involve re-editing old footage while his transfer work involves transferring newly made digital images onto old found materials, such as abandoned windows found in Chicago's streets. "This is a very unique age for our time on earth, moving from an analog to a digital world, and I'm happy to be in the conversation," quips Nourse.  Check out more transfer work on Mike's flickr page.

fenêtre de Charme by Mike Nourse

CLOSING PARTY: Friday, April 24, 7-11pm

Jen Rosenthal’s collection of new works explore the inky middle ground between control and entropy. In this new series, the artist lives and breathes, on grassy knolls between bailouts and bankrolls, empathy and apathy, pulled between the expanding universe and the collapsing consciousness of America.  Jen’s delicate line work and hand stitched thread, paired with aggressive splatters and drips of ink evoke messages of optimism and stability in times of crisis and uncertainty.  As she meticulously works the lines around the mess of chaos, she strives to find a new path amongst today’s weighty obstacles. While the world seems to be tearing apart at the seams, Jen looks to the silver lining, letting the struggle inspire creative momentum and a renewed sense of direction.

Related Press: Chicagoist, Chicago Weekly, ArtSlant

2nd Friday Viewing: Friday, March 13 | 6-10pm

In the second coming of Tripa Colectivo, Mike Wilgus joins the experimental artist group in their continued exploration of culture and gender issues embedded in the mundane. This collective, co-founded by Jova Durán and Abraham Velázquez Tello in 2007, seeks to create support and representation for Latino and Chicago artists alike. Tripa’s mission has been greatly aided by the Chicago Art Department, for which Velázquez is now a resident artist.

"Evita el Exceso" warns of the dangers of obsessive consumption. Information and object overload is deforming personal identity and violating the space of interaction between human beings. Relationships are mediated by materialism rather than being born out of real connections. The public space is controlled by rhetoric not reality. We are the overload. We are what we consume. We are the excess. Beware.

Jova "el grafista" Durán (b. 1984, Chicago) engages in painting on everyday life surfaces, many of which are assembled from salvaged materials. His work manifests itself as a reaction to alienation from the creative act in a culture that outsources the majority of its material production.

Abraham Velázquez Tello (b. 1985, Mexico City) experiments with a variety of media that allows him to investigate gender issues within the Latino community. His curiosity for seldom explored places continues with a new series of photographs from Mexico City in which he documents a new interpretation of old ruins.

Mike Wilgus (b. 1984 St. Louis) uses media that ranges from more traditional watercolors to contemporary sharpies and spray paint. He creates work that revolves around his obsession with culture, religion, consumerism, and the intersection of these phenomena.

Closing Party: February 27, 2009 6-8pm

In honor of Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday this February, the Chicago Art Department will feature 200 portraits of Honest Abe in a variety of mediums. In Lincoln's spirit of equality and diversity this exhibition is about  participation.  An open call was made to artists and non-artists alike to submit their portraits of Abraham Lincoln.  Although the exhibition opens a day after Lincoln’s birthday (Friday, February 13th), the opening promises to be a Lincoln birthday party - with cake!

Norman McCullough's Lincoln Collection

Artist Chuck Przybl's Grandfather, Norman McCullough, was a collector of Lincoln art. Chuck installed his grandfather's collection for "200 Lincolns"