Saturday, May 3, 6pm-12am
Matt Brett
Paul Erschen
Scott Lyne
Meg Noe
Video and sound performance by Tony Balko & Alex Barnett
Music by “Columba Fasciata”
3815 S. Ashland Ave
Chicago, IL
60609
*Additional Viewings: Saturday, May 10, 3-10pm and Saturday, May 17, 3-10pm
*The building is located on the NE corner of Ashland Ave. and Pershing Rd. Parking is accessible via entrance off Pershing Rd. Follow signage for exhibition space.
For more information, please contact: 312.501.5207
Spring offers merciful relief from a relentless winter, but several troubling celestial events will punctuate this year’s vernal sky. Most notable, an exceedingly harsh planetary configuration that has been slowly forming, one that will besiege the skies of late April as four transiting bodies strike 13 degrees of each Cardinal sign in the tropical zodiac: a partile Grand Cardinal Cross.
The display is of unparalleled exactitude, a precision not experienced since the cross that emerged in the early morning sky on November 11, 863 A.D, or the evening formation of August 6, 2010.
Operating within an early 20th century cast-concrete structure and taking as its form sculpture and immersive installation, Cardinal Cross is less a show than a salutation to this rare occurrence.
Works range from a menagerie of suspiciously familiar recast found objects and dead-end contraptions; to a light and sound installation as post-industrial cosmic incubator—a bleached-out monolith festooned with the head of a Roman deity; to refashioned remnants of funerary paraphernalia.
Cardinal Cross will be replete with a solo vocal performance by Whitney Allen of Columba Fasciata; and ACRE kitchen trio Rachel Ettling, Courtney Nulicek and Marina Pfenning will offer seasonal produce crafted as edible oppositions.
Participants:
Tony Balko is an artist from Smithton, Pennsylvania. Primarily working in the moving image, he seeks to elicit the ecstatic via flickering color fields, dork fetishism aesthetics and classic-rock anthems.
Alex Barnett is a Chicago based electronic musician exploring analog synthesis and minimalist composition. In 2009, Alex released a series of 4 “Section” cassettes followed up by “Push,” and the Alex Barnett/ Fielded “Split LP”. Alex works with the unification of disparate themes, taking cues from the compositional styles of soundtracks as well as electro-acoustic music.
Matt Brett is an artist from Richmond, Virginia. As the persistence of matter and energy serve as the foundation for his work, Brett considers matter’s immutability as entangled with human affairs and looks to these entanglements for sculptural inspiration.
Paul Erschen is an artist and musician based in Chicago. Erschen’s sculptures and assemblages treat formal characteristics such as symmetry, volume and color as sobering forces that embarrass our experience of the utilitarian world. In his installations, Erschen taps familiar sculptural tricks such as color-gradients, mold-making and scale-modeling to entrench stubborn associations between utility, body and excess.
Scott Lyne is an artist from Chicago. Employing various materials, his recent studio work arises from an on-going exploration of astrological syntax via pilgrimages to the unfriendly corners of the California desert.
Meg Noe is a Chicago based artist, originally from Corpus Christi, Texas. Noe’s sculpture and carefully manipulated photo-based work expresses a commitment to morbidity by examining varied states of material transience.
Columba Fasciata composes in Chicago. Two official releases mark the project’s evolution: a private archive of artist Whitney Allen’s solo work, “Hibou Eater” (Maximum Pelt, ’12), to the writing and performing duo of Whitney Allen and Nick Hagen, “Enemy Eater” (Lillerne Tape, ’13). Columba Fasciata is currently a three-piece as collaborator Mark Fragassi joined the group in 2014. The trio is working on a third cassette release for Brett Naucke’s “Catholic Tapes,” and will embark on their second East Coast tour this summer.
