Anyone familiar with the Northern Illinois University Art Museum Gallery in Chicago will immediately recognize that the exhibition currently on view is something special. In place of the usual crisp presentation of contemporary art is a fairly elaborate installation of historic material, accompanied by extended text panels.
The subject and title of the exhibition is “The Art of Burma,” which is essentially an art of Buddhism. Ten centuries ago, the first historical ruler King Anawrahta established orthodox Theravada Buddhism as the state religion of the capital of Pagan. His reign also encouraged a great flowering of Burmese art and architecture.
The exhibition explores several aspects of Burmese Buddhist art, such as its protectors, donors and religious practice, as well as the history of several collectors who brought it to the United States. As is customary in shows of such material, the lengthy labels and text panels are largely devoted to unraveling icongraphy rather than focusing on aesthetic qualities that have served to make the pieces high art.
No matter. In the sculpture particularly, viewers will find work of great invention as well as serenity, and time will be well-spent discovering both distinctive Burmese features (such as ribbons and crowns) and non-canonical images (such as a monk that symbolizes protection). This is a show that demands much but repays more.
At 215 W. Superior St., 312-642-6010.
In her first solo exhibition in Chicago in five years, Maria Tomasula presents a series of panels (plus one canvas) at the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery that reassert her talents as a contemporary fantast, symbolist and fool-the-eye painter.
Her sense of fantasy is gentle. Her symbolism takes off from the Catholicism of her Mexican-American upbringing. Her manipulation of oil paint has the sharpness and juiciness of dye-transfer photography.
Generally she presents still-life objects such as jewels, ribbons and flowers in proximity to shimmering fabric. The space in which she makes the objects interact is shallow, and this she emphasizes by flat, crisp decorative arabesques that appear superimposed on the picture, as if traced on a piece of glass placed over it. A few pieces have bones, shells and organs such as a brain and heart. These, along with droplets that are either tears or natural condensation, give the pieces symbolic value.
The overall atmosphere is one of solemnity, which Tomasula’s meticulousness intensifies. Even when she paints butterflies or a burst of light, the results never look less than serious. This gives the pictures gravity, though also a feeling of spiritual weight from which one may choose to escape. There’s an intensity that seems to be borne best in small doses.
At 325 W. Huron St., 312-944-1990.
For every contemporary photographer who invents pictures by piecing together negatives or using digital techniques, there are others who find the real world offering scenes richer and more strange than anything one could imagine. Jay Wolke is one of latter photographers, and his show at the Schneider Gallery shows him perceiving the wonder of the world most acutely.
All of his digital prints on view are in color, which means that to a greater or lesser extent color is what they are about. Reproduce them in black and white and, even though they are scenes of unfamiliar places in Italy, they hold little interest. Only when the colors of the natural landscape are shown interacting with colors brought in by the hand of man do you see Wolke operating at full strength.
Admittedly, some of his most arresting images present urban and rural oddities in addition to chromatic interplay. These are doubly wonderful. But often Wolke has shot perfectly banal scenes that come alive only through their color, and these perhaps more than the others indicate the sharpness of the photographer’s vision.
Little here is dramatic, but much is subtly magical and, in a seemingly offhand way, thrilling. It’s a show that reminds you of the enchantment of straight photography.
At 230 W. Superior St., 312-988-4033.
`The Art of Burma’ at the Northern Illinois University Art Museum Gallery through Oct. 29.
Maria Tomasula at the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery through Oct. 15.
Jay Wolke at the Schneider Gallery through Oct. 15.
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