Mindy Rose Schwartz

April 30 – May 30, 2021
Opening Reception April 30, 2-9pm

Interstate Projects is honored to present a solo exhibition of new sculptures and installation by Mindy Rose Schwartz, which will occupy both galleries and the courtyard garden. In the main gallery the artist will present a new installation of shadow-cast images that appear and disappear within gradations of colorful light, animating the environment. Sculptures scented with vetiver, lemongrass, and lavender evoke head shops of days gone by, and the blurred recognition of a lost emotional history. To mark an occasion a gift is given, a sentiment acknowledged, and a melody unfolds. Appealing to our different senses, Schwartz’s work is a metaphor that investigates the relationship between longing and memory, questioning why we remember the things we do and what memory leaves out.

In the lower gallery a large installation of new ceramics envisions the sometimes mundane objects of domestic space transformed, having absorbed the emotional and personal life of the people around them. The wall hanging, the house plant, the jewelry box, the paneling, the color scheme, the make-up mirror, all contain and are repositories for the drama (or lack thereof) of everyday life. Schwartz’s work shows the shape and meaning of objects as mutable, and how the marks of use and memory transfigure the otherwise fixed surface of things.

Schwartz uses a wide range of materials and processes with specific cultural references and often undervalued cultural status in order to frame them in a different light. Her sculptures demonstrate the ways in which the intended significance or function of mass-produced objects can oscillate in our perception, being sites of fear or control, as well as sentiment, longing and pleasure.

Mindy Rose Schwartz is an artist living in Chicago and teaches sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Solo exhibitions include Queer Thoughts, NY; Et al., San Francisco, CA; Balice Hertling, Paris, FR; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; Slow Gallery, Chicago, IL; and Terrain Gallery, Chicago, IL. Select group exhibitions include The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL; The Spertus Museum, Chicago, IL; Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL; Tatjana Pieters Gallery, Ghent, BE; Room E-10 27, Berlin, DE; Carlos Ishikawa, London, UK; Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada; Alter Space, Los Angeles, CA; Eric Hussenot, Paris, FR; and Arcadia Missa, London, UK. Mindy Rose Schwartz is represented by Queer Thoughts, NY.

Press: Art in America

COVID-19: There will be a Soft Opening Reception from 2-9pm on April 30th and the gallery will be open from 12-6pm Saturdays, Sundays and by appointment throughout the week. Visitors must wear masks in the gallery spaces at all times and there will be masks and sanitizer available onsite. There will a limited number of visitors allowed in the spaces and social distancing of six feet will be required. Our courtyard garden will be open for the duration of the exhibition.