Oct 20th 2013

Variety Lights

@ devening projects + editions

3039 West Carroll, Chicago, IL 60612

Opening Sunday, October 20th, from 4PM - 7PM

On view through Saturday, December 7th

Director Federico Fellini’s debut film (and his first of many collaborations with his wife, actress Giulietta Masina), tells a story of a young woman who begs and eventually buys her way into a struggling group of vaudeville performers. Though she labors to convince the group to let her join, she quickly becomes the focal point of their performances, stealing the spotlight from the group. Taking the title from this film, the exhibition Variety Lights features Sam Lipp and Thora Dolven Balke, whose works conflate the individual figure or subject with—or against—a fractured, abstracted field. A portrait or a body in motion become obscured through layering: a physically layered surface, in the case of Lipp’s wooly paintings, or through the tiered sequencing of discontinuous images in the case of Dolven Balke’s ambient films and photographs. From the chorus of the band, a figure emerges, stepping forward into wide-eyed focus only to hiccup back into the chorus’ clamor, looking to her feet while spinning in place.

Variety Lights is curated by B. Ingrid Olson and John Henderson.

Thora Dolven Balke (b. 1982, Oslo) currently lives and works in New York as a resident at ISCP – International Studio and Curatorial Programme. In 2008 she was part of ‘Lights On – norsk samtidskunst’, which took place at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art. Her work was later part of ‘The Collectors’, an exhibition curated by Michael Elmgreen and Ingmar Dragset as the official representation in the 2009 Venice Biennale. She was one of two curators of Lofoten International Art Festival – LIAF – in 2011 and co-founded and programmed the artists-run space REKORD in Oslo from 2006 – 2010. She has upcoming group exhibitions at Scandinavian Foundation in New York and Michael Thibault Gallery in Los Angeles.

Sam Lipp (b. 1989, London) lives and works in Chicago. He is a co-director of the project gallery Queer Thoughts (QT), and is a member of the artist group PplSft. Recent group exhibitions include Great Skin at Bodega, Philadelphia and Guyth at Dos Perros Projects, Chicago. He has a forthcoming solo exhibition at Free Paarking, St. Louis this November.

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