TASK Party to Fill University Galleries Feb. 6

There is a simple structure and very few rules to a TASK party.

The University Galleries at Illinois State University will host a TASK party beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6.  It is free and open to anyone age 15 and older.

To be directed by New York artist Oliver Herring, the TASK party involves attracting a varied gathering of friends, strangers and others to spend an afternoon completing tasks, or watching others complete the tasks until they cannot resist trying one themselves.

Participants reach into a "task bucket" and pull out a slip of paper with a task written on it. The person completes the task (sing a song, write a song, build a fort, braid someone's hair, stand on one leg, build a human pyramid, make shirt out of foil and wear it, etc.), any way they interpret it, then writes a new task on a slip of paper and puts it in the bucket.

Herring and the gallery, in addition to facilitating the event, provide all the materials - scissors, cardboard, tape, markers, string, foil, paint and a veritable arts and crafts store worth of various materials. Participants are free to take on tasks or simply watch as others complete theirs.

University Galleries curator Kendra Paitz obtained local, state and corporate support from The Alice and Fannie Fell Trust, a Town of Normal Harmon Arts Grant, The ISU Parents Association Board, the Illinois Arts Council and a Target Foundation Grant.

TASK parties were invented by Herring, who, after a self-imposed decade of solitude, invited strangers into his studio to express themselves through art.  Some of those who came expressed themselves in dance. Herring created videos of the dancing, especially a series comprised of a tall, athletic young man and a short middle-aged woman who enacted a ballet. He developed TASK as a way to explain the videos that resulted and to provide further creative outlets for other people.       

As each TASK party has taken place - in London, Toronto, New York, Seattle, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. - Herring sees the shared experience of expressing themselves creatively through art turn strangers into friends.

"Oliver's TASK parties are all about working with people," Paitz said. "TASK is where he is breaking out of the reliance on galleries to show and tell us what art is. Oliver uses art as a force for change," Paitz said. "This is a chance for people who don't have a creative outlet to have one."

On Feb. 16, an exhibition ("TASK +") co-curated by Paitz and University Galleries Director Barry Blinderman will open for six weeks that will present Herring's photo-sculptures, photographs and videos along with works created during the Feb. 6 TASK party.  The exhibition will begin with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. on Feb. 16.  In addition, University Galleries will publish the first book documenting Herring's TASK project.