Crew Profile: Ty Wubbenhorst
Year you began at The Block: 2017
Can you tell us a bit about your background? What should we know about you?
I received a BFA in Art + Art History from Columbia College Chicago where I exhibited work in Chicago, studied post-structuralist theory, and worked as a preparator. Upon graduating in 2017 I began to work at Northwestern’s Block Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where I continue to work today. I am most often working with time-based media components of the exhibitions. To see and read more about my work, feel free to visit my website.
Memorable experience preparing an exhibition at the Block?
The most memorable experience I have had while working on an exhibition at the Block was installing the Paint the Eyes Softer exhibition. To be working so closely with Roman-Egyptian funerary portrait panels that I had just finished studying gave me a valuable insight into the materiality of these histories.
How does work as a museum preparator inform or influence your artistic practice? Or not?
Being an artist influenced me to become a museum preparator because it affords me a unique opportunity to be working with inspiring and creative people. It also allows me to constantly acquire new skill sets through the variety of work we do. Also, the time in-between turnovers allows me to have consistent time off, which is valuable to my artistic practice.
Where have you been finding inspiration at this time?
At this time I have been trying to stay as positive about our situation as possible, being appreciative of the situation I am in, and trying to help those around me. I am also trying to utilize and value the unorganized time this situation is bringing about. This has allowed me to accomplish things I have been putting off and to organize what I’d like to do coming out of the stay at home order.
What can you share with us about the work you created for this project?
This project provided me the opportunity to improve the organization of my work which has allowed me to better think about work I want to make moving forward. Initially, I used our time to create a website that can host previous projects that I have worked on. In addition, it challenged me with finding alternative ways of working and thinking without access to my usual tools and process. This led me to processing some older neglected rolls of 35mm film in my bathroom. I feel that the imperfections of the diy processing resonate well with my pleasant memories of the landscapes where I took these photographs.
In addition, I have been working on studies for more involved works on paper that I will continue beyond the scope of our project. Much of these small works have been inspired by my reading of Douglas R. Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which explores the nature of formal systems and how they acquire meaning.
