Gapers Block has ceased publication.

Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni.
 Thank you for your readership and contributions. 

TODAY

Monday, October 7

Gapers Block
Search

Gapers Block on Facebook Gapers Block on Flickr Gapers Block on Twitter The Gapers Block Tumblr


A/C
« Postcards from the Mess: Nicole Ginelli Jersey Boys, Think Like a Man Too, The Rover & Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case »

Film Wed Jun 18 2014

Hairy Who & the Chicago Imagists: A Film About the Chicago Art Movement That Offended Almost Everyone

hairywho_cover.jpg
Do you remember your first look at the so-called Chicago Imagists in art galleries in the '60s and '70s? Whether you were on your own or in a stroller pushed by your parents, you surely found the art of the "Hairy Who" to be eye-popping, colorful, vulgar and fun.

You can relive those artistic memories in Hairy Who & the Chicago Imagists, a lavishly illustrated new film documentary that illuminates the lively and confrontational art movement that started here in the 1960s. Director Leslie Buchbinder combines film of the young artists and interviews with many of them in their later years. Other interviews are with the 21st century artists they influenced, such as Jeff Coons, Peter Doig and Chris Ware, as well as collectors and curators. Best of all, we see many of the actual works--vibrant, vivid and surreal paintings and objects. The production also features great animation work and original music.

The film illustrates how the Hairy Who/Chicago Imagist movement evolved from the first group of artists that included Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Art Green, Karl Wirsum and Jim Falconer to later groups of artists also under the Hairy Who/Chicago Imagist rubric. "The Nonplussed Some," "False Image" and "Marriage Chicago Style" included artists like Ed Paschke, Roger Brown, Ed Flood, Sarah Canright, Cristina Ramberg and Philip Hanson. Art Institute professor Ray Yoshida also was an influence and a participant.

Some of the famous Hairy Who images were Wirsum's vivid portraits of musicians like Howlin' Wolf, Junior Wells and Screaming Jay Hawkins; Nutt's cigar-chomping, amputated women; Paschke's garish portraits of women inspired by posters outside strip clubs; and Ramberg's studies of corsetry and bondage.

You can view a selection of art and watch the film trailer here.

The Hyde Park Art Center and director Don Baum are credited with giving the art movement its first visibility in group exhibits starting in 1966. Art critic Franz Schulze gave the exhibit a positive review, commenting that the artists were "embracing pop culture in its most vulgar form." At the time, other critics used words like pugnacious, puerile, scatological, comical and absurd. How could we not love art that so offended the establishment?

The movement was a cousin to the pop art movement that grew in New York. The film makes the point that New York art tended to be more impersonal, large scale and abstract. Cool, that is, where this Chicago art was subjective, personal--and hot.

Unlike some other art movements of the time, Chicago Imagist art did not sell out for commercial purposes. As underground artist Gary Panter said, "Everything that was invented in the '60s could be co-opted, immediately. There was no problem co-opting Op Art, Hippie Art, anything. But the Hairy Who couldn't be co-opted. It had embraced insanity and psychosis. And you don't sell toothbrushes with that."

The 105-minute film is written by John Corbett and narrated by Chicago actor Cheryl Lynn Bruce, with animations and titles by Lilli Carre, motion graphics by Julius Dobiesz and sound design by Alex Inglizian. The original score for cello and voice was composed by Tomeka Reid. The producer is Chicago's Pentimenti Productions, a nonprofit founded by Buchbinder.

Hairy Who & the Chicago Imagists was shown this month at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Block Cinema at Northwestern University. Hairy Who has had limited showings in a few other cities and at film festivals and will have a one-week run at the Gene Siskel Film Center in late September. For more information about the film, visit pentimentiproductions.org/

Related note: See Slowdown on the opening of the Ed Paschke Art Center in Jefferson Park on Sunday, June 22.

 
GB store
GB store

Architecture Tue Nov 03 2015

Paul Goldberger Describes the "Pragmatism and Poetry" of Frank Gehry's Architecture in His New Book

By Nancy Bishop

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger talks about Frank Gehry's life and work in a new book.
Read this feature »

Steve at the Movies Fri Jan 01 2016

Best Feature Films & Documentaries of 2015

By Steve Prokopy

Read this column »

Blogroll

ACRE
An Angry White Guy
Antena
AREA Chicago
ArchitectureChicago Plus
Arts Engagement Exchange
The Art Letter
Art or Idiocy?
Art Slant Chicago
Art Talk Chicago
Bad at Sports
Bite and Smile
Brian Dickie of COT
Bridgeport International
Carrie Secrist Gallery
Chainsaw Calligraphy
Chicago Art Blog
Chicago Art Department
Chicago Art Examiner
Chicago Art Journal
Chicago Artists Resource
Chicago Art Map
Chicago Art Review
Chicago Classical Music
Chicago Comedy Examiner
Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago Daily Views
Chicago Film Examiner
Chicago Film Archives
Chicago Gallery News
Chicago Uncommon
Collaboraction
Contemporary Art Space
Co-op Image Group
Co-Prosperity Sphere
Chicago Urban Art Society
Creative Control
Defibrillator
Devening Projects
Digressions
DIY Film
ebersmoore
The Exhibition Agency
The Flatiron Project
F newsmagazine
The Gallery Crawl...
Galerie F
The Gaudy God
Happy Dog Gallery
HollywoodChicago
Homeroom Chicago
I, Homunculus
Hyde Park Artcenter Blog
InCUBATE
Joyce Owens: Artist on Art
J-Pointe
Julius Caesar
Kasia Kay Gallery
Kavi Gupta Gallery
Rob Kozlowski
Lookingglass Theatre Blog
Lumpen Blog
Marquee
Mess Hall
N'DIGO
Neoteric Art
NewcityArt
NewcityFilm
NewcityStage
Not If But When
Noun and Verb
On Film
On the Make
Onstage
Peanut Gallery
Peregrine Program
Performink
The Poor Choices Show
Pop Up Art Loop
The Post Family
The Recycled Film
Reversible Eye
Rhona Hoffman Gallery
Roots & Culture Gallery
SAIC Blog
The Seen
Sharkforum
Sisterman Vintage
Site of Big Shoulders
Sixty Inches From Center
Soleil's To-Do's
Sometimes Store
Steppenwolf.blog
Stop Go Stop
Storefront Rebellion
TOC Blog
Theater for the Future
Theatre in Chicago
The Franklin
The Mission
The Theater Loop
Thomas Robertello Gallery
threewalls
Time Tells Tony Wight Gallery
Uncommon Photographers
The Unscene Chicago
The Visualist
Vocalo
Western Exhibitions
What's Going On?
What to Wear During an Orange Alert?
You, Me, Them, Everybody
Zg Gallery

GB store

 

Events


A/C on Flickr

Join the A/C Flickr Pool.



About A/C

A/C is the arts and culture section of Gapers Block, covering the many forms of expression on display in Chicago. More...
Please see our submission guidelines.

Editor: Nancy Bishop, nancy@gapersblock.com
A/C staff inbox: ac@gapersblock.com

Archives

 

A/C Flickr Pool
 Subscribe in a reader.

GB store

GB Store

GB Buttons $1.50

GB T-Shirt $12

I ✶ Chi T-Shirts $15