By Judy Carmack Bross
Persian Carpet by Laleh Motlagh
“There’s an embedded memory in a building, particularly one as magnificent as the Samuel Nickerson Gilded Age mansion which is now the Driehaus Museum that needs to be teased out. So many incarnations, so many stories, some never able to be accessed.” — Giovanni Aloi, curator of the current Driehaus Museum exhibition A Tale of Today: Materialities through April 17.
A Tale of Today: Materialities Exhibition Curator Giovanni Aloi.
When Giovanni Aloi, a curator, author and educator at the School of the Art Institute, first visited the Driehaus Museum ten years ago he was mesmerized by the beauty of the building and the materials used. When asked by Driehaus Executive Director Lisa Key in 2023 to curate an exhibition he was more than intrigued to go beneath the surface to do something new within the space which reflects the opulence of not only its permanent collections but also by the lustrous walls, woodwork, lighting fixtures and arts and crafts wallpapers.
The Nickerson Mansion, now the Driehaus Museum, circa 1883. From the Driehaus collection.
“I wanted to stage something different, not to just look at the Museum as walls with spaces to fill. This Gilded Age mansion which once the home of the Nickerson and then Fisher families before it became the offices of the American College of Surgeons is anything but a traditional box with white walls, it has a rich history and an impressive wealth of architectural styles. It is in relationship with nature, with past histories of those who went before, and I wanted to investigate more deeply the materials that compromise the very fabric of the building.”
First piece at the exhibition’s entrance by Beth Lipman.
“We saw an 1883 photo of a small table placed just here with a few objects on it, so Beth Lipman’s work brings that back to life with a contemporary twist” Aloi said. “These glass pieces reflect a genus of plants that became extinct 300 million of years ago, during the Carboniferous Period. Three of our artists reflect on the importance of coal to the city during the Gilded Age.”
In collaboration with the museum, Aloi held an open call to artists from around the Chicago area, knowing that they would have familiarity with the city. Each of the finalists would choose a material and then research its history to produce a work that uncovers a hidden cultural, historical, or material link.
“Some 50 local artists applied. It finally came down to the artists in our exhibition who came to the museum to select the room in which they would work. There had to be some negotiating, but we worked it out. When I briefed the artists, I instructed them to take me to a far-away place in nature and then return to the house with an enriched understanding of the material that they followed” Aloi said.
The late Richard Hunt began this statue of the Chicago dancer Stephanie Dabney which was completed by his contemporaries.
The results range from the Carboniferous Period over 350 million years ago when rich deposits of coal appeared in this area to copper used in wires in the Nickerson House, one of the first Chicago sites to have electricity, to a statue of a phoenixlike bird echoing the body of Chicago dancer Stephanie Dabney, the first African American prima ballerina to dance The Firebird, begun by the late sculptor Richard Hunt which is in dialogue with a large Chinese vase, purchased by the Nickersons during the World’s Fair of 1893.
Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero’s Konstellation seems to connect the the mansion to the sky above. The copper and wood sculpture represents these materials used in the house when it was among the very first homes in Chicago to have electricity.
Among Aloi’s many assignments were to make sure there was a flow to the stories the artists told. A piece of ancient walnut lies on a table in the dining room where the walls are wrapped in intricate ornate walnut panels and beautiful carved wainscotting. The goal of an integrated search to uncover hidden cultural, historical, and ecological networks that bind the very fabric of the house to distant shores, peoples, skill sets, traditions, ideologies, and economic forces is accomplished in Jonas Becker’s installation
“The Gilded age and the Great Chicago Fire is crucial to the story,” Aloi said. “The Nickerson Mansion, which emerged from this catastrophe, reflects the ethos of the Aesthetic Movement is a sophisticated synthesis of many designs. On the second floor you will see a cross pollination in culture with the use of African motifs.”
Laleh Motlagh’s magic carpet.
One of the most beautiful parts of the exhibition features an organic Persian rug by Laleh Motlagh, typical of houses of the period, but this one is made of crushed leaves, gathered by the artist in the autumn from outside the Driehaus, then mixed with some from her childhood garden in Iran. Appearing to be ready to float away, the artist has said that it is to remind people of who they are and the objects and designs that make them feel grounded, at home.
The Jamaican artist Ebony Patterson used faux flowers with the glass hands to illustrate the psychological tension in Mrs. Nickerson’s reception room.
Stories are told in the details as well. On the third floor a doorknob, made of clay from the Chicago River, stands out, symbolizing how the servants’ quarters are separated from the front of the house. On the first floor, glass hands hold flowers as a symbol of hostess gifts of the day in a room Mrs. Nickerson’s visitors would wait in to see whether or not she would receive them.
In the Gilded Age, taxidermy was a way to support the beginnings of the conservation movement, much influenced by Theodore Roosevelt. Photo from Driehaus Museum collection.
The artist Olivia Block shows ghostly videos of animals on the walls.
“We didn’t want those attending the exhibition to enter as visitors to a gilded palace, that’s been done before. We want them to see that every material in this exceptional building has a cultural value, even through the lens of the Gilded Age. We want them to think of the history, plants, animals, and laborers that in a way or another have shaped this house,” Aloi said.
Photos courtesy of the Driehaus Museum.
For further information on Materialities and on the Driehaus Museum visit: driehausmuseum.org
