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Window of opportunity: the recent opening of the Hyde Park Art Center in new quarters provides Chicago with a chance, rare in any art community, to rethink the overall ecology of its art institutions and their missions
Art in America, Jan, 2007 by Susan Snodgrass
Contemporary art (and architecture) in Chicago has gained a lively momentum with the recent opening, and revamped mission, of the new Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC). In late spring, HPAC, one of the city's longest-framing alternative spaces--it was founded in 1939--moved from the last of its several previous locations (a former ballroom in what was once the Del Prado Hotel) to a new site just a few blocks away, in the same South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park. Architect Douglas Garofalo's innovative reconstruction of the two-story masonry warehouse, owned by the University of Chicago, that is now HPAC's permanent home provides compelling reason to reflect upon the state of art here, including, in addition to several important initiatives, the city's venerable institutions.
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The Hyde Park Art Center
HPAC has made significant contributions to Chicago's cultural history, most notably by launching the careers of the Chicago Imagists in the 1960s and '70s. Its more recent contributions have come under the leadership of Chuck Thurow, executive director since 1998 and previously the board's CEO. The exhibition program was given a fresh infusion by former exhibition director Annie Morse and now by Allison Peters, who took the post in 2004. Past highlights include a series of architectural interventions: U7 (2003) by Patrick McGee, Cold Comfort (2001) by Karen Reimer and Constance Bacon, and Free Basin (2000) by Simparch (the collaborative duo of Steve Badgett and Matthew Lynch), the latter of whom constructed a monumental plywood skate bowl within the gallery, hosting skateboarders throughout its duration. This varied history was the subject of "For Real" (2006), the final show in the Del Prado building, guest curated by Bill Brown. In an investigation of HPAC's role as a presenter of art, and of art as a form of institutional critique, the offices were relocated to the exhibition gallery, while works in various mediums, created by the collective Cream Co., occupied the administrative spaces.
A similar sense of engagement was at the heart of "Takeover" [Apt: 24-June 11, 2006], the new HPAC's inaugural show. Thirty-nine artists who are Chicago-based or whose careers have significant ties to the city created site-specific or site-responsive works that engaged Garofalo's inspired renovation, the architect's largest project to date. His previous undertakings include several adventurous residential, commercial and institutional buildings in the Midwest, as well as various theoretical proposals for urban design, all united by his use of digital fabrication techniques and an emphasis on environmental sensitivity. Garofalo's portfolio also includes exhibition design, artistic collaboration and such public works as "Between the Museum and the City" (2003), a series of temporary structures conceived for the front plaza of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, to house educational programs and events.
The Chicago-based Garofalo, increasingly a figure of international acclaim, also added 1,200 square feet to his HPAC design, whose interior and exterior he conceived as a series of flowing rectangles. In keeping with HPAC's community focus, permeability and accessibility are key concepts throughout the building, from its street-level entry and forecourt to its large horizontal windows, no-frills construction materials and mutable internal spaces.
For the inaugural show, works were situated throughout the 32,000-square-foot facility--still incomplete at the time of the show's opening--which includes five formal exhibition spaces as well as classrooms, studios, offices, a resource center and a cafe. The construction delay unfortunately compromised projects by Kerry James Marshall, Denenge Akpem and Scott Wolniak, among others; nonetheless, "Takeover" afforded a rare opportunity to witness the building unfold throughout the exhibition's run.
Works by Nina Levy, known for her self-referential sculptures, and Mindy Rose Schwartz, also a sculptor, lent a dramatic, whimsical presence to the main thoroughfare just off the entrance. In Drop, a flattened likeness of Levy's head appeared to have fallen on the floor; above, the sculpture of a small child (presumably a representation of the artist's son) leaned, arms extended, over the upstairs railing. Nearby, Schwartz's anomalous collection of synthetic and found materials (twigs, beads, artificial flowers) hung like a chandelier from the ceiling. Baroque and oddly lush, Schwartz's Pushing Up the Daisies contrasted with the more minimalist, Zen-like purity of Jacob Hashimoto's installation White Plumes--Superabundant Variation, a series of wood and white-silk orbs strung in loose columns and suspended in the grand exhibition hall.
Although the entire building, with its reusable surfaces and movable interior walls, was conceived to showcase art, this 2,400-square-foot hall, open and spacious, serves as the main exhibition venue. Five rollup metal doors open the gallery to the street and form the lower outside east wall; two were transformed into screens for Alison Ruttan's two-channel video projection Transmission, in winch passersby, solicited by the artist, were filmed strolling along the front sidewalk. On the opposite wall, Adelheid Mers created an ink-jet printed "organogram," or organizational chart, of HPAC. Vibrantly colored silhouettes and floral and geometric patterns, symbols for the gallery's various constituents and members, intersect to form an organic whole. In Look Out (Up and to the Right), Kay Rosen also painted a portrait of HPAC as a hub for diverse artistic interactions, though not without an ironic twist. Here, the word LOCUS, rendered in green sans-serif type, was painted on the south wall, while the letter T hovered above the door.
