Production Site: A Compound Eye on the Artist’s Studio

Nikhil Chopra, Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing XI. Part of Production Site: the Artist’s Studio Inside- Out, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2010. © Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay

Museum of Contemporary Art - Chicago

Curated by Dominic Molon

By Jeriah Hildwine

“Production Site: The Artist’s Studio Inside Out,” represents the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s contribution to Studio Chicago, a year-long, citywide event focusing on the artist’s studio. In curating “Production Site,” MCA curator Dominic Molon faced the challenge (as with any themed group show) of striking a balance between works that address the theme, and works which stand as meritorious in their own right. It would be a fool’s errand to attempt to curate a show consisting solely of works which directly address the idea of the artist’s studio. Instead, Molon has assembled a diverse array of works of art, each of which reflects a different vantage point on the artist’s studio.

An effective group exhibition addresses its theme in the same way that a nanorobotic swarm from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age (or Michael Crichton’s Prey) can function as a camera.  Each piece in the exhibition provides only an oblique, tangential, narrow view, like a tiny robot equipped with only a single photoreceptor. When taken as a whole, however, the differences in perspective allow the collective to form a highly detailed image. Each artist in “Production Site” represented an integral part of this composite image.

The new work by Chicago-based artist Deb Sokolow, commissioned by the MCA specifically for this exhibition and installed in the main lobby directly facing the front entrance, functions as a perfect figurehead for “Production Site.” The work is a large-scale drawing depicting a floor plan of the artist’s studio building, embellished with both factual and fictional metadata, which are conflated to create a piece of personal historical fiction. The work addresses subjects both serious (meth labs operating in warehouse spaces in the city) and comical (a pair of men claiming to be Russians, suspicious in both their accent and their names, Kremlin and Smirnoff). Sokolow has continued working on the drawing throughout the exhibition, bringing an added dimension of the studio into the exhibition space and giving some insight into the awkward community that is a shared studio building.

Outstanding in its own right, though less obviously related to the more overt aspects of the artist’s studio, Mumbai-based artist Nikhil Chopra performed Yog Raj Chitraker: Memory Drawing XI, in which he assumed the persona of a Victorian-era artist based loosely on Chopra’s grandfather.  The performance took place on February 9th and 10th; what remain in the exhibition are artifacts from this performance. The looping spiral charcoal drawings on the wall and plates of desiccated fruit and cheese give a viewer some clues as to what took place there, but are a pale shadow compared to the eerie spectacle of Chopra’s performance. The portion I witnessed featured Chopra in an opaque black bodystocking, high heels and a wig, transforming him into a creepy, faceless, feminine specter. Chopra’s angle on the artist’s studio is more oblique than most, but the performance was among the most powerful work in the exhibition.

Curated by Dominic Molon, “Production Site:  The Artist’s Studio Inside Out” features work by William Kentridge, Bruce Nauman, Tacita Dean, Justin Cooper, Deb Sokolow, Kerry James Marshall, Andrea Zittel, Peter Fischli, David Weiss, Amanda Ross-Ho, Ryan Gander, Nikhil Chopra, Rodney Graham, and John Neff.

(February 6 - May 30, 2010)

Jeriah Hildwine is a Chicago-based artist, writer, and curator.  He writes for Art Talk Chicago and Chicago Art Magazine, and works as an educator at Wilbur Wright Community College, LillStreet Art Center and Hyde Park Art Center.

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