FEATURING
in order of their works’ appearance
December 20: Pieter Vermeersch
January 14: Tauba Auerbach & Iman Issa
January 17: Geof Oppenheimer
January 21: Ika Knežević
January 30: Karl Holmqvist
February 4: Lili Reynaud Dewar
EVENTS
Welcome to The Fifth Dimension
Friday, December 20, 2013, 5 - 7 pm, Gallery
First chance to see Pieter Vermeersch's work - the first work to appear in The Fifth Dimension. Cocktails and dessert created by Tucker-Rae Grant and served by Leslie.
Conversation with participating artists
Thursday, January 23, 2014, 6 pm, Logan 801
Iman Issa, Ika Knežević & Geof Oppenheimer in conversation with curator Monika Szewczyk
Party with performance by Karl Holmqvist at 7 pm
Saturday, February 15, 2014, 5:30 pm, Great Hall, Level Two and Café Logan
Part of A Winter Contemporary Art Soirée
Organized with the Department of Visual Arts & Open Practice Committee
Artist Talk by Lili Reynaud Dewar
Monday, February 17, 2014, 5 pm, Logan 801
Organized with Open Practice Committee
There is no consensus at this stage about what constitutes ‘the fifth dimension’, though we do know that it has been of interest to artists since at least the beginning of the last century; and scientists, musicians, priests and politicians have all deployed the term, albeit differently. What they seem to be grappling with is an expanded perception, which this exhibition takes time to absorb.
Like the band, The 5th Dimension – infamous for their 1969 single “Age of Acquarius/Let the Sunshine In” – this exhibition is not about the fifth dimension, it is the fifth dimension.
The Fifth Dimension may be understood as the building of knowledge and atmosphere. Over the course of approximately two months, works by the seven participating artists will enter gradually and continue to transform the Logan Center Gallery; with elements permeating beyond the gallery walls.
‘The fifth dimension’ is also a phrase, a string of words that struck a chord with the seven participating artists. Thus, the resonance of words (poetry/poetics) becomes key for this speculative undertaking.
A plastic and poetic anchor offered to the artists in conversations and correspondence leading up to the show was Loredo Taft’s Fountain of Time, a monumental sculpture depicting a lone figure (Time) looking across a pool at the passage of humanity – one hundred people representing one hundred years of peace.¹ Erected in 1920 at the foot of Washington Park, it is a short walk from the Logan Center and can be visited en route to or from the exhibition. Beside it lies a plaque stating that the inspiration for this concrete configuration came directly from a poem by Henry Austin Dobson entitled “The Paradox of Time,” which begins:
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, time stays, we go;
Where might we go while time stays (and is time, in fact, the fourth dimension)? What figures or thought-objects are needed to re-imagine life in five dimensions or even more? Might a solid, three-dimensional sculpture be understood as the shadow of that other realm? And what other means are available to artists today to develop this imaginary, sustaining a dialectic tension between visibility and invisibility, tangibility and imperceptibility?
The artists in The Fifth Dimension contribute to these questions in distinct ways: With his keen knowledge of paint’s spatial effects, Pieter Vermeersch exploits the transformative qualities of color applied directly to the architectural frame. Tauba Auerbach fuses one ancient material (marble) with another (a book). Geof Oppenheimer’s contained explosions may be seen to enact a different fusion – of physics and politics, nano-time and the long course of history. Iman Issa harnesses the mind’s associative power, multiplying means of translating (indexical, linguistic, material), to arrive at a point where an image of her own past might transform into the present of another person. Ika Knežević mobilizes the forces of production – for instance, of the ergonomic shoe and of the elegant self who wears it – introducing an aesthetic regime where work and leisure are (again) clearly demarcated. Karl Holmqvist’s use of his voice for his and other people’s words and Lili Reynaud Dewar’s use of her body for her and other people’s gestures make it difficult to maintain clear separations (between artists and artworks, one epoch and another, this culture and the other). The Fifth Dimension foregrounds such productive con-fusions, relying on the clarity of artistic gestures to build complexity. None of this is a game, unless perhaps we wish to play chess.
1 The work began in 1914 on the one hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Ghent (1814), which was signed between the United States and the United Kingdom to mark the end of the war of 1812.
Generous support for public programs provided by the Arts|Science Initiative, the Open Practice Committee and the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.
Lili Reynaud Dewar’s contribution to this exhibition is supported by the France Chicago Center at the University of Chicago and the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago.
Key support also provided by the Jackman Goldwasser Residency at the Hyde Park Art Center.