Packer Schopf Gallery

I’m really lucky, because one of my closest friends, Victoria Fuller, is an artist — a sculptor and painter. Not just your average every day artist, but I mean a real one.
Since I’m kind of on a staycation this week, we took our boys into the city for an art gallery experience… a private tour of *Auntie* Vicki’s art show and tour of the rest of the exhibits. Aside from the fact that her show is incredible, especially seeing all the little tidbits of art she’s been working on around her studio all come together in entirety, the gallery is small and really nice inside.
You wouldn’t know from the outside what to expect. It looks like any older building in the area, but walk in and you are greeted by a completely renovated space that feels like a designer showroom from the Mart. Well lit, with artwork nicely displayed. The sculpture exhibits are upstairs, and downstairs there is a unique basement space, with lots of head room and art on paper. Today we saw engraved laptops by Michael Dinges in his exploration of objects that go on living after they are dead, and a custom canoe made from siding. Vicki’s exhibit explores nature and our environment around us, and Geoffry Smalley’s works on paper jabs at the world of American sports. There were also scanned collage pieces by Karen Savage exploring the various emotions and angles of depression and anxiety.
I met the owner of the gallery, Aron Packer, who is super nice and welcoming (and a banjo player). It was nice to be in a space that didn’t feel stuffy and unwelcoming to my two inquisitive eight-​year old boys.
Parking is a bit of a challenge around there, but so worth the stop. The train on Lake makes a stop right outside the gallery if you are local. Also, lots of great restaurants in the area, like Little Goat and Grange Hall Burger Bar (our stop) for a true urban experience.

There is a lot of good buzz surrounding this gallery, and the people who exhibit there, as well as the people who run it so we (my gal and I) decided to take a run over there for an opening last night.
We were not dissapointed. First, –the gallery is beautiful, spacious, great lighting, warm and inviting. There was a great turnout and they had 3 exhibitions going on at once. This is a multi-​level space, so there were two exhibits upstairs and one below.
Upstairs, the exhibition consisted of works by Louise LeBourgeois and Steven Carrelli. Carelli is more of an abstract sketch artist, while LeBourgeois paints subliinal landscapes that are glossed over so they look like photographs (but they are paintings). Very cool.
Downstairs was Bebe Krimmer who I had seen before. The gallery had some of their own pieces down there as well and they were quite impressive. The Gallery owner, Aron Packer explained to a group that the lower level used to be the street level decades ago, and the current street level was built over that, so there are impressive beams and supports throughout the lower level which must be seen.
Sign up on their facebook to get opening and exhibit announcements.
If you’re coming to Chicago and want to see a well run Art Gallery, this is a destination choice.

I was visiting Chicago galleries, and enjoyed the recent print show here, as well as a couple of the other exhibits. The space is part of a group of exhibitions for an upcoming printmaking conference. Very nice viewing space and interesting artists, with a variety of different backgrounds. I was there during the day on a weekday, so it was very quiet and a good chance to look at the art w/​out feeling rushed. I’d return again in the future.

I am not smart enough to write down why I like this gallery so much. But the art I saw there today blew me away.

It is painful to see a space such as this fall so far short of its potential. Packer Schopf Gallery is a two floor (the lower level is actually the original street level – complete with city manhole covers) space in the West Loop concentrating on nothing in particular.
The lot of represented artists is mainly nondescript, though a few create work that I think is at least initially fascinating. Donald Cameron’s imagery offers a macabre form of optical abstraction, while never straying far from a very realistic sense of fear and pain. Karen Savage uses photograms to make x-​ray-​like images that aim (very obscurely) to link the delicacy of the fabric of garb worn during church rituals and the delicacy of image itself, one might think, to the aura of their Christian context. David Roth’s wall mounted reliefs playfully hint at Jean Arp Dada, but quickly fall into an uneventful repetitiveness.

I had a summer internship with Aron Packer back when his gallery was on Peoria and really loved working with him. I hadn’t been to his new space (having merged with Schopf on Lake) until tonight. It was the same great owner and artwork, but in a bigger, even more beautiful space. Aron is a really friendly, fun guy who is very knowledgeable about the work he carries. Some of my favorite pieces are photos by Toni Hafkensheid and the really fun «Shark Girl» work by Casey Riordan Millard. Packer Schopf is a great place too look at some contemporary artwork and have a glass of wine (in tonight’s case, served in Spongebob Dixie cups).