4/27: COMMONWEALTH // new work by NEAL VANDENBERGH & LATHAM ZEARFOSS

Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W 21st St, Chicago, IL

COMMONWEALTH

We recognize power as the people, legislation and authority that either have immediate impact on our lives or are things that we hold strong opinions toward because we feel the implications define us as individuals. However, power is most often an invisible force in our lives, a force that requires us to take a position within established structures of control. For the exhibition Commonwealth Neal Vandenbergh and Latham Zearfoss consider methods and modes of control that ask the viewer to consider the creation of subjectivity as a process of both individuation and socialization.

Latham Zearfoss creates an imaginary poll gathering data from the adult residents of a midsized midwestern town. The research for this poll begins with a photographic depiction of an idyllic town set against rolling hills, the subject sample is chosen as much for their idealized image as their average-ness of demographic. The questions that comprise this poll ask the subjects to consider their power to change things in both public and personal spheres and then decide what percentage of these things they would have stay exactly the same. The poll, which is typically used as a tool for analysis meant to extrapolate generalities from a particular sample in an effort to predict the public’s future response to political change, is now an instrument of measurement for the present. Zearfoss’s questions ask the subject to consider themselves as agents of their own moment in history rather than their position for or against possible change in the future or desire to return to the past.

Neal Vandenbergh’s large-scale monochromatic panels reveal their material construction readily. Yellow construction grade paint and reflective vinyl are things that we encounter daily as elements of strategic control meant to direct and regulate our movement as users of public space. In the gallery the panels push out from the wall and into our space forcing the viewer into a close confrontational viewing experience. He further manipulates the space with the placement of light, which when cast on the panels and viewed from a specific angle changes the way the objects are perceived. Positioned directly in line with the light it ignites the reflective vinyl, causing the painted surface to fall into relief. Vandenbergh uses the materials of authoritative control to highlight our creation as a subject of that authority, a process of socialization requiring interaction with a public sphere, but one that is also necessarily tied to individual experience and personal positioning.

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NEAL VANDENBERGH is an artist living and working in Chicago. Recent projects have been shown in artist-run and non-for-profit spaces throughout the region including Adds Donna and Hyde Park Art Center. His film and video work has been shown both nationally and internationally. He holds a MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago

More information about Neal Vandenbergh can be found at nealvandenbergh.com.

LATHAM ZEARFOSS is an artist, educator, service industry mainstay, and facilitator of queer nightlife and culture in Chicago. His creative production centers on the various interpenetrations – both historical and mythological – of personal narrative and political discourse. He holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has exhibited his work nationally and internationally.

More information about Latham Zearfoss can be found at www.lathamzearfoss.org.

KATE BOWEN is an artist, educator and curator living in Chicago. She is a teaching artist with the high school outreach program Picture Me and an adjunct faculty member at the Illinois Institute of Art. She is the Video Programming Coordinator at the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

More information about Kate Bowen can be found at katembowen.com.