Excitable Matter
2024
This installation was created for the exhibition The Spaces We Call Home curated by Marin R. Sullivan at the DePaul Art Museum, Chicago.
A time-lapsed image of an Edgar Miller-designed stained-glass window, placed adjacent to the museum’s own large-scale gallery window, is the central element of this installation. The image links back to a previous work, Open House, that was realized in the private apartment where the window is located* and also connects to a survey exhibition of Miller’s work, which was simultaneously on display in the museum.
*The apartment is located in a compound formerly known as the Carl Street Studios, an artist enclave in Chicago created during the first third of the 20th century.
Installation view; photo by Bob
Time-lapsed image featuring a stained glass window by Edgar Miller (4 min., looped) displayed on 55" monitor
Still image
Still image
Understanding Miller’s window design as a proposition to look at the window and not simply through it, the installation addresses the shifting relation of matter to light, time, and movement. By doing so it acts as a reminder that perception is not only highly contextual and subjective, but should also be recognized as an ongoing act of discovery.
The work further reconsiders interiority, the act of facing inwards, as an opportunity to bring physical and psychological reflection together in an experimental map making exercise. This requires a critical consideration of the grid, which–as with the window–slices and organzises the outside into cartographic units. It also invites contemplation of the gap and other, less measurable conditions, as they complicate place, space, and our perception of both.
Installation view
24 individual photographs, printed on archival Hahnemühle Photo Rag (each 13" x 17"), mounted on aluminum dibond with spacers, displayed in a large-scale grid format; full size 53.5" x 104.5"; photo by Bob
Detail of photo motif
Table top: collage (22" x 28"), two sun-exposed museum boards (each 32" x 38"), wood, balsa wood, hollow core door, black and white artist tape, plexiglass (full table dimensions 36" x 80" x 30")
Installation view
Installation view; photo by Bob
Hanging screen: six black museum boards (each 20" x 30"), hand-cut and connected by museum board joints