Art That Moves: Gallery 60035
60035 is the zip code for Highland Park, Illinois, and also the name of a new gallery (or galleries, if you prefer, as will be made clear in a minute). This is a cooperative venture between a group of artists and the City of Highland Park Downtown Central Business District Property Owners Association. The organization lets the group have prime spaces that are (ahem) temporarily without paying customers to show artwork. The artist group pays utilities, and does whatever decorating they want to do, and that's it. When the space gets rented, they are apparently guaranteed a different space. And so begins their nomadic life.

Currently, they are at 653 Central Avenue (right on the main drag) and 1946 First Street (around the corner, north of Central). The Central Ave. location has smaller works (and also IMHO nicer works, in general), and looks more like a small gallery or fine arts/crafts/jewelry store. The other is (I think) a former too-brightly lit Kinkos with some prefab partitioning breaking up the space.

As a co-op venture of a group of unjuried artists, the work is of mixed interest, though some pieces are stellar. In particular, Julia Katz's large kinda-diptych of a guy relaxing is really good (at the First St. location):



At the Central Ave. location I particularly liked Peta Kaplan's 8 x 10 inch interiors she sells for $195 each.



They have a yummy thick paint surface, highly finished. She is particularly good at capturing the casual, lived-in character of a room (yes, she does commissions).

When I was there on Sunday, Sharon Rosenzweig was on the sidewalk painting little portraits of little people on a big canvas.



She has lithographs (Yes!) at the First Avenue location and smaller landscapes and back-yard scapes in dark and snowy tones at the location on Central.

This is a new venture that people leapt into quickly and joyfully, taking advantage of the situation without, perhaps, a whole bunch of planning. I've been told that by the fall or early next year they'll have a better handle on what's what, a procedure for adding artists and shows, etc. etc.

So I can add two more galleries (ummmm.... better check the website.... maybe more) to the link list at the side. If Line Drive Gallery ever gets a web site, I'll add them to the list too.
- posted by Cynthia @ 1:01 PM | | | Link |