In fall 2016, the Tarble began a series of bi-annual long-term site-specific projects called Outside/Inside. These projects look to liminal space theory as a point of departure, with the understanding that the transition from the outside to the inside of the Tarble is integral to the perception of those who choose to enter the museum. The Outside/Inside series will, therefore, serve as interventions in specific inner and outer Tarble spaces, while also indicating that the Tarble is a place of vibrant creativity. Ultimately, it is our hope that these site-specific projects will encourage viewer engagement and participation within and outside the confines of the Tarble’s main exhibition spaces. Outside/Inside projects will take form in various media, with works being situated directly outside the Tarble Arts Center and the other taking place inside its Atrium.
Tarble Triangle
Through Fall 2021
Tarble’s newest outdoor project is Amanda Williams’s site-specific installation, Uppity Negress, and is located on the southeast corner of the Tarble Arts Center. The project consists of a large-scale banner and a drawn path connected to the existing Tarble architecture. The scale and text of the banner act as both guardian and inspirational fortress for the space, while the path breaks down by venturing "out of line." The path creates a disorienting space that calls into question the relationship between restraint and protection. Using this break down in architectural boundaries, this installation echoes the layered roles that gender and race have played historically in black women’s ability to navigate their position in urban spaces.
Recent instances in contemporary culture have resurrected the term "uppity" to challenge the suggestion that black women have forgotten their place, or have lost sight on the importance of self-identity. The term has loaded historical origins as "uppity negress" initially had been used to denigrate black women in society who had the audacity to love themselves, feel beautiful, be educated, and advance themselves in a society that was adverse to the advancement of their cause. The Uppity Negress project is an important part of the reclamation of this title and space.
Amanda Williams is an artist and trained architect (Cornell University), and is fascinated by the way architectural space can operate as a space between the public and private, and also act as a way to highlight concepts of authority and access–noting when each is granted or denied. Her work spans the fields of painting, installation, and photography, and reflects the cultural relationship between color, race, and space.
Williams has exhibited widely, including the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale; the Museum of Contemporary Art-Chicago; the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation- St. Louis. She was a 2018 United States Artists Fellow, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors grantee, an Efroymson Family Contemporary Arts Fellow, a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow and a member of the multidisciplinary exhibition design team for the Obama Presidential Center. She is also a recipient of the 2017 Pulitzer Arts Foundation Design/Build commission in collaboration with SAIC Associate Professor in Art Education, Andres L. Hernandez. Williams has served as a visiting assistant professor of Architecture at Cornell University and Washington University in St. Louis. She lives and works on Chicago’s South Side.
Tarble Triangle
Through Summer 2021
The Porch Project: Tarble Tables by New York-based artist, Heather Hart, which is located on the Tarble Triangle, is due to come down after this semester. Hart’s work focuses on communal participation, individual and collective identity, memory, and representation using a vast array of media. The installation of The Porch Project: Tarble Tables presents a space that transforms according to each visitor’s frame of reference and the activities taking place within it. The sculpture—inspired by a common architectural form, a porch, serves as both an entryway and a receiving space. Each porch-like space seeks to inspire visitors to not only consider their positions on the porch, but also the architectural form’s history, use and its influence upon their own lives.
Heather Hart is a Brooklyn-based artist who has previously been an artist-in-residence at Skowhegan, LMCC Workspace, Franconia Sculpture Park, Fine Arts Work Center, and at the Whitney ISP. She received grants from Creative Capital, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Harpo Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and a fellowship from NYFA, among many other awards. Her work has been included in a variety of publications such as Art in America, Art News, Hyperallergic, and The New York Times, among others. Hart has exhibited worldwide at the Socrates Sculpture Park, the Seattle Art Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Art in General, the Drawing Center, Museum of Arts and Craft in Itami, Portland Art Center, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others. Hart studied at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Princeton University in New Jersey, and received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
