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Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

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09/05/2024

Opening Friday, September 6th: Susanne Doremus - "Color Field"

For decades, Susanne Doremus has imported working strategies from gestural painting, blind drawing, schematics, performance driven music and dance, and applied those moves to the way she processes and records her primary concerns. Pulling from the observed and the viscerally felt, she uses line and mark to articulate the experiences that feel most relevant and necessary. Those experiences may be as literal as the ongoing construction of the expressway seen from her studio window; or they may build from tracings of shapes, marks or lines from previous paintings; or potential my arise from a thoughtless studio accident or a spill on the canvas. The way Susanne Doremus brings it all to bare reflects how important the mapping and excavating of a conceptualized sensation is fundamental to her practice.

09/05/2024

Opening Friday, September 6th: Riva Lehrer - "The Monster Studio"

Statement of Purpose by Riva Lehrer ()
"The Monster Studio" will open on 9/6/24 and close 10/12/24, at Zolla Lieberman Gallery in Chicago. During its run I will perform a 6-week public portrait studio.

I make portraits in order to understand embodiment. There have been times in the past that my previous collaborators have described their identities as accumulations of wounds. They saw identity as carved by trauma. We made portraits that valorized the concept of the private, intimate self—rather than the public actor. However, this last decade has been one of acute communal trauma. I find myself needing to turn my practice inside-out. Rather than focusing on the ways in which we are formed by society, I am asking how we affect the world.

The purpose of "The Monster Studio" is to explore how my collaborators see themselves as actors, rather than as the acted upon.

Trying to take agency in the world can be a difficult, even disturbing experience. It can easily entail decisions that make one feel like a monster. That said, this is not necessarily negative. A monster be an agent of damage, certainly, but it can also be an avatar of ferocity and drive.

"The Monster Studio" is concerned with the struggle behind public action: anxieties, fears, and failures of performance. Our actions and words have an impact on those around us. What is intended to be positive can swerve; best intentions can harm.

My collaborators were chosen because they try to affect change. I will ask them to frame the difficult aspects of being change agents, and to draw those “monster selves” with me in public. This does NOT mean we’ll draw ourselves as classic monsters. No werewolves or vampires. A “monster” might not be figurative at all, but could be a dot, a color, a pile of torn paper, a rain of teeth.

09/05/2024

Opening Friday, September 6th: "The Quiet is So Noisy" curated by Lora Fosberg ().

"Bleak is how many of us would describe the years leading up to this moment. Feeling anxious and depressed regarding worldwide and national politics has become common place. Our anxieties about each other have been exposed through the divisiveness in society today. Artist featured here, explore ideas of loneliness, isolation aggravation, and devastation that have been rippling through us in the recent past.

Joyfully, rainbows and unicorns could be on the horizon, leaving the dark and dismal days we’ve been through together, in the past." - Lora Fosberg

Featuring: Robert Arneson, Ben Blount, Melissa Blount, Ava Carney, Juan Angel Chavez, Diane Christiansen, Josh Dihle, Robin Dluzen, Suzanne Doremus, Marcel Dzama, Nicole Eisenman, Vernon Fisher, Nan Goldin, Juarez Hawkins, Laurie Hogin, Jim Lutes, Matt Kur, Julie Mehretu, Lola Ayisha Ogbara, Dan Oliver, Robyn O’Neil, Adria Pecora, Tony Phillips, Ken Price, Alison Ruttan, Kara Walker, Mary Lou Zelazny, and Jay Zerbe.

"The Quiet is So Noisy" curated by Lora Fosberg is now on view through October 12th.

09/02/2024

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the Chicago gallery season with a solo exhibition featuring the work of renowned Chicago artist Riva Lehrer (). The Monster Studio will be on view from September 6 to October 12, 2024, and will feature several new portraits from her ongoing "Risk Pictures" series alongside a curated selection from the artist's archive. A highlight of the exhibition will be a public portrait studio where Lehrer will interview selected collaborators, including distinguished authors Stephen T. Asma and Dr. Brandy Schillace, about their inner “monsterselves.” Lehrer and her collaborator will then draw their monster portraits together. Visitors will have the unique opportunity to witness these conversations and live portrait sessions during select gallery hours.

"I believe that the true product of a portrait is not the object, but the exchanges between artist and collaborator. Intimacy is the very foundation of what we do. I am who I am because of the countless transformative conversations I have had in the studio."
– Riva Lehrer

Lehrer's work is celebrated for its exploration into the marginalized and stigmatized body. Through a distinct blend of drawing, painting, collage and sculpture, she challenges viewers to reconsider their assumptions about beauty and difference. She has become a leading voice in the formation of Disability Culture, and her contributions to art, literature, and activism have had a profound impact on the way we understand diversity.

08/16/2024

Mikey Mosher (.mosher) - "On the Grid", 2022, collage / laser-engraved plywood / cloth ribbon / acrylic paint / plexi / MDF, 22½ x 22½ in.

Mikey’s practice attempts to engage with the tension between themes of spirituality, political turmoil, climate change, alienation, nostalgia and play through the process of collecting, curating, arranging, designing and building. Beginning with a focus on collage his practice has expanded out into a variety of mediums including photography, sculpture, projection, design and digital fabrication. His most recent work explores the relationship between the frame and the work, the container and the object, the box and the trinket. This attention to the frame or container has become a sculptural practice of its own, allowing Mikey to play with the hierarchy between the two.

"On the Grid" by Mikey Mosher is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/15/2024

Matt Morris () - "Powdered Milk #7 (she collected compacts)", 2023-2024, digitally printed satin / flocked netting / tulle / satin ribbons / embroidered ribbon / hand dyed silk velvet / antique millinery veiling / vintage miniature / perfume bottle / freshwater pearls / baroque aubergine / pearl / rose quartz / Swarovski crystals / waxed thread / Silamide thread / marabou feathers / cotton batting / rayon wrapped wire / hot glue / ribbon wrapped aluminum headband / custom mount fabricated by Eric Ruschman, 35 x 12 x 16 in.

"I drift, I associate, I inquire and long through a bo***ir, a psychoanalyst’s office, through department stores edging toward defunction, through the Les Puces flea market in Paris, libraries, and what I call a ‘flow of images’. Mine is a watercolor-tinged melancholy that looks back upon the production of liberation ideologies, tracking a set of free-floating signifiers—the feminine, femme, effeminate, effete, and fa**ot among others—across their appearances in [art] histories, advertising, fashion, po*******hy, and other fragmentary zones of visual culture. I attempt, with some desperation, to not repress. In this space of production, the cosmetic proves to be the most psychoanalytic. A ribbon carries on its back all of the misogyny and all of the frivolity. Lately I find myself working from that spot into perfumes, paintings, millinery, installation, porcelain sculptures. I desire uneasy discourses around impure positions in the ways that we account for burgeoning intersectional feminisms. I read and I nap more than anything else. I collect bones and simmer them into stocks. I pay close attention to my own remembering. I soften." - Matt Morris

"Powdered Milk #7 (she collected compacts)" by Matt Morris is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/14/2024

Lauren Schoepflin () - "Farmer’s Daughter", 2024, piecework, 28 x 20 in.

"Obsessively woven / printed renditions of Pamela Anderson’s July 1992 Pl***oy cover, pitted against one another. Duplication, repetition, reproduction, s*x sells. Stretching and shrinking before our awestruck eyes, She becomes the s*xy cowgirls, her field labor feminized." - Luaren Schoepflin

"Farmer's Daughter" by Lauren Schoepflin is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/13/2024

Laurel Izard () - "Tanks and Puppies", 2024, vintage baby blanket, hand embroidered and quilted, 40 x 29 in.

"American Childhood is the term I use for this series of quilts which start with Mid Century baby blankets and quilts collected on the internet or in antique stores. I’m looking at several things here and one is the huge contrast between the cute and sweet images we surround infants with and the violent images we are surrounded with as adults. Many of the images depicted in vintage baby quilts show an idealized picture of childhood that was completely unattainable for many. Many show a cute and fuzzy world of baby animals that can insulate us from the from the harsher realities of the wild. Some tourists have learned the hard way that those are not teddy bears out there. The message in these quilts depends on contrast, such as the play between cute little teddy bears with a real bear, nursery rhymes and nuclear bombs, or clowns and toy soldiers. I feel that this contrast allows us to see the dangers and contradictions in modern life in a new way. I ponder how the icons and images we surround children with has helped to define who we are, or how we are expected to move through adulthood. I do not have answers but am inviting viewers to take a fresh look at the imagery we surround children with and what part it plays in our adult identity." - Laurel Izard

"Tanks and Puppies" by Laurel Izard is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/13/2024

"Klement was able to imbue her paintings with life-affirming confidence, hope and even spontaneous joy. It will stand as a model of the best art of her generation and the best of Chicago’s vital contributions to cultural life." - William Conger .conger

Vera Klement - "After a Life" is now on view at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery through August 15th.

08/09/2024

Hale Ekinci ()- "Get in Line", 2022, solvent photo transfer / block print / glass beads / embroidery floss / sequins / thread / crochet yarn on found, quilted bedsheet, 40 x 46 in.

Hale Ekinci - "Partition", 2022, solvent photo transfer / acrylic / embroidery floss / sequins / thread / screenprint / blockprint / yarn crochet on found bedsheet, 60 x 30 in.

"I reflect on gender issues and the femme spaces that nurtured me. Using domestic and textile fiber crafts, I challenge the assigned value and significance of materials and women’s labor. Longing for a collective culture while embracing my adopted individualism, I ground myself in the process of slow stitching and constructing my hybrid material history." - Hale Ekinci

"Get in Line" and "Partition" by Hale Ekinci are now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/08/2024

Xingyi Zhao ()- "Still Life (stack of bowls)", 2024, weaving, 32 x 28 in.

"My images refer to various places: the history of textiles, the language of materials, and diagrams of how-to’s like "how to tie a knot". I enjoy the idea of the grid paper to provide a place for the process to develop, the action of planning and making in textiles like weaving drafts, knitting diagrams, quilting, and architectural blueprints – referencing something in construction, or the unfinished and will progress in the future." - Xingyi Zhao

"Still Life (stack of bowls)" by Xingyi Zhao is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/07/2024

Sam Jaffe () - "Little Estuary", 2023, deadstock acrylic yarn / quilt batting / thread on wood, 18 x 18 in.

"I insist on the centrality of the human hand, employing recognizable techniques such as knitting and sewing that imbue the objects I create with familiarity. I feel that it is my duty as a woman artist to preserve dying craft practices as we slowly lose them to increasingly dehumanizing, mechanized, and commodity based processes. But I don't reject industry entirely; instead I selectively source materials from it - opting for those that are recycled, reused, repurposed, dead-stock, or vintage. My work is about surrendering to the fetishistic nature of material culture and discovering inventive ways to transfigure found materials, allowing the forms I meticulously craft to demonstrate, extend, and exploit their potential." - Sam Jaffe

"Little Estuary" by Sam Jaffe is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/06/2024

Michelle Grabner () - "Untitled", 2017, unique bronze, 51 x 22 x 13 in.

The Wisconsin-born artist Michelle Grabner is known for her broad perspective developed as teacher, writer and critic over the past 30 years. The site where it all comes together is the studio. Her artmaking—which encompasses a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, video and sculpture—is driven by a distinctive value in the productivity of work and takes place outside of dominant systems. Grabner instead finds a creative center in operating across platforms and towards community.

Central to the work is process. Grabner uncovers new dynamic relationships through her visionary practice of repetition. With a deep attention to abstract patterns and all the metaphors they conjure, Grabner pushes the limits of compositional structures to discover the tipping point between stability and precariousness; between continuance and wondrous difference.

"Untitled" by Michelle Grabner is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

08/06/2024

"The open space of the canvas is the unconscious; the image spontaneously arises from it, momentary yet emotionally urgent, a vivid memory of someone lost forever, the ghost's ruined appearance acknowledging that its loss can never be made good - except perhaps by art, although the fragmentary character of Klement's pictures suggests that even art cannot do so completely. Klement gives us, in singular imaginative moments, sensations of falling, loss, death; radical bleakness - from which we are rescued by radiant color. Its presence transforms the canvas, filling its emptiness with grace; unexpectedly, the desert light of the canvas becomes gnostic, suggesting that salvation can be created out of (come out of) nothing." - excerpt from "Vera Klement's Poem-Paintings" by Donald Kuspit, 1997

Vera Klement - "After a Life" is now on view at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery through August 15th.

08/01/2024

An opening reception for Lora Fosberg’s () solo exhibition, "Beyond Was All Around Us," will be held on Friday, August 2nd at the South Bend Museum of Art ().

Fosberg's process is deeply anthropological, bound up in the intricacies and intimacies of human life - memories, emotions, our relationships with others and with nature. Disarming her viewers through familiar imagery and language in her work, often rendered in an accessible, animated manner, with a touch of cheeky humor, Fosberg affords them the space to regress to a particular memory, a moment of understanding, a conflict, an absence, a connection to another person, or to nature.

"Beyond Was All Around Us" is now on view at the South Bend Museum of Art until October 6th, 2024.

08/01/2024

Meghan Borah - "Pink Pumps", 2024, oil on canvas, 37 x 34 in.

Meghan Borah’s expressionless, female-presenting figures occupy dreamlike scenarios that may not be tranquil as they first appear. Their faces appear aloof and almost impatient, suggesting the presence of some type of negotiation between the public, outward facade and private inner longings. In this way Borah’s paintings are an ongoing examination of how we see and present ourselves, and how we may sometimes ache to become something else.

"Pink Pumps" by Meghan Borah is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

07/31/2024

Tavin Davis - 2024, oil on panel, 8 x 10 in. (each)

"I don’t see any difference between the surface of a painting and somewhere isolated or far away from anything or anyone else. That’s why I use painting in the first place. The world is pretty messy and difficult to navigate and maybe solitude in the surface of a painting can be a way out. The paintings use a stage setting that places us out in the middle of nowhere with wide vacant horizons and large skies. Being raised in the flat expanses of rural Montana, I often felt like that horizon line was a prison. One I’d never escape and I certainly wouldn’t say I have. Maybe, instead, I have a kind of stockholm syndrome now. A psychological bond with my captor. I used to feel tortured by that solitude and now it’s the only thing I want. My empty, horizon guarded. prison became a sanctuary. The paintings have a fumbly tinkering quality to them. Like the person making them is trying to stay sane in such a remote place with references to arts and crafts, DIY experiments, and gardening. Busy work. As for viewers, they are typically the only ones in the paintings. They are perfectly alone. I don’t want anyone else there but the person in front of the painting which includes me when I’m making them. Ultimately, if I could hope for any kind of sense about the paintings to come across it would be the sense that the viewer is encountering artifacts of a person who was dealing with being isolated. That’s my story." - Tavin Davis

Tavin Davis' small oil on panel paintings are now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

07/31/2024

Thank you to Charles Venkatesh Young of Newcity Chicago for the wonderful review of our current summer group exhibition in our Office Gallery. Come and see for yourself.

"Surprise" is now on view through August 15th.

07/26/2024

Maria Tomasula - "The Wholeness", 2023, oil on panel, 18 x 14 in.

"I make pictures as a way to visualize my experience. I love the way images can symbolically depict invisible phenomena, like states of mind. Making pictures allows me to give tangible, visual form to intangible thought, and to what is bodily experienced through the medium of time. The images I make center on themes of identity, our obligations to each other, and mortality. I use a meticulous technical process to realize my compositions; the pictures are simultaneously analytical and impassioned. So much in life is brutal or ambivalent, but our lives can also be marked by grace, so in my work I try to pictorially register a sense of punishing loss while holding on to the presence of brightness. There's a kind of formal and emotional clarity I'm after, an image that is both death-haunted, yet life-bringing." - Maria Tomasula

"The Wholeness" by Maria Tomasula is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

07/24/2024

"Like all lives, hers has been a patchwork of events, relationships, personal histories, moments of exhilaration and sorrow, episodes in an ongoing narrative keyed around a distinct sensibility. But unlike most lives, that pattern of disparate accretion, of juxtaposing seemingly independent elements in perpetual dialogue, has become the touchstone of Klement's art. Whatever else her art is, it is additive, sometimes starkly so, with elements brought together onto often huge canvases, things that are both seen singly and presented in allusive conjunction." - excerpt from "Vera Klement: an Appreciation" by James Yood

"Vera Klement: After a Life" is now on view until August 15th.

07/24/2024

Dan Gunn .gunn - "Laurel, Sugar and Cheese Dish (Jade-ite)", 2022, acrylic / milk paint / light stable metalized acid dye and polyurethane on poplar with nylon cord, 43 x 19½ in.

"Focusing his practice on Midwestern folklore and aesthetics, Dan Gunn considers the urban, suburban, and rural divides through elaborately carved draperies with inset landscape imagery, paper collage, and ceramic sculpture. Most recently his work explores the psychological and mythological implications of the landscape for the creation of regional self-conception. Gunn’s practice reveals a complicated relationship with labor and craft discourse; seeing time-intensive processes like carving as repositories of cultural memory and ideology. Gunn examines the legacy of craft workers, folk artists, woodworkers, and artisans that came before him by embracing humor, pathos and surrealism."

"Laurel, Sugar and Cheese Dish (Jade-ite)" by Dan Gunn is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

07/23/2024

Thank you to Newcity Art for selecting our current exhibition "Vera Klement: After a Life" as an Art Top 5 for July!

07/23/2024

Nicole Mazza - "Points of Tension 1" / "Points of Tension 2", 2021, embroidery / india ink on fabric, 38 x 20 in. (each)

Nico Mazza works with textile and embroidery to create figurative works. She integrates strong pictorial and sculptural resources that raise questions about the construction and deconstruction of the body. She is concerned with the iconography of the body and how it is seen through the lens of socially constructed relationships and fantasies, and how gender is constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed- devoured, fragmented and rebuilt by the vo**ur. Nico stitches together dream-like landscapes and interiors filled with pattern and texture. Images often juxtapose the delicate practice of needlework with characters who negate socio-political norms of gender and s*xual identity.

"Points of Tension #1" / "Points of Tension #2" by Nicole Mazza is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

07/20/2024

"It is tragic that aging is not seen as it ought to be, the realization of an entire person." - Vera Klement from "An Artist's Notes on Aging and Death

Vera Klement - "After a Life" is now on view through August 15th.

07/20/2024

Riley Lynch - "278 Moran", 2022, reclaimed fiber applique / embroidery and embellishment, 27 x 30 in.

"The work I create is largely about the intimate happenings of the human experience; I continually navigate themes of personal identity, labor and healing through sewing,
collaging, and other forms of craft. My work explores why the hierarchy of art places a lower value on works and mediums deemed as q***r, soft and feminine, in opposition to other mediums that have been long-established as gallery worthy, and challenges that pattern with sentiments of softness. Fiber art holds the maker’s self tenderly within it; each pe*******on of needle into fabric leaves behind the trace of a touch, a skin cell, and residue of threaded saliva. As such, my artwork remains an archive of my body and self, and the time, dedication and love that goes into a medium often viewed as lesser-than, legitimizing its existence and providing a power that disrupts the status quo of the art institution." - Riley Lynch

"278 Moran" by Riley Lynch is now on view in "Veil, Drape, and Stitch" curated by Ruth L. Poor through August 15th.

07/13/2024

"Words of Art: in conversation with Buzz Spector about the life and legacy of Vera Klement" begins at 2pm today! Join us in honoring one of Chicago's most formidable contemporary artists. Coffee, pastries, refreshments and insightful conversation will be served!

Address

325 W Huron Street
Chicago, IL
60654

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	10am - 5:30pm
Thursday	10am - 5:30pm
Friday	10am - 5:30pm
Saturday	11am - 5:30pm

Telephone

+13129441990

Website

http://zollalieberman.com/

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We are pleased to announce our collaboration with EXPO CHICAGO and Gertie to celebrate the inaugural Chicago Exhibition Weekend (CXW) this September 29–October 1. The weekend will bring together over 50 galleries, institutions, and artist-run spaces to present exhibitions that encourage everyone from seasoned collectors to those new to engaging with Chicago’s visual arts scene to explore unique programs, extended hours, and more. The weekend emphasizes Chicago’s multitude of non-conventional exhibition spaces as well as the geographic range spanning neighborhoods from Streeterville to West Town, Englewood, and Irving Park to encourage participants to explore the full breadth of the city’s creativity. CXW will also welcome the city’s next generation of talented business, civic, and philanthropic leaders to engage with gallerists, artists, and curators through community dinners, programming, and a closing celebration that aims to cultivate the relationships needed for the city’s arts scene to continue to thrive. Over 50 galleries, institutions, and artist-run spaces are aligning to present a weekend of exhibition openings, activations, and events this fall, showcasing art throughout Chicago’s many neighborhoods for the inaugural Chicago Exhibition Weekend. The landmark weekend (September 29 to October 1, 2023) is co-presented by EXPO CHICAGO, the International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, and Chicago-based cultural agency Gertie.

DEBORAH BUTTERFIELD - New Sculptures @ Zolla / Lieberman Gallery

"Butterfield's sculptures are marvelous in their evocation of what is essential to our experience of the animal whose history, so entwined with human culture, is also one of autonomy and of its own world. The novelist Jane Smiley notes the affect in Butterfield's horses by pointing to the responses of people familiar with their care and breeding: "I have never met a horse lover who did not gasp at the truth of Butterfield's horses." The truth in this regard is more a matter of apprehending a certain energy than recognition of anatomical correctness. Butterfield refers to this energy as chi, the Taoist term for life force." - excerpt from Deborah Butterfield: the Horse in the horse, by Buzz Spector Catalogue available here: https://tinyurl.com/xvejmvvy DEBORAH BUTTERFIELD - New Sculptures, now on view through October 16th, 2021