Western Exhibitions

This is a great friendly non-​stuffy gallery. Gallery owner Scott Speh is friendly and communicative. We have purchased several pieces there. The new gallery on Washington (they were around the corner before) is a nice open space. Scott is very knowledgeable about the artists he shows.

This is the finest ‘young’ gallery in Chicago. My wife and I have bought several pieces from Scott Speh, the owner of Western. All of the work is affordable and very reasonably priced, and none of it is pretentious but rather self-​aware and humble. If you are thinking of purchasing contemporary Chicago art, this is the place to start.

About the only nice thing I can say about Western Exhibitions is that their artists’ exhibitions are consistently bewildering. We’ve all seen these things before: a show of non-​objective semi-​abstract paintings, the artist who doodles on cardboard with a ballpoint pen, cutesy cartoon books of barely-​above-​college-​newspaper quality in wit or substance, the artist who photographs their friends puking and having sex. It’s all so cool, so hip… so emo meets myspace… so full of arrogance without intelligence. I get the feeling most of the artists continued doing whatever got them through their final art school studio assignment. What’s worse is the gallery expects mortgage payment equivalents (and multiples) for the right to own this self-​indulgent crap, yet the payoff is supposedly an exercise in being part of the con and temporary of art.
There are brilliant glints at the end of this tunnel of muck: Dan Attoe (on a good day) and Amanda Ross-​Ho. There are others, but I’m not sure if the artists are good or just having flashes of great luck. I want to believe Western Exhibitions is serious about representing emerging artists in a positive way. But so many times I leave unmoved and pissed I wasted a Saturday afternoon getting there and back.