The group exhibition Hairy Blob presents works by artists who tease, tweak, stretch, jumble, compress, arrest and intensify time, using video, sculpture, drawing, installation, movement, sound and several participatory events. Rather than thinking about time in terms of memory or nostalgia, these artists experiment with images of time both seriously and irreverently, addressing uses, interpretations and ownership of land, goods, and architectural environments in the present and their implications for the future.
Featured Artists
Becky Alprin, Nadav Assor, Deborah Boardman, Lauren Carter, Sarah FitzSimons, Ashley Hunt in collaboration with Taisha Paggett, Judith Leemann, Kirsten Leenaars, Faheem Majeed, and Emily Newman.
Lauren Carter’s sculpture Sunsets greets the viewer at the entrance to the exhibition. It transforms a stack of gilded encyclopedias into a mirror. Sarah FitzSimons’ photo installation Pier presents a mysterious structure in a long-empty lake basin, evoking deep, geologic time. It also indicates a future when the land may again be covered in water. Part of Chicago’s built environment is considered in Becky Alprin’s work, which will translate the entire story of a downtown plot into one sculpture, with a companion piece that travels through the main gallery when nobody is watching. Faheem Majeed, former Executive Director of the South Side Community Arts Center, will engage with SSCAC’s historical archive to create an installation that doubles as performative space.
Several of the artists who participate in the exhibition will be actively working at the Hyde Park Art Center throughout the duration of the show. The constantly evolving exhibition will include the filming of a “soap opera” by Kirstin Leenars, a free concert performed by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) in Majeed’s installation, and a live audio/visual performance with Nadav Assor collaborating with Israeli artist, Daniel Davidovsky.
Hairy Blob is curated by Adelheid Mers, an artist and faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Graduate student Leah Oren is the curatorial assistant for the exhibition. Tristan Sterk will contribute exhibition design, and Jessica Westbrook and Adam Trowbridge will design and coordinate the Asteroid Belt, an online catalog available beginning April 15, 2012.
Research and administrative assistance for Hairy Blob has been provided by students in the graduate curatorial seminar at SAIC. Additionally, the students will coordinate a satellite exhibition for Hairy Blob at the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection at SAIC.
