For this installation, the shell of the shed becomes a chrysalis, a call and response of structure and illumination, and an embrace of the simultaneous desires for intimacy and expansiveness. You are invited to a nest of the cosmos, within. As a living work, transformation will occur through the duration of the show.

This cumulative installation that will be open during our public gallery hours Friday, 4-6 and Saturday 12-3 (at 229 N. Gilbert St). This installation period beginning Friday, Sept 20th will be punctuated by surprise happenings at day and night throughout the month of October.

The way light inhabits a space; how consciousness illuminates a body; the way memory lives outside linear structures of time; how a sense of the present expands and folds back again. 

In this work, I return to an earlier series entitled ‘homing’. Through translucent materials, veils, layers, screens, light and space, I explore the complex nature of inhabitation - what it means to be embodied, how this embodiment exists in relation to the world, and the unruly delineations between a self and beyond. Although inhabitation implies container and contained, interior and exterior, host and hosted, the two are inextricably intertwined. The boundary is fluid, reciprocal, porous - a mutually creative relation. The constant flow of change occurring along the threshold engenders an ongoing effort toward self-location - homing. Held within are notions of navigation and return, and the emotional weight contained in the desire for home. 

ARTIST BIO:

Heather Parrish’s artistic inquiry uses printmaking, experimental photography, and installation with video projection to explore notions of perception and belonging across fluid boundaries. Her heightened sensitivity to ‘self and surrounding’ arises from a culturally nomadic childhood growing up as an American in Southeast Asia. She focuses on the boundary between ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ as a porous and dynamic site of complex negotiations. Collaboration is also a sustaining part of her practice including work with scientists, filmmakers, poets, activists, bodies of water, microbes and bees. Parrish received an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Notre Dame and a BA in Kinesiology from the University of Texas at Austin. She worked as a fine art collaborating printer at Flatbed Press in Austin, Texas, and has exhibited work in the United States and internationally. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Printmaking at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.

Arrested by codependent relationships, Eric Conrad’s oversized figures are mixed-up into absurd and precarious scenarios where they teeter on the verge of emotional collapse. Scraps of clothing, plastic flowers, and bits of detritus become precious artifacts to Eric, whose textile-based sculptures and sculptural drawings will be on display in the exhibition space at PS1.

Presented with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Iowa City Downtown District.

Amplified Rainbow II is our second group art show from Artists at SUI! We’re an art studio located in Iowa City made up of artists with varying disabilities. The artists in our studio made artworks ranging from paintings, to sculptures, to fiber art. We serve adult artists who do not have access to regular creative opportunities. We follow our artists’ creative visions and assist them by providing supplies, adaptive tools, feedback, or workshops. Our mission is to promote radical inclusion through art, and we work to empower artists with disabilities to be visible and equal contributors in Iowa’s creative communities.

@artists_at_sui

opening reception: Thurs. Aug. 29, 5-7pm

gallery hours:
Fri. Aug. 30, 11a-1p
Sat. Aug. 31, 11a-1p
Mon. Sept. 2, 11a-1p
Tues. Sept. 3, 6-8p
Thurs. Sept. 5, 6-8p
Fri. Sept. 6, 11a-1p
Sat. Sept. 7, 11a-1p

Jamie Weinfurter presents ‘building castles in the air,’ her first solo exhibition outside of academia. The artist invites all to join her in remaking the gallery space and celebrating the everyday. Based on her life experience of receiving a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in the spring of 2019, Weinfurter creates site-specific installations and sculptural reconstructions of domestic objects that discuss the impermanence of memory based on her own memory loss, the irreverence for everyday commodities to instead honor “the little things’, and queer homemaking and arts accessibility in safe spaces that exist unbounded by American social structures of value. 

In this exhibition, Weinfurter addresses preconceived associations ingrained in household objects as uncanny reconstructions that resemble the original item but take on new function and purpose, similar to her recovery after the TBI. RISO printed wallpaper of distorted architectural forms establish new space, transparent memories are projected as ephemeral reimaginings, and cast metal, assembled wood, and stiffened fabric redesign the domestic interior of the gallery to question and be accountable for our actions in current society to accommodate for the intangible future. The existing queer narrative that has always subtly prevailed in American culture of unspoken dress codes, queer signaling, and identity through performativity take shape as personal signals and reframed spaces in this exhibition to build an open and more accepting space. These steps lead to the potentiality of equitable and inclusive environments, and viewers are encouraged to dream, to welcome with open arms, and to build castles in the sky.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Jamie Weinfurter is a working 3D artist and instructor based in Iowa City, IA that is researching queer homemaking, consumer culture, environmental sustainability, and arts accessibility in site-specific collections of non-archival installations. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point with an emphasis in 3D in 2018. She has since participated in numerous juried national exhibitions and group shows in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, California, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Canada. She has had solo exhibitions at the University of Stevens Point and the University of Iowa, as well as a two-person exhibition in Minnesota in 2020. She has created site-specific, outdoor sculptures at Josephine Sculpture Park in Frankfort, KY; Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum in Solsberry, IN; Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN, Stevens Point Sculpture Park, in Stevens Point, WI; and Salem Art Works, in Salem, NY. She also installed temporary public sculptures in Lafayette, CO; Deerfield, IL; Norfolk, NE; and Rochester, Bemidji, Delano, Park Rapids, Hutchinson, Hopkins, and Eagan Minnesota. 

Jamie was a K-12 substitute elementary school teacher from 2019-2020 before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has since completed an artist fellowship at NE SCULPTURE | Gallery Factory which progressed into a Program Assistant position in 2021. Jamie has been an Artist-in-Residence with the Keep Lincoln & Lancaster County Beautiful program in Lincoln, NE in the summer of 2022 and a Session I Foundry Studio Artist at Salem Art Works in the summer of 2023. Jamie began her graduate candidacy at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA in 2021 where she became the Exhibition & Event Technician for the School of Art & Art History and a member of the Graduate Engagement Corps. She is an instructor of record for the Elements of Sculpture and Undergraduate Sculpture I courses from 2021-2024, teaching metalworking, woodworking, and plaster/wax casting techniques. Jamie has received an MA degree from the University of Iowa in the spring of 2023 in Sculpture & Intermedia, with a secondary in Ceramics, and has received her MFA in Sculpture & Intermedia with a secondary emphasis in Printmaking in May of 2024. Jamie will be teaching mold-making and metal casting workshops at Salem Art Works in June and July of 2024.

Follow Jamie on Instagram: @jaybyrdart

This month we are pleased to offer two reading rooms containing exhibition catalogs and archival ephemera from a long running art collective in Japan called Imadate Art Field with visiting artist Yoriyasu Masuda, alongside the UICB zine scholar’s curated grouping of zines, contemporary DIY publishing projects and work by PS1’s 2023-24 DIY publishing residents Esperanza Chairez and KOLXOZ.  We’ve programmed these neighboring rooms in the gallery to offer time and space for browsing, visiting with artists and zine makers, and of course, reading!

Please join us for an opening celebration and visit with artists and curators in person : Saturday April 20, 6-8pm

Both exhibitions are supported in part by the Iowa Arts Council, which exists within the Iowa Economic Development Authority, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Paper and People:
Imadate Art Field, 1979-Present

Imadate Art Field, a non-profit arts organization, has programmed contemporary paper art exhibitions in Echizen, Japan since the 1970s. Echizen is home to a traditional papermaking region with over 1,500 years of history, and this community has long supported the efforts of Imadate Art Field in bringing papermaking into contemporary art.

Masuda Yoriyasu, director and co-founder of the organization, has come to Iowa City at the invitation of UI Center for the Book papermaking instructor and Iowa City artist Nicholas Cladis, who lived and worked in Echizen for many years and formerly served on the exhibitions committee for Imadate Art Field. Together, they have installed a reading room of past exhibition catalogs and ephemera. Join us and dive deep into the decades-long history of this organization. At this exhibition, you will be able to view, handle, and read Imadate Art Field materials dating from the 1970s to the present.

Join Masuda Yoriyasu on Saturday, April 20, from 4-6pm, at PS1 North Side (229 N. Gilbert St.) for an introductory, contemporary lamp-making workshop using papers made by Cladis here in Iowa. The workshop is FREE, but space is limited to eight participants: RSVP by April 13. (Feel free to also bring your own paper!)

Artists and Organizer Bios: 
Masuda Yoriyasu was born in 1956 in Japan. In 1979, he co-founded the Imadate Contemporary Paper Arts Exhibition (now called Imadate Art Field). In addition to a prolific exhibition history in Japan, Masuda spent many years living in Spain as part of a research and development team for public, sculptural wind-power turbines. Since 2009, he has been a lecturer at Fukui Prefectural University, where he teaches fine arts in the context of the Echizen region’s craft culture. Masuda engages his local community in a myriad of ways, ranging from hosting and teaching public workshop sessions to acquiring antique, disused structures, which are then renewed and turned into exhibition spaces.

Nicholas Cladis is head of the papermaking area at the UI Center for the Book. Cladis is a maker and researcher of handmade paper, as well as an exhibiting artist and educator. Prior to moving to Iowa City, he maintained a studio practice in Echizen, Japan. Since his arrival to Iowa, Cladis has programmed numerous exchange events between Echizen and Iowa; he returns to Echizen every summer. He has received the Fukui Prefecture Ambassadorship Award from the Fukui prefectural government, several local and international fellowships, and support from the Iowa Arts Council.

Cladis and Masuda met ten years ago, in 2014, and have been close friends ever since.

DIY publishing in and through Iowa

This exhibition gathers together zines and other DIY publications with a “tie to Iowa” gathered and selected by Kalmia Strong in collaboration with a group of zine scholars from the University of Iowa Center for the Book through an open call and drawing from PS1’s own zine library. Including poetry, art, comics, manifestos, instructions, and activism, the collection is necessarily incomplete and subjective, but begins to uncover histories, networks, communities, and fascinations manifested through self-driven print publication. 

Visitors are also invited to help us fill in gaps by contributing other publications or histories of DIY publishing in and through Iowa. 

Organizer Bios: 

Kalmia Strong

Trained as a book artist and librarian, Kalmia Strong is dedicated to understanding and supporting self-organized community spaces, extra-institutional knowledge-sharing, and publication practices as cultural resistance. Her creative, teaching, and curatorial work is typically collaborative and has unfolded in diverse spaces: graduate seminars, youth workshops, libraries, DIY venues, book fairs, cornfields, and defunct museums -- in the Midwest as well as in Canada and Moldova. She works as Program Director at Public Space One and is also adjunct faculty at the UI Center for the Book. Most of her current projects outside of PS1 manifest under the banner of lowercase library, which is both a collection and a structure for activity.

UICB Zine Scholars
13 artists, musicians, researchers, and educators currently enrolled in the University of Iowa Center for the Book Topics in Material Analysis course.

Poojana Prasanna, Alex Bezahler, Chayna Truex, Harper Folsom, Abigail Kellis, Allison Stickley, ev Leto, Charlie Pott, Margaret Yapp, A. Darryl Moton, Jessie Kraemer, Alice Eberhart, and Mira Pappin

Welcome to the eclectic "Alternate Realty" by artist Dana Telsrow, nestled at 229 N. Gilbert St. This uniquely curated space invites you to step into a world where the quirks of home buying are examined through Telsrow's distorted portraits of local realtors. Challenge your perspective as familiar faces transform into captivating and enigmatic narratives, providing a playful commentary on the absurdity of using personal images to sell homes. Immerse yourself in the heart of Iowa City, where this unconventional experience not only redefines the traditional housing market but also encourages you to reconsider the role of personal branding in real estate. Mark your calendar for the open house on Jan 21, from noon to 2 pm, and be ready to delve into the intriguing, weird world of "Alternate Realty." Meet the faces of your new future.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

After careers in marketing for higher-education and audio-visual post-production, Dana Telsrow founded Alternate Realty in 2022 as a way of serving residents of the greater Iowa City area. Alternate Realty maintains an unparalleled roster of agents that are eager, willing, and ready to open the doors to your new future. 

opening reception with the artist: Friday Oct. 13, 6-9pm

“Innerconnectivity I” is the inaugural debut of Rayelle’s thesis work, “Innerconnectivity.” It consists of a series of expansive installations featuring large abstract sculptures that explore what the body has been withholding from present consciousness through transcendental creation. The inaugural solo exhibition, “Innerconnectivity I”, utilizes organic materials and viscera to delve into Rayelle’s upbringing up to the present day, celebrating the redemption and aftermath of trauma through an interpersonal lens of connection. 

Each sculpture is autobiographical, shaped organically in congruence with what Rayelle saw within her autonomous body when reliving these moments of the past. The symbolic organs, meticulously handcrafted with textiles, latex, and used bed sheets, represent the energy released within, carrying the weight of forgotten memories and emotions. For example, the repetitive motif of the tumor seen throughout “Innerconnectivity I” serves as a representation of the emotional "stuckholds" leading to a lack of connection in the present - “it feels as though the traumas are tumors - siphoning vitality from both ends.” 

“Innerconnectivity I” not only piques curiosity but also raises questions about our interaction with these visceral elements—what it means to engage with them, confront fear, and ponder the intricacies of psychosocial development, both as an individual and as a community. 

about the artist

Kenzi Rayelle is an interdisciplinary artist, gaining recognition for her fascination with the body and its organic materials as well as her exploration of the absurd. Rayelle, deeply inspired by practical effects and psychosocial development theory, has developed a unique and tongue-in-cheek approach to representing the impact of trauma.

Rayelle possesses a keen sensitivity to the versatile and unrestricted potential of textiles, film, and the written word. She views them as additional gateways from the subconscious mind to the hands. Through transcendental creation, her work serves as a form of personal healing, and her aspiration is for it to be transformative to those who encounter it.

Rayelle continues to work on her lifelong thesis, "Innerconnectivity," which comprises of a series of expansive installations that delve into what the body has kept hidden from present consciousness. In addition Rayelle will be releasing her short film “caake”, an absurdist autobiographical exploration about the creative process in 2024.

Kenzi Rayelle received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of Iowa and currently lives and works in Milwaukee, WI. She also likes frogs.

@riotrayelle

Kenzi Rayelle was awarded the Mary Nohl Suitcase Fund to support this exhibition.

First discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1842, the cyanotype is a blue-and-white photographic  print made without a camera. In a first book of photographs, The Pencil of Nature, fellow  inventor William Henry Fox Talbot called such experimental prints “the new art of photogenic  drawing” in which images made on photosensitive paper “are impressed by Nature’s hand.” A  Show of Hands features printmaker Sally Chai’s latest collection of cyanotypes in various guises,  from traditional Prussian blue impressions to more color-bending mixed-media renderings of  the familiar and the abstract.  

Visitors are invited to participate in A Show of Hands in two ways.

First, buy a print! Half of your  chosen artwork’s purchase price will be donated to Earth Justice, a nonprofit devoted to  environmental law in the public interest.

Second, show your hand! The gallery will feature two  large blank pages to which you can add curiously shaped cut-outs of your own choosing. Then  meet with us at 2pm on the Autumn Equinox, at which time—using the magic of sunlight and  water—the formerly blank pages will be turned into curiously blue cyanotype prints.  

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Sally Chai is a writer, artist, and working member of the Iowa City Press Co-op. Her art practice  uses a mix of drawing and printmaking techniques to create images on the subject of nature  and the universe.

@chaicozy

opening reception: Friday September 8. 4-8pm

The Year of the Seldom Sun is an immersive, multisensory experience that highlights an emotional journey each year as the seasons change, and the Sun travels away from my world and returns again. Everything is affected: The colors and energy; the days, nights, and light; the sights and the sounds; life, death, silence and rebirth. It is a cycle, and the 2020-2021 cycle was particularly dynamic. As we (all) endured wave upon wave of uncertainty, tense civil situations, pandemic, and isolation, I turned to writing music to process. The music came out in the form of a full length, home recorded concept album: The Year of the Seldom Sun. 

I wrote the album to tell the stories that I was watching unfold around me, and embedded a host of extra sounds, clips, and special textures that provide more to dive into for listeners who want to go deeper than surface level. And while the finished product was conceptual, and flowed thematically and intentionally from start to finish, I still wanted more. I wanted this album to capture people's imaginations and engage their senses. So with the help of my colleague and friend Kelly Moore, and a handful of other local contributors, I have created and curated a physical space to extend the experience. To give visual representation to the imagery, and more storyline to the characters in the songs. To more fully immerse listeners into an environment, and to attempt to re-create that time in history the way that I saw it: from my stool looking out at the beautiful, if not inherently isolated, East Amana, Iowa.

about the artist

Not an artist, really. Not formally trained or practiced enough. Just a maker. A re-creator. For most of his life, Will Kemple-Taylor has been doing his best to mimic and capture the things that inspire him through songs, visual art, and more recently, immersive environments. When he followed his partner to Iowa 9 years ago, he left behind the mountains of Northern New Mexico, and much of the natural beauty that once fueled his creativity. But Iowa brought new inspirations. He found a creative calling working at The Iowa Children’s Museum. And that new path, along with the birth of his children and a move to the countryside, sparked something in him. A newfound urge to tell the stories around him. A need to create, and to do so in as many ways as possible.

Instagram | Spotify

Open gallery hours: Sat. Aug. 5 & Sun. Aug. 6, 12-5pm

Reception and performance: Sunday Oct. 6 at 8pm

featuring art by:

Abby Garraty, Anna Kain, Nathan Wegner, C. Francis Wossom, Eli Bolender, Estevan Cornejo, Eva Roethler, Jacob Brashers-Krug, Elsa Gustafson, Kate Doolittle, Isaac Smith, Zayne Crysanthemum, Levi Moos, Jet Trouble, Mack Ellis, Mason Esposito, Matt Magill, Bleakz Blanket Fort, Peter Brozene

Born out of love for dabbling and giggling, the Midwestern Bad Art Show is a gallery show and performance curated by Lorelei D’Andriole and Lex Letourneau. Influenced by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries ART IS A LIVE THAT JUST WON’T DIE., No Wave, Bread & Puppet, and the Museum of Bad Art, Lorelei, Lex, and collaborators will challenge the very existence of “bad art” while celebrating the joy of dabbling in creation. The show will highlight midwestern artists in a way we’ve never seen them, as they’ll be asked to create intentionally bad art in a familiar medium, or create a work in a medium they have no technical facility in.

The works will be housed in the main floor of the PS1 Close House for the duration of the show, closing with performance and reception. This event will be as funny as it is ridiculous, as bad as it is genius, and fun for everyone involved while showcasing local artists and reminding everyone that we are all artists.

“Bad” as low facility: “To be in a band, at least according to the rules of rock in the 1970s, one must know how to play an instrument. But rather than waste time solving that problem, No Wavers ignored it. The point was simply to make music, not to learn how first.” - Lydia Lunch

“Bad” as boring or uninteresting: “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.” - John Cage 

Reclaimed & Recycled is a group exhibition featuring artworks by members of the Iowa Print Group (IPG), a member-based student organization at the University of Iowa. The exhibition highlights the vast range of IPG members' studio practices within printmaking and many differing conceptual and material interpretations of the show title, Reclaimed and Recycled, including artworks made from trash, salvaged materials and conceptual approaches of appropriation and reclamation.

Featured artists: Jake Burr • Emily Edwards • Jessica Chavez • Lya Finston • Mariceliz Pagan Gomez • Annie Klein • Veronica Leto • Lauren Krukowski • Sean Maxwell • Anna Miller • Al-Qawi Tazal Nanavati • Lilah Ward Shepherd • and more!

Iowa Print Group (IPG) is a member-based printmaking organization at the University of Iowa. The group was established in 1945 by Mauricio Lasansky and his students, including Miriam Schapiro. Today, IPG is led by student volunteers and represents undergraduate and graduate students. The group works collectively to provide access to professional resources, opportunities, and community. @uiowaprint

PS1’s exhibition program is generously supported by Artifacts, Velvet Coat, OPN Architects, Revival, Woodcraft, Hare Parlor, Nodo, and Hudson River Gallery. Thank you!

PS1’s exhibition program is generously supported by Artifacts, Velvet Coat, OPN Architects, Revival, Woodcraft, Hare Parlor, Nodo, and Hudson River Gallery. Thank you!

open hours:
Mon. 6/19 11a-1p
Tues. 6/20, 11a-1p & 6-8p
Wed 6/21, 11a-1p
Thurs. 6/22, 11a-1p & 6-8p
Fri 6/23, 11a-1p
Sat. 6/24, 11a-1p & 6-8p (reception)
Mon. 6/26, 11a-3p
Tues 6/27, 6-8p

or by appointment: john@publicspaceone.com

artist website

ARTIST STATEMENT

The exhibition consists of two parts: abstract paintings that were commissioned in 2018 and portraits ofwomen from 2014.

The common point of both paintings is the medium used: watercolors, lines added with pencils, crayons and brushes, and the smallness of the paintings.

It’s a big risk of writing about painting. But I took that risk and wrote a few words about my work to the audience. Hopefully it won’t interfere with the readers’ eyes.

abstracts

Perhaps the tradition of Iranian miniature painting has been effective in choosing these sizes. Big size is a tradition in contemporary abstract works, and I have also a lot of big size abstracts, but in this series, I did it on the contrary in small sizes. To see a small painting you have to get close to it. And this approach to the work is very interesting if the work has a special visual value. By approaching the effect, one can approach some of the most subtle visual elements such as line and texture as well as the mixing of colors. In this way, you can see how the painting is formed, something that we often lose in big size works. The same feature can be seen in portrait paintings. The smallness of the painting allows us to look at the most subtle effects and see details that in the fast-paced contemporary world, we usually don’t have time to contemplate. Colors act like codes to us, and recognizing them isn’t based on the size of the surface they cover. For example, we may only have seen a blue color on a very small surface, such as a butterfly’s wing, and we know that we will never forget it.

Sometimes works are made with a clear and simple sense, but that doesn’t always happen in some works, I have kept a line or form that first inspired me, and then I have refined it to get to the final form. And in some، I’ve kept it so much clearer that it has thus become part of the painting’s identity. So, watercolor media allows us to follow the process of creation. I love living colors and have used black as a color in abstract works to make the colors more vibrant and shiny.

Transparency is another visual feature that I have used in these works. The transparency in the classical painting tradition in the form of the Glaze technique has many values that have been forgotten after the modern era and with the alla prima technique of Impressionist. I think the transparency in the world of colors is a great sphere for working with colors.

portraits

We can look at women’s portraits now. These images are inspired by some visual features that are very valuable to me. In these paintings, I have sometimes followed a rhythm that has finally become a familiar face. Sometimes I can see my mother’s visage after finishing the painting, the face of someone I loved, or the face of someone whose deep look can be seen in his life history that resonates like a piece of continuous music. Of course, these similarities are sometimes very far away, and they go back far away in the depths of my mind. I do not know where and what it is that is not known. a place which I do not know where and what it is that is not known. This brings me back to that theme, again and again. A look, a gentle tilt of the head to one side, a texture that can show hairs or skin softness, a definite line or any other visual effect could have inspired an image.

Some important aspect about the eyes and the look in my works: I have never tried to manipulate, enlarge, or deform human eyes or their looks. I think the eyes are large enough to contain human history, and the eyes are deep enough to tell and express how one can see himself in that mirror. Renoir believes that a “portrait is a look” and I believe him.

Women have been a constant presence throughout my forty years of painting. My painting at the Tehran Biennale in 1994 was a portrait of a woman. The painting was on the list of paintings in the Museum of Contemporary Art, but it was not in the museum itself. It was as if the judges had been in trouble and had to hide it along with a few other portraits of women somewhere else and behind a panel in the farthest possible place.

I dedicate this exhibition to the brave women of Iran who fought for their rights over the past eight months, for the right to be seen and to be present as a human beings, in a full-fledged struggle to eradicate historical discrimination and the historical oppression that has been perpetrated on them, and all of us. To remove historical patriarchal control that has affected all aspects of their lives, a struggle that will undoubtedly lead to the human elevation of the whole society. A struggle whose ultimate victory will make the world a better and more beautiful place. Many of them took part in this fight wholeheartedly. Many of them lost their eyes. And despite all the pressure، they insist on their right to be seen. Women who were never a character or icons, but who surprised the world by insisting on a great will of being themselves. Women who deserve the most respect and appreciation.

Pass the milk please. / Get me the broom and sweep up this mess. / Why don’t you kiss me goodnight anymore? / Feed the dog in the morning. / Will you be my friend again? / Meet your maker. / Can we lay down?

Tit for Tat is an invitation for creative correspondence with makers through letter writing and decoration of phrases/sayings in the form of fragments, equilibriums, humor, conversations, and sparks in the air. There will be three active engagements for exhibition visitors and invited makers. 

Part 1.  May 12:  Opening. Showcasing correspondences received from invited collaborators in the gallery space.

Part 2. May 20, 11:00-2:00: Tea Party. Folks in the community are invited to make their own phrases or sayings, drink tea and eat friendship bread. 

Part 3.  June 10, 4:00 - 7:00: Closing Tea Party. Join us for a farewell to pick up original works. Each person who contributed will receive a zine made with documentation from the exhibition.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS:

Dorian Dean (she/they) was born in Baltimore, Maryland and currently lives and works in Iowa City, Iowa. In 2022 Dorian completed a MFA in Painting and Certificate of Book Arts at the University of Iowa and received their BFA from Tyler School of Art. Collaboration and community engagement through building relationships is an essential part of their art practice. Teaching for over 16 years, Dorian uses art as a tool for social change, with the belief that sharing experience in non hierarchical models empowers people to get curious and question whose “rules” really serve them. As curator for the Times Club at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, curation and collaboration has become a way to put this engagement into action. Dorian has taught and developed curriculums at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of art and the Barnes Foundation. Dorian's writing has been published in the Brink Literary Journal and her work has been shown at the MDW Chicago art fair with Stop Gap Projects, Charles City Art Center, Iowa, Bisignano Gallery at the University of Dubuque, Iowa, University of Central Missouri, James May Gallery, Milwaukee, and has a forthcoming exhibitions at Soil Gallery, The Vestibule and Das Schaufenster galleries in Seattle.  @dorianstelldean

Adam Farcus is an Illinois-based activist, artist, curator, feminist, organizer, poet, quasi-linguist, teacher, and writer. Farcus received their MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, BFA from Illinois State University, and AA from Joliet Junior College. They currently serve on the FATE board, as well as participate in the Climate Psychological Alliance, organize with the Utopian Megaproject, and teach with the Education Justice Project. Their work has been exhibited at numerous venues, including the Modern Museum of Art Fort Worth; Vox Populi, Philadelphia; the American University Museum; and the Advance Art Museum in Changsha, China. Farcus’s academic writing has been published in Art Education and the Journal of Second Language Writing (in collaboration with Allison Yasukawa, forthcoming) and their creative writing has been published in Rattle and Funny Looking Dog Quarterly among others. Farcus is the director of Lease Agreement, an alternative and nomadic curatorial project, and they are an Instructional Assistant Professor of Art at Illinois State University. https://adamfarcus.com/ @toubab_adama

PS1’s exhibition program is generously supported by Artifacts, Velvet Coat, OPN Architects, Revival, Woodcraft, Hare Parlor, Nodo, and Hudson River Gallery. Thank you!

on view at PS1 Close
Mon & Sat: 11a-1p + Tues & Thurs: 6-8p
and by appointment (gallery@publicspaceone.com)

The two halves of the path that makes up the labyrinth were exchanged between Beckett & Buse as the Labyrinth developed into the structure on display. We used this effort as an opportunity to define a walkway and consider how our processes can cycle into one another. We invite you to walk the path and be intertwined within our friendship-fulled spiraling diorama.  

#awpants is a partnership with artists Becky Beckett and Rachel Buse. Their collaboration was formed from exchanging prompts and surfaces back and forth. This work has developed into a visual mapping of their friendship. They met shortly after Becky moved to Des Moines, Iowa from the UK in 2018 and bonded over cardboard, the state fair and a shared interest in animation. Becky will be returning to the UK later this year. The Labyrinth marks our final in person collaboration until further notice.

PS1’s exhibition program is generously supported by Artifacts, Velvet Coat, OPN Architects, Revival, Woodcraft, Hare Parlor, Nodo, and Hudson River Gallery. Thank you!

on display in the Teaching Shed (between 225 & 229 N Gilbert)

public event Saturday April 15, 5-7:30pm
a crochet workshop and smore-roasting party!

“Come Stay a While” is a large, immersive fiber arts environment. We play with light and shadow, vibrant colors, and texture to create an interactive, comfortable, accessible, warm space where joy can be found. As a collective of artists and members of the queer community, we found ourselves seeking spaces in which we can reconnect to and relive the joy of childhood. Anyone can experience healing through a child-like reconnection with joy and play. Crochet and other fiber arts media hold a certain type of "home-ness", a tether to the hearth, with which we can reconnect to childhood. 

 We recognize that both fiber artistry and joy are rebellious concepts. Slow crafts, like crochet, are antithetical to a world that prioritizes and necessitates mass-production; systems of power do not prioritize the creation of comfort. As stated by fiber artist Kendall Jade Ross, "It's just a craft until a man says it's art"--fiber art itself is often relegated to a sub-category because of its historical connection with femininity and womanhood. In the creation of an art piece that prioritizes joy and uses fiber art, we are working to rebel against systemic power. Use the space to sit and gossip, play a game, make something, drink a cup of tea, or whatever makes you happiest.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Quinlan Stafford is a fiber artist, writer, and earring collector. She started crocheting to keep her hands busy during Zoom classes and has never stopped, ever. 

Maura O’Dea (she/her) is an artist and poet from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is currently completing degrees in Spanish and English, and she stays busy in the meantime by crocheting silly things and looking at birds.

Margarita Rasgado López doesn't ever like things a normal amount. With knitting, it was love at first scarf. Trans rights are human rights.

Tamara-Jo Schaapherder (she/her) is truly so obsessed with crochet and is on her way to making it her whole personality. She is currently working behind the prepared foods section at the New Pioneer Coop and looking forward to the many sunny days on their way.

The Pink House Wants Me Dead is an honest reflection on untreated mental illness, family dysfunction, and internalized homophobia, misogyny, and ableism found in the different community structures of my childhood.

Using found objects, personal possessions, and family relics, new spaces are created that speak to the complicated and often abusive nature of growing up queer and neurodivergent within a white, heteronormative, neurotypical community.

The work intertwines violence, shame, guilt, familiarity, and gallows humor to manufacture unsettling visages resembling domestic spaces. These sculptures evoke both disgust and arousal through the juxtaposition of brightly colored fabric and organic matter. The tension between the two parallels the perception of 'the other' within the family home, church, school,and larger rural community.

About the artist:

Megan Roethler attended the University of Northern Iowa, majoring in fine arts and minoring in art history. After four years, she graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and certification in museum studies. Her work heavily focuses on hand-sewn sculptures and the incorporation of recycled, impermanent material. The subtext of Roethler's work is often on the parallel power dynamics of the art world and outside society, the alienation of "craft" from art history, the subsequent isolation of women and queer makers, and violence wrought from the white patriarchy.

Roethler's work has been exhibited in several locations such as, Woman Made Gallery; Chicago, IL, The Dubuque Museum of Art; Dubuque IA, The Charles H. MacNider Art Museum; Mason City IA.

She received the Guillaume Grant in 2019 and was featured in the Fall 2019 issue of Uprising Magazine.
@meg_rat22