Join us for the opening of Jen Bervin: Shift Rotate Reflect! This event is free and open to the public.
Shift Rotate Reflect is a re-imagining of poet and artist Jen Bervin's first survey exhibition. Originally on view at University Galleries in Fall 2020 during COVID-19 restrictions and closures, the exhibition featured 23 solo and collaborative works created from 1997 through 2020. Opening five years after the first exhibition, this experiment—re-presenting the anchor projects differently alongside new works—is a direct response to the limitations imposed by the pandemic. Audiences will be able to engage with the material complexities of Bervin’s work, explore the expanded connections among them, and participate in robust public programming.
The exhibition title, Shift Rotate Reflect, was excerpted from Su Hui’s Picture of the Turning Sphere, a five-channel video installation that Bervin collaboratively created with filmmaker Charlotte Lagarde. The words “shift,” “rotate,” and “reflect” have been guideposts for Bervin and exhibition curator Kendra Paitz while envisioning the 2025 exhibition. This iteration of Shift Rotate Reflect features installations, embroideries, prints, artist’s books, and videos created through 2025. The selected works demonstrate the interdisciplinary range of Bervin’s long-term research on topics including legacies of women artists and writers, relationships between text and textiles, and abstractions of language and landscape.
Read more about the exhibition, programming, and artist bios at
https://galleries.illinoisstate.edu/exhibitions/2025/jen-bervin/
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We are grateful for the support of the Illinois Arts Council, Alice and Fannie Fell Trust, Harold K. Sage Foundation, Illinois State University Foundation Fund, and the Lori Baum and Aaron Henkelman University Galleries Community Fund. This exhibition would not be possible without the previous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Image: Jen Bervin and Charlotte Lagarde, Su Hui’s Picture of the Turning Sphere (detail), 2016–2020. 5-channel video installation with sound and two double-sided embroideries. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artists and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco. Photo credit: Lyndsie Schlink.
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