Martin Puryear, Old Mole, 1985, red cedar. Neil Goodman, Triptych,1991, bronze. Diane Simpson, Ribbed Kimono, 1980. Diane Simpson, Ribbed Kimono (back view). Steven Heyman, Sibilism, 1995. Edgar Degas, At the Ambassadeurs, c. 1880. Helen Frankenthaler, Message from Degas, etching, 1972-74. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Charles Francois Mallet, Civil Engineer. Eugene Delacroix, Mounted Turkish Cavalry Officer, c. 1834. Tom Czarnopys, Burning Figure, 1985. Pala Townsend, Immersion, 1996, oil on canvas. Marcos Raya, Night Nurse, 1985-1996. Marcos Raya, Danzon, 1995.

chicago report by Victor M. Cassidy "Art in Chicago 1945-1995" runs at the Museum of Contemporary Art until Mar. 23, 1997. Special projects coordinator Lynne Warren took five years to assemble this first-ever survey of art in Chicago since World War II--200-plus works by more than 150 artists. She has done a thorough, conscientious job of it. "Art in Chicago" combines painting, sculpture, printmaking and photography in a broad, chronologically arranged presentation of everything important that has happened here for the past half century--the Bauhaus influence immediately after the War; the Monster Roster (Leon Golub, Seymour Rosofsky, and other painters who used distorted imagery); the Imagists; the alternative spaces; and today's pluralistic scene. Bizarre curatorial decisions and a suffocating installation weaken "Art in Chicago," however. The show includes a "1968 Room," an enclosed area with memorabilia of the war in Vietnam and protest activities in Chicago that are said to have involved artists. We get videos of Lyndon Johnson making speeches (why? He certainly wasn't an artist!) and US soldiers discharging automatic rifles (they're not artists either!). The "1968 Room" also contains a pointless assemblage by Chicago artist Don Baum and a limp miscellany of political artworks. Even dumber than this is "Black Light-Planet Picasso," a recreation of an inconsequential one-night black light show held 15 years ago in a loft. ACUTELY OVERCROWDED "Art in Chicago" is acutely overcrowded, particularly in its final two sections. This writer counted five floor-mounted sculptures in one area. Martin Puryear's Old Mole is jammed together with his Greed's Trophy and works by other artists. Often it is impossible to view a piece without seeing others behind it. On the bright side, it was rewarding to revisit the work of three very capable Chicago artists. Neil Goodman is a strong, serious sculptor whose arrangements-in-space of semi-abstract forms (Triptych) suggest a Cubist influence. One of the city's most gifted sculptors is Diane Simpson. She begins with the forms of women's clothing (Ribbed Kimono) and makes them into fantastic architecture. Steven Heyman has looked long and carefully at the color-field painters. His Siblism consists of 18 smallish canvases united by a wandering line that glows against a rich blue background. The line is actually raw canvas which has been repeatedly varnished. Heyman calls his imagery a "metaphor for creation." "Art in Chicago" summarizes 50 years of art making in this city. Was it all worth it? YES! Chicago's artists have produced wonderful things. There is every good reason to celebrate them. Still, Chicago is no place for artists to build a national reputation or make a living from their work. They must go to the coasts for that. But those who simply want to create new work and win the esteem of their peers--these are the artist's traditional rewards after all--find Chicago a great place to be. "Art in Chicago" proves yet again that our art is a too much of a well- kept secret. THE LATE DEGAS "If Degas had died at 50, he would have been remembered as an excellent painter, no more; it is after his 50th year that his work broadened out and that he really becomes Degas." This remark, by Auguste Renoir, is the premise for "Degas: Beyond Impressionism," the first exhibition devoted exclusively to the artist's work of the 1890s and 1900s (Degas died in 1917). The show of 90-plus paintings, drawings and sculptures just closed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Degas was rich and had no need to sell. During the last decades of his life, he retired to his studio and drew the same images over and over again until he got them absolutely right. We see these masterpieces and learn how hard this great painter worked to make them that way. "Degas: Beyond Impressionism" will inspire any artist and delight Degas connoisseurs. Though Degas drew nudes obsessively, he took so little interest in his subjects that he often traced their outlines from earlier works instead of hiring models. His women are virtually (sometimes quite literally) faceless. Often posed in an awkward way, they project no sexuality and never come to life as individuals. Degas saw the figure as form. The most rewarding room in this exhibition presents his figure sculptures next to his working drawings. PASSING ON THE TRADITION "The secret of art," Degas observed, "is to follow the advice the masters give you in their works while doing something different from them." He believed that art grows out of art and that the artist assumes his place within the great tradition of European culture by transforming and transmitting what he has inherited. This is the idea behind "Edgar Degas: Passing on the Tradition," a perfectly amazing show organized by the Art Institute's department of prints and drawings. It runs until Jan. 26, 1997. "Passing on the Tradition" includes works on paper by Degas' mentors (Ingres, Delacroix), contemporaries (Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet, Valadon) and some artists he collected (Rembrandt). Works by different artists are juxtaposed with those of Degas to show how the tradition was passed on. Degas' At the Cafe des Ambassadeurs (1879/80), for example, hangs between a predecessor work--Daumier's The Usefulness of a Family for a Singer (1857)--and one that he influenced--Frankenthaler's Message from Degas (1972/74). The gallery label explains that Daumier's "penetrating vision and daring compositions furnished Degas with ideas for new ways of exploring the subjects of modern life." Daumier shows the singer's family in a box at the theater, noisily cheering her performance after one of them has tossed a bouquet onto the stage. In Degas' soft ground etching and aquatint, a performer bows to the audience in a smoky cafe. There is only a suggestion of narrative in this work. The Frankenthaler is abstract, though the forms recall the geometry of the stage as seen from an angle. We learn from the gallery label that Degas' "evocative use of aquatint" so fascinated Frankenthaler that she was "inspired to research old technical manuals for the secret of his process." Her atmospheric Message from Degas is "the fruit of this effort." There are other, equally illuminating juxtapositions here--self-portraits by Rembrandt, Degas and Matisse, for example. We get a splendid wall of Ingres, much gorgeous Delacroix, and many unfamiliar Valadons. The show loses its shape as it moves to the present, but it is still a magnificent holiday feast. IN THE GALLERIES Tom Czarnopys, a sculptor, and Pala Townsend, a painter, show at the Illinois Art Gallery until Jan. 17, 1997. This attractive two-person exhibition is especially well curated, installed and lit. Czarnopys grew up in a rural area of Michigan. As a boy, he went bow hunting in the woods, drew animals and learned taxidermy. In art school, he struggled to make something fresh from this background. His first successful works were fiberglass casts of his own body covered with tree bark. More recently, Czarnopys has shown blocks of glycerine with natural materials inside and patinated metal plaques imprinted with fallen leaf stains from a Michigan forest floor. The artist wants to eliminate the boundary between himself and nature, he says. Pala Townsend's shimmering large-scale abstract paintings present themes she has worked with for the past 20 years. Her inspiration is an old-growth rain forest in Portland, Oregon, where she grew up. Townsend's technique of layering passages of color in sequence suggests light, water, atmosphere, and sometimes the presence of a figure. In the paintings shown here, the artist has "singled out" these motifs, she says, from the "embracing theme of the forest." She has found a way to "express movement and luminosity simultaneously in each single stroke [of the brush]." On view in a barrio coffee shop in another part of the city is an impressive group of abstract paintings by Marcos Raya, a Mexican-American muralist, installation sculptor and painter. Raya's Night Nurse is included in "Art in Chicago, 1945-1995." This harrowing piece comes from the artist's alcoholic years when he lived on the streets and landed often in hospital detox wards. Raya says he makes his abstract paintings from time to time, when he's not busy with narrative work. The fresh imagery in these paintings is exuberantly Latino. AN INQUIRY ABOUT HAIR How does it feel to lose your hair? What does it mean to cut your hair? Chicago fiber artist Anne Wilson--whose recent work incorporates hair--asks these questions as part of an Internet research project. Responses can include stories, anecdotes, personal recollections, dreams, debates or commentary, she states. They will be credited to a writer/participant or may remain anonymous. Wilson may curate contributions by other people into this ongoing Website and she may compile them into an off-line collection. Wilson teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has shown at the Art Institute, the MCA and at major international exhibitions in Switzerland and Poland.. VICTOR CASSIDY is an art journalist based in Chicago.