One of the motivating factors behind the creation of my experimental art gallery has been the desire to help out some folks I met this spring, in the vast Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to meeting a cool collective of artists known as M2, I also made a connection with Kibera resident Osir Caleb, father of 3 children and caretaker to his deceased sister’s 3 tots as well. He and his lovely wife Rosemary are trying to do a lot with very little. [You can say hello to their family via this photo album on Flickr.]

Osir was seeking to create an after-school program for his kids and others in Kibera, where currently there is none. In talking with the M2 artists, I became aware that there are no arts programs for the kids, either. (In fact, the Kenyan government has actively excised arts programs from the public curriculum. Sucks, huh?) Anyone who likes to read would have been as chagrined as I to hear Osir and others say how scarce books were in Kibera. So I got the idea in my head that when I came back to the States, I would attempt to raise money to help out some of these folks.

I am happy to report that the first show in my gallery, “Hope In a Hard Place,” raised more than $1,000 to go toward these programs. The funds already have gone toward the steep registration fees for the kids club, to be called Nicofeli Kids Club, after Osir’s daughters, Nicole and Felicia. Funds will also go toward acquisition of books and shipping costs for the creation of a church library, and supplies and instructional expertise (to be provided by M2) for a kids arts program. Yeah!

If you’d like to help out, Read more

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Too hot (or cold) to leave the house? Can’t afford a plane ticket to the Middle East (or Chicago)? Want to peruse a variety of cool contemporary art? Head over to my collection of photo sets at Flickr.com, where you’ll see some favorite work observed recently at museums and galleries in Cairo and Dubai, art fairs in Tampa and Chicago, and schools including Oxbow, Nettelhorst and Ringling. Enjoy, and let me know if you have similar online galleries I may wish to link to.

Good work observed: Selection from “DIRTY: Work by Paul Nudd and Casey Wasniewski” at Hyde Park Art Center. For more info on this good work, go here.

Sometimes, a gallery has something artistic to say when it’s empty, too.

For more images from this set, visit my Flickr album from Oxbow.

Wanted to share this very well done interview about my current show, by Amy Mikel for Chicagoist.com. It gives a good overview of the show, and my efforts to use art to help raise funds for children’s programs and a library in the slums of Kenya.

[Back in Chicago, finally!] So, bummer that I had to miss Art Chicago at end of April this year – was called out of town for work. Last year at the inaugural event, took in just about all I could, and absorbed a tremendous amount in such a short time. The main exhibit hall, the Intuit show, the private home tours – all excellent, just made Chicago shine. Was really looking forward to seeing how they could top it.

On the up side, however, I made the most of my time overseas, and put together my own cavalcade of contemporary art, overwhelming in its own way:

• Visited an incredible exhibit in Dubai called “Word Into Art,” sponsored by the British Museum, showcasing the beauty of Arabic lettering in every possible medium. Just stunning.
• From there made my way to Kenya for an extended stay with my day job. A life-changing series of visits to the colorful, exotic, sad and hopeful Kibera slum resulted in photography and art that will be shared at my first gallery show in Chicago in June.
• Later visited a very cool artists cooperative called the Godown, off a Nairobi side street (closeup of a work in progress is above) which also featured a stunning photo exhibit about the crisis in Kenya earlier this year.
• Next, a side trip to Egypt took me to Cairo’s Townhouse Gallery, where, despite being shuttered for most of my time on site, ended up being an artistic journey of a different sort.
• Finally, a quick visit to Lagos, Nigeria with a new client showed me artistic surprises of a different sort.

You can read about all these adventures in longer blog posts below, and/or linkable via archives at the right.Yes, would have been nice to do Art Chicago this year, but I think I had a pretty good substitute with my do-it-yourself ad hoc international tour. Along with observations from the Chicago scene (including the very cool Upset Show which just closed today at Co-Prosperity Sphere), these are the kinds of things I’ll be writing about and sharing on this blog, and showcasing as time/money/energy permits in my new within(Reason) space in Pilsen.

I hope you continue to stop by the blog (go ahead and comment!) as well as the space in Pilsen! Peace …

[Lagos, Nigeria] My final stop of the whirlwind two months in Africa. I was not at all expecting to find much art that piqued my interest, partly due to a very packed timetable with my client, but was pleasantly surprised.

One of the team of locals I was working with treated us to an interesting, shall we say, tour of the downtown area, with a final stop at the office where he publishes a literary magazine. Gorgeous prints and paintings of Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor lined the walls and were stacked on the floors. You can view more of Victor’s work at sozaboy.com.

But as intriguing was a nighttime visit to a local boutique hotel, very bohemian (had a great chat over beers with a Nollywood film producer – yes, that’s their version of Hollywood and Bollywood, and it’s a HUGE industry – who knew?), but also enjoyed looking at dozens of intriguing art works on the walls (such as the cool piece at the top of this post which I call “newsprint hotpants gal”) and chatted with the curator of a gallery store on site.

Again, this was a visit to pique my interest, and I look forward to blocking some days on my next visit just to explore the art scene and meet the talent that mostly seems to be lurking in the shadows. (I don’t think I’m being unfair in saying that if you’ve ever visited Lagos, you know that any discovery of art and creativity is a welcome sight.) At a cocktail party I met a local beauty who told me her friend, an Indian woman, had recently organized the first major auction of contemporary art in Lagos – gotta meet her on the next trip.

Until I can report back on a future visit, you might want to swing over to my travel blog for this random detour and read about the night I met the Oprah of West Africa.

[Cairo] While in Africa on business with my day job, I decided I need a break, so off to Egypt I went, for some sightseeing and photography and general cultural snooping around. On the agenda: The Townhouse Gallery, a hotbed of contemporary art highly recommended by my insightful friend Alex Aubrey, aka Chicago’s very own The Polyglot.

Alas, the place was deserted when my driver eventually found the place, but the front door was open, so I poked around, only had my pocket camera but sometimes cheap works out just fine. Here you can see my Flickr album of the deserted staircase and halls of this funky, arty place – art in and of itself, albeit seen through the unforgiving light of dusk. Eventually at 6 p.m., the doors opened to one small exhibit by an Egyptian artist, which I hope to showcase here later when I have time to dig through my files and get more specific.

Meanwhile, here’s the link to the Townehouse Gallery if you want to explore – cool space that I’ll be keeping an eye on, online.

[Nairobi] Here in Kenya for an extended visit with my day job. Not a likely place, perhaps, to dive into contemporary art, but surprisingly, found some awesome stuff in a small informal collective of self-taught artists in Nairobi’s notorious Kibera slum. I was lucky enough to make friends with a Reuters photographer who took me on an intense, up-close-and-personal-and-inside tour of the place. Within 15 minutes, I felt like I was in Bartertown (from “Mad Max”) – but a colorful, awesome version. Yes, hardship exists, but glorious street graffiti lit the place up, and even the rubble from January’s violence had been festooned with pro-peace messages. I about fainted when quickly thereafter, I met the Banksy of the slums, who led a collective of artists working out of a 2-story shack.

I’ll be showing/selling a sampling of the work (think outsider/folk/self-taught/street) at my June 13 gallery opening in Chicago, “Hope in a Hard Place. Any proceeds from the show will go back to art programs for the kids in Kibera, which I’m really excited about. The kids here have nothing; to escape the place is to face impossible odds. I made several trips into Kibera and am so excited about showing my photos, along with the work of its artists, at my first show.

A few weeks later, I stumbled upon a fantastic photo exhibit at the Godown Arts Centre called “Kenya Burning.” While my show in June will highlight some of the hidden beauty of the country and its people, this exhibit deftly gathered many of the powerful news images captured during the sad and horrific post-election violence of January of this year, all in one powerful fell swoop that I had not anticipated. I had seen a few random photos here and there, online, and also reviewed some of the images published by my client, The Standard. But here, the work of Standard photographers and others was gathered in an extremely powerful narrative, showing the barbarism, the suffering, the hope of recovery. Huge bonus that I got to see it on the last day. In particular, the work of Standard photographer Boniface Mwangi and Yasuyoshi Chiba stood out as especially powerful. (Read a short story from last week’s Economist about the exhibit and its impact.)

Also at the Godown, chatted with and viewed the art of about a dozen local artists (painters and sculptors) who are working in a buzz-worthy collective that I’m eager to return to later in the year, possibly to bring back and share with Chicago. Watch this blog and the mother site later in the year, I hope, for more exciting stuff from Kenya.

Observed at: “Word Into Art,” excellent restaging of exhibit sponsored by British Museum that I happened across in Dubai, March 2008. While gorgeous art was on display, I also felt signage like this was exemplary as well.

For other selections from this exhibit, visit this link.