Dianna Frid + Allison Wade: Turn of Phrase
Curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Curator MCA Chicago
October 13 – November 16, 2013
Reception: October 13, 3 – 6pm
Closing Talk + Publication Launch: November 16, 3 – 6pm, with talk at 4pm
Catalogue Available
Click to download a PDF of Julie Rodriguez Widholm’s catalogue essay on Dianna Frid and Allison Wade: catalogue-essay-excerpt-allisondianna_web_sm
left: Allison Wade, and then nothing but a lone star remained in the sky, like an asterisk leading to an undiscoverable footnote (after Vladimir Nabokov), 2013, Aluminum, copper, wood, fabric, zipper, sand,
59-1/2” x 31” x 13”
right: Dianna Frid, Prosodic Transmission #1, 2013, Digital print mounted on cloth, embroidery thread, graphite, paint, Two-sided 11” x 8”
Turn of Phrase brings together all new work of Chicago-based artists Dianna Frid and Allison Wade. Both artists have backgrounds in fiber and material studies, and consider language from various perspectives ranging from book-making and appropriated texts from obituaries to quotations of poetry and syntax, with physical materials and sculptural form, paying special attention to surface, rhythm, and texture. Recalling the purposefully minimal, and at times abstract, composition and experience of poetry, together their work evokes questions about the language of sculpture, and the sculpture of language.
Dianna Frid was born in Mexico City and immigrated to Canada as a teenager. She currently lives in Chicago where she teaches at the University of Illinois. Frid makes two and three-dimensional objects as well as site-specific installations and artist’s books that are both corporeal and philosophical. Her work has been exhibited at the Drawing Center (NY), PS1-MOMA (NY), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the neues kunstforum (Cologne) and other public and private institutions. Reviews of her art works have been published in Art in America, artforum.com, Time Out Chicago, Sculpture International, Art in Print and other publications. For more information on her work visit www.diannafrid.net
Allison Wade currently lives and works in Chicago. She was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University (1995) and MFA from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago (2012). Her work was recently featured in a solo exhibition at devening projects+editions, Chicago, and has been included in numerous group exhibitions throughout Chicago, Baltimore, and Memphis. More work can be seen here: www.allisonwade.com
Julie Rodrigues Widholm is Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago where she has organized more than fifty exhibitions since 1999. She recently curated MCA Plaza Project: Amanda Ross-Ho; Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks; and Argentinean-artist Amalia Pica’s first American solo museum exhibition with MIT List Visual Arts Center. She is currently co-curating Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo’s first survey exhibition for 2015. Since joining the MCA in 1999, she has curated international group exhibitions such as Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art from Mexico City, which was accompanied by a bi-lingual publication, as well as in-depth presentations of the MCA Collection, and worked on major international touring exhibitions such as Tropicalia: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture, The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Luc Tuymans, and Richard Tuttle, among others. In addition, she has curated solo exhibitions of dozens of Chicago-based artists including most recently Scott Reeder, Laura Letinsky, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung and Cauleen Smith. Widholm holds an M.A. in Modern Art History, Theory and Criticism from The School of the Art Institute in Chicago and a B.A. in Art History and Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dianna Frid gratefully acknowledges the support from the CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, which partially funded the work in this exhibition.
Order Turn of Phrase catalogue ($2 shipping charge included)