Multimedia artist Duncan R. Anderson wears a cowboy hat, calls his friends “boss,” and addresses women as either Miss or Missus. He grew up and went to college in Johnson City, an Appalachian town in eastern Tennessee that he says resembles “Evanston with a great deal of Twin Peaks mixed in.” Even the punk kids went to church, he claims, and much of the population honestly believed “that Satan put dinosaur bones in the ground just to confuse us.” His mother was very religious (“but not a kook”), and though as a nurse she took care of patients regardless of class, she frequently reminded Anderson that she was descended from Confederate aristocracy. After she died eight years ago, his father encouraged him to move to Chicago and continue making his art. Several of his collages parody Civil War soldiers gearing up for defeat, and one self-portrait depicts him with his mother’s lips.
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Another piece, titled Takin’ the Bullet for Dad on Saipan–“Dad! Look out! Uhnnn!” I Am a Good Son, features a cutout image of Spider-Man being shot by a line of newsprint soldiers–a reference to his guilt over being sort of a screw-up. By the time his father was his age, he says, he’d already commanded a platoon of marines during World War II. “He was leading all these guys to certain death, and I’m going through the couch looking for change to buy a six-pack of Busch so I can go back to the studio and paint this boot yellow and nail it to the wall,” he says. But his father once told him he’d fought so “fellows like you could make paintings and write symphonies and make beautiful things,” and he won’t allow his son to move back home even though he’s currently recovering from a heart attack and stroke.
One of the gallery’s early shows featured photographer Jason Lazarus, who graduated from DePaul in 1998 with a degree in marketing. By 2000 Lazarus was bored with the nine-to-five grind and started taking pictures. Now almost done with an MFA in photography at Columbia College, Lazarus and a friend, Nathan Anderson (no relation to Duncan), are opening Jesus Chrysler Gallery in the Pilsen apartment they share. The first show will feature Duncan R. Anderson’s work exclusively, because group shows “don’t really require too much from one artist,” says Nathan. “It doesn’t really express the whole layout of work. It’s not a holistic approach to all their talents and what they have to offer.” Plus, says Lazarus, “us being new to this whole thing takes the pressure off trying to be curators and having to come up with some heady perspective for a show. We’ll just build the world’s best megaphone for Duncan to yell through.”
