An Exhibition at Beret International Gallery, Chicago,
Saturday, April 25 - Saturday, June 6
hold on, while we retrieve the plans
FOR IMMEDiATE RELEASE
Beret International Gallery will be closed for approximately one month. At the next opening reception, April 25, visitors will be greeted by a completely re-engineered gallery space. The new space has been designed by the artist Mike Slattery. Mike is familiar with the gallery and has been represented by Beret for several years.
Mike Slattery has designed the new exhibition space in accordance to Beret's modest economic means and future needs. The new gallery will be a vastly more efficient use of space and be equipped with the infrastructure to make it easier to conduct the going business of a gallery.
Additionally, Mike is performing the actual physical labor involved with the renovation work. This is truly beautiful art. He is not vainly building walls to display his own art, he is creating a new space which will hopefully enable the gallery to survive and thrive.
Jno Cook has also been contributing his physical labor to the reorganization. He has designed and installed the much needed new lighting system.
His experience with electrical work and having grown up in a family of carpenters will be useful. Likewise, Mike Slattery's background with production and design has been beneficial for this reorganization project. During their careers, both Mike and Jno have created fascinating art dealing with form, function, and conceptually relevant social economic concerns.
In "Same Place / New Space" Jno Cook will premier his scale model of the Solar System. He has made model planets which are scaled to size and placed in orbit according to exact astronomical proportions. Like a astrological natal chart, the planets will be in formation according to their location for the day of the opening, April 25, 1998. Jno's concept enables viewers to experience the true scale of the planet's orbital sizes and distances from each another. Pluto had to placed far away inside of another room.
Meanwhile, in order to rebuild the gallery space, lots of my treasured junk had to be removed from its storage space. Mike plans to use these cumbersome objects as sculpture. He will have DJ LeDuce play music from my collection of 1000 records during the opening.
Mike Slattery and Jno Cook understand the social economic realities of Beret International. Survival is essential. The financial burden and physical labor needed to operate the gallery are perpetual challenges. Jno and Mike should be commended for their exhausting efforts.
If a gallery owner were to ask the average artist, "I have a great idea for a show: how about renovating my entire loft and organizing all of my stuff?" The answer would certainly be, "######," or words to that effect. Jno and Mike are artistic geniuses; they recognized my revolutionary artistic vision and agreed that it was a brilliant idea -- or did not have any other inspired ideas at short notice.
Sincerely;
Aesthetic Investigation