Alicia Eler

Alicia Eler is a cultural critic and arts reporter. She is the author of the book The Selfie Generation (Skyhorse Publishing), which has been reviewed in the New York Times, WIRED Magazine and the Chicago Tribune. A native of Chicago by way of L.A., Alicia's writing has also been published in Glamour, the Guardian, CNN, Hyperallergic, Art21 Magazine, LA Weekly, and Aperture. She is currently the visual art critic/arts reporter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Posted inArt

Artists Point the Way Toward a New Queer Aesthetic (NSFW)

by Alicia Eler

CHICAGO — I’d cruise slick Chicago boy bodies at the infamous bathhouse Steamworks if I were a cisboy, or at least marginally passable as an effeminate dude. Suffice it to say that my gender isn’t welcome amidst the mist of those showers. My desire for dick instead led me to The Great Refusal: Taking on New Queer Aesthetics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Sullivan Galleries. Curated by SAIC faculty member Oli Rodriguez in collaboration with SAIC undergraduates and recent alumni, the exhibition spans nearly four white-cube gallery spaces and encompasses work by more than 50 artists.

Posted inArt

Expo Marks the Beginning of Chicago’s New Art Identity in Post-Mayor Daley Era

by Alicia Eler

CHICAGO — The excitement and buzz around Expo Chicago, the Windy City’s resurgence into the international art world, felt deafening. Practically every artist in the city who knew how to handle art was in some way involved with the fair. Newcity newspaper, the city’s #1 alt-weekly, published “Chicago top 50 artists,” a timely and simultaneously ballsy list explaining the who’s who of Chicago.

Posted inArt

Did Lady Gaga Rip Off Artist Taras Polataiko?

by Alicia Eler

Lady Gaga hosted the last big party of fashion week on September 14 by creating “Sleeping With Gaga,” a performance that has uncomfortable similarities with Canadian-Ukranian artist Taras Polataiko’s recent Sleeping Beauty. After drawing a lot of international press and attention, his modern-day fairytale closed at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kiev on September 9, five days before her one-night-only performance took place at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.