The Elizabeth Stone Harper Gallery, located in the Harper Center for the Arts, is honored to present IN HOUSE, a group exhibition curated by Michelle Grabner, guest artist, writer, and educator. IN HOUSE features works by artists Mary Ancel of New York City, Molly Barnes of Chicago, Michelle Grabner of Milwaukee, Alex Peyton-Levine of Chicago, Ann Stoddard of Spartanburg, and Kelly S. Williams of Nashville.

IN HOUSE is inspired by the groundbreaking 1972 art installation and provisional performance space, Womanhouse. Organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro and featuring their art as well as the art of their students, Womanhouse was a creation of the 1971 Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). The title IN HOUSE is also a playful reference to any production that happens “on site“ as well as to
the relationship between art and the home, the domestic sphere.

Part exhibition and part “art laboratory,” IN HOUSE is a multi-tiered installation and project: an exhibition focusing on the work of six artists, an artist residency and open studio, and a live video stream. One artist, Alex Peyton-Levine, will use the gallery as a short-term residency and studio within the exhibition; work by the other five artists will be on view while Peyton-Levine engages a section of the gallery as a site for art making. There will
also be a video stream on display at Harper Gallery featuring Michelle Grabner’s work station/studio in Milwaukee during her parallel artist-in-residence at the Kohler Factory “Artist and Industry Program” in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

Gathered together under a canopy of shared intent, Michelle Grabner’s IN HOUSE presents a holistic approach to the creative practice along with advancing the notion of domesticity as an art production model. Much as in Womanhouse, a primary facet of the exhibition is the creative process itself, nurtured and displayed within a dedicated environment. Adding to the idea of the art laboratory and the concept of resourcing from a home base, Mary Ancel, Molly Barnes, Alex Peyton-Levine, and Kelly S. Williams are all former graduate students of Grabner’s from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rounding out the formal aspects of the exhibition are the paintings of Ann Stoddard and Michelle Grabner.

A panel discussion with Michelle Grabner, Alex Peyton-Levine and Ann Stoddard will be held on Thursday, November 9, starting at 4 PM with a reception immediately following.

Michelle Grabner holds an MA in Art History and a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University. She joined the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996, and became Chair of its prestigious Painting and Drawing department in the fall of 2009. She is also a senior critic at Yale University in the Department of Painting and Printmaking. Her writing has been published in Artforum, Modern Painters, Frieze, Art Press, and Art-Agenda, among others. Grabner also runs The Suburban and The Poor
Farm with her husband, artist Brad Killam. She co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art along with Anthony Elms and Stuart Comer.

IN HOUSE is supported in part by The Russell Program for Media, Technology and Society.

The Harper Center Gallery is host to four exhibitions annually—two exhibitions of work from nationally/internationally recognized artists, the Senior Art Major Exhibition, and the Annual Student Exhibition. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 12:00–5:00 pm; admission to the gallery is free.