Volume Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition with James Hyde, Varieties of Useful Experience, opening September 12th from 4-7pm at 845 West Washington Blvd, Chicago.
“Let us suppose that the idea of art can be expanded to embrace the whole range of man-made things, including all tools and writing in addition to the useless, beautiful and poetic things of the world” – George Kubler, The Shape of Things, 1961
Varieties of Useful Experience ventures to conceptually reconsider the domestic landscape, and the output of man-made creations as potential art. In the context of this exhibition the paintings become ‘wall decoration’ and are within the same realm of consideration as pillows, chairs and tables. All of the objects are suited for a variety of uses and metaphors
In an interview with Klaus Ottmann from the Journal of Contemporary Art, Hyde states that his interests lie in “the utopian experiments in design from William Morris to Brasilia; this is all involved in sort of the type of adventure of the aesthetic into new territories, and this both internalization and externalization of ideas of looking and how that effects people personally and even morally.”
This exhibition explores these themes with a variety of objects: chairs, paintings, tables, handles, frescos, sculptures, and lighting. Including materials like steel, linen, paint, enamel, vinyl, Styrofoam, hand blown glass, plexiglass, and photographs. Combining the typologies and materiality with as many applied techniques, Varieties of Useful Experience presents a wide range of pieces by Hyde that includes work from 1996 to 2015.
James Hyde was born in Philadelphia, and moved to New York City in the late 70’s to pursue a career as an artist. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn. His work ranges from paintings on photographic prints to large-scale installations, photography, and abstract furniture design. Mr. Hyde has lectured as a visiting professor at a number of institutions, including Yale University, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Bard College, and Cooper Union. He is represented by galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Copenhagen.
Mr. Hyde has presented solo exhibitions at the Maison de la Culture de Bourges and the Centre d’Art Contemporain d’Ivry, Galerie Fernand Leger/Credeac in France, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Brent Sikkema Gallery and the Weatherspoon Art Museum in North Carolina and the Zwemmer Gallery in London. In 2014 and 2015 Mr. Hyde presented over 40 works as part 20-Year Survey as part of the C.Ar.D. festival in Northern Italy. He has been honored with a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, among others. Mr. Hyde’s pieces are included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Denver Art Museum, and the Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano, Switzerland.
