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Ed Paschke Memorial Exhibition

February 4 - March 15, 2005

Maya Polsky Gallery
215 W. Superior St.
Chicago IL 60610
Tel.: 312-440-0055
Hours: Tue-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 11am-5pm
http://www.mayapolskygallery.com/

Maya Polsky Gallery's Ed Paschke Memorial Exhibition presents the first, and currently, largest of the memorials of long-time Chicago artist Ed Paschke, who passed away in November 2004 at the age of 65. The exhibition includes thirty works spanning four decades of Paschke's art, from 1969 to 2004; some are from the late 60s and 70s, but the exhibition's primary focus is on work from more recent years, when Paschke's fascination with the face, often as mask, in monumental size and dazzling with neon coloration, had become one of his main themes of exploration.

In these works, both early and late, Paschke's art was a reflection of the blatant commercial environment: the idealized vulgarity of the store-bought, the ubiquitousness of the television screen and the blur of video imagery. Primary among themes in these works are the billboard sized, iconic faces of popular idolatry that are yet images of Buddhist calm or Pharaonic secretiveness, and at the same time evoke the distant reserve of urban cool. They are inlaid with an array of pop patterns and often 'American' symbols including stars, police hats, or, as in American Sueno (oil on linen: 60x78 in.: 2003), a stylized Indian-chief headdress... with its sizzling orange and hot yellow, a color-saturated discotheque of American Dreaming. The Chicago Reader notation for this exhibition bills it as including "unfinished work from the studio" but only one 'unfinished' piece is clearly noted in this showing. This work does, however, provide an important view into Paschke's working method: the image is fully laid out tonally in black and white, awaiting the brightly saturated colors that will give it detail and graphic punch.

Ed Paschke's art transformed images of the commercial world, raising them to the level of iconic symbol. This is an exhibition more intimate than a true retrospective, but does include earlier works, many lent by the Paschke family and by private collections. The exhibition also includes four paintings by the artist's wife, Nancy Paschke, who passed away within two months of her husband. Ed Paschke Memorial Exhibition, first of many memorials to the internationally known and much-missed Chicago artist, will have thirty works on exhibition at Maya Polsky Gallery through March 15, 2005.

--Katherine Rook Lieber

Katherine Rook Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net.