Amy Sillman at Arts Club of Chicago

S1

Amy Sillman through August 3 - Arts Club of Chicago

As the title might suggest, “The Nervous System”  is an exhibition of art for those who think of human consciousness as biochemical rather than spiritual. It  reflects the trends, attitudes, and rigor of the contemporary university community. Mostly, the exhibit consists of  variations on a few simple shapes or patterns that have been applied to paper by silkscreen and then enhanced with brushed ink or acrylic paint. There are too many of these large pieces ( up to 60” on a side) to fit on the walls of the gallery, so dozens have been pinned together like laundry on a clothesline that’s been strung diagonally across the main gallery. The arrangement suggests the fresh data and prolific notes of a serious research project

Human heads, arms, legs, and genitals are identifiable among the jumbles of shapes -- not as the eye might see them in pictorial space, but as the mind/body might sense them sprawling out from the abdomen. There is a sameness about them, but a few pieces stand apart. In one, we are shown a network of thin, sinuous, interconnecting lines that resembles a diagram of a nervous system. In another, the page is empty except for what appears to be a crudely drawn human face staring at itself in a mirror. This might suggest that self awareness, no matter how clumsy and fragmentary, is indispensable to human cogitation.   Possibly, every other piece is equally significant- but like most notes from a research project, they may be intelligible only to other specialists in the field.

The exhibit also contains five large bluish/grayish oil paintings that seem to view American society from the bottom - suggesting the negative consequences rather than the prosperity and technology associated with Late Capitalism. This is also an ideology likely to be taught in universities. The piece titled “In Illinois” is its most explicit statement as it presents what appears to be homeless people lying in a gutter  (in a decade that has seen exponential growth in high-rise luxury apartments in Chicago)

Finally, there is one piece, titled simply “S1” that appears to be nothing more or less than a very good abstract painting based on portraiture and recalling the dynamics of an early Modernist like Picasso. It feels like a tough, gritty, hard fought triumph over adversity and despair. That’s not much different from several of the works on paper mentioned above, but rather than just suggesting a mental process, it appears to exemplify a mentality that is positive, cogent, resourceful, and effective. It does what all good work does - whether it’s painting or auto repair.

It’s doubtful whether these paintings will be advancing neuroscience or social justice other than to give some encouragement to those who actually are. But as paintings, they are a welcome conflation of visual intensity with emotions associated with dismay, confusion, struggle, resilience, and honesty. They expand the territory between nihilism and ecstasy with neither irony nor nostalgia — and with no specific references to current events however timely the exhibition feels.

Perhaps you could call it a refinement of that new American classicism that began to emerge in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Less personal and less heroic than the New York school, it  also seems less accessible and more elitist as well - something like the free form calligraphy practiced in the last millennium by Mandarin scholars in the Chinese tradition. It’s a nice way to contemplate the intractable difficulties of human existence from a safe, comfortable distance -  which is not to say that the artist ever really feels safe or comfortable.