Tom Denlinger

Tom Denlinger (he/him) was born in Los Angeles, California, and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois, where he teaches in Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as in the Art School at DePaul University. He has an MFA from SAIC, and a bachelor’s degree from California State University East Bay, Hayward, California. Mr. Denlinger has had solo exhibitions in New York, Rome, Venice, and Chicago, as well as exhibitions in Berlin, Seoul, Turin, Madrid, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Vaishali, India. He has received grants from Artadia, the Illinois Arts Council, the City of Chicago, and Kunstlerhaus, e.V. in Hamburg. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artforum Online, Frankfurt Allgemeine, Szene-Hamburg, the New Art Examiner and Art Papers, and has been collected by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Art Frankfurt, the MacArthur Foundation, the State of Illinois Museum, the City of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute, the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection, the University of Iowa, JPMorgan Chase, the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Notebaert Natural History Museum in Chicago. In 2009 he co-authored a book on surrealist games, The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism’s Parlor Game, published by the University of Nebraska press, and has published several artist’s books, among them: Territorial by Design, published by the School of the Art Institute in 1992, and Financial District Mirror Stage:16 Suggested Positions for the Middle Class, 2012. Most recently his work has been included in a book about remembering East Germany, Imperfect Recall: Re-collecting the GDR. His work was most recently seen in two group exhibitions, Trees Give Us Life, in 2023 and 2021, in Venice, Italy. Denlinger’s work can be viewed online at www.tomdenlinger.com.

Awards: Piazza, glass mural, permanent installation, Jarvis Stop, Red Line North Stations, CTA Public Art Project, Chicago, IL (2014–15); Governor’s International Exchange Award, Illinois Arts Council, Chicago, IL (2009); Junior Faculty Summer Research Grant, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL, for completion of book (The Exquisite Corpse, Univ. of Nebraska Press, fall 2009) (2006); Junior Faculty Grant, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL, two-course release to pursue artwork–related research (2004); Japan Study Center, Earlham College, Travel Grant for art research project in Kyoto, Japan; ACM, ACS, GLCAI, Tri-Consortial Global Partners Project, three-week seminar in Moscow and St. Petersburg; Individual Artist’s Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council, Chicago, IL (2003); Production and Implementation Grant Midwest Instructional Technology Center, Ann Arbor, MI, for Exquisite Corpse collaborative project between three institutions including Colorado, Monmouth and Lake Forest Colleges (2002); Individual Artist Fellowship, Artadia/ArtCouncil, New York, NY (2002); Express Lane Grant, Midwest Instructional Technology Center, Ann Arbor, MI, for development of Exquisite Corpse collaborative project including Colorado, Monmouth and Lake Forest Colleges; Wetlands Project, Edgebrook Branch Library, City of Chicago, IL (2001); Visiting Artist Grant (July–August), Kunstlerhaus e.V. Hamburg, Germany (1996); Individual Artist’s Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council, Chicago, IL (1990); Individual Artist’s Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council, Chicago, IL (1985). Publications: Denlinger, T., Imperfect Recall: Recollecting the GDR, Cecilia Novero, ed., Univ. of New Zealand, Otago, New Zealand (2020); Denlinger, T., Financial District: Mirror Stage (2010); Denlinger, T., Kochar Lidgren, K., Schneiderman, D., The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism's Parlor Game, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE (2009); Denlinger, T., and Schneiderman, D., "Exquisite Mori: Corpse and Contiguity," The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism's Parlor Game, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE (2009); Location Uncertain, photographs by Tom Denlinger, Karen Lebergott, and Karina Nimmerfall (2007); “Memorials to Future Catastrophes,” by Tom Denlinger and Davis Schneiderman, Notre Dame Review 19 (Summer/Winter), Notre Dame, IN (2005); Territorial By Design, limited edition book, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (1992). Exhibitions: Selected Solo Exhibitions: Free Space/In Estasi, ART3160, Venice, Italy (2018); Randy Alexander Gallery, Chicago, IL (2017); Ekstatic Edgewater, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL (2016–2017); Piazza, Jarvis Stop, Red Line North Stations, CTA (2015); Public art project, Chicago, IL; Tom Denlinger, VerA, Rome, Italy (2012); Lo Sguardo di Pavese: Le colline intorno, il demone dentro (2009);
CEPAM (Centro Pavesiano Museo Casa Natale), Santo Stefano Belbo, Italy, curated by Dr. Luigi Gatti, direttore, Centro Pavesiano Museo Casa Natale; Tom Denlinger, Rowland Contemporary, Chicago, IL (2008); Imperfect Recall, Chicago Academy of Sciences Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago, IL, curated by Jill Riddell, museum director (2008); Plenum, Tom Blackman Associates, Chicago, IL (2002); Castelli di Fiori, Castelli d’Acqua, Installation, Watertower City Gallery, Chicago, IL (2001); Barbara Von Stechow Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany (2000); Ten In One Gallery, New York, NY (2000); Ten In One Gallery, Chicago, IL (1998); Uncomfortable Spaces, Frankfurt Art Fair, Frankfurt, Germany; Kunstlerhaus e.V., Hamburg, Germany, by invitation from Kunstlerhaus e.V collective (1996); Ten In One Gallery, Chicago, IL (1995). 
 

In the Palace of Polysaccharides

This is the heading of my most recent group of work, some of which one can find on my website. The photographs in the collection document non-human agents, trees, in a number of urban and exurban zones, that, along with other plants, produce 50% of the atmosphere of their biome. Bacteria and microbes produce the other 50%. The photos are framed to emphasize the unique structures peculiar to each tree, as well as the work that they perform.

The work that is being built with these photos will explore human existence as holobiontic with plants and bacteria, as well as a mash-up of human and vegetal consciousness.