Rarely Seen Contemporary Works on Paper

Romare Bearden, The Return of Odysseus, collage

As an artist who is most comfortable working on paper, I always enjoy looking at prints and drawings by the biggies. Often it provides a window, not merely into process, but into the playful mind of the artist, in a way that the importance and stolidity of a canvas cannot always evince. So I took myself to the Art Institute of Chicago to see Rarely Seen Contemporary Works on Paper.

In particular I noted the work of Susan Hettmansperger, Kara Walker, a stunning Romare Bearden collage, "The Return of Odysseus," and Caroll Dunham. There is a work by George Atkinson, "Illinois Skyscape No. 22," that defies categorization as it is pastel rendered so finely that it looks like photo-realism. I took in the paper works of Julia Fish and Martin Kippenberger's hotel stationery series. Nice to note that Chicago and Illinois artists in addition to the "Hairy Who" were put on exhibit.

The Bearden work is one of a "suite of twenty watercolors, originally conceived as collages, Bearden reinterprets scenes from Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. With great attention to composition, color, and clarity, Bearden skillfully renders the fantastical and sometimes frightening characters and obstacles that the hero, Odysseus, must overcome to find his way home to Ithaca after the Fall of Troy. The idea of journeying, whether by land or sea, by railroad or ship, is one that translates across cultures and across time. Bearden’s portrayal ofThe Odyssey through a cast entirely composed of black figures illustrates the historical continuity between the ancient struggle of finding one’s home and contemporary African American life."

"In choosing to portray a character such as Odysseus, the quintessential traveler in perpetual search for home, Bearden invokes multiple associations with his own personal history and the Great Migration of African Americans within this country, as well as the colonial history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that displaced millions and Africans between the sixteenth- and nineteenth-centuries." Quote Source.

Romare Bearden, The Return of Odysseus, Art Institute of Chicago