About Us
Parlour and Ramp is an artist-run Chicago Gallery and Artist Studio space located in the Lower West Side of Pilsen. The building, which in its first life was a funeral parlour circa 1914, acts as a studio to 6 local artists and craftspeople who work collectively to run the Gallery space. We open a new show every month and host community events throughout the year. Follow us on Instagram or join our mailing list to stay up to date on our events!
Our Mission
Parlour and Ramp works to provide opportunities to emerging and mid-career Chicagoland artists through affordable studio spaces and free exhibition space. Through regular events and gallery showings, we aim to foster a space of growth and community.
CURRENTLY AT PARLOUR AND RAMP
Catie burrill & samuel schiwndt, Leather and Fur: Uncommitted Crimes
november 8, 2024 - december 6, 2024
With a reverence for risky behavior, Fur Queen Catie Burrill and Leather King Samuel Schwindt create dangerous specters. In an epoch riddled with mixed signals of luxury and economic subterfuge, this exhibition reflects on the ethics of materials, real leather and faux fur, relating to the artists' unique perspective on Chicago counterculture.
The exhibition delves into the intricate relationship between materiality and message. The artists utilize charged materials to remix stereotypical stories. Potential energy permeates the work in a state of “uncommitted crimes” as Theodore Adorno wrote in a rallying cry to artists who work against the status quo and celebrate rebellion.
Using versatile leather to craft/distill sculptures, Sam Schwindt concocts meditations on the ephemeral queer body, which is symbolically linked with the societal structure it inhabits. The patterns emerging from this union of skins showcase how the body exists simultaneously as a familiar entity and a distinct other, serving as both an object and a subject. Through the charged material and Chicago queer histories, Schwindt utilizes animal hides as a mutiny against traditional craft and lineages of sculpture.
Taught to sew before she could write, Catie Burrill uses salvaged materials to create monstrous-sized furred soft sculptures. Her work is inspired by a decade of wayfaring across the country in Greyhound buses, non-descript cargo vans and circus trains, fully embracing the unromantic side of American road and rail culture. Living amongst outsiders and choosing the slow route through life, Burrill’s experiences celebrate the beauty and challenges of divergent minds that move at their own pace. Her craft combines a lifetime of sewing techniques, from quilting to diy pattern making and upholstery, exploring the line between rags, riches and madness. Her creations explore themes of camp, folly, and world-building, infused with her own mythology.
Uncommitted Crimes opens the Friday after the presidential election, please join in on the celebration and/or devastation from the horrors of America at Parlour & Ramp, a former funeral parlor – built in 1914 – turned artist-run space. Evening-light crystal seeings by artist Dana Major ($10 cash for 5 minutes), a facilitated group scream at 8pm and 9pm with comedian Tatyana Scott, and DJ Toni aka Soft Swerve will be spinning seductive synths to the tune of a raging fire out back. Toss your conceptions of normality into the flames as we release into the night and summon the spirit of an uncommitted Chicago crime.
ARTISTS: Catie Burrill and Samuel Schwindt