Chicago artists Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger have been doing everything together for decades—literally. The longtime partners in art and in life have been working with traditional American craft techniques—silhouette cutting, sewing, crocheting, and bookmaking—but they’re perhaps best known for their performative works: Untitled (Pink Tube), an ongoing nontheatrical performance they started 20 years ago in which they simultaneously crochet at opposite ends of a long tube of pink yarn; Untitled (Origami Cranes), featuring the artists folding paper cranes over the course of three Saturdays, eight hours at a time, on a bed in the window of a Chicago futon store (vaguely bringing to mind John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s nonviolent antiwar protests, Bed-ins for Peace); and Untitled Performance (Sewing), where they literally stitched themselves together from ankle to neck.
Credit: James Prinz
“Miller & Shellabarger: Photography” at (northern) Western Exhibitions, the gallery’s Skokie outpost, is a nod to that work in the form of a collection of photographs—sort of. Interestingly some of the photographs are not mere documentation of the performances but rather very intentional snippets that were initially conceived as such. It provides an intimate look at the artists’ creative togetherness.
Credit: James Prinz
Performing in public spaces can be a lot of things: intimate, vulnerable, exhausting. But walking in a space full of light, color, and powerful emotion, one cannot help but feel the spark between Miller and Shellabarger. There’s undeniable infatuation, chemistry, excitement, deep love but also stillness. Then there’s a voyeuristic element: looking at the photographs feels at times even more intimate than watching the performances play out—whether they’re twirling with sparklers (Spooky Distant Action) or letting the long tube of pink yarn unravel. Importantly, there’s a sense of connectedness so strong that overshadows everything else: proof that in the face of life’s unimaginable challenges, togetherness can and will save the world.
“Miller & Shellabarger: Photography”
Through 5/6: Wed-Sat noon-6 PM, Sun noon-4 PM, (northern) Western Exhibitions, 7933 N. Lincoln, Skokie, westernexhibitions.com
In a new exhibition, longtime collaborators Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger created an immersive multimedia installation that explores intimacy, distance, and the fluctuations between. The above comic captures their reflections on making together and materials in play. Text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Our collaboration developed organically. We were both ceramic…
A pair of artists have been crocheting an umbilical cord-like tube for the past decade.
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