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 is excited to present Nick Drnaso, Ghost Works. This is Drnaso’s first gallery exhibition.
Based in Chicago, Nick Drnaso is best known as a graphic novelist. He has just finished work on his fourth book, which, like the other three, will be published on the illustrious Drawn and Quarterly press. Drnaso’s second book, Sabrina (2018), is the only graphic novel to have been nominated for a Man Booker Prize; his first offering was awarded the Los Angeles Times prize for Best Graphic Novel. Parallel to and intersecting with his graphic novel work, Drnaso maintains an active painting practice. Using back-painting on glass and plexiglass, a technique he has in common with several Chicago Imagist artists, Drnaso has created a series of portraits, highly graphic and also deeply enigmatic, often in a shadow-box format. His most recent series, which will be shown complete in this exhibition, features figureless environments, haunted suburban and urban landscapes with ghostly skies, sometimes surrounded by glyph-like borders. Like his novels, Drnaso’s paintings beg more questions than they answer, their characters and situations as mysterious as they are beautifully and meticulously rendered.