Karolina Gnatowski has classic rock in the fiber of her being. The textile artist’s previous exhibitions have been visual depictions of a memoir, merging her past with beloved bands like the Doors and Led Zeppelin.
With “Changeling,” her current show at Julius Caesar, Gnatowski features a survey of her tapestry work, digging into unexpected, identity-based ideas about medium and maker.
Last year, she told LVL3, “From my interest in mashing rock history and personal narratives, I use textile processes as a way to simultaneously make jokes about craft while also lending a critique of the continued marginalization of the craft world.”
While the distinction between art and craft is contentious — it historically hinges on which media were public and masculine and which were domestic and feminine — Gnatowkski reclaims craft’s power the same way she reclaims mainstream bands as figures of artistic knowledge. Low-brow + low-brow = transgressive high-brow — it’s a Hail Mary equation that makes Gnatowski’s work immediately accessible but slowly revealing all at once.
As tapestry, textile and fiber arts work their own kind of feminist protest sign, and her work merges personal history with the contemporary meaning, Gnatowski proves the slogan true: The personal is political. Through Jan. 14, Julius Caesar, 3311 W. Carroll Ave.; www.juliuscaesarchicago.net
The Edward Hines Lumber Company lumberyard, the largest of its kind at the turn of the 20th century, blanketed the south end of the Chicago River during its heyday and fed the city’s distinct architectural undertakings.
That Edward Hines should be included in the Architectural Biennial is a no-brainer — the question is how he is included. With “Edward Hines National Forest,” Chicago-based artist Sara Black and New Zealand artist Raewyn Martyn transformed Hyde Park Art Center’s Gallery 1 into “an immersive built landscape” that explores the passageways among industry, nature and human intervention.
The forest exists in a few different moving parts and symbols. There is an extension of an existing catwalk above the gallery, enabling visitors to walk on and through the artworks — though it’s certainly not a playground.
The title of the piece is more cynical than it is celebratory. According to the show’s online notes, the lumber used in the development of the structure was produced from red pines that were the genetic descendants of trees fully deforested by Hines.
“Adapting the values and functions of a National Forest System, ‘Edward Hines National Forest’ recognizes ongoing land use by humans as connected to past, present and future anthropogenic alteration of our ecological and climate systems,” the show’s notes continue. The artists acknowledge that as the staff of the U.S. Department of Agricultureand Forest Service are censored from using the phrase “climate change,” issues surrounding ecological support and care become ones about democracy itself. Through Feb. 11, Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave.; www.hydeparkart.org
