CHICAGO (March 18, 2022)—Hyde Park Art Center, announced a roster of free public programs for new major exhibition, Loving Repeating: New Work by Miller & Shellabarger, by married artists and longtime collaborators Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger, who will premiere their largest multimedia installation to date, on view April 10 - Sept. 3. Loving Repeating addresses the presence and absence of human touch experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, in an immersive installation incorporating the artists' signature style featuring silhouettes of each other's bodies.
Since 1993, the two Chicago-based artists have been creating works on paper, performances, and installations that draw attention to the human condition experienced through the queer perspective. Their artworks focus on the underlying concept of the infinite feeling of connection, loneliness and loss felt throughout long-term relationships over time. Loving Repeating will include three new major works created in response to the Art Center's gallery space: a twenty foot tall by eighty-foot wide hand-painted mural, a multi-channel video projection made in collaboration with Steve Reinke, and a fifty-five-foot long cut-paper garland. This is the first time for the artists to create a painted mural, which will occupy the entire large wall of the gallery. The artists will also present a participatory performance for the first time: As art imitates life, the end of the exhibition will be celebrated with a bonfire to burn the paper artwork. The ashes will be placed and sealed in a pine box and added to the artists' series of work titled Burnt, which will also be on display.
The free public programs—ranging from performances, artmaking workshops, to artist talks—include the following, with registrations available at HydeParkArt.org:
Untitled (Crochet) and Burnt
Wednesday, March 23, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Miller and Shellabarger will give a durational performance to activate their work Untitled (Crochet), and make paper cranes to add to their Burnt installation.
Center Days: Open Arts
Saturday, April 23, 1 - 4 p.m.
The Art Center's quarterly Center Day public programming series in April serves as a double celebration for both the opening of Loving Repeating and the Art Center's newly launched Open Arts contribute-what-you-can model in its Oakman Clinton School and Studios. This event will feature art class demonstrations and artmaking activities, as well as a paper crane making station with Miller and Shellabarger guiding guests to activate and add to their Burnt installation.
Untitled (Crochet): Will take a short dinner break
Wednesday, May 11 & Tuesday May 31, 2 - 7 p.m.
Miller and Shellabarger will give a durational performance to activate their work Untitled (Crochet).
Untitled (Crochet) at Hyde Park Flea
Saturday, June 25, 12 - 5 p.m.
In the Art Center Parking Lot
Miller and Shellabarger give a durational performance to activate their work Untitled (Crochet) during the Hyde Park Flea event, which, presented in partnership with Gilda's Vintage Thrift Boutique, offers an exciting curation of unique vendors of vintage, fashion, art, furniture, jewelry and more.
The Art of Pride
Sunday, June 12, 1-5pm
In the Art Center Parking Lot
At this Pride event, Miller and Shellabarger will give a durational performance to activate their work Untitled (Crochet), in addition to artmaking and celebrations taking place with independent art spaces from the Art Center's Artists Run Chicago exhibitions and local LGBTQIA+ artists.
Artists at Hyde Park Farmers Market
Sunday, July 10, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
5235 S. Harper Ct.
The Art Center will have an info table at the Farmers Market where visitors can make paper cranes with Miller and Shellabarger for their Burnt installation, while shopping for produce and supporting local vendors.
Loving and Coupling: A Conversation with Artist Couples
Saturday, July 16, 4 - 6 p.m.
An evening of light bites, drinks and conversation with Miller and Shellabarger and other Chicago-based artist couples. Artist couples, Candace Hunter and Arthur Wright, and J. Kent and Andrew Bearnot, will discuss what it means to live, work and love together. Inspired by the themes of the exhibition, the conversation will touch on feelings of connection, intimacy, loneliness, and loss felt throughout long-term relationships over time.
Miller & Shellabarger explore physicality, duality, time, and romantic ideal in their multidisciplinary work, ranging from performance, photography, and artists books to sculpture and cut paper silhouettes. Their performances, always enacted together, in public, push simple materials and actions to almost Sisyphean extremes. Their gestures shift between moments of togetherness and separation, private and public, protection and pain, and visibility and invisibility. Their work is both autobiographical and metaphorical, speaking to common human interaction and queer relationships. Silhouettes of each other, their iconic beards, and their bodies appear regularly in their work. In their signature ongoing performance, Untitled (Pink Tube), a non-theatrical, durational piece, they simultaneously crochet at opposite ends of a long tube of pink acrylic yarn, a metaphorically-loaded object that both unites and separates them.
Together, Miller & Shellabarger have had solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, INOVA in Milwaukee, the University Galleries at Illinois State University and Gallery Diet in Miami and have performed and exhibited in group shows across North America. Miller & Shellabarger are a 2008 recipient of an Artadia Chicago award and a 2007 recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award. Their work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Nerman
Museum of Contemporary Art, the Newark Public Library, Indiana University Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada. They are represented by Western Exhibitions gallery in Chicago. For more information on the exhibition and related public programs, please visit www.hydeparkart.org .
COVID-19-related safety protocols
Hyde Park Art Center views its community's safety as the number one priority and is utilizing the guidance from the City and State to inform its reopening procedures. For the latest COVID policy, visit www.hydeparkart.org/plan-your-visit/ .
Admission and hours
Exhibition admission is free. For latest hours, visit www.hydeparkart.org .
About the Hyde Park Art Center
Hyde Park Art Center, at 5020 South Cornell Avenue on Chicago's vibrant South Side, is a hub for contemporary arts in Chicago, serving as a gathering and production space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect with new networks. Since its inception in 1939, Hyde Park Art Center has grown from a small collective of quirky artists to establishing a strong legacy of innovative development and emerging as a unique Chicago arts institution with social impact. The Art Center functions as an amplifier for today and tomorrow's creative voices, providing the space to cultivate and create new work and connections.
For more information, please visit www.hydeparkart.org .
