Liz Nofziger AIR Project Statement

Liz Nofziger is currently working toward a new large-scale site-specific installation for Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery in March 2007. Designed by William Le Baron Jenney (widely considered to be the “father of the skyscraper”), the Ludington Building (1890-91) is his earliest-surviving, steel-frame building in Chicago. The structure was commissioned by Mary Ludington to house the American Book Company and currently is a major part of the Columbia College campus, housing, among other facilities, the Glass Curtain Gallery and the Center for Book and Paper Arts (an appropriate return to origin).

During her AIR residency Nofziger aims to thoroughly examine, document, develop, and challenge her process of working site-specifically, with this exhibition as the outcome. Since a first site-visit in June, she has been compiling information on Jenney and the space itself, considering its various histories within the context of current events, and thinking about the viewer’s experience within the space. By compiling an in-depth documentation of the development of a large-scale site-specific work Nofziger will create an important experimental trace element. It will serve as a type of evidence that reveals and solidifies the sometimes circuitous, and often invisible, paths of investigation and planning.