For Public Consumption is curated for Hyde Park Art Center by Erik Fabian and Stephanie Pereira in collaboration with Links Hall, an incubator and venue for new works in the performing arts located on the north side of Chicago. This group-show is presented on the digital public facade of Hyde Park Art Center, and offers multi-channel videos by six Chicago artists working in video, photography, performance, and poetry. The contemporary performance-based videos invite the public to read along, to be complicit in a performance, or to simply pay attention. Diverse in style, each piece engages with the idea of what a performative video might be.
Richard Fox has created a series of poems in PowerPoint that stretch out over five different video channels and offer a reader new ways to engage with text. In John Bannon’s piece, a camera mounted on a parade float provides new perspectives on Chicago communities. Deva Eveland wants you to listen and competes with himself to get your attention. Shawnee Barton wants you to get to know her, the things that are her favorites, and a few that aren’t. Finally, Morganville and Danièle Wilmouth present audiences with something that is reminiscent of a commercial, but you aren’t quite sure what it is that they are selling. The exhibition includes a schedule of public programs that will enrich the connection between performers and audience by allowing each other to intervene and interrelate. We hope that the public will join us as we contemplate how this exhibition will newly enable communication – from building to person to building.
