CHICAGO — Four Chicago Artists: Theodore Halkin, Evelyn Statsinger, Barbara Rossi, and Christina Ramberg at the Art Institute of Chicago introduced me to work I was unfamiliar with by artists about whom I have written. The exhibition, curated by Mark Pascale, Stephanie Strother, and Kathryn Cua, and made visual and aesthetic connections I knew were there, but had not actually seen. It also presented a slice of Chicago’s rich art history that underscored its independence from New York.
Separated by more than two decades, the four artists were aligned with different generations and art groups (Monster Roster, American Surrealism, Chicago Imagists), but all attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They were each committed to drawing, and created meticulous work on a modest scale in a range of mediums and techniques, including paint on Plexiglas, photograms, prints, and quilting. Finally, Statsinger, Rossi, and Ramberg collaborated on Exquisite Corpse drawings, sometimes with Ramberg’s husband, Philip Hanson, and Karl Wirsum, an original member of Chicago’s legendary Hairy Who group. To their credit, the artists rejected the standards proposed in influential essays on modern art, such as Clement Greenberg’s “‘American-Type’ Painting” and Harold Rosenberg’s “American Action Painting.”
Whatever the global reach these artists have attained posthumously, this exhibition serves as a reminder that art is made locally, and reflects its environment. The more time I spent at the exhibition, and the more work I saw (including little-known pieces such as Rossi’s photograms and etchings on nylon, Statsinger’s and Ramberg’s sketchbooks, and Halkin’s frottages), the more I wanted to know about the less familiar paths they took in their art. This is what great shows do — they satisfy you while leaving you thirsting for more.
When I saw Rossi’s collage “Rhapsodent II – My Dentist’s Dream” (1974–84), I wondered how many collages she had made, particularly since this one shares little, compositionally, with her paintings. Was this a form she had explored? I do not know of any shows devoted to these works, or to her photograms or her prints on textiles such as silk and nylon.
The 2015–16 exhibition Barbara Rossi: Poor Trait in the less-than-ideal lobby gallery at the New Museum marked the first time her work was shown in New York since the 1990s. Curated by Natalie Bell, it consisted of a small, well-chosen selection of graphite and colored pencil drawings, and paintings on Plexiglas, with no accompanying catalog. Whole parts of her oeuvre have remained hidden to me until now; Rossi’s diverse processes and materials should be brought into the light of day with a retrospective. The wondrous traveling exhibition Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective, curated by Thea Liberty Nichols and Mark Pascale and accompanied by a highly informative catalog, would serve as an excellent model.
This level of attention seems to be building for Statsinger, and perhaps for Halkin, the only artist of this group I have never written about, and whom I knew the least about. While in Chicago, I visited the recent exhibition Ted Halkin: Rediscovered Works, 1964–69 at Corbett vs. Dempsey, and learned more about an artist whose sculptures and low reliefs I had seen in the 2016 exhibition Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. I discovered that his art took a sharp and unexpected turn in the mid-1960s. I wondered whether Halkin knew the work of Suellen Rocca, an original Hairy Who member; gallerist John Corbett told me that Rocca had been Halkin’s student and they remained friends. He corroborated my sense that they had had a mutually productive exchange — we assume that students learn from teachers, but it can be a two-way street. Halkin’s paintings and drawings from the mid to late 1960s depict brightly colored, fantastical sculptural objects composed of organic, abstract, and architectural forms set in an interior architectural space, with a hint of nature’s nearby presence. In the Art Institute exhibition, Halkin’s use of colored pencil, colored chalk, and black felt-tip pens, along with carbon transfer, collage, and erasure make his drawings stand apart from those of the other three artists.
Considering the Exquisite Corpse drawings and the creative reciprocity between Halkin and Rocca brought to mind some distinctive characteristics of Chicago’s art scene — for instance, its sense of community; rejection of tiresome mainstream notions of the lone, heroic artist; and the role that the city’s museums, such as the Field Museum and Art Institute, played in shaping these artists. The Art Institute’s collection of Surrealist art has been on display for many years and feels deeper and more expansive than what is on display at the Museum of Modern Art. It is where I first saw pieces by Chicago-based artists Ivan Albright, Gertrude Abercrombie, and Óscar Domínguez, none of whom I’ve seen represented at MoMA. Furthermore, the shows reminded me that art can be made in an apartment; it does not need an army of assistants, which has become, since the 1990s, a measure of financial assets and entrepreneurship. Maybe the DIY side of “American-Type” painting should be more widely celebrated.
Four Chicago Artists: Theodore Halkin, Evelyn Statsinger, Barbara Rossi, and Christina Ramberg continues at the Art Institute of Chicago (111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois) through August 26. The exhibition was curated by Mark Pascale, Stephanie Strother, and Kathryn Cua.
