In her first solo museum exhibition, Amanda Williams (American, b. 1974), an artist who trained as an architect, presents new bodies of work that respond to changing urban environments. Williams, who was raised in Chicago’s Auburn-Gresham neighborhood, transforms elements of architecture and design into immersive sculptures that draw attention to the ways context dramatically informs the value of material, and the value of cities. For Williams, architecture and its fragments serve as a microcosm for larger social issues.
For this talk Amanda and exhibition curator Grace Deverney will discuss a new series that is an extension of her Color(ed) Theory project, presented at the first Chicago Architectural Biennial. She highlights how demolition as a force of erasure and unmaking and the afterlife of building materials shape the lives of urban citizens. This artistic gesture holds the potential to raise difficult questions about the social and political fabric of our city.
