While photographed buildings, blue jean-wearing robots and moveable video pods may at first appear to have nothing in common, when placed in the right context they begin to converse with each other loudly enough to draw a buzz. Such is the concept behind Shift–the name of both a new Chicago arts collaborative and its debut exhibition at Heaven Gallery, featuring a fascinating array of 2-D, 3-D and interactive works.
The individuals in Shift formed last spring to create an exhibition for the Around the Coyote Arts Festival. John Kirchoff, then a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute, had spearheaded the project by inviting two artists and two non-artist friends to join him in orchestrating a work.
“I love the way collaborations think,” says Kirchoff. “They’re incredibly creative, and what you get out of it–at least from my perspective–is always radically more impressive than what you get out of an individual effort. I’m fascinated with the ideas that erupt when several people collaborate on a project, even if those people are not necessarily artists themselves.”
Kirchoff’s group eventually grew to as many as 15 members, but when problems surfaced with the exhibit space, the group withdrew from Coyote and was in danger of disbanding. Instead of abandoning the idea, Kirchoff focused on the four core members of the group and took the project to the next level. They drafted a mission statement to complete biannual exhibits, and instead of limiting themselves to just a group show, they sought to produce an installation as well.
The show “Shift: An Exploration of Figured Ground” succeeds on both levels. It utilizes the joined space of two adjacent galleries on Milwaukee Avenue–Heaven, which holds the curated works, and Buddy, which houses the installation–to reveal the multiple layers that bring to light the show’s theme. Through 11 very different artists, the concept is conveyed through paintings, sculpture and photography.
The most successful works in “Shift” are the most literal. Sarah Zimmer, one of the core members of the group, offers color photographs, titled “Conformal Suspention 180,” that display a nude woman poised in residential settings, seen from varying angles. The work allows the observer to begin to imagine the figure interacting mathematically within her space.
Nathan Baker’s color prints also focus on an individual but illustrate clones of the individual performing different tasks through settings such as a veterinary office, a video arcade and a construction site. The works give the appearance of the individual interacting with himself or herself, as if shifting roles and physical positions.
Timothy David Belknap, another core Shift member whose talent is as apparent in his acrylic works as his mechanical sculptures, has offered the most direct interpretation of the show’s theme. The denim-clad robot, “Cosmic Dancer,” is just that: a single pair of pants gyrating slowly this way and that. Another of his sculptures, “Dandle Bay Boy,” operates on a weight system: On one end of the structure, a flesh-colored mask eerily twitches its face as if it was sniffing something.
But the real gem in “Shift” is the installation that inspired the rest of the works. Isolated in an adjoining gallery space, the work is comprised of four 4-by-4-by-8-foot pods large enough to comfortably seat a person, each housing screens on which the same image appears, as projected from elsewhere in the room. There are four looped images in all, each representing a different physical direction looking outward from Chicago: to the north, farmland; to the west, suburbs, and so on. Each pod is fixed on a pulley system that passers-by can operate by moving the pods and their screens, changing the distance from the projectors, thereby altering the perspective seen from within the pod. The entire installation is a physical exercise of shifting perception.
“As much as this show is about figured ground, it is also about perspective,” says Belknap, who with his brother Joseph orchestrated the installation. “It represents several points of view in one piece of work.”
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`Shift: An Exploration of Figured Ground’
When: Through Feb. 29
Where: Heaven Gallery, 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave., 2nd Floor
Price: Free; 773-342-4597
