When Monique Meloche took a chance on opening a Chicago gallery back in 2000, she launched with a show called Homewrecker, for which she invited 30 artists to exhibit over all three floors of her Ukrainian Village townhouse. The huge turnout prompted her to find a more permanent spot, as did gentle prodding from her husband. “He was like, ‘Sorry, I don’t want people sitting on my bed watching videos on Saturday when I come home from the gym.’”But while her home is no longer on public view, it remains a kind of lived-in display of contemporary paintings, photography, and sculptural works by artists she represents along with those she simply loves. We were lucky enough to visit recently and get to know Meloche a bit better.
Originally from Toronto, Meloche studied art history and theory at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and got her start on the curatorial side at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art. She initially had “less than zero interest” in selling art. But when faced with limited mobility in the museum world — as well as a desire to stay in the city she’d fallen for — she explored other options, landing a role with preeminent Chicago dealer Rhona Hoffman, whom she considers a mentor. A few years later, Meloche became the director at Kavi Gupta before setting out on her own.
The work she backs is diverse, but in all of it, she looks for a hands-on, worked-through quality and a solid conceptual framework. She also tends “to favor artists who make insane installations.” The first solo show she put up, I Borrowed My Mother’s Bedroom, was by Joel Ross, who went to his mother’s Texas home and came back with all of her stuff: her bed, her ceiling fan, her VCR, her soap opera tapes, “even her answering machine — it still had a blinking light with a message on it,” recalls Meloche. “The price was ‘Ask Joel’s mother,’ because it was clearly not for sale. I specifically did that because I wanted it to be known: This is going to be a commercial gallery, but I’m a curator at heart.”
That balance is evident in her Wicker Park gallery space, which features a street-facing window of site-specific work, in addition to the main room, where Meloche has lately showcased artists such as Heidi Norton, Carrie Schneider, and Ebony G. Patterson. She champions emerging talents and more established ones, like Rashid Johnson. In Chicago, she can maintain the footprint she wants while having a broad reach. “I can be a big fish in a small pond and that’s worked for me.” Meloche founded Gallery Weekend Chicago, works closely with the Expo Chicago art fair, sits on SAIC’s Fashion Committee, and has found herself brainstorming cultural initiatives with the mayor’s office. In short, she’s a force, and things seem more fun and fabulous in her presence.
Meloche in her living room. Above the fireplace hangs one of her “prized possessions,” a painting by Cornet Baldwin. “He doesn’t paint anymore, unfortunately.” Meloche gave him his first major solo show in 2002, which sold out and garnered a review in Artforum. But “it was too much fame, too fast. We call him regularly and try to get him to start painting again.”
A block of Shea butter from a Rashid Johnson installation that showed in the public window space of Meloche’s gallery in late 2013. Over the course of the exhibition, the once solid blocks “melted, and kept on revealing and revealing ” their bright yellow center. Also visible upon close inspection: handprints in the butter from Johnson’s two-year-old son.
Rashid Johnson’s The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Thurgood). Johnson’s been with Meloche since she opened, though he’s now repped by major art world players Hauser & Wirth. “We’ve been buying his work from the very beginning, so we have a significant amount. The last time we re-hung our collection, we took everything of Rashid’s and put it up. We’ll probably do a re-hang this summer and put some of his away. It’s making our other artists uncomfortable.”
“Local bad-boy artist” Wesley Kimler gave this gigantic drawing to Meloche when she moved in. “True to his personality, he walked in and picked the largest wall. It wasn’t going to fit in our front door, and he was like, ‘Can you take your windows out?’” They made it work and now it hangs by a 1960s Brunswick pool table, a housewarming gift from Meloche’s in-laws. To protect against pool cue jabs, “everything in here is behind Plexiglas.”
Meloche and her husband first encountered the work of Gabriel Vormstein at an auction and “flipped out,” but higher bidders prevailed. “He does these homage-to-Egon Schiele sort of characters on his daily newspaper. He’s from Vienna, but he lives in Berlin.” They eventually acquired this piece and Vormstein did a solo show at her gallery last year.
A corner of family photos. If Meloche inherited her sense of style from her mother, a professional model, she may have gotten her instinct for the art of the deal from her father, a car salesman. “It was not my forte,” she says, but “now I’m getting really, really good at selling,” and she’s been connecting with her father on that level. “I think because I get excited about the whole game, now he gets what I do.”
Meloche’s home gets “a lot of natural light, but it still has tons of wall space” for large works of art, as well as an open layout that’s good for all of the entertaining Meloche does. “I’ll bring new collectors here, and I host after-opening dinner parties here.” Furnishings like this pair of Platner chairs keep the look easy-yet-elevated.
Upstairs, above the bed is a piece by Meloche’s artist, Scott Stack. “Scott was making this series of paintings, as if looking through night vision goggles. He started these back in the first Gulf War, probably.” Meloche showed this as part of her inaugural Winter Experiment program, which she now runs annually each January, often featuring up-and-coming artists.
“I’m a crazy shoe-obsessed person,” says Meloche, who wrote her master’s thesis on the history of the shoe in contemporary art. Her closet includes a sparkly pair of limited edition Bakers boots like the ones Madonna wore in Desperately Seeking Susan, Alexander McQueen platforms, and these silver-heeled Azzedine Alaïas. “I’m not afraid of big shoes.”
A wall-spanning work by Jason Middlebrook, a mixed-media artist based in Hudson, New York. He’s recently exhibited at Mass MoCA, and he’ll be part of the SITE Santa Fe biennial this summer before showing at Meloche’s gallery in November. “He was very much was this kind of environmental artist before that sort of thing was cool,” often combining natural forms and artificial materials.
“A big hangout area” by the kitchen. “This is the busy room during openings, because a lot of times I’m cooking.” The furniture is of vintage Scandinavian design. Meloche reupholstered the chairs in black corduroy with the help of designer Jordana Joseph. And the sofa, given to Meloche by her stepfather, has cycled through different looks, too, at one time covered in a “black-and-white houndstooth check – very 80s!”
A Rashid Johnson piece, made of black soap, wax, and Shea butter, materials he often uses. “I am supposed to continually keep the incense lit, but I don’t particularly like the smell. When Rashid visits he always puts some in and lights it, and he always takes a little Shea butter and puts it on. If I had a record player he would put the Al Green on. There are actual albums in there.”
“This little garden hose in the corner is a sculpture by Justin Cooper,” a New York–based sculptor and performance artist Meloche represents, who usually works on “a very monumental scale. Picture miles of garden hoses tied around trees.” He gave this mini to Meloche as a token of appreciation.
On the wall, a work by Brooklyn-based artist Carrie Schneider. It’s a portrait of her brother, who appeared in her series of creepy-funny photographs exploring the boundaries of sibling relationships, Derelict Self. Meloche recently posed for a portrait as part of Schneider’s Reading Women project. Her book of choice for the shot: Grace Coddington’s memoir.
An oil on canvas painting by collaborative duo Robert Davis and Michael Langlois, and a sculpture of wax, resin, glass and plants by one of our favorite Chicago artists, Heidi Norton, on the lower level of Meloche’s home. “When my friends from New York come in, they’re just like, wait you don’t have a tenant downstairs? I’m like no, that’s where my visiting artists come and stay. I take it for granted, but it’s super luxurious.”
The guest room where Meloche hosts artists from out of town features an installation by Conrad Bakker, who teaches at the University of Illinois. He crafts wooden replicas of existing objects, like these issues of Artforum, circa 1969. If you bought this limited edition, Meloche explains, “you got a subscription,” so you would receive one ‘issue’ a month.
“I used to have a Polaroid camera, and everybody who would stay [in the guest room] would have to take a self-portrait. Now what we do is ask them to leave a little drawing,” in the closet. “It’s also where we hang up our laundry. It’s really very glamorous.” The last guest — New York-based artist and critic Pedro Vélez — “went to town.”
“My little Campus Cuties. They’re figurines from the ‘60s.” Meloche found them at the now-shuttered novelty shop Uncle Fun. “I thought they were ridiculous, and I love them. During the Homewrecker show, I had them up and, in that context, everything could be an installation,” including a “weird, homemade ski trophy” she also had out. “Is it art” conversations ensued: “I would get behind people and hear them talk conceptual theory around this thing… I love that slippery slope.”
Another photograph by Carrie Schneider, from her MFA show at SAIC. “This is when I first saw her work. It’s called Las Bebidas, The Drinkers, in reference to the Velázquez painting, Las Meninas.” Echoing the puzzles of reflection and gaze in that masterpiece of the Spanish court, Schneider staged this at “the Rainbo Club, which is the Chicago hangout for artists, so it was kind of like, this is the contemporary court of Chicago’s art world.”
The tall piece is Trees Library by German artist Tobias Rehberger. “He makes a lot of ‘functional’ stuff, so he would not mind that I have other sculptures on here, with a small Kate Levant piece.” This work has a hidden audio-visual component, involving an “eerie glow” and the sound of rustling leaves, but it’s on VHS. “We keep meaning to get the tapes transferred, we just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“This one is by Dan Gunn, a Chicago-based artist I work with. He was my superstar at the last Expo Chicago” where he won the Artadia award. “He’s a painter who doesn’t paint. He uses wood” — in this case, prefabricated panels from a big box home improvement store. Gunn reworked them with stains and colored pencils.
Meloche loves “being able to show people how to live with art. Because it’s always so different when you’re in a white cube space. How does it translate?” Here, in the dining area, are two works by New York-based artist Sheree Hovsepian (who happens to be married to Rashid Johnson) from 2010. These are photographs of compositions consisting of graphite, string, and nails.
A souvenir from a fundraiser for then-Senator Obama. “What was really awesome about this was that right before this time, Rashid made a piece called The Evolution of the Negro Political Costume,” which consisted of framed outfits worn by African-American organizers — a 1970s Jesse Jackson dashiki, a 1980s Al Sharpton track suit. “We reached out to Obama for a contemporary suit. The response was through Michelle,” Meloche remembers. “She was like, ‘You only own three suits, you can’t give up one.’” Fast forward to this meet-and-greet…
“There are a lot of clients of mine who are very good friends with Obama, so that’s how we got there.” Meloche intended to let her husband take the lead but as soon as they got up to Obama, she started talking:“’My young artist Rashid Johnson…’ Obama was like, ‘Oh, you’re Monique.’ I’m like, ‘No way. No way.’ It was so cool. We had a moment. I couldn’t believe that this really did get to him. It was a very special night.”
This work by Rashid Johnson lives in the front entryway. “It doesn’t really show up during the day, but what’s really nice is at nighttime, when I host dinner parties, we have a glowing pink door.”
A wedding gift from renowned Belgian painter Luc Tuymans. Meloche has long represented his wife, Carla Arocha. As part of his process, Tuymans has made “humongous” paintings from Polaroid pictures, like this one, inscribed to Meloche and her husband. “We get many, many offers from people to buy this, but I would never let it go.”
In 1960, there was a noisemaker that said “Click with Dick,” endorsing Richard Nixon for President. In 1964, a canned novelty beverage promoted Barry Goldwater's candidacy (“Gold Water: The Right Drink for the Conservative Taste”). But these days, with Shepard Fairey’s once-inescapable "Hope" poster on the wane, you’d be hard-pressed to find an election souvenir of note beyond the usual bumper stickers, commemorative mugs, and buttons. Enter Kiosk, New York’s go-to retailer for quirky housewares and objects from around the world. This week, Kiosk owners Alisa Grifo and Marco ter haar Romeny released a collection of five pro-Obama souvenirs, which sport cheekily retrograde slogans and riff on American-made objects the shop already had in stock.
We suppose a lot could be made of the fact that Paul Johnson’s usually private Johnson Trading Gallery is finally opening its doors for an exhibition at the same time that both the Collective Design Fair and the Frieze Art Fair descend on New York City — and of the fact that Johnson’s former cinema–turned–gallery space is located in Nowheresville, Queens, pretty much smack in the middle between Collective’s Chelsea pier and Frieze’s takeover of Roosevelt Island. After all, the gallery has always been on the fringes of both design and art, what with its carefully groomed roster of young talent making things that sometimes count as furniture in name only (Aranda/Lasch’s industrial rubber–sprayed Modern Primitives chair comes to mind). But to tell the truth, we’re pretty tired of the whole design vs. art debate at this point. It’s been nearly two years since Johnson hosted an exhibition in New York, and considering this one’s meant to celebrate four young designers who’ve barely yet made a blip on the scene, we were more interested to see what exactly Johnson’s been up to in his far-out lair and who he’s been scouting in the interim.
It's a quiet summer week here at Sight Unseen HQ. August is approaching, we're spending more and more weekends out of the city, and the time in between them is becoming increasingly shorter and less productive. But that doesn't mean we don't know from hard work — we've spent the last four years pouring inordinate amounts of time and effort into the stories on this site, and so we're all the more sympathetic when we see other blogs doing the same. Case in point: the ridiculously extensive, print mag–worthy interview with ceramicist Ben Medansky we spotted recently on the blog Los Angeles, I'm Yours, a city-centric cultural resource founded in 2011 by The Fox Is Black's Bobby Solomon with editor Kyle Fitzpatrick. We've excerpted part of it here, along with a selection of the accompanying studio photos.
