Maren Hassinger
@ The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603
Opening Monday, October 24th, at 6PM
6:00pm Lecture
Fullerton Hall
Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Avenue
Sponsored by Paul Rehder Salon
7:30pm Dinner Reception
Fulton Market Kitchen
311 N Sangamon Street
Maren Hassinger (American, born 1947) has built an expansive practice that articulates the relationship between nature and humanity. Carefully choosing materials for their innate characteristics, Hassinger has explored the subject of movement, family, love, nature, environment, consumerism, identity, and race. Wire rope has long held a prominent role in Maren Hassinger’s artistic practice since the early 1970s when, as a sculptor placed in the Fiber Arts program at UCLA, Hassinger used the material to bridge the gap between the two disciplines. Binding nature with industry, the artist takes a biomimetic approach to the material. She often unravels the ends of her material to resemble frayed natural fibers, blurring the lines between man-made and natural materials. Labor intensive, yet appearing soft and fragile, Hassinger’s sculptures embrace and connect the dichotomies within, offering a contemplative space to celebrate the beauty and solace to be found in nature while calling to account the gradual erasure of the natural world. Recent work extends her practice further into the natural world, creating vessel-like sculptures as metaphor for the human body, a reminder of our universal kinship and commonality.
Maren Hassinger has recently been commissioned to make work for the sixth edition of Sculpture Milwaukee (curated by Ugo Rondinone), Dia Bridgehampton, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Smithsonian Museum, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Aspen Art Museum, and Destination Crenshaw. Her work will appear in upcoming exhibitions at MOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and in a two-person exhibition at IVAM alongside her longtime performance partner Senga Nengudi. Maren Hassinger is the recipient of numerous honors, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for the Arts. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Baltimore Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, NYC; the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, among others. She lives and works in New York City.
To see more by Maren Hassinger, visit:
Public program sponsored by Paul Rehder Salon
Official Website
More events on this date
Tags: Chicago, Illinois, Loop, Maren Hassinger, The Art Institute of Chicago
« previous event
next event »