TASK+

Selected work by Oliver Herring

February 16 - March 28, 2010

University Galleries of Illinois State University will host a TASK Party with artist Oliver Herring on Saturday, February 6, 2010, at 1:00 p.m. We would like to invite the community to take part in this unique opportunity, which is free and open to anyone age fifteen and up.

TASK is an improvisational collaboration between Herring and a group of participants—generally strangers—that provides a complex, messy, open-ended outlet for creativity. Participants both write and randomly select tasks. Then, using simple, accessible materials like tape, cardboard, aluminum foil, markers, and string, each person interprets chosen tasks. As a participant completes a task, he or she writes a new one for the bucket and draws a different one to interpret. Previous tasks have included directives such as: "Start a revolution;" "Recreate the Iwo Jima picture;" "Defy gender roles;" and "Cut out 40 headlines from newspapers and do something with them." In Herring's words, "the continuous, simultaneous conception and interpretation of tasks fill the 'stage' with seemingly chaotic, yet purpose-driven activity: a complex, ever-shifting, socio-sculptural arrangement of bodies and objects."

Following the TASK Party at University Galleries, involving participation by diverse community organizations and individuals, we will install TASK+, an exhibition of Herring's photographs, videos, and photo-sculptures. The artist's work will be displayed amidst artifacts and detritus created during the party. The participants' contributions will be absolutely integral to contextualizing Herring's other works, which themselves derive from community-based collaborations.

TASK is a co-curated by Barry Blinderman and Kendra Paitz. 

The TASK Party is co-sponsored by Target, The Town of Normal Harmon Arts Grant, the Alice and Fannie Fell Trust, the Illinois State University Parents Association Board, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Publication

Oliver Herring: TASK