Studio Sessions
The Unspectacular Spectacular
with Marie Herwald Hermann
November 2025
About the Studio Session
Objects on the kitchen shelf
Objects on a windowsill
Objects on a table
and
Objects in the sink
Domestic objects participate in everyday tasks, the sequence of movements and arrangements, placements, and re-placements of objects as they are used and arranged. Objects become extensions of our bodies, continually adding to a library of choreography, of every tiny action as part of our daily routines and lives with objects. Because they are in daily use, they will move on, placement is not permanent. They move on like we do, sometimes slowly, sometimes fast.
In this Studio Session, we will tell stories through objects–ordinary objects, objects that are not loud, objects that do not demand our attention, objects that are instead relatively silent. The functional objects around us–whether arranged accidentally, intentionally, or coincidentally–represent an unspectacular everyday reality while also being a spectacular record of our lives.
About the Lead Artist
Marie Herwald Hermann (born 1979, Copenhagen, Denmark) lives and works in Chicago and Copenhagen. Hermann received her MFA from the Royal College of Art in London in 2009 and a BFA from the University of Westminster in 2003. Solo exhibitions include Compound and bridges, Broadway Gallery, NY 2025, Lines and Parallels, Rebecca Camacho, 2025. And the walls became the world all around, Reyes Finn Gallery, Detroit, 2021, USA, Bit by bit above the edge of things, Paris, London, Hong Kong, 2019, Chicago, and A Gentle Blow to the Rock, Gallerie NeC, Hong Kong, 2014. Hermann has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the USA, Denmark, Italy, China, Sweden, and Germany, including: Craft Front & Center, Museum of Art and Design, NY. 99 cents, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, Another Look at Detroit, Marianne Boesky Gallery in collaboration with Marlborough Chelsea, New York. Her work is represented in the collections of Musée des Arts Décoratifs, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Danish Art Foundation, The Denver Art Museum, France, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Norway, Museum of Art and Design, New York. Cranbrook Art Museum, MI. The Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Museum, China, and The Rothschild Collection, Waddesdon Manor, UK. Hermann was awarded the 2013 Kresge Artist Fellowship and the Danish Art Foundation 3-year grant in 2014. She served as a board member at Pewabic from 2017 to 2024. She is currently an Associate Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Logistics
This session is scheduled for Sundays, November 2, 9, 16, & 23 from 9-11am PST (that’s Los Angeles time).
Registration is $250 and includes all four sessions.
Participants gather via Zoom.