My Aunt Mary and I went to Chicago’s Artropolis – the big exposition of art at the Merchandise Mart – today. It was thousands upon thousands of booths selling work ranging from pricey-big-names, emerging artists locally and abroad, to outsider art. Aunt Mary had some very refreshing comments along the way, “All the artists kinda look like their work, don’t they?”-and-”If I had my tax rebate, I’d buy the smoking dog.”
The highlight of the afternoon was most certainly an exhibit from Walsh Gallery, a Chicago gallery that shows Contemporary Asian Art. A Korean artist, Chang Jiu I believe???, was there taking pictures of patrons’ chests (it was for ladies only-although I saw a man ask if he could participate. The artist offered to capture his buttocks on a t-shirt since that is the area of HIS body that is not usually free in our culture. He declined despite my bystander prodding.)
Anyway, the artist was ironing the prints onto t-shirts right on the spot….ahem, I mean while you wait…I mean, I guess they’re ironed “right on that spot” as well. The idea is that women can not freely expose their upper “naked” torso and are restrained by undergarments due to cultural taboos.
I declined but Aunt Mary had no hesitation after she heard the words: “free t-shirt.” Mary went behind a curtain with one of the assistants for the photograph. We then wandered for a few minutes while they transfered the image to the t-shirt.
Aunt Mary’s response: “I’m 70 and mine look as good as the rest of them!”
