Rube Goldberg's Ghost: Confounding Design and Laborious Objects

February 28– May 4, 2013

Reception: Thursday, February 28, 5-7pm

The comical machines of American cartoonist and inventor Reuben Garrett Lucius “Rube” Goldberg were never intended to be built and used. His cartoon schematics of impossibly complicated low-tech machines and designs poked fun at both bureaucratic systems and the laborious machinations required to traverse them. While Rube Goldberg took a light-hearted and humorous approach to public concerns with a wink and a nod, Rube Goldberg’s Ghost: Confounding Design and Laborious Objects presents artworks that offer plausible deniability toward some of society's current obsessions, ills and issues. Rube Goldberg’s complicated contraptions and their absurdist answers to real problems are at the heart of this exhibition

Curated by Elizabeth Burke-Dain

Participating Artists: Matthew Aron, Karen Bovinich,Juan Chavez, Brian Dettmer, Fischli & Weiss, Conrad Friedberg, Joan Giroux, Joanne Greenbaum, Joseph Hersher, Taylor Hokanson, Industry of the Ordinary, Heidi Kumao, Betsy Odom, Erik Peterson, Mark Porter, Michael Thompson and Graem Whyte.

Exhibition Contact: Mark Porter, mporter@colum.edu, 312-369-6643

Rubegoldberg.com

Press Contact:

mediarelationasst@colum.edu

Press and Reviews:

Go See These 3 Art Shows, Chicagomag.com

Carrying on a Political Absurdist Legacy, Hyperallergic

Media and Resources:

RubeGoldberg.com

Self-Guided Tour

Purchase the Exhibition Catalog:

Rube Goldberg's Ghost, $7.50