Upon going to the exhibit “Dwelling” I did not know what to expect from our fellow artists at Columbia College Chicago, but after looking at their works I feel that I have gained a better understanding of each of the artists’ dwelling. Regarding the exhibit itself there were a few things I did like about, but also many pet peeves came into play.
The exhibit was fantastic; it was a personal look into the artists’ home life. What I now love about going through the exhibit, that I did not figure out when I first went in, was the fact that it appears that we are starting from the outside of the house working our way in based on the artwork of the students. This was a very clever idea well implemented. The “outside look” of the exhibit started with artist Austin P. Swearengin’s “The Importance of Finding a Way In,” which appears to look like a wooden roof. Just across from the roof we have Heather Boaz’s “Escape,” which shows a rope made out of bed sheets commonly seen in movies or television to escape one’s room. Upon going further in, we start to see furniture with works from Ericka Lechner and Heather Boaz once more.
All the work in the exhibit was great. You could tell that each piece was meaningful to each artist and they put a lot of thought into it. My favorite piece throughout the room was a very simple piece that involved only a doorknob and chair, Heather Boaz’s “Defense,” due to fact that it hit close to home with me personally. Another favorite had to be Brandy Watt’s “Untitled.” It is video of her home being viewed from the outside in; a different spin on the “dwelling” subject. There were also a few works that made me uncomfortable, in particular, a series of family videos by Carrie Schneider which felt very voyeur and incestuous. The video that stuck me was “Dad Washing My Hair.”
There are a few things about the exhibit that I did not particularly like. To start off, the lighting in the room wasn’t all that great. Some pieces were hard to see, especially their title cards. The text and the background color of the cards, together with the lighting, made it very difficult to read. I had to move my head up close to the small cards just to read them clearly. A small pet peeve I had was that not all of artwork featured about this exhibit was in the room itself. There is a photo featured on the website, Stephanie Del Monte’s “Untitled”, that was on the outside of the room, which made it a bit confusing if you wanted to see everything the exhibit had to offer.
Overall this exhibit was great, it gave me some perspective on what others call home. Although it had a couple flaws, I suppose I can look into it thinking, not every home is perfect and there must be a sort of balance.
