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Leah Oates
Dannielle Tegeder’s work was on view in Chicago at the gallery formerly known as Body Builder and Sportsman Gallery (now Tony Wight) in an exhibition entitled The Chicago Index of the Invisible: Incidents and Interconnections, in June 2007.
Courtesy of the artist.Dannielle Tegeder’s installation of drawings, video, and found object sculpture titled The Chicago Index of the Invisible: Incidents and Interconnections
explores unexplained disappearances and crimes. Everyday in the United
States 2,000 people are reported missing and according to the Federal
Bureau of Investigations there were over 50,930 missing adult cases as
of January 31, 2007. Drawing on this information and a variety of
sources, this installation proposes alternative modes of documentation
to address loss and unresolved cases, creating a new visual system of
the hidden.Tegeder is mainly known as a painter, and while this installation has painterly touches in the drawings, The Chicago Index of the Invisible hints at a very promising direction for the artist, one that is looser and more biographical. Tegeder’s paintings have been more sculptural recently, and this exhibition, while still an extension of that, employs a more ominous focus.
One enters a gallery that is darkly lit, much like a memorial service, and views a wall of graphs, found photographs, and wall drawings that indicate the various crimes referred to in the show, mainly in the Chicago area. Moving into a second darkened room, one climbs a ladder (which is one of the nicest touches in the show, and refers to a Yoko Ono installation) to view a video of crashed cars and the empty beds of those missing. While the video is emotionally moving, the music is stridently melancholy and directs the viewer’s personal interpretation. The ladder leading up to the video is such a simple and magical touch that as one climbs and peeps through a cut in the ceiling he or she anticipates something equally transformative. The action of climbing the ladder brings the viewer into a secret space for shared loss and the music suspends these associations.
The Chicago Index of the Invisible is a physically beautiful and inventive exhibition and should it be shown again, the music must be a subtler statement about loss and the unexplained. This however is only detail in an exhibition that is a breakthrough for Tegeder in how she creates, envisions, and shows her work, and it points to a mature and more personal body of work.
