Find an event
Ben Stone
Certain Chicago artists love to align their work and personae with a blue-collar, meat-and-potatoes vision of the city, even as they hobnob at the galleries and swanky restaurants replacing the meatpacking industry. So Ben Stone’s disgusted reaction to an extreme example of Chicago machismo comes off as a breath of fresh air in the still semi-rancid West Loop.
The artist’s Hey Fuckface (pictured), a tiny painting on rope, and his almost life-size sculpture Blue Meanies (2010) commemorate the 2002 beating of a Kansas City Royals coach by two drunk White Sox fans: William Ligue Jr. and his 15-year-old son. Executed in blue ballpoint pen on white coated polystyrene and wood, Blue Meanies depicts the Ligues looming over their prone victim. Stone renders the elder Ligue’s elaborate tattoos in impressive detail; the father and son would resemble china figurines if not for their crude, Neanderthal-like features.
The tension between high and low that Stone’s materials and subject matter create is fascinating, and it echoes through the other sculptures here. The Dean (2010), a kitschy four-foot-tall elephant made out of rope, seems especially repulsive because of its size, its knotted form suggesting a giant turd. Stone also makes intriguing use of scale in Neighbor (2010), which brings the stylized, fedora-wearing villain found on neighborhood watch signs to three-dimensional life. While the baddie would be frightening if it towered over us, at a height of 41", its faceless form seems cartoonish instead.
Such absurd touches give Stone’s works a playful vibe despite their focus on violence and criminal behavior. I’ll take them as reminders that neither art aficionados nor sports fans should take themselves too seriously.
Comments
There are no comments