On a daily basis, we encounter a variety of stimuli that we consciously and unconsciously digest—a limitless combination of mass media imagery, banal and mundane objects, and other elements within our immediate physical surroundings.
Sponsored in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency
The works in this exhibition explore the different ways we navigate these occurrences of the everyday by highlighting both subtle and deliberate processes of art making, directly calling attention to particular aspects while, at other times, slowly revealing them. It is the close examination of the artwork's process that grants us a way into understanding and perceiving our own everyday life.
Starting in the 1950s with the rise of television and a growing consumerist culture, society became inundated with advertisements and other constructed images, forcing artists to seek not only new ways of defining art but also bringing attention to how social and cultural context constructs meaning and perception. Today, artists continue to investigate the changing contexts of art as our current technological advances and instant accessibility to information have the potential to blur the relationship between life and art. Focused on the latter half of the twentieth century, Processing the Everyday features works by William Anastasi, Sam Jury, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol, among others.
Curator: Kathryn Koca Polite
