Niki Nolin’s work.

This Friday, January 16, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m., Woman Made Gallery will be holding a reception for the Document exhibition (for Facebook event, click here), which includes work from four InterArts alumni (Greta Bach, Michelle Graves, Megan Pitcher, and Leo Selvaggio) and two current faculty members (Annette Barbier and Niki Nolin). The exhibition is curated by former CBPA program director Jessica Cochran, who writes:

“A document provides evidence, or serves as an official record through text or image that something happened or simply exists. We are looking for entries of artwork from artists of any gender identification that takes the form of documentation. We encourage broad visual and conceptual interpretations of what it means to “document” something today—from works that record unseen activities through photography, video, new media or ephemera to installations that make visible the invisible elements of an environment.”

Greta Bach’s FAULT LINES, an iteration of her 2014 thesis, is an interactive installation that documents and concretizes the often ephemeral memories of childhood. Says Bach, “It gives the audience pause for reflection while capturing the complexity of family dynamics, and hopes to remind viewers that the past influences the present but does not dictate the future.”

Michelle Graves, a 2012 alum who uses stream of conscious text, anatomy, and technology as concept and material. Her work being shown is part of Studies of Social Failure and is part of a series of 32 drawings and one Intro video document. The drawings are documents of “failed” social experiences as well as “different self-portrait personas describing who I was at that moment”, says Graves. The video is a compilation of 15 takes reciting an introduction for a presentation on the body of work while it was in progress.

Megan Pitcher’s work also includes a piece from her 2014 MFA thesis. “This experimental movement portrait showcases a layer of habitual work life with a layer of ruptural work life.  It serves as a document of the possibility for becoming in every moment, and documents the trajectory of becoming,” she explains. The piece was an artifact of the live movement praxis project where she conducted movement adventures in Chicago workplace settings.

Leo Selvaggio, another 2014 alumnus, in his work experiments with and subverts the proposed stability of identity through the creation and proliferation of disinformation.The artist notes, “this disinformation often lives in the form of the document or documentation, borrowing its authoritative voice to masquerade as ‘truth.’ Thinking of identity as ‘data’ that can be hacked, recoded, and even corrupted, I reshape and reassert my own identity through images, sculptures, and socially mediated documentation.”

Jessica Cochran has curated and organized exhibitions for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Center for Book and Paper Arts, the Contemporary Arts Council, Art Chicago and many other venues. Woman Made Gallery exhibits art made by and about women, educates the public about women’s art, and advocates for the equal treatment and recognition of women’s artistic accomplishments. Document is the first exhibition of 2015 for the gallery.