Hannah Levy, Surplus Tension, 2021
Photo Michael Tropea
Model Jenna Lyle
Hannah Levy
Surplus Tension
September 30, 2021–January 29, 2022
The Arts Club of Chicago
With work that has caused reviewers to “shudder,” Hannah Levy comes to Chicago to discuss her current exhibition Surplus Tension with Executive Director and Chief Curator Janine Mileaf. Exquisite and intricately crafted, yet edgy and transgressive, Levy’s sculpture exists between design and desire. In person attendees of the conversation will receive gratis copies of the newly available exhibition catalogue. If you are unable to attend in person there is a remote viewing option. We hope to see you there!
About the artist
Sculptor Hannah Levy breaks apart and reconfigures often overlooked items to create subtly anthropomorphic combines that suggest the familiar detritus of the industrialized world. She uses the term “design purgatory” to describe the banal objects she repurposes, which include such trade materials as medical devices, pool handrails, and napkin dispensers. Most often rendered in polished steel and vinyl, the works seek to balance the elements of abstract sculpture and associative assemblage. In their combination of soft materials and hard metal, her untitled sculptures speak in the subtle language of medical and commercial design, finding metaphor for the human body in the machinery that mediates it.
