Elmhurst Art Museum's summer exhibits are worth the trip
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Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford's "Hyperplexia: Gingko." Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
The Elmhurst Art Museum currently features two very different exhibits and both are worth making the trip to the western suburb.
The big picture: "On Wonder, Mind, & Magic: Jeanette Andrews" explores what we can and can't see through the practice of magic, while "Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford: Near Eternity" makes feelings and memories front and center with bright, large sculptures.
What to expect: Andrews defines herself as a "technical sleight of hand magician." After decades in that world, she came to realize that her work was grappling with larger philosophical questions: "How do we understand the perceptual world? What constitutes a true or false belief?" she told me before the exhibit opened.
- Visitors will experience interactive works, including one at the start of the exhibition that challenges perception. By standing in a specific spot, covering one eye and then the other, and shifting slightly, they'll witness an unexpected change in the object before them.
- Other parts of the exhibition feature Andrews' earlier works, including projects from her time as an artist-in-residence at MIT that explore machine learning and belief polarization, including how people interpret a magician's movements.
Details: "On Wonder, Mind, & Magic: Jeanette Andrews" runs through Aug. 23.
State of play: Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford also incorporates machines and modern technology into his practice, using 3D scanning and even robots to help with carving the creations in his first solo exhibit at EAM.
- The sculptures take over the museum's McCormick House, the Mies van der Rohe-designed mid-century modern home connected to the main museum, and surround the museum in Wilder Park.
- The indoor sculptures are inspired by objects in the museum's collection, such as Mies' Barcelona Chair, as well as everyday objects from Hulsebos-Spofford's own life that evoke specific memories, like the IKEA chairs his children sat on when they were little.
- Hulsebos-Spofford said making a standing desk covered in salmon-colored plaster and punctuated with thumbprints gave him a tactile outlet for grieving the loss of a friend.
At the entrance of the museum, visitors are confronted by "Hyperlexia: Gingko," which the artist created after learning that the gingko tree lacks the death gene; it can't die on its own, only by external factors.
- He paired that biological longevity with the eternity of the information age by incorporating an old Ethernet cable into the sculpture.
- A robot helped carve the wood, but like human hands, it made mistakes—errors Hulsebos-Spofford embraced. "It's an interesting to mix ... the analog and the human hand and the mixing of that with the digital," he added.
If you go: Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford: Near Eternity runs through Aug. 23 at Elmhurst Art Museum.