In 2002, Chicago-based artist Sarah Krepp said she was raking leaves in her yard when a neighbor came up to her asking for advice on their art. This happened four times in the same month, she said.
Krepp, who used to be the chair of the painting program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said she remembers telling her husband that “these people needed someone to talk to.”
Since then, Krepp has worked with around 135 artists through her program Dialogue Chicago, an interdisciplinary group of artists who seek aggressive studio practice through a variety of media and artistic styles.
Krepp said she submitted an exhibition application to the Evanston Art Center on behalf of the program two years ago. The group exhibition entitled Dialogue Chicago: Out Loud has been in the works since then, she said.
The exhibition opened Saturday and will be free and open to the public until Nov. 6.
The show includes a wide range of media — from sculpture and acrylic to fabric work and photography — that interact with the viewer, Krepp said.
“All the work was so authentic,” she said. “It’s personal, it’s coming from a place of their experience. When the viewer comes up, it isn’t what you think it is, then the viewer owns it. It’s like, ‘Wow. This is really interesting. This is different than it was back there.’”
EAC houses an average of 18 exhibitions per year and receives around 60-70 applications per year, said EAC President and CEO Paula Danoff.
Danoff said after Dialogue Chicago: Out Loud was chosen, Krepp was committed to “activating” the space.
“Sarah’s done a really nice job of changing up the gallery space. She wanted to activate the space,” Danoff said. “Because it’s a group show, she can take over the whole space and make it what she wants.”
Dialogue Chicago: Out Loud was a significant feat for EAC, as it required coordinating the installation of the works of 33 different artists, including Krepp, according to Emma Rose Gudewicz, the director of development and exhibitions for EAC.
Gudewicz said they worked for three days hanging works from the ceiling and workshopping how the artists’ pieces would fit in the space.
“It’s really a great group, and they’re all so excited,” Gudewicz said. “It just makes everything so much better when they’re so happy and excited to have their show put together.”
Krepp runs Dialogue Chicago on a semester basis. This semester, there are 35 artists in the program.
Many of the artists come and go from the program, but several have worked with Dialogue Chicago for the last eight to 10 years, Krepp said.
“These are professional artists who really want a vigorous dialogue about their work and they want to share,” she said.
Artist Judith Roston Freilich has been working with Krepp and the program for the past 15 years.
She said artists in the program don’t think of Dialogue Chicago as a class, but rather as a place to come together, see work outside of their studios and hear other people’s reactions.
“Once your work is out in the world, you don’t really know what people’s reactions are right away,” Freilich said. “But when we come to Dialogue, we get people’s immediate reactions, and we need to know what they’re not getting. If they’re not getting what we want them to get, then we need to rethink how we’re working.”
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