Class & Classification: D Rosen & Vanessa Viruet

        D Rosen’s work          metabolizes                 impressions 

        of animal bodies, both              human and non-human. 

                  [ dairy Goats engaged in somatic rituals 

                   intertwined with metallic spurs of touch

                   — bait oil burnished into salt ]

        The fragile repetition of Canine teeth on a ceramic surface.

        The slow decay of Ocelot fur inside of a reflective box.

        The fashioned

                   tethers of                an inheritance of                         violence —

                                                                                                     [ domesticated  

                                                                                                      as   care. ]

Vanessa Viruet’s work in Class & Classification introduces iconic hoop earrings and bandana print into a gallery setting to call attention to the vast space between the art world and various communities of so called outsiders. Exaggerating the scale is a symbolic gesture of intervention, a way of colonizing and claiming space in the world.  

The value of art rests in its ability to communicate across barriers. 

D Rosen is an interdisciplinary artist who currently lives and works on the unceded lands of the Odawa, Ojibwe, Myaamia, Peoria, Kickapoo, Kaskaskia, and Potawatomi nations, commonly known as Chicago, IL. They exhibit nationally and internationally with upcoming shows at Exgirlfriend (Berlin) and UNCC (North Carolina).  Rosen operates from the position that questions of animality are not binary but rather a tangle of ecologies and richly complicated identities, framed by culture.

Vanessa Viruet is a Chicago based fiber artist of Puerto Rican descent. She creates monumental scale artworks to examine the complex histories rooted in textiles such as identity, cultural heritage, gender and class. Viruet holds a BFA and a MA in Teaching from the Maryland Institute College of Art as well as an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She currently serves as an art instructor for Chicago Public Schools and teaches in the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Someday she hopes to have her own scholarship for artists of color.

Design by Jonathan Sangster 

Please note: Masks are mandatory inside the gallery.