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Gallery |
"Into the cellar"
Mini dv video,
color with sound, 5min 30sec., 2005
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It will be enough
I work with potatoes. I sew and knit sculptures that cover and wrap
potatoes, whittle sculptures that clean and remove potatoes, and
photographs and film potatoes in absurd situations of excess and
longing.
Evocative of farming, clothing, and the isolation of home, the works
in It will be enough grow out of sickness, slowness and loss.
They are a collapse of hope, but also a belief in the power and
necessity of sustenance.
Sometimes this sustenance comes in the most unexpected of ways:
potatoes have often been the last resort in famine and war. But
their spread to worldwide cuisine depended on Spanish Conquistadors
and a shipwreck that washed potatoes ashore to Ireland.
Potatoes are also very versatile and soothing: they can be boiled,
steamed, fried, grilled or baked. They can grow in cold and
inhospitable soil. They have some of almost every nutrient; it is
possible to survive a long time eating only potatoes.
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Artist’s Statement:
My interests reside in taking aspects of our familiar
surroundings and somehow tweaking or altering them to make them
slightly off, uncanny, and perhaps a bit disturbing and unfamiliar.
The spaces, architecture, surfaces, and objects of daily living are so
familiar they often become as a backdrop, looked beyond and moved
past. The quirky sense of aesthetics of the almost accidental
placement that occurs in the world we build for ourselves has a sense
of comedy and beauty but it is one that is seldom noticed because it
is taken as a given.
I am interested in using the familiar as a
source and altering that source through a poetic shift in materials,
or extending surroundings into the form of the work. This gives
attentiveness and awareness to what was thought to be known and
comfortable. The work and spaces become awkward, suggestive of the
weight of things outside of our reach, where something has
inexplicably gone awry.
The formal clarity and specificity of these gestures rely on an
emptying out of everything else. It is akin to spaces between lines,
phrases, words – what is actually present – and what is unsaid and
remains in silence. In this gap, suggestions of narrative and
emotional undercurrents begin to surface. The work then occupies a
psychological space that becomes increasingly eerie and points toward
a darkly comic life where beauty and oddity merge.
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RESUME |
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Education: |
M.F.A. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
B.A. Anderson University, Anderson, IN |
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Awards: |
Bronx Museum of
Art, Artist in the Marketplace, 2004-2005
Joan
Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, 2002 |
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Exhibitions: |
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2005 |
Bronx Museum of Art, “AIM 25,” Bronx, NY
Art Chicago, Butler Field, Chicago IL
Zg Gallery, “Rena Leinberger, It will be enough,” Chicago, IL
read reviews |
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2004 |
Queens Museum of Art, “Queens International, 2004”
curated by Hitomi Iwasaki, Queens, NY (ctlg)
CUE Artist’s Foundation, “Joan Mitchell Foundation Group Show,” New
York, NY (catalog)
Summer
Show '04, Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
Stray Show, Gallery 400, Chicago, IL |
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2003 |
As Small As
Possible, Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
Waiting, (with Ben Butler, as Lint) Evanston Art Center, IL
Compendium, Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
Catching Up With the Sun, Klein Art Works, Chicago, IL
University Show, Northern Indiana Arts Council, Munster, IN
At the Edge, Gallery 400, Chicago, IL
12 x 12, New Artists
/ New Work, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Sediment, site specific installation, collaboration with Ben
Butler, Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
LAPSE, site specific installation, Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
Collectable, Northern Illinois University Art Gallery, Chicago,
IL |
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2002 |
12" x 12",
Group Show Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
What is gathered, Installation, Gallery 400, Chicago, IL
Group Show, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL, Fall
At the Intersection of Sight
and Sound, International Center Gallery, San Antonio, TX
Rift, Apartment 1R, Chicago, IL
16th Annual Evanston & Vicinity Biennial, Evanston Art Center,
IL
Fittings, Storefront, Chicago, IL
January Group Show, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL |
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2001 |
November Group Show,
Gallery 2, Chicago, IL, November
August Group Show, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL, August |
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2000 |
Good N
Plenty, 1926 Exhibition Space, Chicago, IL
Print + Mass, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL
Counter Productive Industries, 1926 Exhibition Space,
Chicago, IL |
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1999 |
Exchange
Show, Atelierhof Kundseverk, Bremen, Germany
ARC Members Show, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL
Faculty Alumni Show, Anderson University Gallery,
Anderson, IN |
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Publications: |
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2005 |
Chicago Tribune,
“Rena Leinberger crafts an exquisite little gem,” Art review by
Alan Artner, Feb. 25, 2005
New City,
“Eye Exam: The Potato Lover,” Review by Michael Workman, pg.
18, Feb. 10, 2005 |
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2004 |
Spotlight on Living
Artists,
Hardcover, by Ivy Sundell, Crow Woods Publishing, 2004
Cue
Art Foundation Catalog,
Catalog Essay by Gregory Amenoff, Joan Mitchell MFA Grant Exhibit
Catalog, June 2004
Sculpture
Magazine,
“Waiting”
Evanston Art Center,
Jan. - Feb. 2004, picture
New City,
“Eye
Exam: Under Siege,”
Review by Michael Workman, January 6, 2004 |
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2003 |
Pioneer Press,
Ellen Pritszker, “Take some time for Waiting,” October, 9, 2003
Chicago
Artist’s Coalition News,
John Brunetti, “Reclamation: Themes in the Work of Three Emerging
Artist,” Oct. 2003
New City,
“A House is Not a Home”, Review by Michael Workman, pg. 18,
September 18, 2003
Mouth to
Mouth Magazine,
“Rena Leinberger”, Oral Report by Julie Farstad, Vol.1, No.4, pg
33, Summer, 2003
Chicago
Tribune,
“Collecting remains in the eye of the Beholder,” Lisa Stein,
Art Scene, March 7, 2003
Collectible,
Northern Illinois University Art Museum Gallery in Chicago, catalog,
2003 |
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2002 |
Chicago Tribune,
“Rena Leinberger,” Alan G. Artner, Art Reviews, October 18,
2002
Illinois at Chicago,
College of Architecture and the Arts, Chicago, IL, catalog, 2002
What is Gathered,
Paul Burkhardt, Exhibition Essay, October 2002
Bridge
Magazine Online,
Rena Leinberger, Jeff M. Ward, September 2002
At
the Intersection of Sight and Sound,
San Antonio International Center, TX, catalog, 2002
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