Edition 6
Process and Practice
The product we consume at a gallery or a restaurant, a show or a shop, is the end point of its creator’s process and practice. How did it get made? This is the deceptively simple question we pose in Issue 6 of The OG. Our theme, “Process and Practice,” yields responses as divergent and innovative as the visionaries we feature. We are as interested in the micro processes of craft as we are in the macro theories of practice. Peeling back the layers of how and why a visionary does what they do helps us to understand what their vision means. In an era that remains hysterically devoted to façade, we delve deep to the foundations and blueprints. There, in the muddy trenches of craftsmanship, we celebrate the processes and practices that bring visions to life.
Front Cover: Tony Matelli
Back Cover: Devan Shimoyama
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Candida
Alvarez
For Candida Alvarez, art lies not in the imposition of the artist's vision, but in the process of losing oneself. "Getting lost is really part of my practice. I get lost in order to find myself, and the place where that happens becomes the painting," she tells Toniann Fernandez. Indeed, Fernandez's writing about her in this issue of The OG stays true to this ethos, taking the reader on an intimate journey through a selection of Alvarez's paintings where we learn about everything from the "gravely beige linen" that the artist compares to "the feeling of bouncing about from your seat in the back of a jeep," to Alvarez's ruminations on painting sizes - what she calls "The courtship of scale, texture." To Alvarez, art is practice in poetry: The simplification of something to its most essential form.
Ed
Tinoco
At the age of 28, Ed Tinoco became the executive chef of Next restaurant in Chicago, dedicating his career to the restaurant's everlasting mission of creating "the next cool thing." His career has been a long process of working his way up from the bottom. Tinoco starting out washing dishes in the kitchens of Vesta Trattoria, learning on the job without the classical knowledge and support that his peers had accumulated from the culinary academies they attended. He talks to Andrew Karpan about how this self-learning has allowed him to achieve a deeper understanding of the ingredients and techniques, and to bring "a "hustling" edge" to his work.
Alicia
Guitierrez
Alicia Gutierrez, the founder behind Studio AG and Content Director for the Americas at Soho House, exists at the intersection of many contradictions. Raised with strict rules, she has made a career channelling creativity beyond conventional restraints. She finds herself a prominent figurehead for Latinx representation in the creative industry, but believes that the essence of her work lies behind the scenes, creating success for others from the shadows. Her process has always lain in doing the unexpected; her practice is the discipline of creating space for new potential. The OG's Editorial Director, Meredith Shepard, writes about Gutierrez's immersion in "Pure chaos!" and the farce of authenticity in a post-COVID-19 world.
Notre
Jose Villanueva and MJ Jaworowski are the founders of Notre, a high-end streetwear store located in Chicago's West Loop. While their business is in sneakers and fashion, their vision for Notre extends beyond retail. Notre also houses a community event space and bookstore, with the hopes of creating community in their corner of Chicago. Jack West speaks to Villanueva and Jaworowski about their visions for the future, and why physical retail still matters to them.
Devan
Shimoyama
Devan Shimoyama's art joins fantasy and reality, with otherworldly landscapes and fantastical energies that sharply contrast lived pain of their "Black, queer, male" subjects. From a glittering canvas, tears like gemstones fall; amidst a seemingly abundant garden, an unsmiling figure observes its viewer in the act of observing the art. It is always an interaction between the art and its environment, with deep attention paid to how glitter sparkles under a spotlight, and which paintings disrupt the harmony of an exhibit when placed together. Read Issue 6 of The OG now to read Meredith Shepard's profile of Shimayama, in which the artist talks about their vision for hope in its many complications, navigating artistic representations of trauma, and re-scripting cultural narratives in the process of creating art.
Arghavan
Khosravi
The women of Arghavan Khosravi's portraits inhabit surreal, intricate worlds that the artist spends 10 hours a day creating. Her art is a balancing act of representing women in various states of being restrained, without making them victims, and without exposing them to over violence within the logic of the artwork. It references Persian miniature artworks of the artist's Iranian heritage, but refuses to be confined by scale, conveys a sense of universality by the artist's own design.
Tony
Matelli
Tony Matelli's artworks are deceptively realistic: A peeled banana, a half-withered weed, a man flat on his back. These are all items that have come from his workshop, reproduced with lifelike-accuracy in bronze, and placed in incongruous locations. The banana peel is draped over a marble scuplture, the bronze weed appears in the corner of a sterile museum gallery, and the man is suspended off the floor at a 45 degree angle. "They have this contradiction of being both vulnerable and intrusive—they get their power from being out of place," says Matelli, who orients his work around the process of being as precise as possible, to strip everything away until he arrives at the "salient, essential things" that create a scene.
Brenda
Equihua
After a decade working in high-end fashion houses such as Monique Lhuillier, Tadashi Shoji, and Juan Carlos Obando, Brenda Equihua is now realizing her vision of fashion through own brand. Equihua takes inspiration from elements of Mexican-American culture and history such as San Marcos cobijas and Paniolos, transforming them into timeless pieces that people can keep forever. She is intentional about everything, from the scale of their production to asking herself questions about what her work contributes to the world.
Easy
Otabor
Easy Otabor sees himself as a bridge between the world and his hometown of Chicago. After making T-shirts that celebrated legendary cultural icons, Otabor went on to work at the RSVP Gallery curating luxury streetwear, music, prints, and books, and now has his eye set on bringing art to Chicago's Fulton River District through his very own Anthony Gallery. Named after his father, Otabor's Anthony Gallery seeks to honour the spirit of community and collaboration.
Ed
Marszewski
Fifteen years after being dubbed the unofficial "Mayor of Wicker Park," Ed Marszewski finds himself in possession of the mayoral title again. He is the "unofficial mayor" of Bridgeport, while also serving as the director of the Public Media Institute and running a community radio station, a Korean/Polish fusion restaurant, a brewing company, plus the largest independent gallery in Chicago. It is no wonder that Marszewski is the lynchpin of Chicago's "third space," those semi-public spaces where community, conversation, and independent thought can take place.
Umar
Rashid
Umar Rashid, better known as Frohawk Two Feathers, infuses his artwork with an unbridled ambition. As Tiffany Babb writes, it is "not an ambition to conquer the art world, but to challenge how, people look at their pasts and how they move into the future." His work depicts moments of imperialist and colonial violence in ways that they have never been seen before, complicating the viewer's understanding of conventional narratives about history and civilization.
Tony
Karman
In this interview, The OG's Creative Director Ché Morales sits down with Tony Karman, the President and Director of Expo Chicago to chat about how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the organisation's approach to coordinating their flagship art fair after being put on hold for two years. Karman talks about his conception of Chicago as "a big town, small town. And the big town nature is that it offers everything you'd want... But it’s a small town in ways that people cross back and forth..., and if you do your job right, if you’re open-armed, it's pretty easy to tie those together." Read more about how they have succeeded in bringing galleries from all across the world together in the big town, small town of Chicago, and how they balance the materiality of in-person interaction with the sharp rise of digital mediums.