A showing of unity through agreement, generally toward an unpopular opinion.
John W. Bateman - SHENEQUA - Saumitra Chandratreya - Joel Ebner - Dan Gamble - Ted Gram-Boarini - Ted Hamel - David Krueger - Lawrence M. - Tim Stone - James Schenck - Lisa Solar - Oly Trindl - Maria Vanik - Frank Vega - Jean Wilson
Opening reception:
Friday March 28, 2025
5:00 - 8:00 pm
Hours with the guest curators:
May 2nd, 2025
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Facility is a place. It's a multi-disciplinary creative space. And it's home to Cave Studio, Faust Special Projects, $oundsuit$hop and Facility Foundation while also serving as a creative hub for other artists, artisans, designers and architects. Additionally, Facility plays host to myriad pop-up special projects such as exhibitions, performances and fresh retail experiences.
Facility is a philosophy. It believes that art and design can create peace, build power, and change the world … that by fostering an environment and community built from your dreams you will wake up daily within your destiny.
Facility is an action agent. It reaches deep into our communities, employing the collective powers of art and design as a means to empowerment and social change. Facility Foundation provides scholarships and opportunities for young, promising and emerging artists, collaborations with fierce, like-minded established artists and partnering with outside, organizations and institutions to galvanize their outreach programming.
Artist and designer Bob Faust (b. 1967, Chicago, IL; lives and works in Chicago, IL) crafts work with typography at its core and viscerality on its surface. Faust has also been the principle and creative director of Faust, a cultural branding studio, for over 30 years. He makes his work with purpose first-to inform, empower, and/or instigate in the service and celebration of human difference. His conceptual art practice defies categorization and genre, with text, patterns, and the ideas of surprise and discovery emerging as through lines. In addition, Faust is the professional and personal partner of artist Nick Cave. Together they founded Facility: a non-profit multi-use creative space in Chicago that seeks to build community and change the world through art and design. Faust has been recognized nationally and internationally for his inimitable creativity. Honors include a University of Illinois, College of Fine & Applied Arts, 2022 Distinguished Legacy Award and City of Chicago, 2022 Mayor's Medal of Honor. Exhibitions include Mass MoCA BY The Numb3r5 (Mass MoCA), For And Nor But Or Yet So (Poetry Foundation), WA/ONDER (167 Green), with all, and still… (The Peninsula Chicago), Rapt on the Mile (The Magnificent Mile Association), Ways and Means (Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and The Chicago Transit Authority), About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art (Wrightwood 659), Great Ideas of Humanity: Out of the Container (Chicago Design Museum), gu lty / nnocent (MASS MoCA); Unfolded: Made with Paper (Chicago Design Museum), Betweens (Riverside Arts Center), and CHGO DSGN (Chicago Cultural Center). He has also received recognition from The New York Times, Fast Company, the Chicago Tribune, Newcity, NBC 5 News, the Chicago Sun-Times, CBS Evening News, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Nick Cave (b. 1959, Fulton, MO; lives and works in Chicago, IL) is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body, initially created in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Soundsuits camouflage the body, masking and creating a second skin that conceals race, gender and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment. They serve as a visual embodiment of social justice that represent both brutality and empowerment.
Throughout his practice, Cave has created spaces of memorial through combining found historical objects with contemporary dialogues on gun violence and death, underscoring the anxiety of severe trauma brought on by catastrophic loss. The figure remains central as Cave casts his own body in bronze, an extension of the performative work so critical to his oeuvre. Cave reminds us, however, that while there may be despair, there remains space for hope and renewal. From dismembered body parts stem delicate metal flowers, affirming the potential of new growth. Cave encourages a profound and compassionate analysis of violence and its effects as the path towards an ultimate metamorphosis. While Cave's works are rooted in our current societal moment, when progress on issues of global warming, racism and gun violence (both at the hands of citizens and law enforcement) seem maddeningly stalled, he asks how we may reposition ourselves to recognize the issues, come together on a global scale, instigate change, and ultimately, heal.
Special Thanks to Artist Frame Service and their generous support of this exhibition.
