John Airo, artist denizen of the great city of Chicago, has generously agreed to be part of Constantly.Consuming.Culture--The Art Show. Please help out by pledging to the art show KICKSTARTER.

Airo hates the whole bio thing. So we’ll just state the obvious; he is an artist. Specifically he is a multi-media artist based in Chicago. He does everything from comics to large scale public art.  Chicago isn’t just Airo’s home but the source of his inspiration (as you will notice from his work below). His work often uses the city as subject both literally and figuratively; the city’s skyline and found objects are both used.b Pieces from Airo’s Chicago Flags series are below.

Airo’s work can be seen at a number of Chicago’s drinking and music establishments. There is a diversity in his work but also common threads that pull disparate pieces together. Airo's work channels Chicago and mixes bright and dark--a dark sensibility with often vibrant colors.

You can find out and see more at www.johnairo.com.

Julia Hamilton's skull sculptures first caught my eye when I saw a completely silver skull with silver flowers wound through the horns. I regret not having a photo of that piece (to say nothing of having the piece itself). Hamilton is the first confirmed artist for the Constantly.Consuming.Culture Art Show. You can check out the Kickstarter for the show HERE.

This is a smaller piece --and one of her only finished ones that hasn't been sold. Her work uses antlers skulls and other pieces of the once animate to create sculptures that make you forget about the what is used to create them. Hamilton makes them new.

Like many artists who will be part of the Constantly.Consuming.Culture. Art Show, Hamilton has a "real job." She has a degree in communications from DePaul University and, among many other things, runs www.prettywindycity.com.

SAVING SOULS SOCIETY and the Mystery Members-a creative war GAME takes place at 11 a.m., Saturday April 6 at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art at the Nature of the Beast Round Table. FREE WITH ENTRY TO Chicago MCA.

SAVING SOULS SOCIETY is the creative brainchild of Chicago-based artist Camille Iemmolo. Iemmolo gathers together 16 creative minds, including such notables as Aaron Freeman (NPR), Terry Spencer Hesser (Chicago film maker), Jon Wyville and Dave Loew (award winning Leo Burnett creative team, and Will Rigby (via phone-drummer of the famed band DB's and a Duke of Steve Earle).  The group will discuss themes of war, peace and the importance of art and humor in a suffering society WITHIN artist Goshka Macuga’s installation, the Nature of the Beast Roundtable.

The Roundtable installation deals with world politics, art and Picasso's Guernica, one of the most political pieces of art ever made.  SAVING SOULS SOCIETY will become part of Macuga's physical work by utilizing her round table in their discussion.

But it is more than a typical discussion. The work springs from the mind of Iemmolo, maker of the 101/2ft. Band-Aid House -an installation covered in over 21,000 band-aids and scotch tape, regarding human suffering and how we endure, recently shown with Packer Schopf Gallery and ArtMiami.  You know it isn’t just a bland discussion.

Iemmolo continues her creative role in this new concept piece/game/panel exploring human suffering and art and the cross roads between the two. The artist aims to show, once again, that humor must exist in the darkest of times.

Standing room only. It is an exhibit after all.

“When all alone dying in a locked dark box it may just be the magical key to unlock the door to set your mind free and when one steps outside the box with laughter and art in hand you may just find yourself writing a guide to surviving life. Come, listen, watch.- toy guns and laugh tracks in the house…”

The Wolfsonian – Florida International University has two upcoming exhibits South Floridians and visitors should know about; Modern Meals Remaking American Foods from Farm to Kitchen and Women in Motion: Fitness, Sport and the Female Figure. Both open May 10 and run through August 18, 2013.

Modern Meals deals with how technology and design changed how and where food was produced, sold and cooked from 1900 through 1945. Women in Motion displays images of active women shown by advertisers, governments, fitness advocate and others in the USA and Europe during the first half of the 20th Century.

Out of Line Art Gallery (2812 W. Chicago Avenue , Chicago) presents Peace War and More War, a group art show using multiple genres ad media—but all showing the artist’s personal stories related to violence and war. The opening reception takes place from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, March 9, 2013.

The opening will feature performances. Kathleen Lombardo will read her poem, War Ballad. George Flynn and Leila Bowie will perform the anti-Vietnam War song, Land of Blood, and the Iraq War song, Lament for Cindy. Both songs are by Flynn.  Pianist Sid Samberg will also perform songs by Frank Abbinanti (the songs are about African children drawn into war).

For more information head to www.outoflineartstudio.com.

Waterhouse & Dodd celebrate their 25th anniversary with their first exhibition at their Madison Ave. location, The
exhibit is Post-War & Contemporary Art in America. On display will be works on paper, sculpture and paintings from the
60s to the present day. Artists include Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Alexander Calder, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Indiana, Jim Dine and Allan D'Arcangelo.

The exhibit will include the portrait depicted here, Andy Warhol's Blue Jackie, part of the Jackie silkscreens from the mid 1960s.

There will be an opening reception Wednesday, September 19 from  6-8 p.m. at 958 Madison Avenue, 3rd floor. An rsvp is required.

The exhibition will continue until October 13, 2012.
 

Cernuda Arte presents a showing of contemporary Cuban artist, Ramón Vázquez, A World of Fantasy at
First Friday Gallery Night. There will be a reception from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday September 7, 2012. The showing will feature 13 works on canvas and the artist will be on hand, visiting from Pinar del Río, Cuba.

The gallery is also shwoing a two artist show, One Hundred Years: Mariano and Portocarrero. The exhibit celebrates the centennial of the births of René Portocarrero and Mariano Rodríguez.
 
For more information head to www.cernudaarte.com.

Silverlens gallery—whose first gallery is in the Philippines are poised to open their new space in Singapore.

Silverlens Singapore will be located at Gillman Barracks, 47 Malan Road, SG. The first exhibit will be Beautiful Pain,
works by Luis Lorenzana , which runs from September 14 through October 13, 2012.

There will be an opening reception beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday, September 14.

Lorenzana’s work  captures beauty in the dreadful.  To hear the subject matter—faces coming apart, disintegration of the body—you might marvel to hear Lorenzana describe these works, this series as being, speaking of,  an
“extraordinary joy.” But such a judgement would be without seeing the work.

There is beauty in Lorenzana’s break downs. Flowers, leaves bloom from his characters. These are figures that transcend suffering and council us that through breaking we can achieve the ecstatic.

frosch&portmann, who really do not capitalize the name of their gallery, present Baltimore-based artist, Magnolia Laurie’s first show at the gallery. The show runs from September 5  through October 21, 2012. There will be a reception Wednesday, September 5  from 6 to 8 at frosch&portmann, 53 Stanton Street New York.                                

Laurie’s work deals with what holds us back from collapse. Politics, economics and our social dynamics all threaten to derail society. Her work isn’t about doom, however, but about hope, resiliency and endurance. The title of the exhibition is, leisure came to us before we knew what to do with it, which comes from a line in Virginia Woolf’s work, To The Lighthouse.

Laurie first made collages as a starting point for the structures in her abstract landscapes. Her work channels the man made but she doesn’t depict the “creators” in her worlds. In essence she makes a 3D model of what she intends to, ultimately, “transfer” into a 2D piece of art.

September 5 , 2012 is the night numerous galleries and other establishments have receptions and openings. For more info head HERE.  

FEAST Projects has a new space and they are inaugurating it with a performance, Five- Hong Kong, by Rashaad Newsome on 18 May 2012, 7PM to 9:30 p.m.. at No.2, G/F, Harbour Industrial Centre, 10 Lee Hing Street, Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong. The performance at 8 p.m.

The performance is an official part of Art HK 12 and will feature rapper SCANZ, NYC vogue dancers, opera singer Stefanos Koroneos and Chinese traditional musicians.

Cocktails and a DJ party will be held before and after the performance at FEAST Projects gallery space on 18 May from 7 - 9:30 p.m.
7:10PM and 7:15PM.

RSVP essential-- rsvp@feastprojects.com or +852 2553 9522