During last month’s Unveiled Happy Hour for the Evening Associates at the Art Institute, I checked out the Christopher Wool exhibit, being featured now through May 11. Christopher Wool is an abstract painter from Chicago who’s also really well known for his text-based works. He seems to be pulling in some pretty impressive bids at auction these days, so I was excited to see the exhibit and learn more about him.
My favorite works of his were indeed the text-based works like the one up top (where my mom is walking through the frame), which makes you literally stop in your tracks to decipher the sentence created by all these letters run together. Especially powerful was a wall filled with these stenciled letters – they all seemed similar yet represented drastically different words and themes.
The other half of the exhibit was dominated by Wool’s more colorful works. These were interesting but a bit too abstract for my tastes. Although I loved that every now and then, among the “Untitled” works, there’d be a painting with a really specific name like, “Last Year Halloween Fell On A Weekend.” I’d love to learn more about how an artist is inspired to label a painting like that.
The exhibit ends this Sunday, May 11, so go check it out before it’s too late! Get more info about the exhibit here.
Agatha Kubalski 