Afro-fantastic Ofili takes over Arts Club

Product: CTBroadsheet PubDate: 11-19-2010 Zone: C Edition: FRI Page: OTTADVP10-16 User: cci Time: 11-17-2010
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CHICAGO TRIBUNE
| ON THE TOWN | SECTION 5 | FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2010
20:14 Color: C
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ART REVIEW
Afro-fantastic Ofili takes over Arts Club
By Lauren Viera
TRIBUNE REPORTER
For those who aren’t familiar,
Chris Ofili is a painter. He’s also a
sculptor, and has done a fair
amount of collage work, too. He
has, over the course of his 10- or
15-year career, upset folks at
times with his art, because he is
not afraid to make it of and about
whatever he wishes, and some
people aren’t comfortable with
that. (Which, one could argue, is
their loss.)
But right now, at the Arts Club
of Chicago, we have the opportunity to meet Ofili the drawer.
Pencil, paper, subject, talent.
These are the primary tools on
display (though there are more
than a few watercolors, as well),
and through them it’s easy to fall
for Ofili not because of the culture that many feel he represents,
but because of the care and detail
he puts into his work.
The solo show’s execution at
the Arts Club, a venue that sometimes feels too large for a single
artist, presents us with the opportunity to ease into Ofili’s
oeuvre. We begin with “Intertwined” which, like most of the
other pencil-and-paper works in
this show, portrays an oversimplified silhouette of a woman
which, in this instance, delicately
overlaps with the silhouette of
another silhouette, facing the
opposite direction.
There is an overabundance of
white space, which draws all the
attention to the outlines that
make up these silhouettes:
darker than dark little kernels of
graphite swirled into expensive
paper not with a heavy hand, but
an exquisite one. Those little
nuggets, it becomes apparent
upon (very) close inspection, are
not arbitrary little pencil markings, but teeny, tiny little faces
that almost look as if (could it be?
yes!) they’re smiling. What’s
more, those faces, mere centimeters in size, are sporting large
heads of hair: Afros. And all
those tiny, smiling afros, immaculately lined end to end on
lily white paper, are the crux of
this exhibit, and it’s happy-making.
The exhibit’s title, “Afrotranslinear,” is lifted from the name
of one of the works. Almost every
drawing here incorporates “afro”
into its title, and nearly all of
them utilize Ofili’s trademark
chain of smiling Afro heads to
draw the bigger picture. Many of
them are women, cartoonlike
and voluptuous, some of them
nude, smiling knowingly with
plump lips; other drawings here
are simple, abstract plays on
words (“Brooklyn,” “d’afro“) or
graphic designs. “Albinos & Bros
with Fros“ is a visually balanced
collection of hundreds of its
titular characters pouring into
the horizon of the work; “Afromatrix-112“ is a quirky study in
variations of Ofili’s Afroed characters over a seven-year span
displayed family-tree style on a
framed backdrop.
The watercolors, many of
which belong to Ofili’s series of
“Afromuses,” reflect the style by
which most fans know his work:
simple, colorful portraits of black
women and men, their hair and
clothes varying from frame to
frame, but their expressions
consistently pleasant. The British-born, Nigerian artist lives
and works in Trinidad, and it’s
nice to imagine him in his studio,
composing portrait after portrait
of these bright characters, pausing on occasion to work on his
tiny communities of Afro-touting
smiley faces. If there are controversial threats buried somewhere in the psyche of Ofili’s
other work, they were purposefully left at the door of the Arts
Club this time around.
Chris Ofili, “Afrotranslinear,”
at The Arts Club of Chicago, 201 E.
Ontario St., 312-787-3997; artsclubchicago.org. Through Dec.
22.
Carl Kohler at
Regenstein Library
University of Chicago’s main
library isn’t typically a visual
arts destination. But thanks to
the efforts of Henry Kohler, son
of Swedish neo-modernist artist
Carl Kohler, a modest exhibit of
portraits there made its way onto
my to-visit list this fall, and is
worth adding to yours, presuming you can ignore the hoi polloi
of computer terminals and focus
on the works, despite their
shoddy installation.
Kohler, who died in 2006 at age
87, practiced visual arts but was
obsessed with every other artistic discipline, from dance to
theater and classical music.
Dubbed “Beyond Words: Author
Portraits by Carl Kohler,” this
collection focuses on his abstract
figurative paintings of 20th cen-
Carl Kohler’s portrait of Marina Tsvetajeva on display at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library,
tury literary stars, including
Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka and
Joyce Carol Oates.
While Kohler was a contemporary of several of his subjects, he
drew, painted and collaged based
on what he gleaned from his
subject’s writing, as portrait
sessions in Sweden were often
out of the question. “James Joyce
Getting Blind” is penned with the
intensity of someone struggling
to make a point on deaf ears;
“Henry Miller as Demon“ is
illustrated via woodblock
pressed into sepia-stained newspaper. Collage was a common
device, as in “Samuel Beckett
from the film Silence to Silence,”
where pencil, ink and paper are
wielded into humanistic traits.
But Kohler was also well versed
in oil painting, exemplary in a
portrait of Marina Tsvetajeva
placed under a glass display case,
as opposed to properly framed.
Therein lies the frustration:
Kohler’s works deserve better
than to be wedged into crookedly
hung, craft-store matting covered
with transparent plastic. This
collection landed at U. of C. in
September after a journey that
originated two years ago in
Stockholm under Henry Kohler’s
direction; it’s since been installed
Chris Ofili’s intricate drawing “Afro daze” is part of an exhibit of Ofili’s
drawings and watercolors at the Arts Club of Chicago.
“Beyond Words: Author Portraits by Carl Kohler” at University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library, 1100 E.57th St., 773-834-1519;
lib.uchicago.edu/e/whatsnew.
Through Dec. 11.
in the Brooklyn Public Library
and libraries in Washington,
D.C., and Toronto. Here’s hoping
any interest (and there’s been a
lot) spawned during this inaugural North American tour of Kohler’s work will garner some funds
for a proper return someday.
lviera@tribune.com
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