Miniotics, Pop Gun at Weatherproof
Chicago, IL
Group, March 13 - April 13, 2025
MINIOTICS presents a synaptic mapping of Pop Gun’s art-world; Nodes of international artists are connected in a schematic display of social and institutional vectors, advancing the discourse of Network Painting, and rendering physical the resinous scaffolds of social labor.
On the surface, the exhibition will appear as 130+ MINIONS, ranging from literal yellow henchmen from the ‘Despicable Me’ franchise, to conceptual gestures. Artists from New York City to Chicago, to San Francisco, Providence, Guadalajara, Melbourne, Bogotá, Stockholm and more, speak to common experience in minionese, contextualizing the “banana” babblings of scene discourse within an absurdist world-wide scheme.
Curated by Gunner Dongieux and Trinity Bavaria
Aaron Pierce, Abby Lloyd, Allegra Harvard, Alyssa Davis, Andrea Emmerich, Andrew Basinski, Andrew Laumann, Andrew Straub, Ari Norris, Baijun Chen, Ben Foch, Benjamin Scott, Bora Akinciturk, Braden Skelton, Bradley Milligan, Brian Oakes, Cameron Spratley x Maxwell Volkman, Camila Astorquiza, Camilo Medina, Chance Lucy, Chloe Seibert, Chloe Wilcox, Chris Retsina, Christine Tien Wang, Christopher Gambino, CJ Shaw, Cole Denyer, Cole Levya, Cumwizard69420, Dahlia Bloomstone, Danny Sobor, Daphne Knouse, Darius Airo, David Colosi, Dean Millien, Delaney Rua, Diego Groisman, Drew Villanueva, Elberto Muller, Erik Foss, Francesca Facciola, Gabriel Rozzell, Gloria Sebastian Fierro Castro, Grace Bromley, Gregory Simmons II, Gunner Dongieux, Gwen Smith, Hale Jones, Harrison Wyrick, Helen Hawkins, Henry Gunderson, Hugo Zelada Romero, Jackie Klein, Jacob Ciocci, Jacob Jackmauh, Jacob Lay, Jacob Patrick Brooks, Jahi Kijo Lendor, Jake Fagundo, Jared Hoffmann, Jeff Egner, Jeremy McBrian, Jerome Wang, Joey Frank, Johnson y Jeisson, Jon Burgerman, Jonathan Dedecker, Jonathan Leib, José G. Rivera, Joshua Abelow, Joshua Boulos, Joy Lane, Juliana Vargas Zapata, Juni Mun, Justin Ortiz x Jacob Mattingly, Karla Zurita, Kati Kirsch, Kaylee Spears, Kelsa Kuchera, Kristen Landsman, Kyle Gallahger, Lauren Sullivan, Leonardo Ascencio, Liam Murray, Liza Jo Eilers, Luca Forte, Lucas Bourgine, Lucas Flanders, Madeline Bach, Madeline Leplae, Maite Iribarren Vazquéz, Marcus Wagner, Mark E. Oybeleté, Mary Amelia, Mary Sellers, Matt Voor, Max Palmer, Milly Skellington & Jin Mateo Kim, Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Nick Jorgensen, Nick Schutzenhofer, Olivia Oyamada, Parker Davis, Pastiche Lumumba, Patrick Sarmiento, Peter Carney, Peter Eide, Phillip Hinge, Rachel Yanku, Reece Francis Perkins, Richard Hull, Ruby Zarsky, Ryan Mettz, Sam Linguist, Sasha Fishman, Scott Reeder, Shelley Uckotter, Stephanie Cora Hayden, Tarik Kentouche, TD Reade, Terry Cole, Tess Manhattan, Tom Kohler, Trevor Shimizu, Trinity Bavaria, Tyler Dobson, Tyson Reeder, Violet Handforth, Visaya Hoffie, Wesley Ware, Will Kaplan, William Reed, Wyatt Davis, Xingzi Gu, Yusef Fageeh, Zach Harrington, Zander Raymond, Zola Rollins.
Press:
Landscape survey: What's on in Chicago's Outer Spaces: Miniotics at Weatherproof
Mar 22, 2025
By SUSAN GESCHEIDLE
WEATHERPROOF – Miniotics
Whatever you do between now and April 13th, visit Weatherproof to see Miniotics! It’s a wackadoodle group exhibition of roughly 140 artists. The gallery is jammed floor to ceiling (literally art is hung on the ceiling!) with Minion-inspired pieces of all sizes and mediums. It will be worth your time to check it out. I promise. A show like this strikes me as representative of Chicago’s young galleries / curatorial spaces right now–showing art by friends and peers without really giving a damn about making money, though of course they need it, and they still should be taken seriously. Young gallerists are trying fresh new things as the mood strikes, and it’s exciting to encounter.
Weatherproof is a gallery and curatorial space founded in 2022 and run by Milo Christie and Sam Dybeck. Miniotics is presented by Pop Gun, an artist-run project space in New York City and curated by the New York City duo of Gunner Dongieux and Trinity Bavaria. Dongieux is an artist and Founder and Co-Director of Pop Gun. Bavaria, also an artist, lives and works in New York City and has exhibited at Pop Gun, as well as Cleaner Gallery + Projects here in Chicago.
Dongieux and Bavaria invited artists from around the world to participate. As the curatorial statement says, it’s “a synaptic mapping of Pop Gun’s art-world.” It’s heavy on New York City and Chicago representation, understandably so. But I spied San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockholm and beyond. The work runs the gamut from serious to cheesy, good to less good, and large to small. The artists took their Minion assignments semi-seriously and brought their A-games (or at least their B-games.) It’s a fun and dizzying experience of yellow and blue, bananas and Minion references.
It’s nearly impossible to pick a favorite piece, because they’re all so different. The three largest pieces warrant a shoutout, however. You can’t miss Tyler Dobson’s giant Minion, a Rothko-esque painting in yellow and blue. Hanging on the ceiling is, American Minion, a vinyl banner with painted Minions and flags by Trinity Bavaria. And then there’s Eve, a bright yellow sculpture of a reclining nude female by New York City artist, and Co-Director of Pop Gun, Karla Zurita. “All materials were found or bought on West Lawrence Ave,” she reveals, “It’s my love letter to Chicago.”
Other interesting pieces, in no particular order, are: CJ Shaw’s BANANA FISH, a small oil, graphite, and inkjet print on canvas. David Colosi’s, The Return, a luscious colored pencil drawing of a large group of water-Minions hard at work. Ari Norris’s tiny, understated yellow and blue outlet cover, Minion Outlet. Braden Skelton’s, The Crisis of Nihilism, a Minion cushion holding a plaster face of Nietzsche. The list of hits goes on and on. The gallery is a literal candy store of art. The range of talent is impressive, including the likes of Allegra Harvard, Reece Francis Perkins, and heavy-hitters like Richard Hull and Scott Reeder. There’s something for everyone in this show: video to sculpture to toys to mosaics, and even to…urine.
The curators say the artists ‘speak to common experience in Minionese.’ With around 140 artists exhibiting together in such a small space, that’s one loud conversation. So, pop in, and find out how Miniotics speaks to you.
Mac Pierce
April 18, 2025
The void will consume us and it'll be dank - Minionotics at Weatherproof
For anyone who's been chronically online in the past couple of months, the terms “Vance head” and “Ghibli slop” have an eye-rolling, almost revolting quality. Both are memes that recently sprung out of nowhere and for a few days each it was nearly impossible to avoid their various permutations. They even made the rare jump offline onto major news channels, with Fox News covering JD Vance’s face, and The Verge covering OpenAI’s propensity for making images in the style of Studio Ghibli. Sometimes they even overlap…
What made these memes so effective is that they took an essentially empty vessel—the forgettable face of a politician that stands for nothing / a theft machine so vapid that everything that it produces is accurately termed slop—and juxtaposed each with some of the most extreme content on the web. The result was a profusion of monstrous amalgams, JD Vance’s dead eyes transposed on Judge Holden from Blood Meridian or the final moments of Trotsky rendered with flat shading, each image still retained just enough signifiers of the original reference to still point back to the origin of the meme. This ability to be
Organized by NYC-based entity Pop Gun and curated by Gunner Dongieux and Trinity Bavaria, this wall-to-wall exhibition features work by 135 artists from around the world (but mostly from New York). A portmanteau of semiotics and Minion (creature), Minionotics draws upon both aspects of its namesake to cover every available surface of the gallery in artworks—converting the gray and white of Weatherproof into a circus of blue-and-yellow. Ostensibly a “synaptic mapping of Pop Gun’s art-world,” the only readily evident organizational logic seems to be one theme—all the artworks in the show have to draw from the concept of Minions. stretched to the edge of legibility is a common theme of the truly viral meme—an aspect I kept returning to upon my visit to Chicago’s Weatherproof gallery for the closing of the group show Minionotics.
The Minion is a species of supporting character, known for wackadoo antics, that debuted in the 2010 film Despicable Me. As of this writing there are 6 feature length movies in the Despicable Me series. In order of release date, they are: Despicable Me (2010), Despicable Me 2 (2013), Minions (2015), Despicable Me 3 (2017), Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), and Despicable Me 4 (2024). A 7th feature film - Minions 3 - is due in 2026. It’s a wildly popular franchise and has become a major hit for Universal Pictures, its distributor. Yet despite their 15‑year run, I still haven’t seen any of the movies. That hasn’t spared me from Minion‑laden media.
Much like JD Vance’s mug and Ghibli slop, Minions as a subject are a viral meme—instantly recognizable to anyone who spends much time online. Their underlying emptiness makes them the perfect vessel. They’re harmless, focus‑group‑engineered plushie bait, and Universal has adopted them as corporate mascots, joining Mickey Mouse and Spider‑Man in the pantheon of IP turned icon. Simply put, in becoming a symbol that ceases to stand for any one thing, it can become anything. In Minionotics, they do.
For this show, Weatherproof became a de-virtualized Know Your Meme page. Every surface—including the ceiling, occupied by Bavaria’s American Minion—holds Minion‑themed artwork.With 135 artists², the exhibition overwhelms your ability to distinguish one object from another; themes, content, and mediums bleed together, mimicking the experience of scrolling through every #minion post on TikTok. Two looping video works—Minion DVD by Parker Davis and Minion Video by Jacob Ciocci—pump out clashing audio, producing a babble worthy of their animated muses. In retrospect, the only pieces I can recall without photographic help are the most jarring: physical edgelord memes rendered IRL. By my count, at least 15 works show a Minion in a sexual encounter, proving once again the foundational rules of the internet.
Sexual content in art is nothing new, but the overall vibe here feels different. Even the non‑sexual images seem cursed, often presenting outright unsettling content. As Ben Davis argues in “Culture Has No Name for This Cursed Vibe. It’s Everywhere” (Artnet, February 2025), the spread of internet aesthetics into cultural spaces that once rejected them has normalized shock. It’s the White House’s X account posting “ASMR” footage of shackled immigrants. It’s the world’s richest man brandishing a chainsaw onstage at the RNC. It’s what happens when the trolls take power—and in Minionotics, that’s exactly what has happened.
Written didactics are sparse: just two sentences in the press release. In contrast, the clearest curatorial statement may be the curators’ own contribution—two Dasani bottles filled with urine.
That isn’t to say the show wasn’t worth seeing. I’m inclined to agree with Arthur Danto’s notion that art “died” in the 1960s, freeing it from a linear historical framework. Minionotics exemplified this: Minions are art, draft stoppers are art, cursed paintings are art, bottles of piss are art— even bananas taped to walls are art.
And when memes are the currency of today’s attention economy, an exhibition that treats them—and their embodied affect—as material is undeniably relevant.
Because, hell, if everything is awful, at least the memes will be dank.
https://www.macpierce.com/blog/2025/4/18/minionotics-at-weatherproof