Elizabeth Murray, Back on Earth, 1981

Elizabeth Murray's painting Back On Earth, 1981, at the Art Institute of Chicago, explores the relationship between figure and ground by putting together two separate canvases to form one whole image. The canvas on the lower left is geometric in shape, painted in a cool blue. The canvas on the upper right is more organic in shape and is painted a warm green. Both are part of the equation; the cold human nature versus the warmth of the earth.

On closer examination, the viewer will realize that the figure in the blue canvas actually crosses over the boundary of its own canvas, into the green canvas, with what seems like an arm and leg. With this gesture, Murray simply portrays that humans are on Mother Nature’s territory – and not the other way around.

Murray presents this image of the relationship the human race has with earth in a highly stylized and cartoonish-manner, distinct in her work. The unique asymmetrical canvases illustrate the idea of flexibility, openness toward one another. Maybe hinting at the kind of attitude that we should adopt when interacting with our own environment – whether it is human, man-made or natural. The shape of the canvases emote movement and initiate a kind of dance – this might be to Murray what the dance of life is about!

Although there is a great contrast and separation between the cool and warm canvases, this only helps to highlight a great balance between the figure and ground. This is the reason I chose this work to introduce to our audience at Terra/Form’s opening at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Like Terra/Form, Back on Earth combines two seemingly contradicting forms to co-exist in harmony. Terra/Form also hoped to reconnect artists and audiences with the earth as much as it aimed to reconnect with the communities with whom we share earth.

Terra/Form suggests that cultivating relationships in our communities can, in turn, affect our environment positively.

Zara Monica Wee

Clutch went shopping on State Street 11/24/2014

Clutch camouflaged at Anthropologie.  Chameleon-like amongst the retro trinkets (with Jess Sattell).

Terra Form Exhibition Opening

Opening Address by Jillian Marie Santora, Curatorial Team member, Terra/Form: Cultivating a Community:

Clutch Gallery is both a challenge and a joy. With just 25 square inches to curate, Clutch can at times feel incredibly restrictive and a little impossible. But throw a few people together. Read a book, specifically Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust, and discuss. Walking soon becomes more than just your left foot following your right and maps suddenly turn in on themselves to reveal ever stranger, more complex realms. By virtue of Clutch’s inherent mobility, those people, tasked with curating such a tiny space, decide the thread that connects Clutch, walking, and mapping is the idea of community. Because of Clutch’s transitory nature we wanted to find a way to root the diverse backgrounds of our class. We wanted to form connections between ourselves and with others in an effort to cultivate a new community where we all belonged. And so, we terraformed Clutch. To terraform, in the science fiction sense, is to take a previously uninhabitable space and to retrofit the space to be capable of sustaining human life. The spatial limitations of clutch can then be infinitely expanded by using the conceptual mapping terraforming provides. The slash between terra and form becomes very important in this sense. Terra, meaning earth and all of its flora, and form-- to create things, to give shape, or to have a specific character. Each work of art in the gallery is an index of the artists’ relationship to their own terra, and is manifested in a miniature physical form. Each work of art is plantable, as in, you can touch each piece and place it in the ground of the gallery garden. The participatory nature allows you to form a connection, and ultimately, a community with the works, artists, docents of clutch, and others who have handled the pieces before you. So please, give yourself a few moments to kindle a relationship and help Terra/Form grow.

Terra/Form

Caught in Life's Vortex

Inspired by the way Terra/Form: Cultivating a Community brings together individuals searching for and finding community, artists Landon Williams and LaAndrea Deloyce Mitchell composed and performed everyday, a song about finding one another while traveling through life's vortex: 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uc5v035cduhaupm/everyday.mp3?dl=0

Install Photos

A Cartographic Essay

A Cartographic Essay

Jessica Barrett Sattell

In the early 1990s, Peter Plagens, the longtime art critic formerly of Newsweek, suggested that members of his profession fall into three categories: “goalies,” “evangelists,” and “cartographers.” “Goalies,” as he revisited in a 2005 Artforum editorial, are art critics who act as gatekeepers to manage the flood of art that is produced; by practicing “defensive” criticism, they encourage artists to raise their standards and present polished work. “Evangelists,” on the opposite end, practice criticism on the offense; they act as advocates or cheerleaders for the artists whom they feel are deserving of publicity and praise.

The “cartographer” art critic is somewhere between the two: she aims to neither subvert nor herald, but instead practices an approach akin to mapmaking. She presents art as a series of decisions, and strives to outline them in the form of a landscape that can be rendered transparent with a set of good directions. When asked to describe the quintessential cartographic critic, Plagens names Rosalind Krauss for her paradigm-shifting 1979 essay “Sculpture in the Expanded Field.”

While a three-part classification system across the wide scope of art writing—not to mention art, itself—can quickly become an oversimplification of an immensely complex network of relationships, Plagens’ choice of the word “cartographer” to explain the type of art critic who seeks to level the field, so to speak, is curious. If cartography is inherently about the act of making maps, then the artist, the writer, and the curator each participate in that practice in that they share a common goal of building situations and presenting tools that can communicate humanity’s place in the universe. All aim to negotiate space—be that in the gallery, the museum, on the written page, or beyond—to describe the lay of the land of particular themes or issues.

While maps are often thought of as tangible, be-all-end-all guides to territories, be they real or imaginary, they can also forge new landscapes and new ways of looking at the world. A text is a map, just as is a painting, a data set, or a scientific experiment; each is a tool that houses a set of directions with multiple interpretations, all of which lead to new stories. This, then, leads to fresh ways of thinking, being, and making. By extension, an art exhibition, and its accompanying texts and programming, combine to form a constellation of ideas that can provoke new maps, be they in the forms of thought clouds, notes, or inspirational sketches.

However, an art exhibition is also inherently the result of a series of decisions, and, like maps, decisions are never neutral. The Terra/Form curatorial team’s conscious choices of the themes of conceptual mapping and gardening are crafted to orient visitors towards an agenda that encourages them to consider the act of walking as a statement of reclaiming public space. The results, thanks to the intensely intimate viewing experience of Clutch Gallery, are as individualized as our own internal topographies.

This essay, then, can hopefully act as a cartographic guideline for the show, or a wayfinding device for some kind of context behind an intensely collaborative effort. As the result of an expansive exercise in mapmaking as reimagined for the space of the gallery, we hope that Terra/Form brings at least some small glimpse across a new kind of landscape.

flash fiction

An exercise in imposing the spatial limitations of Clutch to text, where each square inch of the mobile gallery is represented by a single word.

Ciar O’Mahoney

Humanity is a liquid,

Pouring itself where ever it pleases

And leaking away in swarms,

When the cracked concrete forms it nurtures,

Become a static obstruction

-

Time screams in the garden

as it passes through

Screams for taller trees, greener grass, more vibrant flowers

To remind me, I am a moment

-

Take boundless steps through the curtains of leaves

Which dangle from overhead branches

Leaves that are fat and shiny

That smack you as you run

-

Examine simple things,

Attempt to crush apples with your bare hands,

Rub your shoulders agains damp earth

Allow skin to map the texture of everything

-

All I want is to ask you questions

So that you will keep talking to me

Because I don't make statements, I just make art

------------------

Jillian Santora

the path carved through red rocks

time a pinprick white hot salve

forty dry cracked steps to a desert steeple

intuitively reaching for open sky

-

salt water basin on a global scale

a repetitive home that i dig my toes into

millennia of crushed limestone maps

are ground ever finer

-

points A and B stand next to each other

it’s the shortest distance or the longest distance between anyone

depending on which direction they face

-

belly shirts

late summer afternoons

and lemonade

palettes of pink

your house or mine?

no one’s home

amy has the car

don’t worry, i’ll walk

-

city tempo

dictates the need for clicky boots on concrete

to pierce through nonstop trains of thought

and high rise anxiousness

quelled by taking strides

Pockets of Green in a City of Steel

Pockets of Green in a City of Steel

A History of Chicago’s Public Park System



Nature has come to represent ideals of democracy, to promote imagination, and to serve

as refuge. As a reflection of its history, Chicago’s parks are demonstrations of how

important it was for early generations of Chicagoans to escape the modernity and

industrialization of a rapidly changing world. For activists and ordinary individuals alike,

parks as public spaces became symbols of egalitarianism and community. The Chicago

Public Park system embodied the notion that at the heart of all humanity is nature, a place

for all people. Clutch Gallery’s exhibition Terra/Form is a metaphorical garden that

seeks to do just that, create community while reintroducing the power of nature.

Nature wasn’t always available to all. For centuries, Chicago's citizens have united to

fight for the creation and protection of parkland, and many of the city's parks have served

as testing grounds for important ideas and social movements. In the early eras of

industrialization, green spaces were designated to limited sections within the Chicago

area. As a result, much of the public had to take refuge in cemeteries for green spaces,

leading to deplorable health and sanitary conditions. As mortality rates rose and concerns

of public health became hard to ignore, a demand for a public park system was taking

shape.

As industrialization transformed Chicago into one of the United States’ most important

cities, the influx of immigrants to already highly congested areas, led to unhealthy living

and working conditions. As Julia S. Bachrach flawlessly illustrates in her book The City

in a Garden, Chicago social workers like Jane Addams and photojournalist Jacob Riis

played key roles in the park system movement. Bachrach chronicles the involvement of

reformers and their relentless fight for the creation of additional breathing spaces within

Chicago’s tenement districts. After conducting a year-long study of the city of Chicago,

landscape architects Jens Jenson and his colleague Dwight H. Perkins proposed the

development of new parks and playgrounds as well as the protection of thousands of

acres of forest, prairie, and marshland. Their influential report led to the formation of the

Forest Preserve District of Cook County.

As the north, south, east and west side park systems were established, architects like

Jensen and Frederick Law Olmstead were given artistic liberty to recreate the beauty and

peace found in nature within the confines of a bustling city. John Graf’s Chicago's Parks:

A Photographic History depicts the evolution of Chicago’s green spaces as they were

transformed into renowned architectural treasures. As a result, parks became community

centers for large numbers of Chicago’s population who were eager to escape the

pressures of a radically mechanized city environment. Chicago was not only a center for

modernity and industrialization but also for anxiety and mounting social tensions

between social classes. For many, the park was one of the few public spaces where

individuals of all walks of life could interact without the pressures of rigid class

distinctions. In the end, the parks fostered community and social exchange. They allowed

Chicagoans to interact with each other as well as fortifying notions of democracy.

The work to maintain and expand upon Chicago’s parkland legacy is ongoing. Some the

objectives for public parks in the 21st century include replanting degraded park

landscapes, creating hundreds of gardens and several new natural areas, elevating the

level of maintenance of park facilities, and the addition of youth programs. The Chicago

Park District has set out to create facilities and programs more responsive to the needs of

local communities. In recent years, hundreds of acres of land have been reclaimed for

parkland where community gardens and public sculpture projects have taken shape, and

outdoor music festivals have taken place. The parks continue to be centers for art, nature,

and community that will no doubt influence the future of the Chicago public parks and

the people of Chicago. As a microcosm of initial ideals of the Chicago Park system,

Clutch Gallery’s exhibition Terra/Form seeks to reiterate the ideals of community as well

as reinvigorate the pursuit of health and happiness through nature.

artist statements

Melody Bilbo

Fallen

In Fallen, I have created a series of small maps drawn on leaves. Because I commute between Chicago and Champaign for work, the history on my phone’s GPS makes a range of very diverse patterns. I have collected leaves from each community, representing the beginning and end of my weekly journey. I have also included a common leaf with a map joining the two communities.

Fallen draws a connection between time and travel. Time is precious; it is fleeting, it is temporary. Maps are often used for planning or tracking, and become an unrealized documentation of our time. The leaves are fragile, and handling them allows the possibility for damage.

As the exhibition moves forward with time, small fragments of the leaves break and collect within their resting place. Even if handlers are careful, taking them out and returning them to the small compartment within the gallery space is enough to cause the leaves to crumble over time. These tiny fragments are collected and placed in a small glass bottle, and the work transforms from one form into another. The leaves are temporary and a new work begins to form, documenting their time and travel. Two separate communities merge together through transportation.

Paulina Ramirez Parra

PolyRoots

A seed begins to spread its roots, claiming its nutrients, to use them to become a great being someday. It begins to grow, twists itself in search of sunlight. Unfortunately, this tree has a predetermined destiny written on its roots, to please mankind. It can serve two purposes: we keep it for aesthetic pleasure or we kill it to create wood planks to satisfy our materialistic desires.

In my piece, PolyRoots, my tree has the same faith. Its roots are in the shape of a square, foreshadowing its inescapable future. As its twists its way upward, its finds a taste of the near future: plywood. It wraps, trying to overcome this by separating its branches, choking the plywood. But at the same time, this weakens it.

I was given a certain dimension to work with for Terra/Form: 2 x 2 x 2 inches. When this tree reaches the plywood, its height reaches two inches. I gave leisure to the branches because I wanted to push the limits of my concept. This little tree was meant to be a great art piece, commemorating every tree that has lost its life due to our materialistic desire, or to serve us in any which way.

Tall Tim Llop

Vessel

I am a storyteller, but I don’t necessarily use words to tell my stories. Through a meditative reductive process, I explore the physicality of wood as well as my own psyche. Amorphous wooden forms have become the tangible distillation of the stories I’ve lived so far. This piece is the collected remnants of a scaled down wooden form. It was fashioned using glue and cedar shavings.  The shavings are held in a folded paper basket (a small clutch) that was a gift from a friend.

Judy Radovsky

Vitreous Enamel

Vitreous enamel is a material coating composed of fused powdered glass and mineral additives for color. Heat fuses the granules together binding the material to its surface.

Experimentation with this elemental substance occurred years ago when I discovered colorful glass vials populating a secret cupboard. I became attracted to their alchemical charm. This piece is one of a series of tests, performed with these particulates -- small chunks of earth preserved in glass.

Applying flame, the glass progresses through stages: sugar, resembling granules; orange peel, acquiring the smooth pocked unevenness of the citrus; full fuse; and over-fired, showing edge discoloration, black spots and pitting in the burned surface. Working with the torch necessitated finesse as the flames licked the surface; the results displaying a nuanced process.

In truth this practice was short lived, yet in considering these panels I’m struck that the same attention to surface, process, material, and alchemical geology remains the basis of my work today. A seemingly isolated island of inquiry in a studio practice I had forgotten. Having been reminded, I want to revisit them, as they are more prescient today. And so this sample of mineral and metal also weaves a past practice onto a future one, becoming a roadmap for beginning again.

Christen Calloway

Family Tree

A Jasmine tree stands, swaying in the hot summer breeze, the sticky, sweet smell of its blooms floating in the air. This tree was planted in Sally Mom, my great-grandmother’s, yard, where four generations spent long stretches of their adolescent summers. Instead of passing down houses or heirlooms, my family has kept with them cuttings from this tree, taking it with them from Dallas to Atlanta to Denver to anywhere. For this exhibition, I lend the scent of this tree to our community garden–something old and abstract, yet close to home.

Landon Williams

HERE

Hailing from a small place gives a person a different way to evaluate and perceive the world. Sounds and images can prove to be overwhelming to the senses once one is accustomed to one thing. In the hustle-and-bustle world we live and thrive in, we sometimes forget to stop and breathe to take in truly where we are in accordance to who we are; a wonderful experience that re-centers the balance of life and helps us to move forward as a group. The piece HERE helps give people that breath of fresh air to truly sit back and realize who they are and where they are. Nothing is like the here and now because nothing will ever be just like the here and now.

terra/form exhibition invitation

Please join us for the Terra/Form: Cultivating A Community exhibition opening event held at the Art Institute of Chicago. The event will feature docent talks from 6:00PM until 6:45PM about various artworks throughout the museum and a reception beginning at 6:45 PM in the Ryan Education Center, Classroom 4, with tiny drinks and teenie snacks. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Terra/Form: Cultivating A Community

Artists:
Melody Bilbo
Christen Calloway
Katherine C. Doyle
Tall Tim Llop
LaAndrea Deloyce Mitchell
Sung Moon
Paulina Ramirez Parra
Judy Radovsky
Landon Williams

Maps are often thought of as tangible guides to territories -- concrete or abstract, philosophical or scientific, political or imaginary---but they also bring new landscapes into being. They are the physical embodiments of a set of decisions and protocols, blueprints for the act of walking, traversing the land, and a way of being.

Contemporary artists, whose artistic practice incorporates walking, understand this. Their works explore a range of questions from the arbitrary nature of national boundaries to the privatization of public space, while they present new maps for bringing new social communities into being.

Terra/Form: Cultivating A Community offers one such possibility. Terra/Form is a group show in which artists have come together to create a metaphorical garden, a microcosm of a community they wish to see made visible in the world. The exhibition will be on view at Clutch Gallery,November 20, 2014 – xx January, 2015. Clutch Gallery, is a 5” x 5” mobile exhibition space that provides an intensely personal viewing experience while it also activates public conversation. As the gallery itself moves with its caretaker, each step taken during the scheduled exhibition materializes the thinking and the performance of a journey. Walking becomes an aesthetic experience and a community-building dialogue.

Just as walking symbolically reclaims land or space, so does planting and tending a garden. The artists at Clutch Gallery present a viewing experience that enacts a kind of cultural planting of seeds and setting down of roots, a simple gesture that encourages reconnecting with the earth, and with the community of other viewers and gardeners, a mobile act that conjures the preciousness of running one's fingers through the earth itself.

"When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities." --Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking