Ethan Greenbaum and Katrin Sigurdardottir
@ The Suburban
125 N Harvey Ave, Oak Park, IL 60302
Opening Sunday, January 24th, from 2PM - 4PM
Ethan Greenbaum‘s work is concerned with architectural and cultural blank spots. He frequently uses ubiquitous sites like sidewalks or printer paper as his subject matter. Removing these sources from a functional context, he manipulates them to open new associative possibilities. For the exhibition, Greenbaum will be installing objects and architectural modifications that engage with the multiple public and private spaces of The Suburban.
The Suburban emblem is repurposed as both show title and window display. Removing the name from the logo, the artist prints the resulting symbol on adhesive vinyl. Hung in the upstairs window, the design suggests commercial signage or a pictograph of a crossed out zero. Continuing this play with negation and substitution, the main gallery entrance is locked; viewers must enter through an open garage door. Inside, an entrance has been cut in the wall that separates garage from exhibition space.
The gallery walls are covered with A1 sheets of paper printed with lorem ipsum, a nonsensical filler text used in graphic design as a placeholder. Devoid of information, these blocks of text create an opaque barrier, stacked floor to ceiling like bricks. On the floor Greenbaum has built a low wall of cinder blocks covered in plasticine. Traditionally used as a material for model-making, the gray plasticine forms a thin surface that paradoxically obscures and reproduces the blocks as unique objects. This makeshift partition stretches across the room, simultaneously framing and preventing access to one half of the gallery. Acting as both wall and window, the partition echoes material and linguistic equivalents created throughout the show.
In her work, Katrin Sigurdardottir, crosses the boundary between perceptual and embodied space. She takes on the uneasy confrontation, when the viewer has to negotiate a new relationship with the model, see it as not representing anything except itself, take it at face value and then see her or himself in scale to it – and not the other way around. Her various architectural and scenographic constructions provide a platform for actions or performances by the viewer.
At The Suburban, Katrin exhibits a work that documents the recreation of the exhibition space, inside her studio in Reykjavik.
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