Since opening in 2004, Corbett vs. Dempsey has presented a range of international artists as well as artists connected with the historical and contemporary legacy of Chicago. The gallery’s mission has included extensive exploration of widely known artists, including Ellen Berkenblit, Brian Calvin, Arturo Herrera, Charline von Heyl, Dick Higgins, Rebecca Morris, Albert Oehlen, Joyce Pensato, Arlene Shechet, and Christopher Wool, supporting emerging and mid-career figures including Christina Forrer, Gabrielle Garland, Magalie Guérin, David Hartt, Celeste Rapone, Rebecca Shore, Lui Shtini, Cauleen Smith, John Sparagana, Omar Velázquez, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, and championing artists of critical significance to post-war Chicago including Margot Bergman, Dominick Di Meo, Edward Flood, Philip Hanson, Thomas H. Kapsalis, Robert Lostutter, Christina Ramberg, Diane Simpson, Karl Wirsum, and Jimmy Wright.
Creative music has always been a feature of the gallery’s activities; in addition to having its own record label, CvsD is proud to represent Peter Brötzmann and the estate of Sun Ra.
Member Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA).
Image: Installation view of Christopher Wool, February 8–March 30, 2019. Photo: Robert Chase Heishman.
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Corbett vs. Dempsey presents Aaron Curry, Raw Dog, an exhibition of new sculptures, paintings, and collages. This is the gallery's first exhibition with Curry, and the artist's first solo show in Chicago.
Aaron Curry (b. 1972) has charted a unique space for his work between the most sub-underground mania of the American pulp grotesque (think comix culture and the surreal side of sleazy commercialism) and the most refined formal elements of European high modernism (think Arp, Miro, Picasso). Based primarily in floor sculpture, his practice moves wildly between mediums, attaching to the walls (paintings, 3-D hanging boxes, collages), spreading into print (books, magazines, newsprint), as well as music and video.
An avid historian of offbeat cultural materials, he synthesizes these points of reference in works that are often awash in dizzyingly clashing colors, hyperactive Matta-esque motion, and an ingenuity of construction that is as beautiful as it can be baffling. In Raw Dog, Curry introduces a new component to his wood sculptures, which is to leave them largely unpainted, allowing the natural grain of the material, its whorls and knots and eyes, to carry that sense of flow. Occasional flashes of hot pink, turquoise, and grape purple complement the tanscapes on several boxes and flatworks, while two human-scale sculptures are resolutely wooden, with cut away holes and curvilinear forms dancing with the wood's own patterns, the whole work suggesting a figure, cock's comb perched atop. One large painting compresses all the color that might have been in the other works into a single, atomically-charged abstract canvas.
Although this is Curry's first show in Chicago, he is no stranger to the city. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before heading to the Art Center in Pasadena for grad school. The Chicago Imagists have remained an important touchstone for Curry in his work, in particular Karl Wirsum. Curry is exhibited widely internationally, with recent shows at Michael Werner Gallery (NYC), David Kordansky (Los Angeles), The Ranch (East Hampton, NY), McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX), STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery (Singapore), the Bass Museum of Art (Miami), and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA).
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