Interactive @ Woman Made

Interactive was curated by Karen Hamner, a Chicago based book artist, and hence book art was well represented in the show. Book artists such as Alex Appella, Lucy Childs, Amanda Meeks, and others were represented. Book art seems like too easy a solution for the prerequisite “interactive,” and hence the show's more interesting work took other forms.
Abstract Hexaflexagon: To and Fro, In and Out, was a combined effort between Susan Finsen and Jane Bortnick Griffin, in which one painted the object and the other created the form. It is a hexagon that the viewer can manipulate in order to create different ways of viewing the abstract surface. In this way, the viewer becomes the third contributer to the project.
Catherine Blackwell Pena had two works in the show: Viewers of Views and Visual Green. Both critique the ways in which experiences are constructed for people, by creating ways for viewer to experience her work. In Viewers of Views the patron is invited to stand on a cement platform to view a photograph of someone standing on a cement platform to view a landscape. The work invokes ideas of the construction of tourism, and the notion of “must see” sites and of certain ways of viewing them. This idea carries back into the gallery, in that the work is chosen for a show, tacked on the wall, and expected to be viewed a certain way. Visual Green is a photograph of a couple having a picnic on a grassy median in a city locale, and then extends into the gallery with a patch of grass surrounded by a street curb. The misuse of a designated space again address institution, but in a more successful way than her first work. In Viewers of Views the act of going along with the plan is so natural that the intent can be lost on some, but the breaking of rules in Visual Green makes the content more apparent.
One of the most interesting works in the show, was unfortunately hidden downstairs. For the Birds, by Jessica Witte invites viewers to take her work outside the gallery FOR FREE!The work consists of two different types of birdseed arranged in a type of doily arrangement, as a record of the artists labor, and then invites viewers to rearrange it and create their own images and/or take the birdseeds outside the gallery and feed birds. The concept of interactivity in this piece is great, but the preciousness of her designs makes participating feel more like destroying.
On top of Interactive, The Woman Made Gallery is also hosting a solo show for Kong Xin Shi, a Buddhist nun. Her work addresses one of the three Buddhist Three Marks of Reality: change. The show features a setup of beautifully arranged stones at the center, which is surrounded by works of forms evolving. Her work Who I Am is a morphing of a nose into a kite form sprouting hands, and then to a body, and this morphing is continued in all the other forms. The highlight of the exhibit was a sculpture titled Here I Am, that consisted of an old sink dripping water that morphed into a human like form, that was then dripping snot that was flowing down the drain. The mood of the exhibit was very serene and joyous, and it was a pleasure just to sit and enjoy.