Deanna Krueger ~ Another Review

There were two reviews of the Deanna Krueger "Fields" Exhibition, which were published today... One in the Chicago Tribune and the other in Chicago Art Magazine. I wanted to share the latter, which was written by Caitlin Schriner. It reads as follows:

Gallery 180 is situated street view on the corner of Lake and Wabash. Next to the windowed Culinary Arts department of the Illinois Art Institute, the gallery draws crowds of viewers who wander past the whippings and mixings next door.

From outside Deanna Krueger’s collection Fields appear to be large-scale color-scapes on unscratched canvases. The colors are fluid and the spectrum well-covered over the seven piece exhibit. If you can find your way into the gallery (the entrance is located two window fronts down and through the admissions department) you’ll find that Krueger’s pieces are not paintings, but are rather mosaics created from reconstructed diagnostic film monotypes.

Held together with staples, the pieces lift from the wall and bring dimensionality back to the 2-D world of painting. The staples look like rudimentary stitches mending torn landscapes, recreating, as the title suggests, a collection of fields. With titles like Sencha and Elysium Krueger hints toward her inspirations. While the titles and their accompanying stories are interesting, with most of the traffic outside of the windows, they are only fruitful for those who manage to find their way into the gallery, and not fully necessary in order to enjoy the patchwork of color Kruger has filled the corner gallery with.

Overall the pieces are best suited to their location. While the materials are interesting, the true beauty in Kruger’s work is Monet-like, and found in distance. A treat for the Wabash foot-traffic, Fields will be on display at Gallery 180 at 180 N. Wabash through June 3, 2010.

"Lunar", Acrylic monotypes on medical diagnostic film, staples 54x63", 2010
$4,500

Detail at top of post