Something emerges from the gaps between image and object, bodies and their others. Beyond the optical horizon, these cracks are not detected by sight, but through the experience of apparitional tactility – an ocular phantom limb. The experience of an object, its presence, and subsequent associations conjure an awareness of our own corporeal boundaries, the ends of our selves. The tendrils of memory make effort to expand these boundaries, connect, and form new nexuses of relations, associations and stabilize the distance by putting them into perspectives, where the “I/eye” is forever the focal point. Certain phenomena, objects, and experiences, however shrug these tendencies for connection off, dislocating desire, and reversing the watchful gaze of the spectator. In these moments, the cracks open further and recognition enters crisis. Forms, once steadfast in their familiar ubiquity become mutable, and our own subjectivity’s codependence on this familiarity the “I am I, because you are you”, is similarly subjected to change. Space becomes co-occupational, we share it with entities and bodies that are not quite able to be named, and therefore, unable to be signified or sublimated. Independent, existent, and active, gazes are exchanged, desires are inflamed and a dance between subjects – mutually haunting one another by means of their common unknowability ensues. Out of Sight, Out of Body, pushes these relationships into a domestic sphere, reorganizing the architecture of the gallery space into a mirror image of itself – domestic space-as-exhibition-as-domestic space-as-exhibition. The work by Evan Fusco and Elise Parisian each push objects and forms – familiar or unfamiliar – to act upon both our own impulse to define, but also revel in the limits of our ability to name, relate, and recognize. In their wake, they leave behind vespers of memory, shapes, and bodies, which once may have been named, but are now obscured from legibility but within the reach of apprehension all the same.

Apparatus Projects is an alternative space located in a Lincoln Square dining room, please text or call 219.241.6303 to gain entry into the space at the opening.
Gallery hours are by appointment and can be arranged by emailing apparatusprojects.chi@gmail.com or direct messaging @_apparatus_projects_ on Instagram.

Evan Fusco is a Chicago based interdisciplinary artist whose work engages with the body as a site of mutability. They have shown work in varying contexts such as in student shows, digital spaces, zine fairs, and independent art spaces. They were one of the recipients of the first year of the Creativity Works grant at the Cleveland Institute of Art. They have performed in multiple SKNDLSS runway performance shows, curated a small number of group exhibitions, and have self-published multiple poetry books. Recently they organized their own solo show and a group show of 30 artists from all over the country. They are currently attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies.

Elise Parisian is a Chicago based multimedia artist who is very interested in ghosts. She takes a conceptual approach to abstract imagery in order to explore the two questions central to her practice: 1. How can one honor trauma and loss without being haunted by it? and 2. What is the best representation of the presence of absence? She is interested in the way “ghost” or related terms are used to describe different actions and experiences related to loss and residue but not necessarily to death. Her work involves use of light, shadows, and various printmaking techniques. Parisian is currently working on her MFA at the School of the Art Institute and you can find more of her work at EliseParisian.com.

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Tags: Apparatus Projects, Chicago, Elise Parisian, Evan Fusco, Lincoln Square, Out of Sight Out of Body