Aerial
landscapes and other observations about everyday life:
new works by Miguel Cortez
Opening
Friday February 25, 2005
from 6pm-10pm
Feb 25 - March 19, 2005
Polvo's 2005 season continues with an exhibit of brand new works by Miguel
Cortez. For this show Miguel will try to combine abstraction and humor
with absurd observations about everyday life. Like many people in the
arts he works full-time to make ends meet, so his monotonous repetitive
every day rituals are the inspiration for these new works. Miguel created
a handmade book of digital photographs of textures, patterns and scenery
that he encounters on his walk to and from work everyday.And in his series
of 4 digital paintings called "read my palm", each painting
acts like a film frame and the viewer follows the artist's lifeline with
a modern automobile. Miguel also uses the ceiling as part of his installation "dropped
celing", where he digitally duplicates some of the ceiling tiles
and collages one of the walls creating an effect of the ceiling dropping
down to meet the floor.
 aerial landscape 1 oil and acrylic on canvas 2005 |
 aerial landscape 2 oil and acrylic on canvas 2005 |
 aerial landscape 3 oil and acrylic on canvas 2005 |
 untitled oil and acrylic on canvas 2005 |
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 dropped ceiling photocopy installation 2005 |
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  everyday observations handmade book of digital prints on canvas 2005 click here to see details |
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 workstation 1 digital print 2005 |
 workstation 2 digital print 2005 |
This series of 2 digital prints are portraits of two early computer systems. Workstation 1 is Digital Equipment Corporation's first computer:the PDP-1, intruduced in the early 1960s. The computer's memory system used 24 magnetic tape transports to hold from 4096 to 65,536 words in 18 bits each. Workstation 2 is DEC's first 36-bit computer done in 1964 and the 23 that were sold were mainly used for scientific computing at various universities. |
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Read my palm digital prints on canvas (each is 8 x 10") 2005 miguel cortez Palm reading, which is also known as chiromancy or chirognomy, is just one of the several pseudosciences. Astrology, numerology, horoscopes, and psychic predictions are some of the others. Pseudoscience is a method that tries to explain physical phenomena without scientific proof to back it up. The purpose of this series of 4 digital prints is for the viewer to foretell my future by reading, so to speak, or analyzing the lines on my hand. |
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Miguel Cortez is an artist living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1970. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With exhibitions for over a decade in Chicago, Mexico, and Spain, his most recent include a group show with the collective functionvariable in Barcelona, "Change of Policy: International Artist Respond to the George W. Bush Administration" in Detroit, Michigan, and "City Selections:Art from the Galleries", a sample of local alternative art galleries in Chicago.
12" x 12" mini-installation: Anna Mayer
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I've Got It Covered That This is Going to Be a Temporary Thing
paint on vinyl, flowers
2005 Anna Mayer
mini-exhibit: Elke Claus
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Strange Magic
found wood, glass, silver, copper and photocopies
2005 Elke Claus