1431 W. Hubbard St., Ste. 201, Chicago, IL 60642
By advance appointment only. Please email contact@chicagoartistscoalition.org
04.04
Temporarily Removed
Thursday, February 21 / 5-8pm
SaraNoa Mark
The collection of sands that have been selected chronicles what remains of the world from the long erosions that have taken place, and that sandy residue is both the ultimate substance of the world and the negation of its luxuriant and multiform appearance.
- Italo Calvino, Collection of Sand
Chicago Artists Coalition is pleased to present Temporarily Removed, a solo exhibition by BOLT Resident, SaraNoa Mark.
Art in its earliest incarnation was painted on and carved into rock, establishing the coexistence of image, meaning and place. The exhibition Temporarily Removed asks what becomes of materials that are extracted from their places of origin.
Landscapes touched by wind and water are worn away over time, carved first with creases and cracks, and ultimately ground into sand, making visible the repeated actions of the elements over expanses of time. Low relief sculptures in the exhibition count time by recreating drawings made on the earth by natural processes in clay.
When a landscape completes this geological journey, stationary stones are transformed into a more restless substance. The color, size, and shape of sand particles are specific to their geographic origins, yet sand is migratory. It rushes down riverbeds and blows in a dusty cloud from the Sahara to the Gulf of Mexico. We travel untold distances to connect with this legacy of stone and water. And at times we reverse this journey, bringing the portable components of these landscapes back as collectors, researchers, miners, and thieves.
Seeking to understand the impulse to collect land, Mark displays an assemblage of sand gathered from around the world, through travel, personal relationships, and Internet commerce. Sand samples are invariably identified by their place of origin, but their ability to be gathered belies a static understanding of object, place, and borders. Mark’s collection presented in ceramic sandboxes is arranged as a borderless geography. Drawing extensively from museum displays —the primary public repositories of relocated objects—repurposed museum materials are used to create much of the work in the exhibition. Museum armatures exhibited alongside the sand collection and low relief sculptures crafted from a recently disassembled museum wall meditate on the absence of displaced objects from their places of origin.
Programming:
Communal Beach Drawing and Cleaning at the 57th Street Beach
Sunday, March 31, 2019, 11 am – 2 pm
Participants will gather trash and then, together, shape grains of sand into mountains and vast cities, thus creating and destroying forms of monuments within moments.
This event is in partnership with the Alliance for Great Lakes ADOPT-A-BEACH
About Artists
SaraNoa Mark (b. NY, NY) pursues a drawing practice that investigates traces left by time, as they exist in landscapes and in collective memory. SaraNoa's work has been supported by a Fulbright research fellowship in Turkey. SaraNoa has received grants from Artadia, the U.S. Embassy Mission Grants Program in Turkey, Harpo Foundation, Luminarts Cultural Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Art, John Anson Kittredge Fund, Illinois Arts Council, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Individual Artists Program (DCASE), West Collection, Chicago Artists Coalition, and a Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Travel Scholarship. SaraNoa has been an artist in residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Chicago Artists Coalition, Montello Foundation, Wave Hill, Jackman Goldwasser Residency at the Hyde Park Art Center, and the Bronx River Art Center. In 2025 SaraNoa will be an artist in residence at Yaddo, the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and Dieu Donné. SaraNoa co-directed the 4th Ward Project Space in Chicago from 2017-2023. Recent exhibitions of their work have taken place at the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL; Daniel Faira Gallery, Toronto, CA; The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, ME; CA; Davis & Langdale, NY; Dreamsong Gallery, Minneapolis, MN; 5533, Istanbul, among others. SaraNoa was named a Newcity magazine Breakout Artist in 2021. Mark’s work has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, ARTNEWS, ArtAsiaPacific, BOMB Magazine and more.
Headshot: Annie Flanagan
Image: Yazilikaya, Concrete cast from hand carved clay panels with sheet metal, 17' x 14.5' x 3", 2022 (Currently on view to the public)
(updated 2025)
