July 30, 2022 – February 26, 2023
Traces presents poetic reflections on memory in contemporary art. Art has long played a role in aiding memory by depicting detailed stories in history painting, epic poems, or song cycles. It is also a space for artists to give physical form to intangible cerebral or emotional sensations. This exhibition, featuring recent acquisitions alongside artworks borrowed from private collections, showcases six international artists who evocatively capture the traces of events, people, or places, as remembrances of real experiences or projections of imagined ones.
The memory of specific places appears in Unsettled (Jerusalem), a sculpture of suspended wooden planks by Cornelia Parker. In the Reconstructions series, Huma Bhabha draws on top of photographs to suggest the layers of personal experience that shape perceptions of public spaces. Theaster Gates uses roofing materials like tar, bitumen, copper nails, and wood to bring up associations of the trade learned from his father, now translated into his unique abstract painting. Works by Anne Chu, Nohemí Pérez, and Maja Ruznic depict the figure and, each in their own way, attest to the way memories are indelibly centered around human interactions with each other and our impact on the world around us. In two large drawings, Tatiana Trouvé further explores the possibility of navigating through loss and disorientation when memory fails.
Curated by Sara Krajewski, the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Theaster Gates
American, born 1973
Reflection with No Seam (No More Dark Days), 2022
Industrial oil based enamel, rubber torch down, bitumen, wood, and copper
Private Collection, L2022.42.1
Theaster Gates learned how to roof from his father who worked in the construction profession. Over his artistic career, Gates has often used tar, copper nails and wood in his paintings. The materials are common to roofing and they each carry symbolism and meaning in a broader sense. Working with them, Gates has to act quickly with great concentration, including covering torch down bituminous material with oil-based enamel paint and then firing it with a butane torch to transform it.
[Artwork Description: A square shaped painting of a metallic goldish bronze color. The piece has a sheen to it as well as irregularities causing wrinkles, textures, and the appearance of small holes and crevices or lines in places. There are two horizontal and four vertical lines that bisect the piece creating a stacked brick pattern. Two horizontal lines create three rows in which the bottom two rows are of equal height and the top row is about half the height of the lower two. In the top and bottom rows there is one vertical line and in the middle row there are two vertical lines. These lines are staggered creating seven fields of varying size.]
Nohemí Pérez
Colombian, born 1962
Nohemí Pérez depicts the dense forests of the Catatumbo region of Colombia. In her paintings and drawings, she represents the animals and humans struck down by the violence of natural resource extraction, the effects of climate change, and drug trafficking that are occurring there. For Pérez, charcoal symbolically references the exploitation of coal, lumber, and oil that often triggers the loss and death in this place. The drawing and accompanying paintings are from the Palmar series: “Palmar” references the trees of the area, as well as the colloquial term meaning “snuff out” or “kill.”
Nohemí Pérez
Colombian, born 1962
El Palmar No. 4, 2022
Charcoal and embroidery on canvas
Museum Purchase with funds provided by Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago 2022, Keith and Sharon Barnes, Mary and Don Blair, Pat and Trudy Ritz, and Diane and Herb Rankin, 2022.13.1
[Artwork Description: A realistic charcoal drawing of large tree on an unstreched canvas. There is no background or other elements to the drawings. The tree fills nearly the entire canvas and would go beyond the canvas if it were larger, specifically off the left and right edges. The tree is centered on the canvas and has five major limbs which come from a central trunk that splits near the bottom of the canvas. Each limb separates into smaller and smaller limbs which contain the foliage. The branches are created with a lot of shading and subtle texture suggesting a soft bark. The leaves appear gestural and their rendering ranges from smudges to precise oblong leaf shapes. The areas of foliage are never dense and the branch structure is prominent throughout the tree. Near the base of the tree, there are two small branches with leaves and two indistinguishable shapes almost floating in space.]
Nohemí Pérez
Colombian, born 1962
Painting Number 3, from the series El Palmar, 2022
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase with funds provided by Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago 2022, Keith and Sharon Barnes, Mary and Don Blair, Pat and Trudy Ritz, and Diane and Herb Rankin, 2022.13.3
[Artwork Description: A horizontal oil painting of a faceless pale skinned man in a supine position in a textured field of browns. The stye of the painting is gestural and brush strokes and swaths of color dominate. The man is in the lower third of the painting and his lower half extends off the left of the canvas. He is wearing dark brown pants, with a white underwear line exposed at the waist. He has on a long-sleeved blue shirt that is fully unbuttoned leaving his neck, chest, and stomach fully exposed. His is painted in profile, and his left arm is sleeved with his peach colored hand exposed. He has textured dark reddish brown hair, and his face is slightly angled away from the viewer. His facial features are not distinguishable, just the familiar structure can be seen. The body is the only representation of the painting, the rest is tan, gold, dark brown and pale blue brushstrokes. The darkest of the marks around the man, especially concentrated near his legs and beneath him. The brush marks are very strong creating dimension in the background.]
Nohemí Pérez
Colombian, born 1962
Painting Number 1, from the series El Palmar, 2022
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase with funds provided by Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago 2022, Keith and Sharon Barnes, Mary and Don Blair, Pat and Trudy Ritz, and Diane and Herb Rankin, 2022.13.2
[Artwork Description: A small square oil painting of a small belly-up wheat-golden bird. The painting is gestural in style. The bird is viewed from the side and lying on its back, in the horizontal center of the painting. It has a small orange beak, a tiny round black eye, and a soft, mounded lighter color belly or breast area, slightly darker wings near the ground, and two very thin orange bird legs that jut into the air. The bird is found in the bottom third of the small painting in a field of cool colors. The bottom of the background is a darker teal color, surrounding the bird and lightens in value in the upper two-thirds of the painting. There are shades of purple and white and darker and lighter teal throughout. It’s very soft and wispy. Brush marks are highly visible throughout the painting and there is a glow or a sheen over the entire piece due to the use of oil paints.]
Tatiana Trouvé
Italian, born 1968
Untitled from the series Les dessouvenus, 2019
Pencil and bleach on paper mounted on canvas
Private Collection, L2022.40.2
Begun in 2013, Tatiana Trouvé’s series Les dessouvenus explores silence and forgetting. The title—a reference to “misremembering”—describes the experience of what the artist calls “interworlds” characterized by slippages between memory and real time experience, like déjà vu or flashbacks.
[Artwork Description: A grayscale drawing in the photorealistic style. On the right and left sides of the drawing, about one-third of the way from the bottom a guardrail goes from the edges and meets in the center of the piece. It is a combination of a metal roadside guardrail and a low solid wall. In the foreground area where the guardrail comes to a point there is a round, rocky hole in the otherwise smooth, flat foreground. Inside the hole is darker gray and from the hole emerges a small cloud of transparent white smoke. Looking to the right of the hole is a large, dark, yet translucent rough boulder and all around this boulder are thin white scratch lines in both horizontal and vertical directions, some long lines that go both directions, and some with slight curves. The rest of the foreground is an ombre smooth gray that is lightest near the rocky hole and gets darker as it moves toward the front of the drawing. Beyond the guardrail, the background is a huge white and gray cloud. The cloud looks billowy and full. Darkest near the bottom where it emanates from beyond the guardrail and lightest around the edges of it are flecks of white are bursting away from the concentrated area of the cloud. Beyond the cloud the rest of the background is a flat gray except for the patch on the left of the drawing which looks like a landscape. It looks rocky with some wisps of tall grass.]
Tatiana Trouvé
Italian, born 1968
August, from the series The Great Atlas of Disorientation, 2019
Ink, bleach, and pencil on paper mounted on canvas
Private Collection, L2022.40.1
To create the works on view here, Tatiana Trouvé placed large sheets of colored paper in bleach to shape patterns of stains and discoloration. She then drew distressed landscapes into these cloud-like zones. As she explains, “I try to leave things open to a form of disorientation and the possibility of navigation. I am more sensitive to the physical and mental wavering that the works can produce than I am attentive to a position from which they should be seen or understood in this or that way.”
[Artwork Description: A abstracted realistic landscape drawing with trees. The paper has stains or washes that create cloud-like misty formations that for the backdrop for the realistic ink drawings of the trees. The background consists of cream, off-white, rust, blacks and blues. The trees are the most dense on the left and central to bottom portion of the piece. They have very long, thin, and mostly straight lines for trunks with varying foliage at the canopy. Some have very small brush strokes for leaves, others have more blurred marks for leaves, some just have branches and some are palm leaves. In the front, center of the painting are two very subtle boulders that are transparent and drawn over the trees. The central boulder is large, taking up about 2/3 the height of the piece and oval shaped with a flat bottom. The other is slightly set back and to the right of the first and is smaller with a very pointed, jagged top.]
Cornelia Parker
British, born 1956
Unsettled (Jerusalem), 2012-13
Wood found on the streets of Jerusalem
Miller Meigs Collection, L2022.41.2
Cornelia Parker pays attention to things that are easily overlooked. Relocating these objects to the spotlight of a gallery, she draws on the resonance of their lowly conditions to spark personal, social, or critical associations. This sculpture is assembled from wood collected in the streets of Jerusalem, a city where cultures have converged and clashed for many generations, often with striking violence. The planks hover just above the ground and become charged symbols of conflict and precarity.
[Artwork Description: A grouping of pieces of wood of varying sizes, shapes, and colors. At first glance the wood appears to be leaning up against the wall and stacked on the ground, but it is actually suspended approximately an inch off the ground with very thin wires. On the left of the wood collection are two boards that are stacked parallel to the ground. In front of those boards, appearing to be propped against the wall are wood pieces that have been fastened together. There are five horizontal spaced-out boards connected to each other with two thinner vertical boards. The vertical boards are thin, about 1″, and the horizontal boards are of varying widths from about 2″ to 4″. The majority of the other boards also appear propped against the wall at a slight angle. They are mostly single boards ranging in size from about a 1″ x 4″ to 1″ x 6″ and range in length from about 3′ to 8′. They are all weathered and different shades of browns and grays. There are many nail holes, knots, cracks and jagged edges to these boards. One has some specks of white paint, another is covered with white peeling paint. On the right size of the collection, another board runs nearly parallel to the ground and there are also three shorter boards that are fastened together with two small boards.]
Huma Bhabha
Pakistani, born 1962
Reconstructions, 2007
14 Photogravures; 2 woodblock prints
Miller Meigs Collection, L2022.41.1
For this series, Huma Bhabha took “lots of black-and-white photographs, mostly of stalled construction sites and desert landscapes near the sea” during a trip to her home country of Pakistan, as she recounts. She then began drawing on them with pen or brush and ink: “I started out with feet, which in the context of the photographs looked enormous—as though they belonged to giants or were close-ups of monumental sculpture. But I also made drawings that showed figures in architectural settings or reclining in barren landscapes, as well as drawings that were more abstract.” The hand-drawn imagery suggests the subjective layers that shape our perceptions of shared spaces such as those captured in the photographs.
[Artwork Description: From Left to Right:
Top: Sketch of a left foot facing to the viewer’s left on tan textured paper. A bold black line outlines the top, front, and bottom of the foot. Black lines that have been etched through with hash marks fill in the foot. Some are straight, some are curved, and some resemble heads of wheat. A few dark lines resemble veins flowing from the ankle down the foot. A single bold line extends across the paper behind the foot. The artwork is mounted on a white background in a thin black frame. The artist’s signature and the year 2007 appears in the bottom right corner.
Bottom: A right foot, facing to the viewer’s left that is outlined fully in a bold black line. Long toenails hang over thick toes. Dark lines are covered by multiple layers of hash marks – some straight, some curved, and some forming strands or balls. At the top of the ankle it appears the bone has been cut away. Directly below are two large black holes. Below the holes is a U-shape filled with several hash marks. A single solid thick black line runs across the cream textured paper behind the foot. The artwork is mounted on a white background in a thin black frame. The artist’s name and year 2007 appear in the bottom right corner.
Top: Black and white photo of a cliff along side a beach with small waves breaking to the left. The rocky bar to the right has ink that extends upwards with thick strokes, almost resembling a waterfall or rockslide. The photo sits inside a cream colored mat with a thin black frame.
Bottom: Black and white photo augmented with ink of an object that resembles a large ship wreck. A bar of jagged rocks extends from the left. The boat takes up the middle and right third of the photo. Its dark lines mingle and create a mysterious depth. Lighter gray sections with darker lines inside fill the right side of the wreckage. Gray ink is smeared in multiple directions in the sky beyond the ship. The photo is mounted behind a thin cream mat in a slim black frame.
Top: Photo of three large ornate cream colored doors with a figure of a man sitting in a chair in front of them. The doors have three rows of five squares that have a circle indent in the middle. At the top they have a half circle that is comprised of a half circle in the bottom middle with three triangles around it resembling sun rays. Each triangle has a circle indent in the middle like the squares. The door on the left and middle have two black square latches just above the middle. On the opposite side of the middle door and to the left side of the right door are three sets of hinges. The simple chair is made of a white rounded metal frame and a dark seat. The dark, somewhat translucent figure sits with wrists resting on the armrests, staring forward with feet on the ground. The figures hands are made of a series of dark black lines that loosely show curved fingers. The figure’s expression is blank with the shape of the nose, hair, and facial hair suggested, but not clear. The right foot appears to be in a shoe that is hard to make out while the left leg appears to extend out of torn pants at the knee with a bare foot. Tan and gray tiles with white grout lines extend to the wall where there is a thick black mopboard. Thin layers of black shadowy lines resembling a draped fabric fill the floor beyond the left foot. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Bottom: Another photo of the ocean with a rocky bar on the right side. It appears similar to the first photo of this landscape, but has different ink embellishments. A structure that appears to be a road with a rickety fence that might be composed of driftwood sticks. It appears to curve to the right with a bluff shaped object in thick black ink beyond. The sky is filled with layers of translucent gray and black with some darker streaks and bubbles above the bluff. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Top: Photograph of a landscape scene with a structure resembling a large foot in the middle that appears to be crushing a short cement wall that cracks and crumbles. The foreground appears to be a barren area with desert shrubs and plants growing out of a rocky bed. A few white blossoms appear on top of tall stems that seem to be blowing in the wind. The foot has layers of chaotic strokes of black ink in varying thickness. A few thin strokes stretch off the front of the ankle and fill a small portion of the sky. The sky is mostly cream colored with some light layers of black ink forming what resembles cloud layers. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Bottom: Close up embellished photograph of a left foot on rocky ground. The foot is visible from the tips of the toes to the knuckles. The foot is drawn in thick black ink with white hash marks and scribbles that go in multiple directions. Near the top of the toes the marks almost resemble hair. The rocky ground is full of cracks and small pebbles. The foot casts a dark shadow on the ground below. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Top: Embellished landscape photo of a dry field with a rocky path behind and a dome like structure above. The cream sky is filled with blank ink that appears as though it spilled and has organically spread over the paper in varying thicknesses. The dome is dark black in the middle with lighter layers of black around the edges and a cream portion in the top left. Black ink appears to drip off the dome and extend upward into the sky. A small cement wall appears to separate the dome and the rocky path. The rocky field is barren on the right and has a patch of dark reeds and weeds to the left. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Top: Landscape photo of a barren field with a large mound of dirt and rocks on the left. A solid black jetty extends through the middle of the photo. A large indistinct figure towers in the middle of the photo. It loosely resembles a large figure with an arm hanging to the side. Loose black strokes of ink surround it and it stands inside a cube made of thin black lines. Smeared black horizontal and curved lines fill the cube. Darker black lines extend beyond the jetty and appear to form poles and building structures. The sky is filled with layers of cream with light black ink in loose strokes that are darker on the sides. Dirt ground in the foreground has a few rocks and short sparse plants. There appears to be a flat cement structure in the middle. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Bottom: Landscape photo with ink embellishment with a large figure like object in the center. The figure is tall, extending nearly to the top of the frame. It appears to be facing to the left, back straight, head held high, shoulders back. It has rough circles for eyes and no other facial features. It appears to have arms hanging to the side and a thick right leg and thin left leg. Horizontal strokes of light gray ink are layered in the sky beyond the figure. Closer to the horizon line are thicker, darker streaks that resemble rolling hills and valleys. To the right are swirls of darker ink strokes with small dots and curved white lines that resemble a rocky landscape. Below the figure are black reed like strokes. The figure stands on what appears to be a rocky jetty. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Top: Landscape photo embellished with black ink. Two giant figures that appear to be seated on chairs fill the frame, positioned on top of a rocky landscape. To the left is a rocky butte. A dark wall or jetty extends to the right. In front of it is an angular flat object that looks like a slab of concrete. The first figure’s chair-like object sits on top of the rocky butte. It has a black outline and is somewhat translucent with varying thickness of ink filling it in, some with white bubbles, some with dark hash marks. The figure appears to sit facing to the right, torso turned lightly with head facing the viewer. The face consists of two dark black strokes of ink surrounded by loose strokes resembling hair. The second figure is further to the right and is much smaller. The figure consists of dark ink strokes and is nearly all filled in, resembling a silhouette. The figure appears to sit in a similar position – legs straight forward, arms to the side, but is facing straight forward. A few light strokes extend up between the figures and to the right of the smaller figure. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Bottom: A landscape photo heavily embellished with black ink. Most of the frame is filled with dark black ink strokes. A large cube consisting of a series of straight strokes fills the middle of the frame and extends back. It gets darker in the back and on the sides. The center is dark, giving a tunnel-like appearance. To the left, are two rounded pillars that seem to erode at the top and in the middle becoming translucent. They stand in front of a large black horizontal rectangle that connects to another smaller black rectangle to the left. Behind it is a pillar of white with dripping black ink. Gray ink is smeared and dripping along the top right corner and the dark black ink fills in the photo to the bottom right corner. Rocky ground is visible in the left corner of the frame. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Top: Landscape photo with heavily embellished black ink. This photo is more sparse than the previous ones. A dark rock jetty runs across the beach with gentle waves rolling up on the right side. On top of the jetty is a dark black foundation that appears to crumble and has several reed like lines extending out of the top, some taller than others and several jutting out at the end like porcupine quills. Near the right end of the jetty is a simple line drawing of a tall figure. The form is loosely outlined. There is no face, but it appears as though the figures left arm is draped up over the head. A single black circle near the middle of the body appears to be a belly button. The left leg is much thinner than the right. To the left of the figure is an ink smudge that appears to be a cloud. To the left are angled horizontal black lines extending out from the edge of the photo. A few light gray spots that are barely visible fill the lower part of the sky. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Bottom: A landscape photo with heavy black ink embellishments. The scene appears to be the same rock jetty as the photo above with different ink embellishments. Dark rocks form the jetty with a black foundation above with thin black lines protruding out the top. A series of strong black strokes of ink extend from the jetty to close to the top of the photo. Most of them are vertical, but others loop at the top and come back down at a gentle angle. Several layers overlap each other with some light streaks extending out past the others. A couple thin lines start at the top right and extend out to connect to the right side of the jetty. The sky has the same very light layer of gray ink that appears like bubbles in the sky. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Top: Landscape photo with heavy black ink embellishments. A desert-like landscape appears in the foreground with a cream colored sky behind and a large organically shaped black object extending from the horizon line to the top of the frame. The foreground is filled with rocky ground and various dry ground cover. A series of thick black squiggly lines cover the majority of the left side of the foreground with a solid line extending to the right. A border of white stone or concrete creates a base for the large black object. It starts near the middle of the frame and extends up to the right, has a rounded protrusion, then climbs up steep into a column with a bend to the left on top that comes to a jagged point. The cream sky is filled with light gray horizontal streaks that are barely visible. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.
Bottom: Landscape photo that has been heavily embellished with black ink. The landscape is barely visible. A jetty shape extends across the bottom of the photo, but is covered in heavy, black ink, some dripped and some streaks. On the right side a series of thin black lines form a translucent dome. Inside on the left is a black silhouette of a figure sitting cross legged. The figure appears to have hair in a bun with loose strands on both sides of the face. Translucent black strokes fill the space behind the figure, some horizontal, some diagonal, and some vertical. The figure appears to sit on a black rectangular platform. Dark black organic shapes fill the right bottom corner. To the left gray and black ink plumes rise up from the black jetty and appear to spray up into a layer of gray in the sky. The photo is mounted behind a thick cream mat in a thin black frame.]
Anne Chu
American, 1959–2016
Nine Hellish Spirits, No. 9, 2005
Smoke-fired ceramic
Gift of John and Shari Behnke, 2018.43.2a-g
Anne Chu found inspiration in traditions as diverse as ancient Chinese funerary sculpture and modern-day puppets. This nearly life-size work resembles a marionette with a haunting presence. Without the puppeteer’s strings attached, it stands motionless yet uncannily expectant. Chu used the smoke firing process to solidify the clay into a ceramic sculpture. The resulting surfaces point to the fiery realm—both the actual and the imaginary one—from which this “spirit” came.
[Artwork Description: A ceramic sculpture in a human form that is standing upright with mostly straight legs, a torso with a head and then very thin arms with hands that are connected by metal at sharp angles. The clay shows many pinch marks and slab lines where it was formed together. The color of the clay varies from shades of lighter tan to darker brown. The lighter areas include pares of the feet, the arms and the top of the head. The face and hands are the only parts that have much detail. The face has many pinch marks and the face has an expression with wide-open eyes, and a large open mouth with individual teeth exposed. Extra pinch marks define the hair and eyebrows. The figure is wearing a sort of cloak with it draping over the shoulders and covering the backside. It has many score lines, pinch marks and narrow additions of clay that add texture. The piece is almost two layers with the upper half having a rounded edge at the lower back. The figure has a tail that juts out about a foot from the body. The cloak rests at the base of the tail and splays open enough for the tail to stick out. The arms almost dangle from the body, connected by metal in the mid upper arm. The elbows are at sharp 90 degree angles and are thin like bones. The left hand is connected to the arm as one piece, and the right hand hangs straight down from the forearm by a wire. The figure is leaning slightly forward with its head extended forward, and appearing as though it is shifting the weight from the right leg to the left almost in a forward motion.]
Maja Ruznic
Bosnian, born 1983
Daughter (Red), 2021
Oil on linen
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Matt Felton, 2021.69.1
Maja Ruznic has described her process of painting as remembering a dream, when a memory, feeling, or thought remains half formed and elusive. As a refugee from the war in the former Yugoslavia, the artist draws on personal and collective memories of this trauma to convey hidden, or buried, aspects of the human psyche. Ruznic hopes to express a luminous sense of transformation through thin layers of oil paint that reveal a ghostly figure. As it emerges from the colorful background, borders between human, nature, and memory symbolically dissolve.
[Artwork Description: A boldly colored dream-like painting with a light blue figure in the middle of a block of red. The figure has an oval face with long thick hair. The facial features appear similar to those of a skeleton and the whole being has a ghost-like essence. The figure’s arms and hands are barely visible. A thick layer of red fills the space around the figure, extending to both sides and to the bottom. The top has a strip of blue with some red blotches on top. A green blotch appears near the left corner and a thin line of turquoise along the edge.]