Index

Selected Photographs      / Selected Installations         /Selected Curatorial Projects

2026
Carrier

2025
Scherben: Two Roses & A Briar Pipe
White Hydrogen
2024
Maison Fragile
Millennial Hallway
2023
Athi Patra Ruga: …looking for The One.
Survival on Land & Sea
Desire
Reckless Rolodex
2022
Sketch for a Movie
Soccer Pictures
2021
Amina Ross: Man’s Country
Oli Rodriguez: Papi
John Neff: 101
2020
Bequest of Robert Blanchon
2018
Kevin Killian: Spreadeagle
Kelly Kaczynski, Thomas Kong, Patric McCoy, and John Neff: Curated by John Neff, Curated by Jamie Stevens
Coop Fund, Amalle Dublon, Constantina Zavitsanos, Devin Kenny, John Neff
2017
Blue Bathroom Blues Set for Frederick Weston
Authorization Sessions 
Dani and Sheilah ReStack: Stack for Carrington’s Hyena
Hervé Guibert: How Could It Be Otherwise?
Arnold Kemp
Eternal Youth
Militant Eroticism: The Art+Positive Archives

2016
Joe Cassan: Bed, Bath, and Beyond
Chicago and Vicinity
Tony Greene Movie (2014-2016)
2015
Thomas Kong / John Neff Making Chances Militant Eroticism: The Art+Positive Archives
Robert Beck / Robert Buck
Kelly Kaczynski: Oh! Oh! Oh!
2014
Tony Green
2013
Kaplan Project
Mark Jackson / Tony Lewis / John Neff
John Neff
2012
Mark Jackson: Darkness and Light
John Neff
Spectral Landscape (with Viewing Stations)
2011
Intimacies
John Neff Prints Robert Blanchon
Kelly Kaczynski
2010
The Book of the Tumblr on Fire
Production Site: The Artist’s Studio Inside-Out
2009
The Analog Hole (Or “Abundance”)
Artist Run Chicago/ Artists Run Chicago Digest
Basic or Boring Pictures
Doug Ischar: An Interview. In “Marginal Waters.”
2008
Dead Center / Marginal Notes Bathers and Other Liquid Pictures Father, can’t you see I’m burning Nocturnes for Boston Trans Blueprints and Trans Study
2007
Snowfall 
Printed Space
I’m Not Saying It Does & I’m Not Saying It Doesn’t- An Interview with Fred Camper.
2006
Pornographic Pantograph with Allusion to Juan Sanchez Cotan (In Progress, Patent Pending)
Monuments of the Prosaic. BAT Journal
2004
Travels Between the First and Third Dimension
2003
Hysterical Pastoral
Stray Show Catalogue (with Hypothetical Continent)
2002
Loop
Papers on Work- Collages and Explanations
2001
Triptych
Untitled (To My Mother)
2000
Cold Conceptualism
Figure / Ground
Repetitions
1999 Empty Space
1998
Two Comparsions
1997
Documentuh
Vexations
1996
214 West Gilman St. #2

JOHN NEFF

2025White HydrogenExhibition

December 7 - February 1

Regards
Chicago, IL

[Image: Blue spectre tile]

John Neff: White Hydrogen

With contributions by Shannon Silva and Trudy Z. Morgenstern

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 7, 2024, 2–5 PM

Exhibition Dates: December 7, 2024 – February 1, 2025

Location: Regards, Chicago

Regards is pleased to present White Hydrogen, an exhibition by John Neff with contributions by Shannon Silva and Trudy Z. Morgenstern. The exhibition explores the intersections of biology, mathematics, memory, and time through visual and conceptual works.

At the heart of the exhibition is Neff’s engagement with the spectre aperiodic monotile, a mathematically remarkable shape that can tile a plane infinitely without ever repeating the same pattern. This form appears in a large wall painting, wallpaper, and paper cutouts.

Another key element of the exhibition is a large crayon drawing of a Lorenz butterfly diagram, an iconic visual representation of the Lorenz equation, which models how small changes can lead to vastly different outcomes within dynamic systems. The drawing will evolve throughout the exhibition, as Neff slowly completes it during the show’s run.

Shannon Silva contributes an abstract sculpture rendered in copper, mica, silver, and wool depicting a blastocyst implanting in a uterine wall, evoking themes of origin and transformation. Morgenstern’s work is a mid-20th century oil painting of a young boy drawing, offering a moment of reflection on creative beginnings.

The exhibition also features a microscope from Neff’s childhood. He recalls using the microscope to observe his sperm as a boy. A small photograph of sperm taken through the lens accompanies this poignant relic of youthful curiosity and self-exploration.

Two wall clocks, one running forward and the other backward, frame the exhibition’s meditation on time. They gesture toward the Buddhist concept of kalpa—a vast, immeasurable period encompassing cycles of creation, destruction, and renewal.

During the exhibition, Neff will hold weekly half-hour conversations with psychotherapist Jamie Stevens, reflecting on psychoanalysis, creative practice, and the exhibition’s evolution. Audio recordings and texts from these dialogues will form an integral part of the show. Although termed “sessions,” these discussions are not therapeutic but instead a shared inquiry into process and meaning.

***

Write a short press release for an art show by John Neff at Regards, Chicago, with contributions by Shannon Silva and Trudy Z. Morgenstern. The exhibition opens on December 7, 2024. The exhibition reception will take place on Saturday, December 7, between 2 PM and 5 PM. The exhibition closes on February 1, 2025. Do not include an email address for Regards. The writing should be brief, clear, and informative. Interpretive or poetic language may be included, but sparingly.

Mention the following about Neff’s project:

• It includes representations of the spectre aperiodic monotile in a wall painting, wallpaper, and simple paper cutouts. 
• Describe the spectre aperiodic monotile in one sentence. 
• It includes a large crayon drawing of a Lorenz butterfly diagram that will be completed by Neff over the duration of the show. 
• Describe a Lorenz butterfly diagram in one or two sentences. 
• Shannon Silvia’s contribution is an abstract representation of a blastocyst implanting in a uterine wall made from copper, mica, silver, and wool. 
• Trudy Z. Morgenstern’s work is a mid-20th Century oil painting of a young boy drawing with crayons. 
• There is a microscope in the show that was used to make a small photograph of sperm also on display. Neff owned the microscope when he was a child and he remembers, from his boyhood, looking at his own sperm through the microscope. 
• There are two clocks in the show, one running forwards and the other running backwards. Include alongside this a definition of the Buddhist term “kalpa.” 
• Briefly but thoroughly, mention that throughout the show Neff will have weekly half-hour conversations with psychotherapist Jamie Stevens about the project and that audio recordings and texts documenting these conversations will be part of the exhibition. Add that although they are described as “sessions,” the discussions are not therapeutic but instead reflect Neff and Stevens’ shared interests in psychoanalysis, exhibition-making, and creative practice. 
• Include these biographies for the participating artists:

John Neff is an artist, curator, and teacher living in Chicago, Illinois. Neff has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally since 1999, including Artists Space (New York), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Renaissance Society (Chicago), Donald Young Gallery (Chicago), Gallery 400 (Chicago), Scherben (Berlin), and King’s Leap (New York). Neff has organized dozens of individual and group exhibitions, most often through Chicago’s Iceberg Projects, where he was a founding co-curator with art collector Dr. Daniel Berger and artist Doug Ischar. As a teacher, Neff works in several Chicago-area MFA programs. He also works with Chicago Public Schools, teaching curatorial practices units in local elementary schools.

Trudy Z. Morgenstern was a mid-20th-century artist working in the Midwestern United States whose oil paintings often explored themes of childhood, memory, and creativity.

Shannon Silva is a California based mixed media visual artist working with found objects, plant materials, textiles, stop motion and video.  She holds a BA in Art, a MA in Depth Psychology and counseling and a MFA from the School of the Art institute of Chicago. Her background in Somatic Psychotherapy greatly influences the themes in her work.  She explores fragility, vulnerability and chaos through the lens of resources.  She is examining the psycho-physical barriers present in modern political dialogue. Her work attempts to put forward a remembered way of having an undefended conversation with self and others, modeled after cellular memory, the natural word, and the creative act itself.

At the bottom of the text add a line thanking Galit Aloni, Joe Cassan, Roburt Davis, Nigel Flower, olivier, David Sprecher, Samuel Schwindt, and Brett Swenson for their assistance in realizing the exhibition.