David Wallace Haskins: Polarity

David Wallace Haskins

Polarity

September 8, 2018 - January 13, 2019

The architectural intervention Ascension / Descension was generously sponsored by Linda Usher, Malcolm Lambe, Kristin Lambe, and Lauren Lambe.

The exhibition “McCormick House 1952-1959”, curated by Robert Kleinschmidt and Ryan Monteleagre, was generously made possible

by Laura & Gary Maurer, EAM’s Programming Committee, Chicago Bauhaus & Beyond, and the Elmhurst Artists’ Guild, with loans from RDK Design, The Furniture Shop, Inc., Oscar Isberian Rugs, Cedric Hartman, Utopio Workroom, and private collections.

David Wallace Haskins Polarity The state of having two opposite or contradictory tendencies, opinions, or aspects.

We experience polarity early in life. As we learn to talk, and learn to express our desires, an immovable No becomes our best defense against a world of adults earnestly seeking a simple Yes. We understand the power of resistance. Is it any wonder, then, that we rely on absolutes for the rest of our lives? From yes to no, or in understanding right and wrong, good and bad, new and old, all the either/ors become comfortably fixed.

As we settle into adulthood, these polarities begin to creep into concepts that can’t be so easily opposed: male and female, black and white, Republican and Democrat, rich and poor, easy and hard. In David Wallace Haskins’ second exhibition at Elmhurst Art Museum, these expectations and assumptions are examined and explored with an interest that is objective, yet compassionate.

Empathy is rooted in a willingness to feel what others feel. It’s a form of vulnerability that is both dangerous and brave. Through empathy, one may share another’s joy, but also be exposed to suffering their hurt. Empathy is also a gift; while not everyone has the innate ability to empathize, we are all invited, in Polarity, into experiences that act as stair-steps to a new level of awareness. Where We Meet engages us as an audience, passively encountering strangers who approach and then silently depart. All we can do is watch, and acknowledge their image. In Time Mirror III we play a more active role. We meet ourselves, through the uncanny agency of technology, and as our image multiplies, our delight is reflected in the images of others with whom we play. In Architecture of Light we create the space around us through our actions, reacting to light and apparent mass that others may also change by movements large or small. The richly-colored haze acts as a reminder that every step we take in life has an impact elsewhere. Ascension / Descension takes us to another level, allowing the visitor who steps into the mirrored room to experience an infinity in Mies van der Rohe’s famed Modernist space. Making the conceptual physical is Haskins’ core concern.

In Haskins’ own words, “There is a primordial sense of wonder I work towards that I believe opens the whole self to move beyond a kind of looking at and shifts us to a kind of being with that helps us slow down and make room for the mystery, for the unknown, for the confusion, the strangeness and to truly begin to have a relationship with ourselves, and the world around us.”

- Annie Morse, Chicago, 2018

B D A

C

F

Museum Entrance

E

McCormick House

A

Where we meet, 2018 HD projection Duration: 27 min

This film is about how we come into and go out of each other’s lives, acknowledging the coming and going, the presence and absence, birth and death of strangers, friends and loved ones. Here, Haskins continues his contemplative meditation on moving into and out of the Void. We meet in the tension between the known and unknown. By removing the sky and earth from the frame, we also have the opportunity to observe the human gait, a unique signifier of our identity not unlike our fingerprints or eyes.

“Our bodies are shot with mortality. Our legs are fear and our arms are time.“ -Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

B

Time Mirror III, 2018

HD camera, HD projector, custom software and computer The goal of Time Mirror III is to reflect multiple aspects of the self. Revealing the continuity of the “self” in time, it serves as a metaphor for the many aspects of our individual identities, demonstrating that our present self is always in conversation and interacting with our past and future selves. We may wrestle with this aspect of our personality and personal history, but here we can do it in a more playful and contemplative way. Time Mirror III continues Haskins’ exploration using technology to shift our perspective on the self, as in the original Time Mirror, presented in PRESENCE at EAM in 2016.

Two works in the same series will be premiering in September: Time Mirror II, September 3-30 at 150 Media Stream, 150 N. Riverside Plaza in downtown Chicago and Time Spheres, September 27-30 at EXPO Chicago, the international exposition of contemporary art at Navy Pier.

C Architecture of Light, 2018

12k projector, water-based haze, custom software and computer As a pioneering light artist, Thomas Wilfred (1889-1968) said: “Light is the silent universal expression of the greatest force our senses can grasp.

The artist must mold it by optical means, almost as a sculptor models clay.” Architecture of Light is a series of large-scale, immersive light works that invite visitors to experience light as a physical, architectural, and sculptural presence. As in Time Mirror III, the work continues to demonstrate the way our bodies move through space. In Architecture of Light the evidence of our movement is material as well as visual. As visitors move through these sculptural planes of light, their bodies affect and shift the space, leaving long lines of shadow, or blending colors of light.

Matter is invisible. All our eyes can see is light. In this room the very thing that allows us to see the world is used to create architecture in space.

What is normally the actualizer of architecture, allowing us to actually see it, is here used as the architecture itself. One may ask “is the immaterial light allowing me to see the materiality of the water in the air or is it the water allowing me to see the light?” In Architecture of Light we see both at work and understand that we rely on each to comprehend the other.

D Skycube, 2015

of heaven and hell, which serves as a disruption to the seemingly docile domesticity of the house. As much as we love a home, and make our nest in it, it always holds in its walls far more than the sum of its parts: happy memories and great joys, but also darkness and sorrow.

Painted steel and glass A site-specific sculpture, Skycube brings the sky down to ground level in real time. A direct vantage point presents a live image on the face of the cube: sky and clouds seem physically present as they move through the picture plane. These views transform over time, most dramatically after sunset, as shifting hues of blue become a deep black square of moving stars.

Skycube allows us to reflect on the presence of light, space, and time in quiet and ever-changing ways.

E

By mirroring the body, Haskins continues the inquiry first proposed in Where we meet. In the house, the self is met by another version of that self, upside down; in another dimension, yet twinned. In Where we meet, people come into and out of the void from a truly uncertain horizon, while in Ascension / Descension the bodies are layered vertically from an uncertain depth and height. Our own eyes, our bodies, prevent us from seeing our reflections, suggesting how hard it is to see outside our own perspective.

Ascension / Descension, 2018 Glass, aluminum, wood, LEDs, polycarbonate, and existing architecture

An architectural intervention in conversation with the history of the McCormick house and Mies’ larger body of work, using only the materials used to build the house – glass, wood, and aluminum – this work reflects what’s already there, highlighting Mies’ interplay with the earth and sky, architecture and nature, the ranch house and the skyscraper.

It also calls attention to the polarities of life. Creating an apparent chasm into the depths and seeming ascension to the sky, it recalls the falling and rising cycles of life and nature: joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, birth and death, spring and fall, summer and winter. The mirrored room allows us to float in the middle of these polarities. A vertical line of light ascends and descends infinitely in the center of the room, vertically connecting the floor to the ceiling. It is the through-line between the polarities, holding them in tension while seeming to hover, detached from the grid.

Ascension / Descension, as a title, is itself weighted with biblical connotations

Generously sponsored by Linda Usher, Malcolm Lambe, Kristin Lambe, and Lauren Lambe.

F

McCormick House: 1952 – 1959 Curated by Robert Kleinschmidt and Ryan Monteleagre

In tandem with the artist intervention

by David Wallace Haskins, this half of the McCormick House was curated with classic 1950s furniture inspired by historical photographs of the residence of Robert Hall McCormick III and Isabella Gardner (1952-59).

Generously made possible by Laura & Gary Maurer, EAM’s Programming Committee, Chicago Bauhaus & Beyond, and the Elmhurst Artists’ Guild, with loans from RDK Design, The Furniture Shop, Inc., Oscar Isberian Rugs, Cedric Hartman, Utopio Workroom, and private collections.

David Wallace Haskins, Architecture of Light, 2018

Special thanks to: Annie Morse for her curatorial insight and writing.

Carlson Glass and Mirror, Guardian Glass, Quality Glass, and Novacel Linda Usher, Malcolm Lambe, Kristin Lambe and Lauren Lambe DWH would like to thank Brad Carlson for his tireless and artful expertise in installing Ascension / Descension together with Josiah Johnson, Chad Kethcart, Mike Davis, Donny Dumper, and Stephen Schroeder; David Vosburg for filming/editing Where we meet and overall project management; Sean Zellmer for bringing Time Mirror II, and III to life; Aaron Davis and Jimmy Gately at ECTO Productions, Intelligent Lighting Creations, Vincent Naples, Chris Fletcher, for developing Architecture of Light; Aaqib Usman, Reese Murdock, Vincent Naples for help developing Time Spheres; Nate Williams for help with Where we meet; Brittney Dunn for editing and graphic design.

Additional thanks to Matt Olseng at MDO Fabrication, Ben Ciarrachi and Live Electric, Rob Horn at Horn Steel, Monika Wulfers, GL LED, Joe Lloyd, LLI Architectural Lighting, Main Steel, Jeff Thompson, Adam Babarik, Jeff Schmela, Alfonso Castellanos, Benjamin F Calvert III, Rick Missing, Wes Baker, Steve Boyd of the Elmhurst Fire Depart, and the entire EAM staff.

Public Programs

All public programs are free with museum admission or current membership unless otherwise indicated.

SEP 15

Artist-led Exhibition Tour | 1:30pm Join exhibiting artist, David Wallace Haskins, for an in-depth look at his current exhibition.

OCT 20

Artist Talk | 1:30pm David Wallace Haskins will give an artist talk about his solo exhibition, as well as architectural intervention, Ascension / Descension.

OCT 27

Panel Discussion: The McCormick House and the Bauhaus Dream of Pre-Fabricated Homes | 1-3pm After recent restorations of the McCormick House, a 1952 prefab prototype designed by Mies van der Rohe, scholarly panelists such as Barry Bergdoll, Robin Schuldenfrei, and Wolf Tegethoff will assemble to shed new light on its importance, linking new research to the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus—a legendary German school where Mies was the final Director.

This program is part of the Year of Germany-American Friendship initiated by the German Federal Foreign Office and the Goethe-Institut, and supported by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).

NOV 6

EAM/EPL Book Discussion | 6:30pm Come discuss “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard, winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction and included in the 1998 Modern Library list of 100 Best Non-Fiction Books. Please register in advance by calling (630) 834-0202.

NOV 10

Exhibition Tour | 1:30pm Join us for an in-depth look at our current exhibition.

NOV 17

Family Day | 1-4pm We invite you and your family to participate in hands-on art activities inspired by our current exhibition.

DEC 1

Curator Talk | 1:30pm Architect Robert Kleinschmidt will give a curator talk about the McCormick House interior, current exhibition, and other projects by Mies van der Rohe.

Offsite Events SEP 3-30

Time Mirror II | 150 Media Stream, 150 N. Riverside Plaza, Chicago Continuing his work with perception and time, Haskins transforms 150 Media Stream into a 150 foot digital mirror reflecting the architecture and its visitors back onto itself, compressed and stretched in time.

SEP 27-30

Time Spheres | EXPO Chicago, Navy Pier Premiering at EXPO Chicago, Time Spheres is a groundbreaking virtual reality work that allows visitors to step into and out of three distinct dimensions of time in spherical 360º 3D. EXPO Chicago is an international exposition of contemporary and modern art hosted inside Navy Pier at 600 E. Grand Avenue, Chicago.

150 Cottage Hill Ave. | Elmhurst, Illinois 60126 | 630.834.0202 Museum Hours: Tuesday-Sunday: 11am - 5pm, Mondays: CLOSED