As host of Bingo/Tango night at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Jason Pickleman didn’t call out numbers—instead, he used shapes drawn from artworks in the museum’s collection. Between rounds, guests vacated their seats to learn the tango from professional instructors. Unusual, exhilarating, smart on multiple levels, and a bit zany—the beloved event speaks volumes about Pickleman, a creative force of nature whose impact on his chosen city is hard to overstate.
Recently described as a “dancefloor mainstay of Chicago,” Pickleman’s hats have been many: artist, designer, collector, gallerist. Amassing art since he was a teenager, Pickleman studied English literature at Boston University; there he met Leslie Bodenstein, who would become his partner in life and at JNL Graphic Design, the studio the pair founded in 1992. Working from a decommissioned post office in Chicago's River North area, Pickleman and Bodenstein merged their art and design sensibilities with tremendous success. “To live in Chicago is to encounter Jason Pickleman’s work,” according to the Chicago Tribune, and local clients have included Millennium Park, Avec, Blackbird, Time Out Chicago, Chicago Transit Authority, Poetry Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, EXPO Chicago, and the Field Museum. Beyond the Windy City limits, JNL has worked with clients including the Prada Foundation and Skinny Pop Popcorn, for whom they designed Warhol-inspired packaging.
The space between commercial and contemporary art has been of the utmost importance to Pickleman, who has defined himself by his ability to move effortlessly through these worlds as both an artist and collector. As an artist, Pickleman’s works reflect his passions for text and graphic design, frequently invoking the history of these disciplines while managing to evade dryness or didacticism—in other words, giving them life. As Michelle Grabner, professor at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has put it, “Jason thinks about everything from the formal qualities and what the formal qualities of a painting can convey, from color to design to composition—but then [gets] to kind of the deep, full heart behind it.”
“I started making art with serious intent in the mid-80s,” Pickleman reflects on his own practice. “By 1987 I was well into making text-based paintings, collages, and Polaroid photographs. Chicago at the time was a hot-bed of contemporary art. Galleries like Feature that showed early support to artists such as Charles Ray, and Jeff Koons [were] also exhibiting a strong cadre of Chicago-based conceptual artists like Tony Tasset and Jeanne Dunning. My early art making inspiration was influenced by their example.” Pickleman was among the creators featured in the 2007 exhibition Young Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago, where his art now resides in the institution's permanent collection, and his works have been shown at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Chicago Design Museum, Ken Saunders Gallery, and the Neon and Light Museum, among others.
In 2015, Pickleman opened his collection gallery Lawrence & Clark, a living testament to his unorthodox and open-hearted ethos, named for the Chicago intersection where it stood. Here, Pickleman curated and installed works from his own collection, throwing open the doors to the public to be seen again (and again) by anybody who wanted to drop in. “I know collectors whose answer to an over-growing collection is to buy another property to display their art, or to put things in storage,” says Pickleman. “My response has always been to hang everything salon-style. I’d rather see things jammed together than to see nothing at all.” As an ardent supporter of rising local talent, Pickleman tirelessly made his own circuit between galleries, thesis exhibitions, and less formalized art spaces. “I’m most interested in ambiguity and pieces that seem strange or awkward,” Pickleman says, “living with them fuels my creativity.”
“Much of the work in EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT would have been on exhibit at Lawrence & Clark,” Pickleman says. From early works by rising Chicago artists to icons of design to unexpected oddities, each component of this auction represents Pickleman’s boundless curiosity and his passion not only for art and design, but for the communities, writ large, that gravitate in their orbit. Indeed, Pickleman has come to exude a gravitational pull of his own, as a force of creativity, generosity, and connection for which so many in Chicago and far beyond are truly grateful.
Wesley Willis 1963–2003
Born in Chicago in 1963, Wesley Willis eventually became a fixture on the local outsider art and underground music scenes. Although he only had a small, cult following at first, Willlis' work has become more widely appreciated as of late. In particular, demand for his ballpoint drawings of Chicago has increased dramatically.
Willis' early years were quite unsettled. His parents fought often and separated, which led to Willis and his siblings living in various foster homes. During his twenties, Willis was robbed and threatened by his mother's boyfriend and subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia. Although Willis began to hear voices and experience other maladies and tics, he also had a savant-like memory, which would ultimately benefit his art and music practices.
A creature of habit, Willis took up drawing seriously after repeated visits to the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), just a few blocks from where he lived in the Robert Taylor Homes, a public housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Each weekday morning at 8:30 a.m., Willis met art historian Rolf Achilles, or George Danforth, IIT's former Dean of Architecture. They would get Willis a coffee and set him up in an office where he could draw or, later, play a Yamaha keyboard that they bought to keep him engaged.
Willis’ work is immediately recognizable. His signature ballpoint drawings have an active and quick architectural rendering style. He employed various perspective devices, distorting his subjects and breaking drawing “rules” whenever and however he wanted. He created consistently compelling, dense urban visuals that appear less busy upon closer inspection, with breadths of clouds regularly dominating low horizon lines. Usually working on Crescent board, Willis would take a section of the city of Chicago and render a large swath of his viewing angle. Some of his favorite vantage points were overlooking the Dan Ryan Expressway facing downtown and the 'L' train, Comiskey Park, The Loop, Grant Park's Buckingham Fountain, and the Lakeshore.
Far from being tangential to his drawing practice, Wesley’s music complemented and interacted with his visual art in many cases. Willis tends to incorporate language from advertising in a faithful yet playful manner. Buses almost always have realistic signage on their sides. Restaurants like McDonald's have their logos replicated carefully. His song lyrics borrow from McDonald's and American Express, whose tagline, "Don't leave home without it," ended many of his songs. Titles of his songs include "Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's," Scooby Dooby," and "I Whipped Batman's Ass."
In his lifetime, Willis never received wide acclaim for his work. He mostly sold his drawings for $20 or less on the streets of Chicago until he was later exhibited in small shows. His music career started in similar obscurity, but he went on to play at renowned venues like CBGB in New York City. As a solo artist, Willis sang jauntily over preset keyboard tracks, but he also toured with a punk group, The Wesley Willis Fiasco.
Willis passed away in 2003 at age forty from leukemia complications. Over the last two decades, his art and music have been reevaluated by critics and collectors alike. Today Willis' work is posthumously celebrated for its directness, humor, and sincerity. His drawings capture the essence of late-twentieth century Chicago and his music resounds with references to the absurdity of American consumer culture.
Auction Results Wesley Willis
