THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion, the multifaceted contemporary art program located within Fashion Outlets of Chicago with support from the Village of Rosemont, today announced the unveiling of the program’s latest site-specific installation, Spectra, by celebrated Chicago-based collaborative Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero, known collectively as Luftwerk. The permanent commission debuts alongside THE COLLECTION’s new rotating exhibition, Healing Machines, featuring three newly installed works by Chicago artist William J. O’Brien.
“These visually exciting works encapsulate the dynamic, ever-evolving nature of fashion and style, and make the perfect additions to THE COLLECTION,” said Katie Walsh, Senior Marketing Manager at Fashion Outlets of Chicago. “Further illustrating our commitment to showcasing world-class public art throughout the center, we’re thrilled to present Luftwerk’s new permanent commission, alongside William J. O’Brien’s rotating exhibition series, to Fashion Outlets of Chicago shoppers.”
Spectra by Luftwerk
Luftwerk’s interest in the basic relationship between color and light, and how light and darkness determine how our eyes perceive color, serve as the driving forces behind the creation of Spectra, THE COLLECTION’s newest permanent commission. Now on view on Level One of the shopping center near Saks Off Fifth, Spectra serves as an oculus for endless possibilities of color perception. Mounted directly on the wall, this large-scale reimagined color wheel mixes primary colors into a canvas for light.
Image courtesy of James Prinz Photography
“We use light as the medium to shift your perception, to change the surface, whether it's a material, an organic or an architectural surface. We use light to shift colors and dimensionality, to create immersion, to create experience,” said Bachmaier. “Spaces become canvases for light. And color now is the canvas for light. They're partners and collaborate with each other. You have one additive; you have one subtractive. We are interested in fusing the physical and ephemeral qualities of color.”
Luftwerk’s work explores the ineffable, subjective experience of the natural world, transforming raw matter and scientific data into abstracted, atmospheric installations that offer a space to encounter the immaterial poetics of nature. While realizing projects in a variety of mediums, the throughline in Bachmaier and Gallero’s artistic practice has been the use of color, light and space, not simply as abstract concepts or optical effects, but as physical material, rooted in the natural world and shaped by the complicated, human-made histories of science.
Luftwerk is represented by Volume Gallery, Chicago.
Healing Machines by William J. O’Brien
Created exclusively for Fashion Outlets of Chicago, artist William J. O’Brien’s Healing Machines encompasses works in THE COLLECTION’s rotating exhibition and features a wide range of collaged and hand-drawn elemental sculptures that come together to form moveable chandeliers and lamps. Titled Zoetrope, Amethyst & Plum Galaxy and Trinkets, Knickknacks & Whatnots, the installations will fill THE COLLECTION’s three rotating cases located throughout Level Two of the shopping center. The intention of these pieces is to create temporary and moveable imagery for the mall audience that explores color, pattern, light, shadows and luminance.
A Chicago-based artist, O’Brien works in multiple media including drawing, painting, ceramic, metal sculpture, installation and assemblage. Inspired by modernism and the history of material usage of Outsider art, O’Brien’s multidisciplinary practice is a search for identity and genuine expression through material and process.
Healing Machines will be on view at Fashion Outlets of Chicago through June 1, 2024.
For more information on THE COLLECTION and Fashion Outlets of Chicago please visit www.fashionoutletsofchicago.com/thecollection.
About Luftwerk
Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero are Chicago-based artists. After meeting in 1999 while studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, they formed Luftwerk Studio in 2007. Their chosen name—a combination of the German words Luft (air) and Werk (work, artwork—is meant to emphasize both the ephemeral, immaterial properties of light and the material frameworks in which it takes shape and is experienced. The concept of Luftwerk has proven a conceptual touchstone for over twenty years of artistic collaboration.
Recent solo exhibitions of Bachmaier and Gallero’s work have been organized by the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL (2022); Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, Alfred, NY (2022); Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, TN (2022); Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA (2021); Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich (2020); Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL (2019); Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Glen Ellyn, IL (2017); Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2016); and Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, IL (2015). They have also realized installation projects for significant architectural sites including the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, IL (2020); Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona (2019); Farnsworth House, Plano, IL (2014); Ford Residence, Aurora, IL (2014); Millennium Park, Chicago, IL (2012); Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA (2011); Robie House, Chicago, IL (2010); and Netsch Residence, Chicago, IL (2019). The artists have realized numerous large-scale permanent public and private commissions in Atlanta, Calgary, Charlotte, Chicago, Harare, and Kansas City. Bachmaier and Gallero have been selected for residency programs at the Sustainability Lab at Bellevue University, Institute of Electronic Art at Alfred University, Loghaven, Montello Foundation, and Experimental Sound Studio, among others. They are the recipients of numerous awards, including those from the AIA Chicago, Graham Foundation, and Illinois Arts Council.
About William J. O’Brien
Chicago-based artist William J. O’Brien works in multiple media: drawing, painting, ceramic, metal sculpture, installation, and assemblage. Inspired by Modernism, as well as the history of material usage of Outsider Art, O’Brien’s multidisciplinary practice is a search for identity and genuine expression through material and process. His prolific output in these various media offers a visual profusion of color, pattern, and exuberant excess. O’Brien has held solo exhibitions at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art; Renaissance Society, Chicago; KMAC Museum, Louisville; MAD Museum, NYC; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, among others. In 2014 he had his first major museum survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago curated by Naomi Beckwith. He has held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the U-Cross Foundation.
O’Brien has received awards from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and Artadia. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Cleveland Clinic, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Miami Art Museum, Pérez Art Museum, Hammer Museum, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago. O’Brien is also Professor of Ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
About THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion
THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion is a multifaceted contemporary art program located within Macerich’s Fashion Outlets of Chicago, with support from the Village of Rosemont. Components of THE COLLECTION include 23 permanent commissions and a rotating exhibition series located throughout the common area of the shopping center. The public art program has invested in works by Daniel Arsham, Derrick Adams, Carlos Rolón Dzine, Jen Stark, Matthew Hoffman, and many more. THE COLLECTION’s rotating exhibitions feature work by a variety of artists displayed in glass cases located throughout Level Two of the shopping center. For more information, visit www.fashionoutletsofchicago.com/TheCollection.
About Fashion Outlets of Chicago
Fashion Outlets of Chicago is an award-winning 530,000 square-foot, two-level indoor shopping center that is home to more than 130 designer outlets, an impressive contemporary art collection known as THE COLLECTION and high-end amenities. The one-of-a-kind upscale outlet property that redefines and elevates the outlet shopping experience, is located at 5220 Fashion Outlets Way in Rosemont –minutes from O’Hare International Airport and Chicagoland’s major highways. For more information, visit www.fashionoutletsofchicago.com.