Joshua J. Van Wie

Galleries that show conceptual art deserve praise because so much of it is aggressively noncommercial. Accessibility is a major hurdle for conceptual artists, and like much conceptual art, the installation work of Joshua J. Van Wie, a recent School of the Art Institute M.F.A. grad, is a lot more accessible when it’s explained to you.

For his part, Van Wie admits in his artist statement that he’s happiest with his work when his landlord gets it, and what he’s showing at Linda Warren Gallery runs the gamut for the genre: Some of it leaves you scratching your head, while some stands on its own.

Our Lady of Division Street is the cleverest installation in the show. It needs no explanation, but the backstory is terrific. Last year, Van Wie went to see the shrine that had evolved beneath the Kennedy’s Fullerton Avenue underpass, where it was widely reported that many saw the form of the Virgin Mary. He took a photo with his camera phone, which he says made an image that was clearer than what you could see with the naked eye. Sometime later, he was at the Blue Line Division Street station and saw a similar apparition (a rust stain?) hovering over one of the alcoves run-ning along the outside of the track. His life-size photo of this Madonna form, replete with detritus in the bottom of the niche, is nothing if not a shrine, and makes for a compelling juxtaposition with the tiny camera-phone picture across the gallery. It also clearly suggests that there is art—and, perhaps, divinity—everywhere, although it may take the artist’s eye to see it.—Philip Berger