Mikyung Kim, Counting Numbers, 1996. Watercolor, graphite, and resin on paper. Gift of Sarah Ann and Werner H. Kramarsky. 2003-14-2 © Mikyung Kim
Defined broadly as colors, forms, images, and even ideas that are repeated serially, pattern occurs in and acts on the world in countless ways.
The works of art in Pattern and Process encourage us to investigate how pattern can create and challenge our ways of knowing and interpreting the world.
They look at how pattern locates us within our physical surroundings, be it the built environment, natural landscapes, or the material manifestations of our daily lives.
They encourage us to explore how we use pattern to explore personal, internal, and psychic worlds, including our emotions and connections to the past.
The exhibition presents a selection from KAM’s twentieth- and twenty-first-century collection, including works by: Berenice Abbott, Anni Albers, Sonny Assu, Jennifer Bartlett, Don Baum, Armelle Bouchet O’Neill, Louise Bourgeois, Elijah Burgher, Vija Celmins, Alan Cohen, Steffen Dam, Harold Edgerton, Victor Ekpuk, Charles Gaines, Gunther Gerzso, Temple Grandin, Frederick Hammersley, Jacob Hashimoto, Gerald Hayes, Jasper Johns, Mikyung Kim, Joyce Kozloff, Jack Lenor Larsen, Annette Lemieux, Sol LeWitt, Carmen Lozar, Ivan Mareš, Jeffry Mitchell, Kenji Nakahashi, Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo, Fannie Nampeyo, Louise Nevelson, Betsy Packard, Deborah Puretz, Mavis Pusey, Dot Replinger, Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, and June Wayne.
Curated by Kathryn Koca Polite, Assistant Curator
Sponsored in part by the Sandra L. Batzli Memorial Fund. General operating support provided by Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
Ricker Library of Architecture and Art has developed a library guide with details about this exhibition, as well as supplementary materials and curator-recommended readings: Pattern and Process Library Guide
Pattern and Process asks how and why patterns help navigate us through our collective and intimate worlds. Whether we recognize it or not, pattern occurs in all aspects of our lives and affects us in different ways. In using a broad definition of the term—colors, forms, images, or ideas that can be repeated in a serial way—pattern can be decorative, structural, occur in nature, inform and shape our behavior, or act as recurring markers of time. Patterns can provide a set of rules, shape rhythm in music, or even determine our own habits. Organized thematically, the artworks in the exhibition investigate how patterns create—or sometimes challenge—order, systems, and processes; how patterns locate us within the external, physical world, evoking movement, landscape, and time; and how patterns conjure or mine our psychic states or internal worlds, including our memories and emotions.
