Arthur Siegel, Untitled (Barbara) 1947. Aaron Siskind, Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation Series, ca. 1956. Gyorgy Kepes, Broken Venus, 1938. Nathan Lerner, Light Volume, 1937. Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Untitled. Richard Rezac, Cremona, 1996. Gordon Powell, Drum, 1996. Gordon Powell, Untitled, 1996, wood, oil and wax, c. 22 x 14 x 22 in. Gordon Powell, Untitled, 1995, wood, wax and oil, 21 x 30 x 24 in. Raye Bemis, Untitled, 1995. Raye Bemis, Untitled, 1995. Kiki Kogelnik, Censorship, 1996.

chicago report by Victor M. Cassidy Chicago is giving itself a megadose of its own art history this fall. Already up are "Second Sight," the first-ever survey of Chicago printmaking, and "When Aaron Met Harry," which focuses on an influential period in Chicago photo history. On Nov. 17, the long-awaited "Art in Chicago, 1945- 1995," opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art. "Second Sight: Printmaking in Chicago 1935-1995" runs through Dec. 8 at the Mary and Leigh Block Gallery of Northwestern University. This exhibition of 150+ printworks by more than 80 artists was curated by James Yood, a lecturer at Northwestern and Chicago's leading art critic. An illustrated book-length catalog with three essays and documentation accompanies the show. Roughly speaking, "Second Sight" divides into three parts---printmaking from the Great Depression through the `50s; the Chicago Imagists (the late `60s to the present); and other schools of printmaking from the `70s to the present. Though much of the show is well-organized and instructive, its final portion is overcrowded with irrelevant work that reduces it to incoherence. Before the late `60s, Chicago printmakers were conscientious artists who produced attractive work in traditional modes. Nothing they made compares to the breakthrough work of Europe or New York at that time. The most gifted of these artists---Leon Golub and H.C. Westerman--- did their best work (not necessarily as prints) after they left Chicago. Some others, like Roland Ginzel, are better painters than printmakers. Chicago printmaking came abruptly to life in the late 1960s with the arrival of the Imagists---Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt and others. Instead of appealing images like "Mother and Child," these artists give us street goons, sex aplenty, cannibalism with a wink, and nutty puns. Raucously energetic and subversive, Imagist art still looks fresh after more than thirty years. The third part of "Second Sight" is supposed to show tendencies in Chicago printmaking that followed Imagism, but it makes little sense. In order to be politically correct, Yood includes several artists in the exhibition who have no profile as printmakers and whose work has little relationship to the themes of his show. Yood's catalogue essay is more restrained, expertly describing Chicago art after Imagism, naming the important artists and ignoring the politically correct ones. He knows exactly what he is doing. It's a shame that he worked so long on "Second Sight" only to undercut himself. "When Aaron (Siskind) Met Harry (Callahan): Chicago Photography 1946-1971" is the best exhibition of contemporary art in Chicago at present. Harry Callahan joined the faculty at Chicago's Institute of Design in 1946. Siskind arrived five years later. Until 1971, when Siskind departed, the two men were colleagues whose teaching and practice influenced a remarkable generation of photographers. We see this legacy in 200+ photographs by 58 artist- photographers---a jam-packed show. There is a gratifying wholeness to "When Aaron Met Harry." Straightforward and self- confident, the artist-photographers in this exhibition show us life as it is. They respect the humanity of their subjects and never peep. They do not push personal agendas. Their abstractions and experiments make visual sense. This matter-of-factness is seen in Callahan's familiar portraits of his wife Eleanor. These show a modest, contented woman who knows how to live. Though Callahan's images glow with love, there is nothing sentimental about them. Yasuhiro Ishimoto, a Callahan student, shows his teacher's influence. In photographs of Chicago's humble, Ishimoto presents his subjects as human beings without romanticizing their poverty or using them to make political statements. Callahan was the first Chicago photographer to record the unique light of the central city and the peculiar way that peoples' bodies relate to the structures of the elevated train. Ray Metzker, another Callahan student, has picked up where he left off. Callahan's landscapes have inspired Joseph Jachna and Kenneth Josephson, whose outdoor scenes are especially successful. Three Chicago sculptors---Richard Rezac, Gordon Powell and Raye Bemis---had excellent shows this month. Rezac filled three rooms of the Feigen Gallery with small-scale floor and wall pieces in wood, bronze, aluminum, steel, and concrete. We notice first how spare and subdued Rezac's sculptures are---and then we are astonished by their complexity. Rezac says he admires the forms of hand tools because the use of materials in them "is usually close to perfect." He wants his work to have "a rightness that seems indisputable." In this exhibition, Rezac explores some new forms-- an anvil-like shape which he produces at different scales in wood and metal; and a curious X with bulbous joints along its lengths. There is much to think about in this exhibition. It stays with you for a long time. Gordon Powell's "Physical Range" at the Chicago Cultural Center includes laminated wooden floor and wall sculptures colored with linseed oil and wax in pastel hues. The waist-high vessel forms on the floor suggest pottery, says the artist. So they do, but Powell's inviting vessels are not of this world. It would be a sin to put anything in them. Drum (1996) is a roughly triangular wall piece made of yellow- and cream-colored circles which suggest an artist's palette. This singular work, which is neither a painting nor a sculpture, just happened, Powell says. He's not sure whether it is unique or the first of a new body of work. Raye Bemis's "Conjunct" at the Fassbender Gallery is a breakthrough show, a vigorous leap into fresh territory. This artist is no stranger in Chicago. She has been active here for more than 20 years with many group shows, a major outdoor piece at Art Expo in 1990, and a recent solo exhibition at Klein Art Works. Bemis, a formalist, works with simple shapes, patterned surfaces, and quiet colors. "Conjunct" is mostly wall pieces made of rusted steel mesh and colored wax. Some of the sculptures both hang on the wall and are cut into it, giving a mirror-like effect which is new for Bemis and very provocative. Kiki Kogelnik, an Austrian artist, does something fresh with glass in her gigantic (30 art glass sculptures; 10 paintings; 32 ceramic works) solo show at the Chicago Athenaeum. Kogelnik's sculptures are mask- like self-portrait heads mounted on cylindrical pedestals. The forms of these works don't vary much from one piece to the next. Kogelnik develops the transparent interiors and pedestals to present a wild variety of themes---Millefiori Head, Medusa,Censorship,Octopus and others. According to a gallery spokesman, each head involved different glass-making techniques, some of which were developed by the artist's assistants to meet her expressive requirements. Cooperatively-owned low-cost living spaces for artists are old stuff in every U.S. city but Chicago. In September, the Near Northwest Arts Council (NNWAC), a community-based organization that represents the interests of artists, announced that it had purchased a 40,000- sq.-ft. warehouse for $275,000. By summer 1997, this structure, in the artist-heavy Bucktown area, will be transformed into the Acme Artists Cooperative with live-work spaces for up to 20 artists and offices for three community organizations. Tenants will pay $3,000 to join the co-op and an average rent of $574 per month. Laura Weathered, a painter who heads NNWAC, has been working for years to make the co-op a reality. On several occasions, she located suitable properties, only to be outbid by real estate speculators who were developing a neighborhood that artists had made fashionable. Another neighborhood that is becoming chic, at least for art dealers, is roughly two miles west of River North. In October, the Rhona Hoffman Gallery moved to 312 North May Street, one floor above Gallery 312, a quasi-commercial art space. Hoffman's operation will not change. She is pleased to have a more commodious space at reasonable cost. The neighborhood is not remote, she says. Nearby are Klein Art Works, Tough Gallery, Fassbender Annex, and galleries for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois Circle campus. She won't be surprised if more dealers move in. Rhona Hoffman is the latest Chicago art dealer to go on the Internet . Others are Spencer Weisz, a vintage poster gallery; the TBA Exhibition Space which currently has information about Art Chicago 1996, and Oskar Friedl Gallery The grand doyen of Chicago's net set is definitely Klein Art Works This, the ne plus ultra of art dealer home pages, begins with a splendid photograph of a Jun Kaneko installation at the Klein Gallery and contains a Gallery Credo plus more than 40 reproductions of works by gallery artists. The page continues with links to ArtNet, other publications and numerous artist sites---Rembrandt, Yves Tanguy and others. The Vermeer page has a handy "Vermeer Locator" map of the Western Hemisphere which shows where all his paintings are. Click on a red square and a Vermeer pops up. There are also links to several of Klein's avocational interests, among them the "Guide to Lock Picking" by Ted the Tool; the Chicago Bulls; a multi- media tour of the solar system; and the maxims and quotations of Mark Twain. Klein does not believe that his home page has brought him any sales. He got several nice notes from artists, however, who sent him slides. VICTOR CASSIDY is an art journalist based in Chicago.