Adam Brooks & Mathew Wilson
Industry of the Ordinary (Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson) Palimpsest, 2024 Chicago River clay, painted wood Courtesy of the artists 2025.9 In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire laid waste to over three-square miles of the city, resulting in the loss of nearly three hundred lives and the destruction of over 18,000 structures. This included the Nickersons' original residence, which once stood in the place of this building. A year later, as a precaution, local ordinance required new constructions to be made of brick or stone. Eager to find plentiful and affordable clay, builders began to excavate the bed of the Chicago River to make the bricks needed to build the Nickerson Mansion. Peek into the doorframe between the main hall and the drawing room on the first floor to see some of the original bricks that were used to build the foundation. For this work, the artists 3D scanned a brass doorknob from one of the doors that separates the family spaces from the servants' quarters, creating a duplicate composed of clay taken from the Chicago River bed. Placed on a prone facsimile of the door to which the original belongs, this object suggests a trapdoor between "upstairs" and "downstairs." Palimpsest thus gestures at the entwined histories of materiality and labor that often become invisible in the elegant spaces of mansions and other grand buildings.
