Multi Maintenance: curated by CONNECT Curator-in-residence I-Chien Chen

Multi Maintenance considers the working culture within contemporary art and the forces shaping it. Featured artists Andi Crist, Willem De Haan, Li-Ming Hu, Liang-Yu Huang, Joseph Josué Mora, and Kye Benjamin Stone reflectively examine artistic labor and the development of artist careers.

To sustain an art practice, artists are often compelled to self-organize with exceptional flexibility. They frequently engage in multiple employments and work long hours without proper rates and insurance. Meanwhile, artists are perpetually ready to seize open calls and residency opportunities, shifting from one short-term project to another, advancing their careers through mobility and adaptability.

Willem De Haan and Li-Ming Hu respond to the theme of artists as global freelancers and art career building. Liang-Yu Huang suggests a working virtue aimed at achieving success as an artist. Andi Crist, Joseph Josué Mora, and Kye Benjamin Stone investigate the art field’s hierarchical structures and invisible labor through their behind-the-scenes perspectives working in art institutions. The artists in Multi Maintenance address how their various roles as art workers intertwine with their art practice and identities, complicating the notion of artistic labor and reflecting the precarious conditions art workers face in the contemporary art economy.

Multi Maintenance is curated by I-Chien Chen, 2024 CONNECT Curator-in-residence.

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Andi Crist  is a conceptual artist based in Chicago. Her sculptural practice employs a variety of media, including woodworking, ceramics, and casting, which is complemented by a career as a professional art handler and fabricator. By pairing humor and skepticism with craft-based techniques, Crist critically examines the value systems at play in the arts economy. With keen self-awareness and an often-sardonic approach to the gallery as a white cube, Crist’s work incites critical examinations of contemporary studio practices and the theatre of the exhibition space.

Willem De Haan (1996, NL) challenges and undermines the socially conditioned and politically determined rules of everyday locations. By adding artificial elements in a convincing yet uncanny manner his works exert direct influence on daily situations. These suggestive sculptural interventions reference the influence of props on fictional scenarios in film and theatre. The ambition is to produce iconic visual scenarios with special attention to local impact, completed in timeless designs formed by just a few years of professional experience.

Li-Ming Hu is an interdisciplinary artist and recovering actor from Aotearoa/New Zealand, currently residing in NYC. Hu is deeply engaged with the concept of performance, particularly in light of how contemporary society demands that we perform both our private and professional lives, where commodified labor must be paired with displays of passion and enthusiasm. She explores this imperative to perform and its link to a form of capitalism that extracts surplus value through affect and subjectivity, where economic and cultural success often seems contingent upon one’s ability to dramatically perform oneself.

Liang-Yu Huang (1998, Taichung, Taiwan) is an emerging artist whose practice involves carving, molding, and woodworking. His work explores the theme of the extraordinary within ordinary life, drawing from his sharp observations and personal experiences. Through his intricate and skilled craftsmanship, Huang offers unique perspectives on everyday moments. He holds a BFA from Taipei National University of the Arts and is currently pursuing his MFA in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute

Joseph Josué Mora is a Mexican born and Chicago raised artist whose work frequently highlights immigration issues, unseen labor and social disenfranchisement. Mora co-organizes Undocumented Projects since 2017. In addition to his studio practice, Mora has worked as an art preparator and is currently the Assistant Director of Exhibitions and Staff Advisor for SITE Galleries and INCUBATOR at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he holds a BFA.

Kye Benjamin Stone, from Portland, Oregon, is a 3rd generation painter. He holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of Washington and an MFA in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Stone integrates his painting skills into cinematography, believing all imagery—painted, photographed, drawn, or filmed—is an image of light. He aims to convey the spirit within the image and tell a story, striving to master all mediums that capture and recreate images of light.

I-Chien Chen is a Taipei-born artist and curator currently based in Chicago. She employs sites and institutional frameworks as conditions of art-making. She constructs situations and creates work in performance, sound, installation, and film. Chen holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).