Looking back on Industry of the Ordinary’s performance at The Arts Club of Chicago on Tuesday, March 10th, it seems we were in a different world than we are today. The Arts Club’s gallery was full of people, sound, ice, and water.
Photo: Sarah Elizabeth Larson
The collaborative duo Industry of the Ordinary (Adam Brooks and Mat Wilson), in keeping with their ongoing series of performances involving interaction with melting ice, presented If you’ve got a blacklist, I want to be on it (title pulled from the lyrics of Billy Bragg’s 1988 anthem “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward”) with cellist Katinka Kleijn, performers Luci Lei and Jay Wolke, and sound designer Dan Dehaan.
An exploration of group think, symbology, endurance, and privacy vs. collectivity; Brooks and Wilson lay prone on the floor of the club’s gallery with heavy blocks of ice sculpted into the shape of a circle with either an X or a cross through it (depending on the orientation) on their backs for 2 hours, testing their bodies and focusing their minds on the accompanying activity. Kleijn performed a deeply inquisitive scripted improvisation with live processing of her amplified sounds. She incorporated waterproof microphones scraped across the blocks of ice on her collaborator’s backs, inviting the audience to don headphones and explore the sounds of the hydrophones themselves.
Photo: Sarah Elizabeth Larson
Between each use, Lei carefully, diligently wiped down the headphones with an antibacterial cloth in deference to the rising pandemic yet unaware of the imminent shut-down. As ice melted down the backs of Wilson and Brooks, Wolke, wearing a janitorial uniform, mopped around the bodies of the two prone performers.
Photo: Sarah Elizabeth Larson
The role of the audience in the space was constantly in flux, though over time it became clear that they were co-performers from the outset.
As guests entered the gallery, they were greeted by the club’s security guard, Eric Hampton. The room was silent, and there was a stack of chairs near the wall on the right side of the room. Guests were invited to grab a chair or to roam around as they liked.
Before long, the guests in the space assembled themselves into a relatively unprompted traditional audience arrangement, in neat rows of chairs. Everyone sat, silent, whispering, anticipating.
Wilson and Brooks came into the space in tuxedos, sitting among the audience, looking around, having quiet chats with attendees, reading the vibe of the room and following suit.
Photo: Sarah Elizabeth Larson
People continued to enter the gallery, now propping themselves against the back wall or tiptoeing toward an empty chair here or there, wary of disrupting the reverent, anticipatory energy of the room.
The performance itself was well underway before Kleijn played a single note and before a single drop of ice melted.
Brooks and Wilson habitually expose and examine implied contracts in their work, preferring to avoid any didactic text explaining the performance and leave the attendees to set the tone and level of interaction. Throughout the two hours of If you’ve got a blacklist…, those in attendance looked to one another and to their understood conventions of performance to craft a collaborative environment for shared experience.
This interactive gathering occurred on the heels of a week of interventions at The Arts Club, a project entitled Seven Days in March.
From a list of 29 proposed interventions over the course of the week, The Arts Club selected 6.
Photo: Paul Crisanti
Photo: Paul Crisanti
Photo: Paul Crisanti
Photo: Paul Crisanti
Photo: Paul Crisanti
The theme of labor and service was never far from mind. For the picnic performance in The Drawing Room, Brooks and Wilson both wore chef’s whites as they sliced pieces of cake and formally, with decorum, passed them to visitors. In The Arts Club’s gallery, Jay Wolke performed in a white maintenance jumpsuit to mop dripping, melted water from a pair of 12 x 12 inch frozen sculptures placed on Brooks’ and Wilson’s backs as they lay prone on the floor.
Seven Days in March highlighted, among other things, the omnipresence and at times simultaneous invisibility of service workers (and laborers in general) in the arts. By putting the inherently performative act of service on the proverbial stage, Industry of the Ordinary call into question to whom we give our attention in arts institutions.[1] And by subtly intervening on the Club’s everyday surrounds with new objects and artworks, they call into question to what we give our attention.
Industry of the Ordinary have made a practice of examining the histories and structures of the sites where they produce work, and The Arts Club was no exception. They chose to highlight The Arts Club’s collection, space, and the ways in which service and labor work within the club’s infrastructure. Each intervention prompted a necessary awareness of one’s surroundings, certain unspoken social contracts, and the way said contracts are established or upheld, leaving observers to answer emergent questions for themselves.
Friday November 3
Public Program: Architecture
Architectural Scholars Cynthia Davidson, Penelope Dean, and Geoffrey Goldberg
Program 6:00 pm
Now in its second iteration, The Chicago Architecture Biennial has brought ideas from around the world to Chicago. But what to make of the work? The Arts Club of Chicago will again host a live critique of this year’s Biennial, entitled “Make New History”. Come hear Cynthia Davidson, editor of the architectural journal Log, and Penelope Dean, UIC Professor and publisher of Flat Out, share what they found interesting and intriguing in the show, in discussion with Chicago architect Geoff Goldberg.
Free and open to the public
Amanda Williams creates a site-specific installation for The Arts Club Garden Projects series in which she inserts a secondary fence that breaks away from the existing boundary, blurring the distinction between its function as barrier and container alike. Uppity Negress addresses the layered roles gender and race have played historically in black women’s ability to navigate their position in urban space.
Fascinated by the way the garden operates as a liminal space between public and private, Williams’s installation highlights concepts of authority and access–noting when each is granted or denied. Recent instances in contemporary culture have resurrected the term ‘uppity’ to challenge the suggestion that black women have forgotten their place, or need reminding. By venturing “out of line,” the fence creates a disorienting space that calls into question the relationship between restraint and protection.
To commemorate the opening of her garden project, Williams will speak about her work alongside a sound performance featuring the voices of Carris Adams and Natalie Moore.
Free and open to the public.
In early January, I had the pleasure of visiting the Glasner Studio, one unit in a larger compound of Old Town studios developed in the late 1920s by artist/designer/craftsman/architect Edgar Miller and collaborator Sol Kogen. Despite my best attempts to focus on the fact that I was there for a meeting, I spent the majority of my time gazing, mouth agape, at literally everything: the chair I was sitting in, the banisters on the stairs, the panes of glass in the windows. In 2014, I had a similar struggle visiting the Carl Street Studios. Those who’ve been lucky enough to visit an Edgar Miller space can attest to the overwhelming nature of the experience. The level of detail, from the hand-painted tiles on the floor to the meticulously-crafted chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, engages the eye at every turn. But not everyone gets to see it. Miller’s work is largely hidden from the outside world. I can’t say I’ve ever seen his name in a gallery, nor have I seen much scholarship around the subject of Miller. I’ve only interacted with his work as a visitor behind a collection of closed, albeit very ornate, doors. That’s why I was so intrigued by Zac Bleicher’s work with the Edgar Miller Legacy, an organization with the goal of making this very special, somewhat unknown creative’s philosophy and art more available to a wider audience.
Photo by Alexander Vertikoff, courtesy of Edgar Miller Legacy
On Saturday, February 25, we’ll be joined by Rolf Achilles (SAIC), Lisa Stone (SAIC, Roger Brown Study Collection), and Wendy Greenhouse, PhD (Art Historian) for a conversation about Edgar Miller. From painting to sculpture, woodwork to stained glass, Miller was a self-taught artist and master craftsman—a true “Renaissance Man” of the modern era. This presentation is a collaboration of The Arts Club, the Terra Foundation for American and Art, and the Edgar Miller Legacy. Free of charge.
In anticipation of Saturday’s program, I asked Zac a few questions.
-Jenna Lyle, Programs Manager
Edgar Miller has been hailed as Chicago’s last Renaissance Artist. What does the diversity of interest in his body of work reveal about him as an artist and person?
Born in Idaho in 1899, Miller grew up on the dwindling American frontier, and he learned from his parents an iconoclastic regard towards authority, and simultaneously a high esteem for those who make their own way and do things themselves. So it is no surprise Miller came to embody a rugged individualism often seen in American folklore. His story would seem like something out of a fairy tale, except it was real life. Born with a natural gift to master artistic expression by his teens, and with a self-awareness that pushed him to reach for the stars, Miller came to the American Metropolis—Chicago—and fully integrated himself into several concurrent art and cultural scenes, from the bohemian to the professional, all while maintaining his creative independence. The diversity of interest in his work reflects both the extremely wide range of materials Miller masterfully employed—painting, sculpture, metalwork, woodwork, stained glass, mosaic, and more—to the expansive list of projects he completed—figure and landscape painting, freestanding and relief sculpture, illustration and graphic design work, decorative arts, and of course, his architectural projects. Additionally, Miller incorporated so many diverse styles of art into his own aesthetic, from the classical to the primitive, without ever making a mockery of either (if he ever mocked a style of art, it was mid-century abstract expressionism, which he found naive). Furthermore, his life story appeals to so many artists and art lovers because it is the story nearly all artists wish to pursue: to create on one’s own terms, to pursue art for art’s sake, to be recognized and become successful, to work within a robust community of esteemed peers, and to inspire others during one’s lifetime as well as after one’s own death.
What has been your most surprising discovery about the work of Edgar Miller?
What is most surprising about the work of Edgar Miller is always how deep the well goes. We have spent years compiling digital and tangible archives of all the projects Miller completed, knowing there could always be more out there that he produced, and sure enough, eventually another discovery is made. A mural in Kansas City, a painting he gave a friend as a wedding gift in the 1930s, a stash of collected works in a university archive—it always amazes us how much work Miller accomplished and how casually and often he tossed them into the ether. But for Miller, making art, rather than seeing his art displayed on museum walls, was the end goal. It was what he lived and breathed, and so it makes sense that in 93 years of life, he made a lot of stuff, and much of it traveled as far and wide as those to whom it was given.
Where and how does Miller make the distinction between fine and folk art?
Miller was very cognizant of the role fine and folk art played in his development, and he fought against categorization. He often stated that art critics needed to categorize everything so that they could better understand the work of the artist, and so that a market could be established, but that to the artists, there should be no distinction between what kind of artist you were. You either are an artist or you aren’t one. He took this so far as to even describe someone like Frank Lloyd Wright as an artist, because of his unique vision and desire to force the viewer of his art—in this case the home dweller—to see the world the way Wright saw it. But Miller did understand that many saw art at least drawn into two categories, that of the fine arts and the folk arts, from the fine paintings of Rembrandt to the beautifully painted earthenware bowls of nameless Hopis. He also sometimes referred to the “big arts” and the “little arts.” Miller believed that art culture was only strengthened when both fine arts and folk arts flourished, and in the Chicago of his era, he felt too much attention was placed on developing the big arts while not much was done to cultivate the little arts. This is one reason why he gravitated towards the Hull House Kilns in the 1910s and ‘20s, why he was drawn to learning about and practicing his craft in all the various forms of material and media known to humankind, including his handmade architectural projects, and why he continuously pursued art-making in any way he found compelling, regardless of whether it paid or resulted in personal fame.
If you’re still curious, listen to Zac’s interview with architecture writer Ben Schulman and Zach Mortice on Newcity’s podcast series A Lot You Got to Holler.
Event Date: February 2
Time: 6:00pm
Location: The Arts Club of Chicago, 201 E. Ontario St.
This Thursday evening, Brit Barton, The Club’s first Artist Fellow, enacts a work about interdisciplinary practice, site, permanence, and documentation entitled Sitting Ovation. The annual Visual, Literary and Performing Artist fellowship was awarded to Barton in August of 2016, and the upcoming program will be the first showing of her work at The Arts Club during her fellowship. Initially planned as an artist talk in the gallery, Barton’s event rapidly evolved into something much more, and at the same time something much less. In her site-specific work, Barton engages with the idea of absence…absence of the artist, absence of explication, and absence of a commodifiable art object. As instructions for attendees of Thursday night’s Sitting Ovation enactment, she offers the following:
Immediately, the onus is on the audience to be self-aware. We have a task. We’re not coming to the gallery to watch something happen as much as we’re coming to have an experience during which we remain conscious of ourselves and our reactions to whatever might be surrounding us. Barton’s Sitting Ovation is a carefully-crafted environment, and we, the audience, are its inhabitants.
Earlier this month, Barton was interviewed by artist and curator Max Guy about her work. Read on to learn more.
-Jenna Lyle, Programs Manager
MG: In a past life you were a photographer, what types of photos did you take?
BB: I was interested in images, and still am, that document empty or minimally inhabited space.
Towards the end of college and again in graduate school, I started looking closer at architectural typologies that were basically spaces designed for temporary encounters. So, initially, I thought a lot about hotels and the suspension of disbelief they encourage. The quality is negotiable. This is your bed, your bathroom, your space, for as long as you are willing to pay for it.
I realized quickly that my interest in temporality within liminal space was rooted in an institutional critique of academia. I let some time pass, but ultimately came back to thinking about site and the body more critically through media beyond photography.
Brit Barton, Untitled (Pavilion AP No. 5) (2016)
In general, I think I am interested in architecture and documentation while being entirely suspicious of them. My work is about that suspicion.
MG: How did you come to work the way that you do now?
BB: The majority of my practice deals with space and time that is site-specific. There was a turning point when I refused to make any more object work, like sculpture or painting. In other words, I realized that I am not a “studio artist” per se, and I embraced that fact.
What I’m interested in, and what I keep coming back to in my moving image, sound, or action-based work, are the principles of photography, i.e. optics, seriality, or mechanics. But it is never bound to the notion of sight entirely; there is a tension to other senses like hearing or touch that I am drawn to. I think especially about artists like Lygia Clark, who created things to hold or wear to be manipulated or complicated, walking a fine line between spectatorship and participation.
MG: You often use ambivalent language speaking of “gestures,” “machines” and “synopses” as a way of eluding disciplines and genres. How much of what you do is a project of defining and setting these terms?
BB: I am controlled about language, especially when it comes to writing. It is the framing of the work that I won’t compromise. I use the term “gesture” as opposed to “performance” because I am not a performance artist. I am an artist and I use whatever is the best strategy to convey an idea.
I think that the word “gesture” is aligned much more with drawing and the notion of a sketch; it’s brief, done in 5 minutes or less, a little gritty and unrefined. The delivery is slower to interpret. Waiting is involved. You may have to see a few over time to realize the bigger picture.
MG: You document your live works through “synopses” the day after they happen. Would you elaborate on that term in relation to your happenings and their scores? What liberties does writing in retrospect allow you as opposed to instructive text?
BB: A synopsis indicates an account that is often brief but inevitably biased. It is just as much apart of my work as the gesture itself in it’s matter-of-factness. Leaving some time between experiencing the gesture and evoking it gives the writer a chance to elaborate on the unexpected moments.
For instance, during October Piece (2015), I was walking with a microphone dangling at my feet. I could not have anticipated that I would trip or that at one point, the cord would snap with the tension and produce an intense and sharp feedback sound, unsettling the audience. In another work, I accidentally cut my hand when I was transporting a heavy piece of granite with a jagged, unpolished edge. I didn’t realize until I was in a freight elevator with the audience that I was and had been bleeding, leaving smears and marks along the way throughout the building and in the snow that stayed for days after.
There are details that seem pertinent to include in the documentation, that are better expressed in retrospect as opposed to a .jpeg.
MG: But a .jpeg is also experienced retrospectively. Do you mean to say that the written anecdote can account for spontaneity/chance?
BB: Right. A photograph encountered digitally is completely inadequate as documentation for the work I do. I will document the materials and installations I work with, but I hold the written accounts of those who have witnessed something first-hand to a higher regard.
Brit Barton, Granite (2016)
MG: Individual works of yours involve physical reverberations, accumulation and entanglement; how does this inform your understanding when producing a series of works?
BB: I know that my work, like any other artist’s work, is better negotiated with a historical structure behind it. But, my structure is a little more messy, not as easy to purchase or display. Each work builds on the work preceding it.
MG: Is a work ever finished to you?
BB: Maybe once or twice, but not usually, no. I’m skeptical about finality.
I’m interested in how things turn into drafted versions of themselves.
MG: I couldn’t help but associate your video work “Making Knots” (2016) with Yvonne Rainer’s Hand Movie (1966). It seemed quite clear that both pieces embrace absurdity, but it felt significant in your video that the absurdity of your film involves the use of string and the introduction of a second hand to play Cat’s Cradle. Adding them into the mix seems to make the film personal in a way that differs from the singularity of Rainer’s hand. No longer a movie about what one does (Hand Movie), but what one does with oneself (your work).
All this to ask: In what ways does your work feel personal? From what part of you is this work conceived?
BB: There is a larger argument to be had over whether one’s work is always inherently personal or whether the viewer automatically projects that it is personal; this question is fundamental to the experience of abstraction and maybe even contemporary art in general. Such is life.
One of the biggest misinterpretations of this work is the assumption that the hands are my own. Some might suppose upon seeing female hands and realizing that I am a female artist, I must’ve been the subject. Does the knowledge that it isn’t me change anything? I’m not sure.*
The Rainer reference comes up a lot, as does choreography and minimalist dance in general. I think that we are told what to do with our bodies every day, sometimes through instruction, or expectation, or through an unconscious sense of obligation. It’s possible I was considering those things as I was making the work.
Brit Barton, still from Making Knots (2016)
Max Guy is an artist and curator based in Chicago Il. Max co-hosts Human Eye, an occasional podcast on art and life with Miranda Pfeiffer. He has collaborated on projects such as Szechuan Best, Spiral Cinema, and Rock512Devil in Baltimore, Maryland. He received his M.F.A. from the Department of in Art, Theory and Practice at Northwestern University in 2016.
Brit Barton is an artist and writer. She is the inaugural Artist Fellow at The Arts Club of Chicago and a Post-MFA Fellow at the University of Chicago.
*See art critic Solveig Nelson’s 2016 text, “A ‘spectacle of entrance, exists, and changing coalitions” from the MFA thesis exhibition catalogue, And No One Fish In The Middle ; noting of Making Knots (2016) that the video “thematizes the ways in which artists have courted proximities to and staged distance from the objects they produce. The mark of the hand signals authorial presence but also departs from fantasies of face-to-face contact.”
