HUBRIS, a group exhibition orchestrated by curatorial collection The Pond opened May 2 at the Hyde Park Art Center. The Pond showcased arrangements of artwork combining emerging and established local national and international artists around a central theme of idea. Through paintings, drawings, sculptures and videos, the artists of HUBRIS boldly imagined a fantastic world, inscribed shared systems and cultural artifacts with individualized meanings and invested aesthetic inquiry with humanity.
Amanda Browder (Chicago, IL) skewed expected physical interaction in her fabric and found object installations. A heroic image of the artist in envisioned in the video and sculpture by Justin Bursk (Philadelphia, PA). Subtle, rainbow hued geometrics abstraction by Michelle Grabner (Oak Park. IL) re-acquainted the modern world with a “good news” morality. Daniel Johnston (Houston, TX) rewrote popular fictions in his superhero drawings, and Marc LeBlanc (Chicago, IL) synergized power from New Age talismans in his art objects. Leslie Lerner (Sarasota, FL) fused rococo with modern accompanying photographs by Adia Millett (New York, NY). The action figure videos and drawings by Beatriz Monteavaro (Miami, FL) revised contemporary comic fables, while Kay Rosen (Gary, IN) challenged painting, signage, syntax and diction by rigorously restructuring the function, character and personality of the alphabet. Finally, Wayne White (Los Angeles, CA) literally inserted bold, monumental text into thrift store lithographs of landscapes.
These artists exemplified that art can be the space to responsibly imagine new ways of responding to an unruly and morally ambiguous world. HUBRIS maintained that engaged creative practice is an essential and innate function of humanity.
