Crystal-encrusted faces, figures, and fantastical objects glinted with a sense of delight, intrigue, and above all magic at vanessa german’s Gray Center fellowship exhibition. Upon entry to her exhibition in Logan Center, a striking rose quartz face stared unwaveringly at viewers; “Love Song; or The Quelling of that Great Grief of Immortality” was penetrating and monolithic. Just beyond, “THE HEALER—” commanded attention at the center of the space, a smaller-than-life blazing gold human figure perched atop a second ultramarine-blue body. Arms spread as though about to take flight, this gilded frame appeared both open and daring, symbolic of german’s vision for her art.
These pieces evolved from a highly collaborative seminar course that german taught in the University of Chicago’s Department of Visual Arts during the winter quarter of 2024. German’s practice focuses on creativity as a tool to reckon with deeply structural societal issues. She evokes social healing through mixed media installations of human figures inspired by Congolese nkisi sculptures and folk art, but also through passionate activism. Still seeking to offer remedy, she started a local arts initiative on her front porch in Pittsburgh and opened a community art studio.
At UChicago, she aimed to connect with students through a deliberate “open-heartedness,” aspiring to “accept them fully in the equanimity of our being-ness.” A guided meditation opened every studio session to encourage introspection throughout the creative process. Intention was the key word, as explained by co-professor Zachary Cahill in the exhibition handout. Students created their own pieces whilst german gathered material both physically and ideologically for her exhibition.
Some student works from the seminar were visible in a side room. “THE SOUL IS A LIBRARY I” displayed items that the students deemed to feel magic, ranging from a delicate bouquet of flowers to roll-on antiperspirant deodorant. “THE SOUL IS A LIBRARY II” (gold objects on black table) presented a careful grid of aureate “clay devices” that had been infused with positive energy by student-produced song and magic. “THE FILM” played from a portal-like horizontal screen, narrating the prayer-making endeavors of the students. Framed on the wall was the paper they were shown marking in the video, except incomplete, as per fragments of it being molded into prayer beads.
Back in the main room, further exploration revealed the counterpart to the mystical installations: a written description of each piece, which abandons rigid precedent by reading like an elusive “spell.” Some are difficult to decipher, words twisted in a spiritual web. An excerpt from the accompaniment to “Heart-Opener (pyramid)” reads, “a sliver of light caught between the teeth, a heated speculation of the Soul.”
Another more explicitly aligns with its visual. It is titled “Altar of Grief and Transformation from the place where I was scammed by humans $700 one night in chicago when I had a mean toothache and the pain had blinded my common senses.” A lapis lazuli human head lies toppled, uncomfortably compressed under a solid piece of quartz that is representative of the “BLUE.pain.”
It was difficult not to be transfixed by the details: the fluent collation of words in the spells and the individual beads, tokens, and gems that make up a whole form. But from the intricate treasures, an overarching message emerges: the potential of community. As you exit, you pass the report that “at the end of reality there is a bridge…take this bridge to get to the next _______, all of your friends are there.”
