This Friday, Schmidt Contemporary Art opens an exhibition by British sculptor Roger Ackling. For the past 40 years, Ackling has confined his art-making to gathering driftwood, and then in one sitting, marking it using a ray of sun focused through a magnifying glass. The results are more diverse than that description might suggest (see images here). "In these solitary, still moments with the wood on my lap," Ackling says, "the outer visual world no longer occupies my mind. Thoughts are reduced to a minimum, and what occurs is a quality of engagement to an inner indefinable realm of the human spirit. I know that what is made from this simple, concentrated ritual is held within the work itself. This presence can be re-absorbed through the senses and the eye. A silent non-negotiable realm of human experience; a vibration of the soul's life. Like many others for thousands of years, I believe that insight can be seen and rekindled through a pragmatic dialogue with material." Ackling has shown at the Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, the Hiroshima Museum of Art, and the Museo Cantonale d’Arte, in Lugano, among other places; the show runs through January 22.
If you ride public transit, you may already know this, but: Metro's introduced a holiday train this year, modeled after the one in Chicago. They're also hosting a miniature holiday concert series, “Rhythm & Rails,” with help from KDHX. On December 11, Rough Shop plays the Red line from 1:21–3:22 p.m., and on December 18, Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three play the blue line from 2:31–4:32 p.m. The cost of admission is just a viable train ticket.
And finally, if you prefer “slimy things that crawl with legs upon the slimy sea," to bathrobe plays, Upstream Theater stages Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner December 18. Jerry Vogel stars as the Mariner, with a supporting cast including Bethany Barr, Carrie Hegdahl, Christopher Hickey and Norman McGowan; Patrick Siler and Christopher Hickey co-direct. Performances are free (though you need to reserve your seat...email upstreamtheater@sbcglobal.net or call 314-863-4999 to do that) and take place December 18 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, December 19 at 2 p.m. at 305 S. Skinker.
