BY GARETH KAYE
November in Chicago: By now, Lake Michigan has shifted from the vivacious teal of summer into a churning mass of taciturn gray – and it is a crapshoot whether the first snow has blanketed our streets. Meteorological variables aside, one thing remains certain: the heat and exhibitions are most certainly on. Ranging from explorations of the banal to the sublime, political liberation or its abnegation, many galleries and institutions are meeting the discursive and lived challenges of today with gusto. Peppered across the city are seven new and noteworthy shows to make the shortening days feel fuller.
Celeste Rapone
‘Big Chess’
Corbett vs. Dempsey
November 16 – December 21, 2024
Celeste Rapone’s paintings – and this exhibition’s titular game – are thoroughly concerned with how one positions oneself. Rendering her figures in contortions ranging from awkward to downright painful, the artist explores the pleasures and perils of striking a place for oneself against an inconspicuously callous environment. In the Chicago-based painter’s second solo exhibition at Corbett vs. Dempsey, her twisted bodies seem to share the viewer’s discomfort, toying with our emotions, minds, and eyes.
