Corbett vs. Dempsey

Art Green and Suellen Rocca

By Justin Polera. Time Out Chicago / Issue 109 : Mar 29-Apr 4, 2007

The legendary Hairy Who had its first group show in 1966 at the Hyde Park Art Center. This group of Imagists mistrusted the artistic values flourishing in New York and California and disdained conformity. "Imagist Classic Hits Volume 1: Art Green and Suellen Rocca" is the first in a series that intends to trace a movement unique to Chicago.

Green and Rocca were original members, along with Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson, Karl Wirsum and Jim Falconer. Green's substantial Immediate Abstention and Rocca's Catalogue Painting stand out in the show for funky, free-running, gross humor that is classic Imagist. And although Imagists put the focus on the image in their paintings, they also developed a distinctive working method through connections with outsider art, which tended to be raw, rough, unrefined and unafraid of color.

"The most interesting thing about the show," says gallery co-owner John Corbett, "is the differences between them. Rocca's work is bodily oriented and very corporeal while Green's is dealing with space, composition and images from advertising and nostalgia." Catalogue Painting exposes Rocca's serial organization, advertising motifs and personal images (diamond rings, palm trees, women's handbags), all tied together with incredible economy and wit. Immediate Abstention draws from similar sources to construct a tender and strange world that recalls Magritte and Pop Art with a photorealist flame. The story doesn't end there, but you'll have to wait another year for "Imagist Classic Hits Volume 2: The False Image."