Material differences

Paper pile, 2007.

Three weeks ago at UIC’s Gallery 400, the gallery assistant sat in front of a computer at a table near the entry, quietly irritated by her immovable chair. One of its plastic wheel wells was clogged with tiny shreds of paper spilling over from the nearby Paper pile, a hulking minilandfill to which more paper is added daily, and which forms the centerpiece of Amanda Browder and Stuart Keeler’s environmentally minded “Urban Warp/Weft.” Comprising five fairly simple sculptural installations and a lecture series—all united under the theme of cycles of reuse and materials in various states of reuse—the show has not so much been installed as taken over the space.

In Portal, Browder and Keeler sawed a square piece out of the drywall, exposing a portion of one of the impressively large windows that run alongside the building. Peering through the square, you can spy a fairly bewitching view of tree branches bouncing in the wind—what Browder calls an “ever-changing painting.” The leftover drywall and dust sit on the floor below, as evidence, the artists say, that it will be replaced and reused after the show closes. “Technically, everything will go back after the show,” Browder says. “All this paper will go back to recycling; we’re borrowing it. All the plants will go back to the interior-landscaping company. All the furniture will go back to UIC’s warehouse. Nothing is actually being fabricated.”

Portal seems less a vehicle for tree gazing and more an indicator of Browder and Keeler’s feelings of confinement and boredom with the conventional gallery. In fact, if one idea fuses the collaboration between the curators, who were once SAIC colleagues, it is both artists’ strong belief that the gallery—its interior and exterior—is a medium in itself. “Traditional galleries are safe, and we don’t want to be safe,” Browder says. “It’s not like we show up and place a painting on the wall and understand that the white walls are just a backdrop for the painting. The walls are the painting, too.”

Last December, when Browder and Keeler began generating ideas for “Urban Warp/Weft,” they wanted to blend their environmental interests with their thoughts on breaking through the barriers of the gallery, letting creative juices leak outside as well as rooting nature within the gallery’s architecture. As evidenced by the revealing Failed Utopic Projects, a collection of sketches, handwritten notes, typed formal letters and finished digital illustrations cobbled together on one wall, they had lofty expectations. One of the more fleshed-out ideas (which through many compromises turned into Portal) entailed smashing through the drywall of one entire wall and planting greenery in the studs. Illustrations of another idea pitched to UIC included suspending a planter from a third-story window ledge out of which long, vinelike greenery would cascade down the brick building, through the first-floor window and onto the gallery floor. The artists even met with several local architects, engineers and urban planners to discuss the structural possibilities and limitations.

Nearly all the ideas were voted down by the university. “It seems strange,” says Keeler, more than a hint of dismay still lingering, “because there’s all this talk of galleries trying to bust out of [themselves], but then when you actually try to do that, they don’t want to do it.”

Although Failed Utopic Projects is the least intentional piece in “Urban Warp/Weft” and is dwarfed by Paper pile and the eponymous sculpture—a dense arrangement of vintage desks and chairs interspersed with potted plants—speaks louder than any other work. By presenting their struggles to introduce cutting-edge ideas about sustainable art to a gallery, Browder and Keeler inadvertently reveal the eco movement’s Achilles heel: We’re frightened by change and content in our routine; our wheel wells are clogged with debris, but we’re satisfied with stuck.

“Urban Warp/Weft” is at Gallery 400 through June 2.