Public Works

July 31 – August 29, 2009
Gallery One

Exhibition Text

(PDF)

SOMEODDPILOT & ANDREW RAFACZ are pleased to announce Public Works, a group exhibition of new and retrospective work by Cody Hudson, Chris Eichenseer, Justin Fines, and Andy Mueller.

Chicago, IL, July 31, 2009 – Someoddpilot and Andrew Rafacz have partnered to present Public Works, a rare late-summer show that endeavors to map the ever narrowing space between fine art and commercial design. The gallery will have a reception for the artists on Friday, July 31st, from 6 to 9pm. The exhibition continues through August 29th, 2009.

Public Works is a group show that features four artists who’ve spent years in Chicago working within the independent art and music communities: Cody Hudson (Struggle, Inc.), Justin Fines (Demo), Andy Mueller (Ohio Girl / The Quiet Life), and Chris Eichenseer (Someoddpilot). Longtime friends, the four men have parlayed their streetlevel art styles into careers as internationally recognized graphic designers. The new wholly representative of the dual-influences of fine and commercial art in the artists’ lives, the gallery covered in an egalitarian display of screenprints, a digital pastiche of color blocks, Greco-Roman statues, sardonic portrait photography and Dungeons and Dragons references. Accompanying the new work is a wall thick with retrospective rock posters, album covers and street images that bump and overlap, a physical manifestation of the artists’ intertwined pasts and common futures.

JUSTIN FINES is an artist and designer. DEMO, Fines’ freelance endeavour, was founded in 1997 in Detroit, MI. An award winning designer, Fines has worked in several design media, with projects ranging from record covers to corporate identity, tshirts, motion design and direction, skateboards, books and more. Recent projects include a line of snowboards for ROME, an artist series board for Zoo York, limited edition T-shirts for Nike, and a collaboration with Adidas and Chinatown Soccer Club. DEMO is headquartered on Rad Mountain at the Old American Can Factory, which is located in the beautiful Gowanus district of Brooklyn, NY.

CHRIS EICHENSEER is a photographer, designer and musician. He has spent most of his life attending band practice, and this not only taught him how to be an entrepreneur, but determined the nature of his work. Chris founded Someoddpilot in 1999 and since then has built an internationally recognized body of work, including branding and designing the Pitchfork website, photographing musical luminaries such as RJD2 and Steve Albini, designing dozens of record covers for Consumers Research, Chocolate Industries, and Mush, and designing industry websites for Drag City, Windish Agency, Fat Possum, Mad Decent and many more. Someoddpilot calls Chicago home with an office located in the crook of the Ravenswood industrial strip on the city’s North Side.

ANDY MUELLER was raised in the midwest on a healthy diet of BMX,skateboarding, music and magazines. At an early age, Andy became addicted to the art of image making and photo taking. In 1993, Mueller founded OhioGirl, a small design/photo/film studio. After relocating to Chicago in 1994, OhioGirl’s client list grew to include companies like Burton Snowboards, RCA Records, Capitol Records, Jade Tree and Thrill Jockey Records. In 1999, Andy relocated again, this time to California to become art director for Girl Skateboard’s new shoe company, Lakai Limited Footwear. Andy continues to work full time for Girl Skateboards/Lakai Limited Footwear and is a member of the infamous Art Dump. In his free time he continues to do freelance projects under the name OhioGirl, runs a t-shirt line called The Quiet Life, and is spending more and more time on his personal photography and art work. Much of Mueller’s work has appeared in graphic design annuals and design books, as well as aired on MTV, and published in numerous magazines; he has also shown his artwork in the U.S., Europe, U.S.Japan, Australia, and Canada. Andy Mueller currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, two cats, a bird and a ping pong habit.

CODY HUDSON lives and works in Chicago. Recent exhibitions include I May Be Right and I May Be Wrong, but You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone: Notes On Building A Time Machine (with Sean Cassidy) at New Image Art, LA and This Ain’t No Bottomless Pit Here at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Recent group exhibitions include White Noise Drawn Together at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, 2008, and Throb Throb: Rock and Roll Currents in Chicago Today, curated by Dominic Molon for Jil Sander, Chicago, 2007. As part of the Chicago Transit Authority’s “”Arts in Transit”” program, Hudson created a permanent public work for the Sox/35th Street Red Line station in 2007. Fifty24SF has published Save My Life, a monograph that surveys his recent work. His last solo exhibition, Thanks man, see you around man, fuck yeah, you guys are wild, thanks man, I dig it, see you., at ANDREW RAFACZ opened in April 2009.