Text, Design, Emotion

The treasures of Western civilization have typically been paintings and sculptures, objects of beauty that serve no practical purpose. Meanwhile, designers from countless aesthetic schools have crafted phenomenal objects of beauty that, because you could also sit on them or read by their illumination, were not considered to be quite as valuable. Marilyn and Peter Frank's F2 Lab, a design studio in Chicago's West Loop, began blurring the distinction between functional design and fine art in 2006. The couple collaborate on minimalist, clean objects of utility and beauty that are unmistakable products of contemporary art. Brooklyn-based Joy Drury Cox creates drawings dealing with the utility of language. Some are paperwork — job applications, certificates of death and birth — from which all the actual copy has been subtracted; the remaining boxes and lines suggest a ghostly textual intent. Others are hand-drawn pages of printed copy. All three artists participate in an exhibit with the copy-editor-frustrating title text. (or in the vacancy of). The show, guest-curated by Jeremy Mikolajczak, runs through October 10 at Rockhurst's Greenlease Gallery (1100 Rockhurst, 816-501-4407).
Thursdays-Saturdays, 12-5 p.m. Starts: Sept. 12. Continues through Oct. 10, 2009