May 6th: Betsy Odom
(SOLO) & Montgomery Perry Smith (Project
Room)
threewalls
announces:
BETSY ODOM:
Registry
Catalog essay by Jason
Foumberg
MONTGOMERY PERRY SMITH: Milking
(In the Project
Room)
May 6th- June 18th, 2011
www.three-walls.org
119 North Peoria #2C, Chicago, IL
60607
Opening reception: Friday, May 6th, 6-9pm
Artist talk: Thursday, May 12th, 7pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday,
11am-5pm
CHICAGO: Betsy Odom mines a vast array of materials and techniques culled from
traditional crafts and trades to explore the display of identity. Working from
leather tooling to woodturning, ceramics to air-brushing, mold making to
metalworking, Odom explores how these techniques and their materials become
cultural signifiers, and in particular, have informed her development. Whether
Southern culture, women’s athletics, car enthusiasts or hobbyists, the
aesthetics of these groups, which often serve to reinforce embedded messages
about gender, class, race, and sexuality, become material for Odom to manipulate
in the subversion of their dominant associations, ultimately creating objects
that entertain a fantasy of moving freely among social
groups.
Embracing the “hubris” of making, Odom meticulously works her
objects, never shying away from their materiality or the evidence of investment
in their making. She uses this labored craft as a display of pride in
craftsmanship, one that for her parallels the pride claimed by minority
communities: dignity in opposition to a history of
shame.
For Registry, Odom has amassed a number of her sculptures, displayed on a set
of tables that simultaneously reference worktables, a museum archive and retail
display. Her sculptures are at once romantic, humorous and symbolic, calling on
a list of characters that Odom cites: the ghosts of women’s gym coaches,
crushes on camp-counselors, slightly too old tomboys and brassy-old maids--
illuminating and conflating the unique aesthetics that accompany these invisible
cultures.
Concurrent with Odom, Montgomery Perry Smith presents Milking, two new
sculptures that focus on an otherworldly relic and the tools used to milk it.
Smith’s work combines
portions of domestic furniture and fixtures, decorative textiles, fake flowers,
and miscellany from candy to incense in the creation of primarily wall mounted
sculpture. His evocative forms are often orifice, portal, flower and reliquary
at once, resulting in ‘creatures’ that hover between sci-fi beast,
rare organic growths and sexual innuendo. His objects are simultaneously
available for ‘contemplation’ and entrance – inviting the
viewer into their intimate space through Smith’s seductive handling of
familiar materials made
strange.
Betsy Odom was born in 1980 in Amory, Mississippi (pop. 6000).
She left Amory to study [UTF-8?]ï¬rst at the United World College in Montezuma,
New Mexico, then at the San Francisco Art Institute where she earned her BFA in
2002. Odom completed her MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 2007. She has
exhibited in several solo shows in Texas and in the Chicago area, as well as in
group exhibitions nationally. Sis Boom Bah, an exhibition of her work organized
around the idea sport, is currently on view at the Hyde Park Art
Center.
Montgomery Perry Smith is a Chicago based sculpture artist. He
received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. Since
graduating, he has exhibited at numerous Chicago galleries, including
Co-Prosperity Sphere, Harold Arts, LVL3 and Pawnworks. Smith’s most recent
solo show was "Pit Worship" at Johalla Projects in 2010. Smith was
named November 2009's "Artist to Watch" by Chicago Artists' Coalition
and is one of the nine "Breakout Artists" of 2010 featured in
Newcity.
Founded in 2003, threewalls’ is dedicated to increasing Chicago’s
cultural capital by cultivating contemporary art practice and discourse. With a
focus on the practices of local artists and administrators or visiting artists
interested in regional history and culture, we aim to create a locus of exchange
between local, national and international contemporary art communities that
builds Chicago’s reputation as an important site for creative research and
production.
threewalls operates three programs: six exhibitions per year that support local
artists through SOLO and group exhibitions; a series of public programs that
explore current ideas in art and culture (The Public Culture Lecture Series,
threewallsSALONS and a biannual symposium on grass-roots and community organized
cultural administration) and a residency that invites artists from around the
world to engage in regionally site-specific research or projects. threewalls is
also joint administrator of The Propeller Fund with Gallery 400 at The
University of Illinois at
Chicago.
threewalls is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a
state agency; by a CityArts Program I grant from the City of Chicago Department
of Cultural Affairs; The Chicago Community Trust; The Cliff Dwellers Foundation
for the Arts; ArtsWork Fund for Organizational Development; The Gaylord and
Dorothy Donnelley Foundation; The Alphawood Foundation; The MacArthur Fund for
Arts & Culture at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation; 3Arts Chicago; and
major support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
threewalls is sponsored by Pernod Absinthe, Armand Lee and Other People’s
Pixels. Support threewalls by visiting our website and making a tax-deductible
donation:
www.three-walls.org/about/support/.
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