Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Opening reception tomorrow 10/28, 5-7pm •

Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to exhibit Vito Acconci’s Maze Table for a second time, the
first being in 1985-86. The 1985 press release attests: “Vito Acconci has been pressuring the boundaries of artistic practice since the early 70’s when he used his own body as medium, thus becoming instrumental in establishing performance art as a genre. In his site-specific installations in the later 70’s, he continued his explorations of the viewer’s relationships with his
environment, art and the artist. His sculptures distort the physical and psychological conventions of furniture.” These words maintain their veracity today, and Acconci’s legacy and influence continues to inform contemporary sculpture, design, architecture, and performance, among other artistic disciplines.

Vito Acconci’s Maze Table was originally commissioned by the Lions Gallery of the Senses in the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, CT) with the assistance of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The sole artwork in an exhibition titled MATRIX, the plated glass and silicone Maze Table premiered in 1985 at the Lions Gallery of the Senses, initially conceived by Acconci with the visually impaired in mind. Considering the visitor experiences of these
individuals while explaining the structure’s material choice, Acconci stated: “I wanted to make something that sighted people would not have a privileged view of, therefore I wanted to make it transparent, with glass. A maze might be uncomfortable for a sighted person, but really
comfortable for a blind person.” Maze Table, akin to Acconci’s other projects, is concerned with functionality or lack thereof, comfort in contrast to discomfort, power and control, and tension - in this instance tension between the idea of furniture as enabling support or repose versus the materiality of the glass, elegant and enticing yet potentially precarious and harmful.

Maze Table reflects Acconci’s preoccupation with one’s environment and how the viewer navigates space. With his interactive sculptures, the visitor becomes that which activates, completes, and allows the object to reach its final form…” excerpt from PR

We are thrilled to announce that Amanda Williams is a 2022 MacArthur 'genius grant' Fellow!

“The MacArthur Fellowship is a $800,000, no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential.

The MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. In keeping with this purpose, the Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals rather than through institutions. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. They may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers…”
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"Amanda Williams is an artist who uses ideas around color and architecture to explore the intersection of race and the built environment. Her works visualize the ways urban planning, zoning, development, and disinvestment impact the lives of everyday residents, particularly in African American communities.

Williams’s series Color(ed) Theory (2014–2015) exemplifies an artmaking practice that is both personal and responsive to the current moment. Williams, along with family and friends, covertly painted empty houses slated for demolition in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. They painted each structure in one vibrant color with cultural associations immediately apparent to the neighborhood's predominantly Black residents: Harold’s Chicken Shack red, Ultrasheen conditioner blue, Safe Passage yellow. In so doing, Williams created bold visualizations of community life in the neighborhood, despite the neglect and disinvestment that contributed to the structures’ deterioration. The series also poses questions about how economic, cultural, and aesthetic value of an object or community is determined…” read the rest via the link in bio.

Brian Maguire ‘North and South of the Border’ is on view through October 28.

🔥

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Judy Ledgerwood is a Chicago-based painter and ceramicist. She received a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has held numerous solo exhibitions including the Art Institute of Chicago, Graham Foundation for the Advanced Study of Fine Arts, Smart Museum of Art, Tracy Williams Ltd, Hausler Contemporary, and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, among many others. She is the recipient of several awards including The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award, an Artadia Award, a Tiffany Award in the Visual Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, and an Illinois Art Council Award. Her work is included in prominent public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the MCA Chicago, among others. In 2015, Ledgerwood was commissioned by the Embassy of the United States in Vientiane, Laos to create a monumental site-specific painting, and in 2018 she became the first Chicago-based artist to create an installation for the Art Institute's Bluhm Family Terrace. Judy Ledgerwood is represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery.

Please join us tomorrow from 5-7pm for the opening reception of Brian Maguire’s solo exhibition “North and South of the Border.”

Pictured:
Brian Maguire
Arizona 14, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
35 x 47 inches

In partnership with and at the University Club of Chicago, Rhona Hoffman Gallery is excited to announce a solo presentation by Judy Ledgerwood, opening on September 20.

Event Overview:
5:30pm Wine & Viewing Reception | Living Room, 7th Floor
6pm Judy Ledgerwood in Conversation with Andreas Fischer | Madison Room, 7th Floor
7pm Program concludes

Please RSVP via the Eventbrite link in bio.

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Judy Ledgerwood is a Chicago-based painter and ceramicist. She received a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has held numerous solo exhibitions including the Art Institute of Chicago, Graham Foundation for the Advanced Study of Fine Arts, Smart Museum of Art, Tracy Williams Ltd, Hausler Contemporary, and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, among many others. She is the recipient of several awards including The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award, an Artadia Award, a Tiffany Award in the Visual Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, and an Illinois Art Council Award. Her work is included in prominent public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the MCA Chicago, among others. In 2015, Ledgerwood was commissioned by the Embassy of the United States in Vientiane, Laos to create a monumental site-specific painting, and in 2018 she became the first Chicago-based artist to create an installation for the Art Institute's Bluhm Family Terrace. Judy represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery and Denny Dimin Gallery (New York).

Artists on Cezanne: Julia Fish and Rodney McMillian
Tomorrow, July 21 | 6:00–7:00PM
Rubloff Auditorium, The Art Institute of Chicago

Tomorrow please join artists Julia Fish and Rodney McMillian and exhibition co-curator Caitlin Haskell, Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, for a conversation about Cezanne.

Cezanne sought to develop a visual language that could fully translate his intense feelings into paintings. In doing so, he opened up possibilities that were embraced and elaborated by artists in his time and into the present. Julia Fish and Rodney McMillian, both of whom contributed to the exhibition catalogue, will explore Cezanne’s art-making practice and why it continues to resonate.

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Julia Fish’s practice engages both site and context, in temporary public installations as well as the sustained sequence of paintings and works on paper developed in reference to the architecture of her home and studio. Fish’s paintings were presented in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, and her more than two dozen solo exhibitions include DePaul Art Museum’s recent ten-year survey. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, Fish is professor emerita, University of Illinois at Chicago.

‘Gentle Content’ is on view for just three more weeks. Be sure to not miss this exhibition of new sculpture, painting, and works on paper by Danny Bredar, Alberto Ortega Trejo, Martha Poggioli, and Davina Semo, curated by Julia Birka-White. Please find the press release and documentation via the link in bio.

Davina Semo’s bell Bloom is on view as part of Gentle Content, up at Rhona Hoffman Gallery August 6, 2022.

Davina Semo
Bloom, 2022
Polished stainless steel bell, polished stainless steel and powder coated stainless steel hardware, leather
wrapped patinated solid bronze clapper, h**p sh***ri rope, and powder coated galvanized steel chain
Bell: 32 x 13 inches
Overall installation dimensions variable

“Davina Semo works in two and three dimensions, often utilizing industrial materials that examine tensions between nature, society, and the self. Semo’s works in Gentle Content continue her tradition of engagement with the ways in which the built environment affects our lives. The artist has been making metal bells since 2016, but Bloom serves as the first time she has presented a bell cast in stainless steel. Semo is interested in the dual possibilities of the bells being instruments for personal reflection, as well as tools for gathering community and calling for attention to pressing concerns. Bloom is peppered with blossoming floral motifs, the artist’s first time translating textures from her bronze relief works into a three-dimensional object. In today’s contemporary moment where we are inundated with media, Semo’s polished bell Bloom encourages reflection literally and metaphorically.” - excerpt from the press release

Gentle Content
Danny Bredar, Alberto Ortega Trejo, Martha Poggioli, and Davina Semo
Curated by Julia Birka-White
JUNE 24 - AUGUST 6, 2022

MICHAEL RAKOWITZ
The Monument, The Monster and The Maquette

May 6 - June 18, 2022

Martha Tuttle, An ear, a hand, a mouth, an offering, an angel February 25 - April 16, 2022

Tricky Passage opens Friday! Jan 14th thru February 19th, 2022

Nancy Rubins, Sculpture & Drawing, October 29 thru December 18, 2021

Jacob Hashimoto, Misunderstandings, September 17 thru October 23, 2021

Rhona Hoffman Gallery updated their business hours.

On view now, Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present our first solo exhibition of Egyptian artist Wassef Boutros-Ghali (b. 1924, Cairo, Egypt).

Paintings: 2000 - 2016
JUNE 24 - JULY 30, 2021

Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present Home in the Wilderness, an exhibition of works by Gordon Parks. May 14 thru June 19, 2021
To ensure the safety of our guests, a limited number of visitors will be admitted at one time. Schedule your visit through June 19th.

Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present New Ceramics, an exhibition of recent works by Judy Ledgerwood. May 14 thru June 19, 2021
To ensure the safety of our guests, a limited number of visitors will be admitted at one time. Schedule your visit through June 19th.