Exhibition Features Works by Artists Experimenting with New Mediums
Image: Kunal Sen, Two Abyss Staring at Each Other, 2019, oil and acrylic on canvas, 24 x 12 inches
CHICAGO – Hyde Park Art Center (5020 S. Cornell) is proud to present EXPANDED FIELDS, an exhibition of work from participants in New Edition, a pilot program developed by the Art Center for artists to learn and make work in a medium with which they have had little to no previous experience. The exhibition will take place in Gallery 5, from December 13, 2019 – February 23, 2020. The opening reception will be held on Friday, December 13, from 5-7pm in conjunction with the opening of “Not Just Another Pretty Face,” the Art Center’s matchmaking commissioning program for artists and potential art buyers.
New Edition Program Facilitator Claudine Isé curates the exhibition, which features the work of 10 artists, each of whom presents one piece in the medium for which they are known alongside a new artwork made during the 10-week program. Artists participating in New Edition and EXPANDED FIELDS include Deirdre Fox, Frances Lightbound, India Martin, Carlos Matallana, Katherine Nemanich, Kunal Sen, Juliann Wang, Cynthia Weiss, Mark Yee and Shanna Zentner.
New Edition, the latest professional pathways program developed by the Center, is conceived as a way for artists to thoughtfully experiment in another medium that they have never before seriously attempted. Participants—who are all Hyde Park Art Center alumni of either The Bridge Program, The Center Program, or Ground Floor—enroll in Art Center courses such as screen printing, monotype printing or ceramics, or work instead at the FabLab at UChicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which offers a range of 3-D printing resources and workshops.
Throughout the 10-week program, “artists learn new skills in their separate classes, and then they all come together in weekly discussions to share experiences, show works in progress, get feedback and generally think through how their new work fits into their established history—all within a supportive and collaborative group setting,” Isé explains.
“What makes New Edition unique is that it is geared explicitly towards experimentation, risk-taking and change within an artist’s practice. By providing the instruction and tools with which to learn an entirely new skillset, New Edition fosters the sorts of expansive creative leaps that help foster longevity in an artist’s career.”
The Center Program is partially supported by Luminarts Cultural Foundations, Arts + Public Life, and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.
About the Curator/Program Facilitator
Claudine Isé is the director of Goldfinch, a contemporary art gallery located in East Garfield Park, and is a Lecturer in the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Institutionally, Isé has worked as a curator at the Riverside Arts Center’s Freeark Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Riverside, IL; the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH; and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She has written numerous articles on art and popular culture for publications such as Artforum.com, Bad at Sports, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Art21 Blog, among others.
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Hyde Park Art Center is a hub for contemporary arts in Chicago, serving as a gathering and production space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect through expanded networks. The Art Center functions as an amplifier for today and tomorrow’s creative voices, providing the space to make, see, learn about, and engage art with freedom. The Art Center is funded in part by: Allstate Insurance Company; Alphawood
Foundation; Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Foundation; The Chicago Community Trust; Crown Family Philanthropies; David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation; Field Foundation of Illinois; Harper Court Arts Council; Illinois Arts Council Agency; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; The Joyce Foundation; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince; National Endowment for the Arts; Polk Bros. Foundation; Reva and David Logan Foundation; Smart Family Foundation, Inc; Terra Foundation for American Art; and the generosity of its members and people like you.
