SMILE an installation by Aay Preston-Myint Friday, January 4, 7-11pm
Show runs from January 4th through January 20th
SMILE is a participatory installation in which viewers can use props, backdrops and costumes to stage photos predicting the mutating beings and environments that will soon populate our future wastelands.
DRESS TO THRILL - THE END IS NIGH
http://illcutyou.com/aay
Heaven Gallery 1550 N. Milwaukee 2nd Floor Chicago, IL
http://heavengallery.com Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1-5pm or by appointment.
Critic's Choice Smile
The art world has forbidden touching for so long that the idea of interactivity, however tainted by the icky proselytizers of techno-topia, can seem like a door opening from a cold, stifling box onto a golden playground. Aay Preston-Myint has merged his work in fiber and printmaking to create the installation Smile, a gleeful array of ornate masks and interchangeable backdrops that lets visitors enter elaborate fantasy vignettes. You can try on a crocheted green beard with teeth made of miniature arms harvested from soccer trophies, an “inside-out face” made of yarn and shellac, or a giant knitted headpiece reminiscent of McDonaldland’s psychedelic purple Grimace. The silk-screened fabric backdrops include one with missiles shooting through the night, another featuring eyes and hairy nipples, and one showing condos built on cute but suspicious brown clouds. Preston-Myint’s installation is a fully realized, approachable example of young Chicago artists’ fusion of fashion, craft, and participatory performance. Photographer Jennifer Brandel documented last Friday’s opening; the closing event will include a slide show of those images and a mask-making workshop. If you drop by before then, bring a friend and a camera. Through 1/19, Sat 1-5 PM and by appointment, closing event 6-10 PM, Heaven Gallery, 1550 N. Milwaukee, second floor, 312-208-9228. —Bert Stabler
