The work of the twenty-four artists in Louder, a group exhibit curated by Chicago critic Kathryn Hixson and artist and UIC professor Tony Tasset, deals with the adolescent experiences of coming of age and self-definition. As a seeming reaction to various trends within the art world, and in the societal and economic context of the United States in the early 1990s, a number of artists have produced work that draws from the peculiarly awkward stage impending adulthood: adolescence. The work relies on representations or references to the body as the site of evolving sexual and societal definition—not presenting a “responsible” or “politically correct” whole adult self, but rather an adolescent one that refuses to be repressed. The work revolves around the projected image of the self as opposed to a behavioral or aesthetic authority, and sometimes aggressively assaults institutional legitimating structures. As these artists assert newly formed self-definitions, they refuse to suppress the rebellious exuberance felt in the gap between naïveté and responsibility. Much of this art references the cult of the body combined with the cult of the gang, as well as the cult of pop music, with all of its associative bonding. The work is not a critique (per se) of the existing political and art situation, but is simply a usurping of power, a violent bash when the parents are out of town, complete with booze, girls, boys, and loud music. It is aggressively nostalgic, explicating a wish for a renewable youthfulness, not for its rosy-cheeked innocence but for its harsh demanding immediacy—the thrill of that great fall from grace, the intoxicating turbulence of puberty.

CURATORS BIOGRAPHIES

Tony Tasset (born 1960) is an artist who has worked in a variety of styles and mediums including sculpture, photography, video, and film. His work deals with universal themes and emotions through common pictorial languages. To this end he employs familiarity, humor, craft, sentiment, confession, and shock. He makes iconic images about the current cultural moment from an individual perspective. Tasset first exhibited in New York at the Christine Burgin Gallery in 1986, and his work has since been shown in multiple galleries in the U.S. and London. Tasset was honored to receive an Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council in 1989 as well as the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in the same year. Tasset received an MFA from the School of the Art institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

Kathryn Hixson (born 1955) is a renowned Chicago art critic, curator, and professor of modern art history, theory, and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As an art critic, she has written for art publications including Flash Art and Art on Paper. Kathryn has also curated numerous exhibitions, paying close attention to new and emerging artists. Hixson completed an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1985 and taught on and off at the school since receiving her degree. She received a BFA from Carleton College in 1977.

Nayland Blake, Robert Blanchon, Larry Clark, Jason Fox, Gregory Greene, George Horner, Mitchell Kane, lk Joong Kang, Mike Kelley, Karen Kilimnik, Cary Liebowitz, Ken Lum, Matthew Owens, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Prince, Pruitt & Early, Zizi Raymond, Jim Shaw, Andy Soma, Lily van der Stokker, Joan Wallace, Susan Wexler, Robert Windrum, and Kevin Wolff

Louder is supported by the University of Illinois Chicago School of Art and Design’s College of Architecture, Art, and Urban Planning.

This exhibition is also funded by the Illinois Arts Council.