Laurel Hauge: Getting There
@ The Plan
610 N Albany Ave, Chicago, IL 60612
Opening Saturday, April 20th, from 6PM - 10PM
On view through Sunday, May 26th
It would be a disservice to Laurel Hauge’s work to define her practice solely within the parameters of institutional critique. Although the institution is certainly in the room, Hauge engages with it obliquely, in a sardonic flirtation. She blithely riffs on the power dynamics between institution, artist, artwork and art worker. In her performances, Hauge subverts the viewer’s attention away from the art and focuses on the exaggerated theatrics of installing it. By rendering the artwork inconsequential or secondary, she elevates the labor and laborer responsible for displaying the object. As a spectator, the viewer may feel a curl of voyeurism that belies their participation in this hierarchy. This audience awareness is the throughline of Hauge’s practice and a crucial component to understanding its broader implications.
Hauge is an archivist, meticulously recording and organizing her experiences as a working artist. Much of what she documents is typical of what can be found on a resume or CV, an extensive list of jobs, grants and exhibitions, however, her lists also veer into the unconventional and ridiculous. She presents a history of berets that, in one way or another, came into her possession complete with all the accession and deaccession information that would be found in the database of any esteemed art collection. The list is stiff, well starched with the clinical indifference of the institutional voice, however, the content is so flippant that the viewer is led to extrapolate on the form. If this were not a list of hats, it could be a list of past lovers, childhood plush toys, or whatever cherished item the viewer deems precious.
In many ways, Getting There is a self portrait of the artist. Hauge is providing the metrics by which she defines herself. She makes explicit the invisible stanchions that lead a viewer through an exhibition both spatially and informationally. Hauge exposes the absurdity of these hidden guidelines with her droll didactics, and makes obvious the viewer’s complicity in them. In a deft foreground background reversal, Hauge makes her exhibition the negative space in which the viewer becomes the subject. Moving through the exhibition, the viewer begins to define themself within the specific discourse of Hauge’s own internalized institution.
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Tags: Esther Espino, Getting There, Humboldt Park, Laurel Hauge, performance, the PLAN, UIC
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