Commercial Gallery is proud to present These Messages, a show of works dealing with the languages and forms of the advertisement. A tongue stuck out, sure, but in its cheek, to the space of the fair. Bouncing like a DVD logo walled by the spaces of the television advertisement, the storefront rótulo, the billboard and the newspaper classified, These Messages announces itself as both the thing and the thing selling the thing, distinct but overlapping as themsellves: camouflage for the art industry.

• Alberto Aguilar

• Breanne Trammell

• Cat Hu

• Mean Jeans

MdW Assembly, an artist-run alternative (to an) Art Fair, in Chicago at MANA Contemporary, September 9-11, 2022

Alberto Aguilar is a Chicago based artist that uses whatever material is at hand in an attempt to make a meaningful connection with the viewer. He does not distinguish his art practice from his other various life roles which allows him to make work wherever he is. He has shown and presented his work at various museums, galleries, storefronts, homes and street corners around the world, including the Queens Museum, El Torito Supermercado, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, the corner of Cesar Chavez Ave and North Broadway in Los Angeles, CA, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit and Chicago City Hall.

Breanne Trammell is an artist and budding non-musician, living at the intersection of The and Moon. Her work evolves out of the daily practice of looking, learning, zoning out, and being extremely local. She lovingly clowns around, riffing and bootlegging language and form to situate everyday life, feelings, and emotions as material for her work. Recent and past projects include adopting a highway in Iowa, touring the U.S. performing free manicures, reading a CV on the radio, mowing the grass, and performing soft comedy.

Catherine Hu is a Singaporean artist working primarily in sculpture and printmedia. Her work tends to behave like puns—forms that allow multiple meanings to coexist. She has previously shown work at Gallery No One, Heaven, Comfort Station Chicago and Starch Singapore.

Mean Jeans is a contemporary American popular punkular ensemble. Their work in vinyl, digital files and performance has found stages and shelves across the globe. By turns felicitous, abject and absurd, their punk-futurism engages concepts of space travel, party as form and slime time through buzzsaw vernaculars and a wryness that belies a weighty existentialism and sneering consumer critique. Represented by Fat Wreck Chords, this is their first exhibition with Commercial Gallery.