From the best Chicago paper (unfortunately, not much online), via Jazim.com
Chicago Journal: Wall Flowering:
Jeff Zimmerman's streetwise, painterly murals catch the fancy of the Museum of Contemporary Art
On a forgotten corner of Damen and Lake, what was once a plain brick wall is now “Top of the World,”a beautiful and unsettling painting by a West Side artist named Jeff Zimmerman. Set against its shimmering, blue-green backdrop are the glittery discards of modernity. Crushed tin cans. The silver lining of Fritos bags. A grizzly old man's face, gazing blankly past the asphalt and scrub grass.
With each viewing, the mural's effect is slightly different, depending on time and tide, traffic and cloud cover. More “urban tumbleweeds” turn up on subsequent visits--sentence fragments, pop-bottle shards--even though they've been there all along. “I don't know much about painting murals,” says Zimmerman, whose handiwork stretches across at least six buildings around the city. “I just do it.” The former Pilsen art teacher does it well enough, in fact, to have landed a show at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Through the month of August, Zimmerman's mural “Dark Matter,” created especially for the MCA exhibit, has the run of a front gallery, filling all three walls with a disconcerting tableau of downtown scenes. The image of a Chicago cop dominates the center wall, his faint grin impenetrable, his eyes hidden behind massive mirrored sunglasses. There's a Streetwise vendor looking like he might be having an out-of-body experience, and images of secret hand motions that could be gang signs, or stockbroker code language sent across the trade floor.
Rather than an easy message, the work projects an overall sense that deals are being made, people are being affected and transformed.
Read more here
My original stumbling was here, which refers to here
parenthetical note: here's another reason to blog - I found out a lot of interesting info about a mural and an artist by virtue of posting a brief note about my photo.
--
update, FueledBycoffee saw the subject recently on a CTA bus. Read his tale here
Technorati Tags: Arts, B12 recommended, Chicago, Personal, Photos
