Twenty-One Pagan Street
Twenty One artists in one show makes for an overwhemlming experience. Wednesday, I visited the BSD gallery on lake street, for the group show titled “A Bloody Portent of Possible Erotic Chaos”.
I walked in to the gallery with the expectation of seeing a mess of erotically charged artworks. The title of the show, I came to find, was a little misleading. The artists were all working on the theme of “Pagan-inspired art from a variety of belief systems”, as the show card subtitle revealed.
If there was one thing I learned from working within the ‘group show’ nomenclature, its that there is definitely such a thing as too many artists. While I would put the ideal group show at about five artists, this show had four times as many. The result was a sort of watering down of the show concept – but the strength of a few artists stood out within the mildness of the rest.
Upon entering the space, I was treated with two small drawings by Chris Santiago. He had three other pieces further down the buffet, but these two were the strongest of the bunch. They were ink and colored pencil on paper, with reflections of the minimal drawings of Theodor Gostas (youll have to visit the NVVAM to see the drawings I speak of...) and sketches by Pablo Picasso.
Further on in the show there was a large photo composite by Josh Mannis titled “Never Blow Out the Eastern Candle”. Not only was it a very well done piece of work, but in my mind, it had the most immediate connections to the pagan-art theme.
Frank Pollard had five pencil drawings in the last room. Monkey-like creatures in contemporary, and awkward, situations were the subject. Although I would have liked to see the execution of the pieces done in a more professional manner, they most certainly made me laugh.
An entire wall was occupied by the drawings of Noah Berlatsky. The drawings were pen on computer paper, based on characters from the cult classic ‘dungeons and dragons’. The text on each page taken from things his son (nephew?) said during the day. They, too were quite minimal, and I liked the booklet format of the work much more than the wall display.
All and all, the show was worth the visit. And while the twenty one artists may have choked each other’s work, the stand-out pieces shined all the more because of this.
BSD (Butcher Shop / Dogmatic) is located at 1319 W Lake street, Chicago. The show runs through December 29th, with regular hours on Saturdays, 12-6pm
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