University Galleries of Illinois State University is pleased to present Witnesses: James Welling / Chris Welsby from March 1-31. The exhibition and events are free and open to the public. An artist lecture by Chris Welsby will take place on Tuesday, March 26, at noon.
Witnesses comprises recent work by two artists, the photographer James Welling and the filmmaker Chris Welsby. Throughout the exhibition, images of the natural world and of human constructions abandoned within it have been processed or manipulated in ways that disturb a viewer’s simple delight in what is being represented. Botanical studies, landscapes, and views of weed-eaten structures are corrupted in these artworks by slight but consuming indications of each artist’s method. Borrowing its title from a quote by the 18th-century German playwright Friedrich Schiller, the exhibition deals with the modern problem of a lost oneness with nature, and with the difficulties inherent in trying to regain it.
Schiller wrote in 1795 that artists and “poets are everywhere the guardians of nature.” But where, as in modern life, they “can no longer completely be this, and where they have already experienced within themselves the destructive influence of arbitrary and artificial forms, they will appear as nature’s witnesses.” This exhibition’s 15 works demonstrate how, given our troubled contemporary relationship with nature, abstracting it can be a perverse but necessary means of witnessing nature most ethically.
Welling and Welsby began their respective careers in the early 1970s, the one in California, the other in London. Welling was trained at the California Institute of the Arts at a time when many young artists were beginning to metabolize the lessons of conceptual art from the previous decade and to integrate them with other, less wholly cerebral approaches to artmaking. Welsby, a member of the influential London Film-Makers’ Cooperative in the 1970s, developed as a young artist in the milieu of Structural/Materialist Film, an avant-garde movement that emphasized the reliance of any moving image’s meaning upon the physical stuff with which it was made and presented.
For each artist, a sensitivity for the productive tension between a pure artistic idea and the necessity of transmitting and transmuting it through some medium has been, for decades, predominant in his work. Witnesses shows that the different ways Welling and Welsby emphasize the processes of depiction in their work can be considered at once to effect and to countervail a lost authenticity in humans’ relationship with the natural world.
Witnesses: James Welling / Chris Welsby is organized by University Galleries Curator Troy Sherman. This exhibition and programming are supported by University Galleries’ grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Events and programming
All events are free and open to the public.
- Friday, March 22, at 6 p.m.
Independent drawing hour - Tuesday, March 26, at noon
Artist lecture by Chris Welsby - Thursday, March 28, at 1 p.m,
Poetry reading and all-ages artmaking workshop
Presented in collaboration with Normal Public Library. Registration is required.
Field trip program, curator-led tours, and workshops available by appointment throughout the exhibition. Reimbursements are available for K-12 schools or community organizations to offset the costs of transportation. Please contact University Galleries at gallery@IllinoisState.edu or (309) 438-5487 to schedule an appointment.
For a full calendar of upcoming events and programming visit University Galleries website.
University Galleries, a unit in the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, is located at 11 Uptown Circle, Suite 103, at the corner of Beaufort and Broadway streets. Parking is available in the Uptown Station parking deck located directly above University Galleries—the first hour is free, as well as any time
after 5:01 p.m.
You can find University Galleries on Facebook, Instagram, and X, and sign up to receive email updates through the newsletter. Please contact gallery@IllinoisState.edu or call (309) 438-5487 if you need to arrange an accommodation to participate in any events related to these exhibitions.
