shannon rae stratton

Bellwether: Josh Mannis, Jenny Walters, Joseph Kohnke, Bill O'Brien, Lisa Boumstein-Smalley, Chelsea Tonelli Knight, Duncan McKenzie, Daniel Anhorn, David Coyle, Ann Toebbe, Caleb Jones Lyons and Heather Mekkelson

Heather Mekkelson

On View: July 5-27, 2008

Vox Populi is pleased to welcome the group exhibition, Bellwether, curated by Shannon Stratton. Bellwether represents one half of Vox's yearly gallery exchange with an alternative art space. In May and June 2008, Merge or Fade, an exhibition curated from the membership of Vox, was on view at Threewalls. A bellwether is a herald or harbinger. Threewalls brings a group of artists, all based in r formally based in Chicago, whose work imparts a kind of warning or prediction. Riding the line of disaster prophesy, the work suggests both decline culturally and environmentally, as well as simultaneously deconstructing the meaning of art or the avant-garde as a pilaster of faith in the abstract. Positioning a group of artists whose work creates disruption within the accepted narrative of modern art alongside work that proposes a menacing  or hesitant narrative, Bellwether is both a document of current doubt and anxiety in the face of cultural disrepair, as well as a provocation from a group of artists working from outside the traditional poles of the avant-garde.

Featuring work by Josh Mannis (Los Angeles), Jenny Walters (Los Angeles), Joseph Kohnke (Los Angeles), Bill O'Brien (Chicago), Lisa Boumstein-Smalley (Chicago), Chelsea Tonelli Knight (Chicago), Duncan McKenzie (Chicago) with Christian Kuras (London), Daniel Anhorn (Chicago), David Coyle (New York), Ann Toebbe (Chicago), Caleb Jones Lyons (Chicago) and Heather Mekkelson (Chicago).

Images of the exhibition at Vox Populi can be seen here.