Oots Ha-hoots! This month three great new art shows have opened in Chicago with a heavy focus on comics art and comics artists! Check out work by a throng of Quimby’s favorites:

At The Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave:
New Chicago Comics
January 8 – 30, 2011

For the month of January, the MCA presents an exhibition of the work of four young, Chicago-based cartoonists and animators: Jeffrey Brown, Lilli Carré, Paul Hornschemeier, and Anders Nilsen. In their own unique styles each of these artists expands and challenges the conventions of a visual art form for which Chicago continues to be renowned: the comic book.

Jeffrey Brown’s autobiographical works examines modern relationships with discomforting detail and intimacy. His comics are drawn in a deliberately awkward and simple style that heightens both the emotional impact and charming humor of the stories. Each comic is written and drawn in an individual sketchbook, and Brown is showing a selection of these original books as part of the exhibition.

Lilli Carré is an animator and cartoonist who has produced a series of celebrated comics, illustrations, and hand-drawn, animated short films. Her work combines an elegant visual style with elliptical narratives that are imbued with an absurdist, and at times, unsettling humor. Along with a series of original illustrations, the exhibition includes a selection of Carré’s short films.

Paul Hornschemeier’s widely acclaimed comics incorporate complex, self-referential narrative structures that knowingly appropriate various comic book styles. A selection of his original blue graphite and ink drawings are on display.

Using a sparse aesthetic and narrative style, Anders Nilsen creates existentialist fables that revolve around the interactions between animals (birds and dogs) and young men. Nilsen shows a selection of original graphite and ink drawings from his recently completed 600-page comic Big Questions, which is to be published by Drawn and Quarterly in 2011.

At Los Manos Gallery, 5220 N. Clark Street, Chicago:
The StatiCCreep Exhibition of Sequential Art
January 14th to February 6th, 2011

Chicago has a bastion of dark horse artists that enrich the world of comic books through the imprint this city leaves on them. A certain noir factor absorbed through brick and steel-heavy architecture, inky black alleys and a history of subversive characters has worked its way under their skin.

Participating artists: Alex Wald, Andrew Pepoy, Chris Burnham, Corinne Mucha, Doug Klauba, Hilary Barta, Heather McAdams, Jeffrey Brown, Jenny Frison, Jill Thompson, Tony Akins, Nicole Hollander, Mike Norton, Mitch O’Connell, Sarah Becan, Dave Dorman, Nicole Hollander, Tim Seeley, Lucy Knisley, Gary Gianni, Steve Krakow and Bill Reinhold.

At Western Exhibitions, 119 N. Peoria, Suite 2A
Heads on Poles
January 14 to February 19, 2011

The iconic display of a head, severed and mounted on a stick, is ubiquitous as a representation of ominous primordial savagery. Cliché in its references to cannibalistic ritual, human sacrifice or cautionary symbolism, its general structure also contains rich connotations to formal art- a 3-dimensional image-object, laden with material and conceptual possibility.

For the purposes of this project, curators Paul Nudd and Scott Wolniak have adopted the concept of Heads on Poles as an open guideline to direct broad responses from a large group of artists. Over four dozen artists, ranging widely in discipline and style, were invited to produce sculptures loosely based on the formula of Head On Pole, in any material. These totem-objects will be simply placed, as casually clustered bodies, throughout the main gallery space of Western Exhibitions.

Additional artists have been asked to respond to the same theme with graphic works for a concurrent print project.

Through collective effort and the idea that creative freedom can occur within structural uniformity, Nudd and Wolniak hope to achieve a complex and immersive spectacle. Diverse interpretations are anticipated, with possible outcomes such as conceptual objects, portraiture, obscenity, abstraction, political gestures, humor and horror. With no attempt on the part of the curators to control submissions after the initial call for participation, the final group of works will be a surprise for all.

Participating artists: Mike Andrews, Ali Bailey, Jason Robert Bell & Marni Kotak, Nick Black, Daniel Bruttig, Andrew Burkholder, Lilli Carré, Joseph Cassan, Mariano Chavez, Ryan Travis Christian, Vincent Como, Bruce Conkle, Jean-Louis Costes, Vincent Dermody, Mike Diana, Edie Fake, Scott Fife, R.E.H. Gordon, John Hankiewicz, Keith Herzik, Carol Jackson, Bob Jones, Chris Kerr, David Leggett, Mike Lopez, Teena McClelland, Dutes Miller, Miller & Shellabarger, Joe Miller, Andy Moore, Max Morris, Rachel Niffenegger, William J. O’Brien, Onsmith, David Paleo, John Parot, Michael Rea, Tyson Reeder, Dan Rhodehamel, Bruno Richard, John Riepenhoff, Kristen Romaniszak, Steve Ruiz, David Sandlin, Mike Schuh, Mindy Rose Schwartz, David Shrigley, Edith Sloat & Sophie Greenstalk, Edra Soto, Ryan Standfest, William Staples, Ben Stone, Bill Thelen, Jeremy Tinder, Sean Townley, Jim Trainor, Anne Van der Linden, Jason Villegas, Sarah Beth Woods, Aaron Wrinkle

AND! While you’re at Western Exhibitions, check out Terence Hannum’s exhibit of work from his artist’s books in their Gallery 2:

Terence Hannum
Negative Litanies

Terence Hannum’s drawings, paintings and video installations cull the periphery of heavy metal and hardcore music subcultures to analyze the nexus of music, myth, audience and ritual. In addition to the above work, Hannum is a prolific zine maker and for his show in Western Exhibitions’ Gallery 2, Hannum will present a box set of 12 zines, all made in 2010, as well as drawings, paintings and other work that inspired the publications.

Exemplifying the DIY spirit inherent in the scenes he’s documenting, his use of the zine relates to the format’s origin, that of the self-produced fanzine. Hannum recontextualizes elements of his drawings, paintings, installations and even sound work in his zines, at times documenting the above works, but also casting new narratives intrinsic to the multi-page format.

Every month in 2010 Hannum produced a new zine, each one taking a different format, maximizing the possibilities of the cheaply printed page. He achieves remarkable textures, surfaces and images through seemingly simple combinations of toner on white, black and gray papers. Every subsequent zine ups the ambition from the prior one, as Hannum experiments with color xeroxes, collaborations (with New York artist Scott Treleaven and Chicagoan Elijah Burgher), vellum, sealed wax covers, obi bands and mini-CDs. Hannum pushes the zine to its extremes, much like the extreme sonic scenes he’s documenting and influenced by.