Dear friend of the arts,
When this exhibition launched, life was strange and uncertain. In an effort to alleviate all the strangeness and uncertainty, we decided to reschedule and then follow through with the publishing-as-exhibition-making project and support entity Exhibitionisms. Through these installations we actively imagine and physically explore the potential ways artworks and objects orbit and support each other, parallel to how we as individuals might embrace the artists, artworks, collectors, and objects we love as we move through the present into the future together. In eluding an authority, we’ve brought together auditory, tactile, temporal, virtual, and visual sensations to provide an escape from the traditional avenues of exhibition making. Or, if not an absence, a robust peer-to-peer network that formed in the inviting, creating, and sharing of this communal and exhibitionist venture—shameless in its play for far-flung yet intimately linked content as well as audiences. Regardless of what ends up happening, we’ve done our best to encourage a sense of open wonder, a decentralized narrative, and a localized neural network of sorts, all intended to produce something on its own terms, with our assistance.
On Format
The installations’, website’s, and catalogue’s myriad images, videos, buttons, links, and transitions all feature design gestures with exaggerated interfaces. The implicit made explicit, an idea often explored by more reflexive conceptual art, is set in motion through these characteristics, which embrace the performative qualities of loosely organized activity taking shape over time.
Title
Exhibitionisms borrows its name from Gabriel Melcher’s Exhibitionisms: A Visual Edition for a Privates Talk, 2017, a Keynote file presentation projected during the closing event of Privates, in 2017, at the H. F. Johnson Gallery of Art, at Carthage College.
History
Exhibitionisms has evolved from Privates, a durational installation of personal art and object collections in the form of an interactive exhibition catalogue. The exhibition was organized by Tobey Albright and Nicole Mauser with the help of Ryan Peter Miller and took place at Carthage College in 2017. If you’d like to learn more about that exhibition, feel free to read the wonderful essay our friend Jeff Ward wrote for the catalogue, here.
Adjacencies
Throughout the exhibition we encountered a number of exhibitions and publications with a similar spirit and/or comparable characteristics and intentions. These entities, which help establish a context for the various concepts and activities expressed through Exhibitionisms, include the book Exhibition-ism: Temporal Togetherness and the exhibition Inside the Inside curated by Joseph Grigely & Amy Vogel.
Gabriel Melcher’s Exhibitionisms: A Visual Edition For a Privates Talk, 2017
Press Release
Subject: Exhibitionisms Group Show at TSA opens November 7
Exhibitionisms
Nov 7, 2020–Jan 16, 2021
Online Opening
Sat, Nov 7, 4pm–7pm
Online Program
Sat, Nov 21, 4pm-7pm
Closing Event
Sun, Dec 13, time TBD
Dearest Friends of the Arts,
These are strange times and in spite of it all, we want you to know that you are incredibly important to us and help to shape our own practices as artists, thinkers, and friends. As such, we want to honor this feeling formally and would love to invite you to attend in person and/or view remotely an exhibition entitled Exhibitionisms. This group exhibition is arranged by Nicole Mauser, Sheila Majumdar, and Tobey Albright. It will run from November 7 to December 13, 2020, co-hosted by Tiger Strikes Asteroid and Space & Time galleries, in Chicago, IL.
Over 20 artists have each lent us an artwork to represent their practices, along with an object from their personal collections. Exhibitionisms will present arrangements of these artworks and objects in orbit. We will document the objects’ shifting placements over the duration of the exhibition to become the catalogue. We will engage the mechanisms of publication-as-exhibition-making, to combine the material and digital realms (as a choreographed performance of sorts). By arranging new adaptations of artworks/objects, we hope to unlock, identify, and share mutualisms to create new potential meanings. Think of it as a house party of objects that lasts over a month—a celebration of physical exchange in a time of encouraged distance.
We will celebrate with an online opening, some light programming and texts, plenty of documentation, and an e-pub with experimental aspirations. There will be a virtual opening on Saturday, November 7 from 4pm–7pm online at exhibitionisms.club. On Saturday, November 21st we will host an online program from 4pm-7pm. At the closing event on December 13, we will release an exhibition catalogue in the form of an electronic publication housed inside a handmade artist book-like object. The e-pub features a digital archive of the entire collaborative exhibition effort, including in situ images of the artworks and objects prior to their journey to the respective galleries.
Exhibitionisms has evolved from Privates, a durational installation of personal art and object collections in the form of an interactive exhibition catalogue. The exhibition was organized with the help of our friend Ryan Peter Miller and took place at Carthage College in 2017. If you’d like to learn more about that exhibition, feel free to read the wonderful essay our friend Jeff Ward wrote for the catalogue, here.
Exhibitionisms will take place simultaneously at two locations: TSA and a new storefront gallery in Chicago called Space & Time. We will begin taking reservations for in-person visits beginning on November 7, here. Regardless of whether you choose to encounter this exhibition online, in person, or not at all, our admiration for you remains.
Fondly Yours,
Nicole Mauser
Sheila Majumdar
Tobey Albright
Exhibitionisms includes works by
- Tobey Albright
- Corey Antis
- Karen Azarnia with Lindsey Hook
- Mara Baker with Sabina Ott
- Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli with Thomas L. Little
- David Cordero with Jonathan Paul Gillette
- Jonah Criswell
- Mollie Edgar with Jason Polan
- Robert Chase Heishman
- Gina Hunt
- Colleen Keihm
- Katy Kirbach
- Julia Klein with Sue Bosniak
- Sheila Majumdar with Margaret Schäfer
- Michael Markwick
- Nicole Mauser
- Gabriel Melcher
- Curtis Miller
- Ryan Peter Miller
- Tim Nickodemus
- Garry Noland with Ted Argeropolos
- TJ O’keefe
- Parsons and Charlesworth
- Lydia Ross
- Michael Savona
- Kyle Schlie with Jesse Malmed
- Zach Scott
- Maggie Taft
- Unyimeabasi Udoh
- Jeff Ward with Roxie Thomas
- Bradley Wester with Sarah Peters
- Michael Worful with Jason Polan
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Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago
2233 S Throop St, #419
Chicago IL 60608 (map)
chicago@tigerstrikesasteroid.com
Make an appointment
Space & Time
3307 W. Irving Park Rd.
Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
Image credits: 1: (Left) Video still from Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli’s Eyes House, 2020. (Right) Digitized 8mm film still from Thomas L. Little’s DEW Line, 1956. 2: (Left ) At-home preview image of Bradley Wester’s Two Princes, 2017. (Right) At-home preview image of Sara Peter’s Gold Satyr, 2013. 3: (Left) At-home image of Sheila Majumdar’s Whisker Fatigue, 2020. (Right) At-home image of Sheila’s collection object, Margaret Schäfer’s Untitled Crabs, c. 2014. 4: (Left) Image of Gina Hunt’s Quadrants, 2020. (Right) At-home image of Gina Hunt’s collection object, (no title), c. 1950. 5: (Left) At-home image of Unyimeabasi Udoh’s Untitled (Pity Party), 2020. (Right) At-home image of Unyimeabasi Udoh’s collection object, Untitled ("Turtles All the Way Down" Box), Date unknown.
Acknowledgments
It’s impossible to thank every single person who has contributed to this exhibition, website, and catalogue. Regardless, here goes.
First and foremost, we’d like to thank Tiger Strikes Asteroid for this opportunity and its expert support, especially Holly Cahill, Julia Klein, Zehra Khan, Teresa Silva, and Debra Kayes.
Special thanks to
Matt Brown
Miles Brown
Jan Brown
Mollie Edgar
Chris James
Rebecca Mauser
Ryan Peter Miller
Claire Michelsen
Michael Savona
Madeleine Gallucci
Extra special thanks to
All the artists in the exhibition
Colophon
Consulting Editor
Sheila Majumdar
Typography
Geometric by Bryce Wilner
Design and development
Tobey Albright of Hour