ANDREW RAFACZ hereby posts notice of Basement Arrangement, an assembly of new paintings and a book release from Josh Dihle, in Gallery One. The exhibition opens Friday, June 6th and continues through July 18th, 2025. This is the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.

The middle-aged family man of North America is an evening troglodyte of delicate passions. Tiny railroads, itty bitty dollhouses, whittled wood chains, warfare writ small, secret levels, headsets, and joysticks; these are the trappings and dominions of the power-hungry basement hobbyist. The upstairs folk just don’t listen anymore, they don’t understand him or his fears and wants. Like Dante, Virgil, Buffalo Bill, and so many before him, down he goes.

Careful now! The basement arrangement is precarious. Small universes turn upon the paper-thin contract of allowance struck between these hidden recreationists, their kin, and the world at large. Ask Josh, he’ll tell you. He’ll say we want control; we want to shape the world just like big brother capitalist and protein shake alpha dog. We can burrow into the pop culture private islands of godlike experiment. Isla Nublar, Doctor Moreau’s island, Never Never Land, Skull Island, Fort Detrick, Fallingwater crumbling into the creek: these are the spoiled sandboxes of misinformed men. But our best bets are laid downstairs, under false suns, where no one can ask us to share. The model railroader is the truest creator: engineer, architect, and master of his own timetable. The same holds for the woodworker, the dollhouse maker, the miniaturist, the gamer, the collector. We organize bits of the world like bower birds and trot them downstairs to garnish our protective play palaces.

What of these little pleasures? What if they spoil? Or they grow vulnerable and gentle? What if they’re accidentally nurturing and generous in their tiny fullness? What if this dad fathered his own perfect shining sun? Is there room in the basement for soft thoughts?

Consult the caveman’s town charter, the handbook of his rules and questions. The wet diary of things seen and done. In these waters, Dihle’s companion book Eel Diary wriggles up from the murk and fixes its stare on the basement steps. Two-hundred pages of drawings and notes, Eel Diary comprises over ten years of fascination. Together, these built worlds of paintings, words, and passions manage a frail détente amongst themselves, welcoming guests to the basement.

JOSH DIHLE (American, b. 1984) lives and works in Chicago, IL. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012 and his BA at Middlebury College in 2007. His residencies include Kunstmeile Krems (Austria), Ace Hotel (Chicago, IL), Catwalk Institute (Catskill, NY), Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT) and the Ox-Bow Summer Arts Faculty Residency (Sagatauck, MI). Solo exhibitions include ANDREW RAFACZ (Chicago, IL), M+B (Los Angeles, CA), 4th Ward Project Space (Chicago, IL), the McAninch Arts Center (Chicago, IL), and Valerie Carberry Gallery (Chicago, IL). Group exhibitions include Wasserman Projects (Detroit, MI), Gaa Gallery (New York, NY), Zolla Lieberman (Chicago, IL), ANDREW RAFACZ (Chicago, IL), MASSIMODECARLO Vspace (Milan, Italy), University of Maine Museum of Art (Bangor, ME), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Rover (Chicago, IL), Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL), Flyweight Projects (New York, NY), Essex Flowers Gallery (New York, NY), Ruschman (Mexico City, Mexico) and Annarumma Gallery (Naples, Italy). His work and curatorial projects have been written about in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, New City, Artspace, The Washington Post, and Artsy, among others. Dihle is the co-founder of COLOR CLUB (Chicago, IL) and The Sugar Hole, the world’s only puppet-powered ice cream walk-up window.

• Charles Venkatesh Young, ‘The Interpretation of Sunbeams: A Review of Josh Dihle at Andrew Rafacz Gallery’, NewCity Art, Summer 2025 (PDF)
• Grace Ebert, ‘Josh Dihle Toys with Reality in His Topographic Paintings Akin to Fever Dreams’, Colossal, Summer 2025 (PDF)
• ‘Jaqueline Cedar + Josh Dihle’, Bad at Sports, Summer 2025