DECEMber 2

Jan Brugger
 And Bobby Gonzales
 - 12 Openings/Part 6

Opening Reception: December 2, 2-5p

We are excited to invite you to the sixth installment of an exhibition titled 12 Openings, a yearlong experiment in collaborative curation with unpredictable results.

Over the course of the year there will be 12 shows, each having its own two titles, culminating in a group show of 24 artists.

Each month two artists are invited to install an artwork in or around the home of Laura Shaeffer, Andrew Nord, and their sons Sebastian and Jasper, making the private public and extending our understanding of home, family, and community. Both artists are then asked to extend the invitation to one more artist to do the same, thus adding two more works, and two more show titles each month. Each new artwork multiplies the connections between the existing artworks and, overall, constructs a cumulative exhibition that subverts the traditional top-down nature of curating exhibitions, replacing it with a model of artist-driven co-curation. The narrative arc of the show is not predetermined, but rather built upon the robust and crisscrossing networks of artists in this collaborative city. 12 Openings showcases the artists that other artists are curious about and allows these connections to shine as the exhibition grows. At the end of the run, the 12th opening, viewers will be able to see 24 original works by 24 artists, selected and inspired by their peers. 



We are thrilled to announce our sixth participating artists and their titles:



Jan Brugger
 Salty



Part-cultural tombstone, part-lantern in the fog of hopelessness, part-sinking ship, and part-waterproof shelter - Salty rides the line between ironic detachment and sincerity in relation to comedy, meme culture and millennial trauma. It both mocks and attempts to decipher the disorientation and feeling of defeat that stems from the Age of Trump, extreme capitalism, global destruction, a post-truth society, and the Internet at large. Salty acknowledges that the planet is drowning in waste and being swept away by large-scale storms caused by global warming, that the thought of buying a home is laughable because meaningful jobs with a promise of upward mobility in the US are nowhere to be found, and that consumer culture has spiraled out of control. It accepts that as humans, we occasionally need to turn to comedy, Netflix, and our pocket portals when believing in things feel pointless.



Jan Brugger (MFA, University of Chicago; BFA, University of Wisconsin) makes digital works and sculptural installations that test the screen’s influence on the human body and mind. Her work has recently been shown at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (WI), Mana Contemporary (Chicago, IL and Jersey City, NJ), Evanston Art Center (IL), Roman Susan (Chicago, IL), Aggregate Space Gallery (San Francisco, CA), and the Feminist Media Studio at Concordia University (Montreal, QC). Brugger has been awarded fellowships and residencies at the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), the University of Chicago (IL), and Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond). She is currently a Lecturer at Purdue Northwest University (IN), Studio Assistant for Jason Salavon Studio, and an Assistant for the Department of Visual Art at the University of Chicago.



www.janbrugger.com Instagram: @jannybooger



Bobby Gonzales 
"AO 1 (another object)"



To kill two birds with one stone. to sustain an art practice. to clean up and clear out. to take stock. to locate myself. to forget. to displace my past.



Bobby Gonzales (b. Delran, NJ) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago, IL, whose work explores the intersection of painting, performance, and photography. He received his BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and completed his MFA in photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. Bobby's work has been shown extensively in Chicago at galleries and DIY spaces including the Chicago Artists Coalition, Lithium gallery, and The Carl. Other recent exhibitions and performances include participation in Merce Cunningham’s “Field Dances” at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), group exhibitions at Das Institut für Alles Mögliche (Berlin, Germany), The Milwaukee Institute for Art and Design (Milwaukee, WI), The Galleries at Columbia University (New York, NY), Zurcher Studios (New York, NY) and solo exhibitions at Vox Populi artist collective, where he was an artist member from 2012-2014 (Philadelphia, PA). Bobby is a current HATCH resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition, and is the print and new media studio manager at Ox-bow School of Art and Artist Residency.



Instagram: @relaxeth

OCTOber 21

Elena Ailes And Matt Brett - 12 Openings/Part 5

Opening Reception: October 21, 2-5p

We are excited to invite you to the fifth installment of an exhibition titled 12 Openings, a yearlong experiment in collaborative curation with unpredictable results.

Each month two artists are invited to install an artwork in or around the home of Laura Shaeffer, Andrew Nord, and their sons Sebastian and Jasper, making the private public and extending our understanding of home, family, and community. Both artists are then asked to extend the invitation to one more artist to do the same, thus adding two more works, and two more show titles each month. Each new artwork multiplies the connections between the existing artworks and, overall, constructs a cumulative exhibition that subverts the traditional top-down nature of curating exhibitions, replacing it with a model of artist-driven co-curation. The narrative arc of the show is not predetermined, but rather built upon the robust and criss-crossing networks of artists in this collaborative city. 12 Openings showcases the artists that other artists are curious about and allows these connections to shine as the exhibition grows. At the end of the run, the 12th opening, viewers will be able to see 24 original works by 24 artists, selected and inspired by their peers. 

We are thrilled to announce our fifth participating artists:

Elena Ailes poem, for window

Elena Ailes is an interdisciplinary artist and educator concerned with the encounters, intimacies and discordances found between human (actions, bodies, histories) and nonhuman worlds (plant, animal, mineral). She received her MFA in Sculpture and MA in Visual and Critical Studies from School of the Art Institute. She has presented her texts, videos and installations widely, including at the SculptureCenter (NYC), Randy Alexander Gallery (Chicago), Sector2337 (Chicago), the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Cambridge), and 4th Ward Project Space (Chicago.) She is the co-founder of jeux d’été, an artist-run curatorial project, and currently teaches at SAIC.

http://www.elenaailes.com

Matt Brett Night in the Matrix

Matt Brett is an artist living and working in Chicago. His work has been exhibited in Chicago at; Gallery 400, Slow and Heaven Gallery, In Philadelphia at; High Tide, Little Berlin and Icebox, In New York at 136 w 22nd, in New Orleans at Parse, and in Richmond at Reference. He has attended residencies at ACRE and Skowhegan. He holds an MFA in studio arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago (2014) and a BFA in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University (2009). He is currently a lecturer for the City Colleges of Chicago.

www.mattkayhoebrett.com | Instagram: m.kayhoe

September 21

Michael Borowski And Elana Marte Adler - 12 Openings/Part 4

Opening Reception: September 21, 6-9p

We are excited to invite you to the fourth installment of an exhibition titled 12 Openings, a yearlong experiment in collaborative curation with unpredictable results.

Each month two artists are invited to install an artwork in or around the home of Laura Shaeffer, Andrew Nord, and their sons Sebastian and Jasper, making the private public and extending our understanding of home, family, and community. Both artists are then asked to extend the invitation to one more artist to do the same, thus adding two more works, and two more show titles each month. Each new artwork multiplies the connections between the existing artworks and, overall, constructs a cumulative exhibition that subverts the traditional top-down nature of curating exhibitions, replacing it with a model of artist-driven co-curation. The narrative arc of the show is not predetermined, but rather built upon the robust and criss-crossing networks of artists in this collaborative city. 12 Openings showcases the artists that other artists are curious about and allows these connections to shine as the exhibition grows. At the end of the run, the 12th opening, viewers will be able to see 24 original works by 24 artists, selected and inspired by their peers. 

We are thrilled to announce our fourth participating artists:

Michael Borowski

Address (Lost)

Michael Borowski uses metaphors of construction to examine societal values that are embedded in the built environment. His most recent body of work is a photographic documentary of Azurest South; the historic home designed by Amaza Lee Meredith in Ettrick, Virginia. It is one of the few examples of International Style architecture in Virginia, and was designed in 1938 by Meredith, an African American woman, as the residence for her and her same-sex partner. The house provides an opportunity for looking at race, gender, queerness, and the rural, intersecting with Modernist design. In addition to his photographs, Borowski builds sculptures referencing architectural details found in historic photographs, but that are no longer part of the property. For 12 Openings at Compound Yellow, he is including Address (Lost), a paper sculpture referencing an address marker for Azurest South seen in a black and white photograph. https://michaelborowski.com


Elana Marte Adler

Schematics

Elana Adler is an interdisciplinary artist and organizer whose work primarily focuses on questions of perception, signaling, and existence from both epistemological and ontological ways of thinking. Combining digital with analog craft techniques, she manipulates material in order to translate abstract concepts of space and time. 

Schematics describes the outer limits of a shape, the mortar outlines of a brick wall without bricks, yet they are formed by being cast within a system, a floppy exo- skeleton, bringing attention to the space they frame. This is the beginning of a conversation about modular mapping, interiority/exteriority, precarious strength, and fluidity of structure. https://www.elanamarteadler.com

September 14 - October 14

Michael Dain And Elizabeth Burke-Dain - THE BIFF & YUBBIE SHOW

Opening Reception: September 14, 6-9p

The Biff & Yubbie Show is a visual collaboration between two art lovers who have worked in a variety of creative cultural industries in Chicago for the past three decades. The title references the artists' nicknames--“Biff” is Michael Dain and “Yubbie” is Elizabeth Burke-Dain. They have been known by these names since childhood. 

Michael’s sculptures represent a lifelong fascination with high and low technology, light, shadow, and form, while Elizabeth's site-specific installation (composed of pliant pool toys) creates a visual cohesion--and playful counterbalance--to the geometric structuralism of Michael’s work.

Michael Dain has shown with Chicago’s Kavi Gupta Gallery, Ten in One, the Chinn Gallery, and the Weir Gallery. He currently teaches user experience design at Northwestern University and is a director at the Chicago advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding. He received his Masters degree in Human Computer Interaction from DePaul University. 

Elizabeth Burke-Dain is curator, artist, and marketing and media professional. She has dedicated her career to promoting and elevating the arts in Chicago and nationally through the many positions she has held with the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine, the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, Garfield Park Conservatory, and as co-founder of Around the Coyote. As an artist, she is inspired by designs found in nature and she works in a variety of materials from ceramics to assemblage.

AUGUST 5

Sarah Berkeley And Wen Liu - 12 Openings/Part 3

Opening Reception: August 5, 2-5p

We are excited to invite you to the third installment of an exhibition titled 12 Openings, a yearlong experiment in collaborative curation with unpredictable results.

Over the course of the year there will be 12 shows, each having its own two titles, culminating in a group show of 24 artists.

Each month two artists are invited to install an artwork in or around the home of Laura Shaeffer, Andrew Nord, and their sons Sebastian and Jasper, making the private public and extending our understanding of home, family, and community. Both artists are then asked to extend the invitation to one more artist to do the same, thus adding two more works, and two more show titles each month. Each new artwork multiplies the connections between the existing artworks and, overall, constructs a cumulative exhibition that subverts the traditional top-down nature of curating exhibitions, replacing it with a model of artist-driven co-curation. The narrative arc of the show is not predetermined, but rather built upon the robust and criss-crossing networks of artists in this collaborative city. 12 Openings showcases the artists that other artists are curious about and allows these connections to shine as the exhibition grows. At the end of the run, the 12th opening, viewers will be able to see 24 original works by 24 artists, selected and inspired by their peers. \ 

We are thrilled to announce our third participating artists and their titles:

Sarah Berkeley 
Untitled New Work
 

Berkeley will screen a video of a site-specific performance that she created at Waubonsie State Park in Iowa this June. In this performance she effortfully removes several Autumn Olive bushes while wearing a tutu and ballet slippers. The Autumn Olive is an invasive species in the park that was introduced by birds over the years and as a conservation measure in the 1990’s. The performance explores gender roles in relation to labor, violence and nurturing. Berkeley will facilitate a conversation about the work at the opening.

Sarah Berkeley is an artist who works across media questioning cultural norms such as the 9:00 to 5:00 work day, the office environment, indoor living, gender stereotypes and the voluntary sharing of personal data. She creates public interventions and durational performances which she documents using photography, video and GPS. 
 

She holds an MFA University of Michigan and a BFA from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has completed residencies at Waubonsie State Park, The Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Cedar Point Biological Station and 8550 OHIO. She is the recipient of numerous grants including the City of Chicago Community Arts Assistance Program (CAAP) Grant and the Rackham Research Grant. 
 

Her work has been exhibited internationally including at Joslyn Museum of Art, Museum of Nebraska Art, Rutgers University, The Ann Arbor Film Festival, Defibrillator Gallery, New Capital, Roman Susan, Mana Contemporary, Chicago Artists’ Coalition, Work Gallery Detroit and Mercury 20. Publications include Emergency Index, Center for Sustainable Practice Quarterly, DNAInfo Chicago, Quarterly West, and OVERVIEW by LAND and SEA. 
http://www.sarahberkeley.com/about

Wen Liu On the Nature of Aging

What is temporary and what is permanent? What is my place in this temporality and permanence? How do I deal with public recollection versus private memories? These questions drive my works, which address a sense of loss and abandonment, a sense of belonging and security. My art is a collection of reactions to the environments and objects I encounter in the unfamiliar city to build my sense of security coming from a foreign land.

I deconstruct and reconstruct through rubbing, cutting, peeling, stitching, casting, and stiffening the products to evoke a sense of bodily form. These processes, combined with found materials, set up a dialogue of human presence, subconscious insecurity, repeated consumption, and inevitable temporality. Details in the works are a testament to lived time and memory – the sculptures wear history on their surface, the process of decay called “aging” is built upon them.

Wen Liu was born in Shanghai, China and is currently based in Chicago. Wen Liu graduated with MDes in Fashion, Body & Garment from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Her art covers multiple disciplines, drawing from her background in wearable art, fiber, and sculpture.

She recently received the DCASE 2018 Individual Artists Program Grant and fellowship from Vermont Studio Center Residency. Her work has been exhibited in the National Grand Theater in Beijing, China, Between Art Lab, Shanghai, China, Manifold Gallery in Chicago, US, and most recently a group exhibition as a part of the the HATCH Residency in Chicago Artists Coalition.https://wen-liu.com/

JUNE 22

Xiaoqing Zhu And Lindsey Dorr-Niro - 12 Openings/Part 2

Opening Reception: June 22, 6-9p

We are excited to invite you to the second installment of an exhibition titled 12 Openings, a yearlong experiment in collaborative curation with unpredictable results.

Over the course of the year there will be 12 shows, each having its own two titles, culminating in a group show of 24 artists.

Each month two artists are invited to install an artwork in or around the home of Laura Shaeffer, Andrew Nord, and their sons Sebastian and Jasper, making the private public and extending our understanding of home, family, and community. Both artists are then asked to extend the invitation to one more artist to do the same, thus adding two more works, and two more show titles each month. Each new artwork multiplies the connections between the existing artworks and, overall, constructs a cumulative exhibition that subverts the traditional top-down nature of curating exhibitions, replacing it with a model of artist-driven co-curation. The narrative arc of the show is not predetermined, but rather built upon the robust and crisscrossing networks of artists in this collaborative city. 12 Openings showcases the artists that other artists are curious about and allows these connections to shine as the exhibition grows. At the end of the run, the 12th opening, viewers will be able to see 24 original works by 24 artists, selected and inspired by their peers. 

We are thrilled to announce our second participating artists and their titles:

Xiaoqing Zhu 
Eight Attempts

Description: Interested in the potential movements exist in between human body and
objects, Xiaoqing Zhu used a 25-inch white cloth testing with a pine tree. By applying
repetitive actions - casting and gathering the white cloth on the tree, Zhu attempted to
humanize moving objects, mechanize human actions and exchange the role of action
sender and receiver. With eight different action attempts, she intended to find rhythms
between natural motions and artificial movements. Documentation of the performance is
considered as a functional result of non-functioning movements.

Xiaoqing Zhu is a multidisciplinary artist, born and raised in Beijing, China, and
currently based in Chicago. Xiaoqing Zhu graduated from the Central Academy of Fine
Arts in 2014 with a BA in painting and completed her MFA in printmedia at the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017. Using video, installation, performance, photography
and printmaking, Xiaoqing’s creations challenge the expected functionality of objects and
human body, and explore the correlation between human activity and urban environment.
Xiaoqing has presented her work at the Currents New Media 2018, Santa Fe, New Mexico
(2018), 88th Exhibition of the Professional Members, The Arts Club of Chicago, IL (2018),
the14th Regional Juried Exhibition, Freeport Art Museum, Chicago, IL (2017), Moments in
Time, The Art Center Highland Park, Chicago, IL (2017), Abstract Mind, CICA Museum
and Streetlight, Romansusan Gallery, Chicago, IL (2017). She has been selected as
Arquetopia Special International Summer Residency Program, Puebla, Southern Mexico
(2016), Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship, Vermont, VT (2018), and an
upcoming Atlantic Center For the Arts, Florida, Miami (2018).

https://www.zhu-xiaoqing.com/

Lindsey Dorr-Niro simulant/s

Through her work, Chicago-based installation artist Lindsey Dorr-Niro orchestrates
critical consciousness, calling viewers deeper into themselves and relation with the
world. Her installations disrupt and reorganize our vision and being in a way that
enables us to see, imagine, and be differently -- facilitating an embodied, contemplative,
and ecstatic experience. Lindsey currently lives and works as an artist and educator in
Chicago, Illinois. Recent exhibitions include the solo exhibition This Land Again (2017) at Sector 2337 (Chicago, IL) and inclusion in the group show Memory Palace (2018) at Circle Contemporary (Chicago, IL). 

Description:

Three nearly identical molded objects generated from a singular unidentifiable packaging substrate will be installed in three different locations at Compound Yellow, highlighting the perceptual and narrative contingencies engendered by the three separate sites/sights.

http://www.lindseydorrniro.com/About-Intent


May 19, 2018—June 23, 2018



Alberto Aguilar AND Erik L. Peterson - 12 Openings/Part 1

Opening reception: Saturday, May 19th, 6PM – 9PM

Dear Public, We are excited to invite you to the first installment of an exhibition titled 12 Openings, a yearlong experiment in collaborative curation with unpredictable results.

Over the course of the year there will be 12 shows, each having its own two titles, culminating in a group show of 24 artists.

Each month two artists are invited to install an artwork in or around the home of Laura Shaeffer, Andrew Nord, and their sons Sebastian and Jasper, making the private public and extending our understanding of home, family, and community. Both artists are then asked to extend the invitation to one more artist to do the same, thus adding two more works, and two more show titles each month. Each new artwork multiplies the connections between the existing artworks and, overall, constructs a cumulative exhibition that subverts the traditional top-down nature of curating exhibitions, replacing it with a model of artist-driven co-curation. The narrative arc of the show is not predetermined, but rather built upon the robust and crisscrossing networks of artists in this collaborative city. 12 Openings showcases the artists that other artists are curious about and allows these connections to shine as the exhibition grows. At the end of the run, the 12th opening, viewers will be able to see 24 original works by 24 artists, selected and inspired by their peers. 

We are thrilled to announce our first participating artists and their titles: 



Alberto Aguilar 
Multiple Entries


Alberto Aguilar will mark the south-facing facade of the home at Compound Yellow with 24 illusionistic penetrations. This hand painted intervention will transform the home into a visual spectacle for all to see from the busy street where it situated. The imagery will alternate between graphic broken glass and cartoon style ground holes allowing the viewer to make their own meaning of this all-over house mural.

Bio: Alberto Aguilar is a Chicago-based artist who taught at Harold Washington College from 2006-2018. There he also coordinated Pedestrian Project, an initiative dedicated to making contemporary art practice more available to his students. In 2009, Aguilar organized a series of dinners on social media which brought strangers into his home. These dinners culminated in 2013 with a wedding to an unknown couple before 150 unsuspecting guests. In 2016, Alberto Aguilar was resident artist at the Art Institute of Chicago where he held several rogue events, exhibitions, and performances. His work had been exhibited and presented at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Minneapolis Museum of Art, Queens Museum, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and Museum of Contemporary Chicago. In 2019, he will have a solo exhibition at Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Website: http://albertoaguilar.org

Erik L. Peterson 
Broken Bell

The American system of democracy and liberty requires an active citizenry and a paradigm of public speech, in which differing views are shared and debated in a public forum. in a political climate, however, where people hear what they want to hear and block out all ideas that do not fit their own worldview, how is it possible to maintain this system? Broken Bell, a grouping of cracked cymbals arranged into the shape of a large public “listening bell,” becomes a sonic symbol that invites viewers (listeners) to speak privately and publicly at the same time. This piece invites passers-by to whisper their secrets or private views into the machine and amplify / publicize their immediate thoughts for all to hear. The participants must listen publicly to what they are saying to privately; the piece acts as a self-reflexive echo chamber where you hear yourself caught within your own speech. This percussive installation reveals itself in the vibrations of local vocal chords within the increasingly global soundscape of targeted (private) advertising and public disinformation. Broken Bell aims to disentangle the locked horns of public debate through the act of speaking out loud.

Bio: Erik L. Peterson is a public artist, sculptor, and museum educator living and working in Chicago. He is best known for his large-scale urban interventions and neon works (The Oasis, Seep, and Inner State), signature edible ice cream sculptures (CreamCycle and Soft Palate), and public performances camouflaged within urban spaces (Checks and Balances, Two Tow'n and Square Dance). His work subtly and often humorously redefines viewers' relationships to the everyday. Pieces remind viewers of their own agency in the act of looking or listening, and re-casts people as active participants in the creation of public space. Additionally, Peterson, along with Laura Shaeffer and Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford, is a founder of Hyde Park Kunstverein, a community museum and solo project space in Chicago and Qeej Hero, a trans-cultural video game starring the Hmong wind instrument called the qeej.

Website: www.eriklpeterson.com

February 17 - April 7

DYLAN CALE JONES - OBSERVATION DEVICES

Opening Reception: February 17, 2-8p / Artist Talk: March 18, 3-5p / Closing Reception: April 7, 2-5p

Observation Devices is a growing collection of artworks by Dylan Cale Jones. Observation Devices takes its title from the Chicago Police Department's surveillance cameras, called 'Police Observation Devices'. These cameras are part of Operation Virtual Shield, one of the largest networks of surveillance infrastructure in the world. When plans for this surveillance network were unveiled, Mayor Richard Daley declared the city's goal to have "a camera on every corner." Although observation has power it also has limitations. All forms of observation leave some things unseen. By using numerous mediums Dylan Cale Jones develops a complex picture of the public space surrounding the cameras. These drawings, sculptures, photographs, texts, and events document the artist’s observations of public spaces in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. Observation Devices offers both a critique and an expansion of Operation Virtual Shield, demonstrating ways that observation can foster curiosity, intimacy, and connection. dylancalejones.com