Chloë Bass
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Biography
Chloë Bass (b.1984) was born in New York, NY and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She adopts a research-based approach to artmaking that utilizes a variety of complimentary forms, including performance, installation, video, photography, sculpture, text, and audio. Bass has long structured her practice around the exploration of intimacy. Examining different social structures—families, communities, political and governmental bodies, cultural entities, etc.—her work forwards an ever-expanding understanding of this concept that is simultaneously personal, yet universal. Characterizing this approach as “an invitation to come closer,” Bass engages and implicates viewers in her modes of inquiry to encourage them to “look more closely.”
Upon receiving her Master of Fine Arts in performance and interactive media at Brooklyn College, Bass began The Bureau of Self-Recognition (2011–13), a wide-ranging project that documents the process of self-exploration through photography, performance, video, audio, lectures, workshops, and structured conversations. This work encapsulates Bass’s belief that “it is through self-recognition that we shape our worlds,” and laid the foundation for her further investigations. Building on concepts from The Bureau of Self-Recognition, over the course of three years, Bass produced The Book of Everyday Instruction (2015–18). This eight-part project examines relationships between different entities from one-on-one interactions between couples to more sprawling partnerships between individuals and their surroundings that interrogate systemic issues and socioeconomic realities.
Obligation To Others Hold Me In My Place (2018–23) moves between studies of the public realm and family interactions. A continuation of her tracing of patterns of intimacy, Bass commissioned self-documented footage of American mixed-race families, which she plans to present in an upcoming four-channel video. “The idea of mixing (racially, culturally) is so often the product of violence: war, slavery, trade,” the artist explains. “… Mixture reminds us of the dangers that bring people together, and the challenging conditions that we persist to create.”
Bass further expands on notions of familial intimacy in her Wayfinding project (2019–22). Taking its title from the architectural term for the design elements that help individuals move through a space, this installation encourages viewers to emotionally orient themselves in a site. Consisting of a series of mirror-like billboards positing open-ended questions to viewers, as well as archival images, double-sided text signs, garden markers, and an audio component, the site-specific outdoor work invites introspection. Articulating various aspects of human emotions—compassion, desire, anxiety, and loss—the meditative work speaks to Bass’s personal experience growing up in New York City. Reflecting on being alone in the city’s public spaces, Bass explains her feelings as combining “the sudden sense of everything as fascinating” with “the strange anxiety between feeling invisible and suddenly becoming aware that you are seen.”
More recent projects by Bass include Soft Services (2022), a series of sixteen sculptural stone benches inscribed with phrases written by the artist and marked with an image rendered in light-responsive pigment. This body of work was installed throughout Volunteer Park and outside the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, WA in 2022. Bass’s #sky #nofilter: Hindsight for a Future America (2023), a participatory glass sundial the artist developed as a capstone to a series of investigations around the 2016 US presidential election, recently debuted at the California African American Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles, CA. In addition, a public artwork by the artist commissioned by MTA Arts & Design for a subway station in Brooklyn will be unveiled later this year.
Bass’s nuanced, multidimensional works ultimately draw parallels between the private and public to question the way individuals navigate the world and respond to social, political, and psychological environments. “I think of all the works that I make as having the potential emotional resonance that they could remind you of something in your own life,” explains Bass, who ultimately concludes that her projects serve as “… souvenirs for memories you haven’t had yet.”
The artist’s work has been the subject of many one-person exhibitions, including Wayfinding, Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA (2022); #sky #nofilter: Hindsight for a Future America, co-presented by Art + Practice and California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Wayfinding, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO (2021); Wayfinding, St. Nicholas Park, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2019); The Book of Everyday Instruction, Knockdown Center, Queens, NY (2018); and The Bureau of Self-Recognition, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY (2013), among others. The artist’s work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including In These Truths, Albright-Knox Northland, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY (2022); Close to You, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2022); Art on the Grid, Public Art Fund, New York (2020); Urban Design Lab: Chloë Bass and Teal Gardner, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2014), among others. Bass’s performances have been spotlighted at COUNTERPUBLIC, St. Louis, MO (2019); Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, Germany (2019); and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018), among others. She is the recipient of many awards and grants, including New York University Future Imagination Fund Fellowship (2022); Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Arts and Culture Grant for SPCUNY (2021); Art Matters Fellowship (2019), among others. Bass’s major projects often culminate in publications. Working in collaboration with artists, writers, organizations, and publishers, she has released #sky #nofilter (2020); The Book of Everyday Instruction (2018); Art as Social Action (2018); Say Something, Jamie (2018); What is shared, what is offered (2017); and The Bureau of Self-Recognition (2013). The artist is an Associate Professor of Art at Queens College, CUNY, where she has co-directed Social Practice Queens (SPQ) with Dr. Gregory Sholette since 2016 and established Social Practice CUNY (SPCUNY) in 2021.
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Public Collections
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY
California African American Museum, Los Angeles -
Videos
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Chloë Bass on #sky #nofilter: Hindsight for a Future America
California African American Museum 1 November 2023'Chloë Bass | #sky #nofilter : Hindsight for a Future America' is a public sculpture and performance art project by conceptual artist Chloë Bass that...Watch -
Chloë Bass on Wayfinding at the Pulitzer
Higher Education Channel 23 April 2021Chloë Bass: Wayfinding, the newest exhibition at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, consists of a mixture of signage that doesn’t seek to identify or direct, but...Watch -
Chloë Bass on Wayfinding at The Studio Museum in Harlem
Box Burners 30 January 2020In 2018, The Studio Museum in Harlem closed its longtime home to begin construction on a new building. In the absence of a permanent gallery,...Watch -
Chloë Bass on The Bureau of Self-Recognition
BOMB Magazine 25 July 2013Chloë Bass, interviewed by Sophie Buonomo. Edit: Fabiana AssenzaWatch
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News / Events
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Chloë Bass: Wayfinding
Buffalo AKG Art Museum July 12, 2024–October 17, 2025Chloë Bass: Wayfinding, a meditative installation of sculptural signage, will be unveiled in Delaware Park and the Buffalo AKG campus later this summer. Installation of...Read more -
Chloë Bass: Personal Choice #5
MTA Arts & Design Commission Permanent InstallationChloë Bass's 'Personal Choice #5” (2023) is currently on view at the Lorimer St (L) station in New York, commissioned by MTA Arts & Design....Read more -
Chloë Bass
COME CLOSER at Middelheim Museum June 7–September 29, 2024Chloë Bass's The Parts (2021) is on view at the COME CLOSER exhibition at the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, Belgium, through September 29, 2024. Bass's...Read more -
Chloë Bass: Perspective Alignments
The Bentway May 24, 2024–OngoingChloë Bass: Perspective Alignment, sculptural benches formed from solid Ontario rock and engraved with poetic reflections, is currently on view at The Bentway Skate Trail,...Read more -
Art and Practice with Chloë Bass
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) November 15, 2023Art and Practice with Chloë Bass Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Wednesday, November 15, 2023 6:00–7:00 PM Art and Practice workshops bring together artists...Read more -
Summer Solstice Salutation with Chloë Bass
California African American Museum (CAAM) 21 June 2023Summer Solstice Salutation with Chloë Bass California African American Museum (CAAM) Wednesday, June 21, 2023 3:00–4:30 PM Chloë Bass | #sky #nofilter: Hindsight for...Read more -
Chloë Bass: #sky #nofilter: Hindsight for a Future America
California African American Museum Permanent InstallationChloë Bass's public sculpture and performance art project, Chloë Bass | #sky #nofilter: Hindsight for a Future America at California African American Museum in Los Angeles, CA.
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Announcing Representation of Chloë Bass
1 June 2023Alexander Gray Associates announces representation of Chloë Bass (b. 1984). Bass's research-based approach to artmaking utilizes a variety of complimentary forms, including performance, installation, video, photography, sculpture, text, and audio.
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Chloë Bass: Wayfinding
Skirball Cultural Center November 17, 2022–September 17, 2023The third phase of Chloë Bass's one-person exhibition Chloë Bass: Wayfinding at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA.
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Chloë Bass: Soft Services
Henry Art Gallery August 2022–August 2024Chloë Bass's one-person exhibition Soft Services at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
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Articles / Reviews
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Inside the California African American Museum’s $5-million, ‘momentum’-fueled upgrades
Los Angeles Times4 August 2023 There’s a new public sculpture outside the California African American Museum in Exposition Park. Conceptual artist Chloë Bass’ work rests... Read more -
Chloë Bass Disarms With Beauty
Hyperallergic10 January 2023 LOS ANGELES — On the sly, Chloë Bass turns her viewers into poets. The multiform artist quietly coaxes us to... Read more -
15 pop-ups, launches, events in L.A. to level up your November calendar, with style
Los Angeles Times1 November 2022 ‘Chloë Bass: Wayfinding’ The West Coast debut of Chloë Bass’ buzzy exhibition, “Wayfinding,” is all about reading the signs. A... Read more -
7 best bets for visual arts in the Seattle area in fall 2022
The Seattle Times6 September 2022 One of the greatest strengths of art is its ability to get you thinking about everyday objects or themes in... Read more -
Chloë Bass: The Parts
The Brooklyn Rail1 August 2021 As the city continues its reopening from the pandemic, a set of public art installations in two locations in Brooklyn... Read more -
Brooklyn’s long history of resistance is celebrated on Juneteenth
The Art Newspaper18 June 2021 On Juneteenth—19 June, the now official federal holi day marking the end of slavery in the US—the Center for Brooklyn... Read more -
Artists in a Post-George Floyd, Mid-Pandemic World
The New York Times13 May 2021 Two shows that recently opened at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art are keyed to our new normal: One came... Read more -
"Chloë Bass: Wayfinding" brings a provocative outdoor addition to the Pulitzer Arts Foundation
St. Louis Magazine21 April 2021 No two visitors will have the same experience in the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s evocative outdoor installation Chlo ë Bass: Wayfinding... Read more -
How Are Boundaries Drawn in Relationships? Chloë Bass examines modes of intimacy in online and offline relationships
Art211 March 2021 Through every relationship, you’re operating around an understanding of your own boundaries. A lot of our understandings of ourselves are... Read more -
Studio Visit: Chloë Bass
studioELL2 February 2021 IN DISCUSSION john ros / As I wander through your website, which is a beautiful archive of your work, it’s... Read more -
This Way to Chloë Bass’s Outdoor Art Show
The New York Times1 September 2020 Dear New Yorker, are you elated that museums have reopened but find yourself a bit queasy about being indoors with... Read more -
Chloë Bass: The Studio Museum in Harlem
ArtforumBass, 1 August 2020 I’ve gotten to know Wayfinding well. Every day I walk by some, if not all, of the twenty-four signs that... Read more -
Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend
The Art Newspaper21 November 2019 Chloë Bass: Wayfinding at St. Nicholas Park—an exhibition organised by the Studio Museum in Harlem (until 27 September 2020)—invites visitors... Read more -
Editors’ Picks: 23 Things Not to Miss in New York’s Art World This Week
Artnet News7 October 2019 23. “Chloë Bass : Wayfinding ” presented by the Studio Museum in Harlem Using the visual language of wayfinding... Read more -
Social Studies: Chloë Bass and Gregory Sholette Discuss Social Practice Queens
e-flux3 May 2019 Amid sustained calls for artists and institutions to consider art’s role beyond the museum’s walls, social practice art has emerged... Read more -
The Elusive Index of Relationships Between Everyone
Hyperallergic15 June 2018 As an editor, there are few pleasures like publishing the work of writers you love, and I’m lucky to count... Read more
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