Attention, Ritual, and Construction: “Midnight” at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago and “Conduit” at LVL3

“Midnight” unfolds like a well-written poem. Photo by Bob (Robert Chase Heishman), Courtesy of the artists and the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

By NATALIE JENKINS May 23, 2025

As American infrastructure slowly disintegrates, investigating the life cycles of the built environment is tantamount. Two shows in Chicago—“Midnight”at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago and “Conduit” at LVL3—pay close attention to this ongoing cycle: the churning, crumbling, and transformation of the  urban landscape. Through their devoted deliberation, artists in these exhibitions conjure new visions of the tired and banal sights of urbanity: a missing pavestone turned altar, or a ripped tarp turned message from God. Amidst the dread of a changing relationship to urbanism and a rotting built environment, they uncover strange undercurrents of magic, alienation, and ritual.

At the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, artists Margaret Crowley and Eli Greene explore urban transformation and repetition through a devotional exhibition. The venue, an active house of interfaith worship, is a slightly unusual one for contemporary art. Located on the South Side of Chicago, the church is the oldest continuously operating institution in the city, offering important initiatives for arts, food security, and faith. Crowley and Greene have interacted with the church for years, immersing themselves in its history and slowly drawing together their idea for “Midnight.” 

The emotional depth and impressive cohesiveness of “Midnight” are only possible because of the artists’ strong dedication to independently organizing their own show. As close friends, Crowley and Greene’s commitments to ritualizing the past aligned as they navigated every step of the curation and installation process together. The result is an exhibition that unfolds like a well-written poem, with each piece a carefully selected word, and each space filled with intention. 

“Midnight” winds through the two bell towers of the First Presbyterian Church, starting in the bottom of the northern tower, moving up, crossing the upper balcony of the sanctuary, and moving back down the southern tower. The first piece encountered in the show, Stigmata (A), is one of Greene’s, installed as an odd trench of sand filling the space of missing cobblestones on the church floor. An eternity rose (a rose frozen in time through a process of replacing all liquids in the plant with preserving chemicals) rises from the sand, while a handmade beeswax candle slowly burns away. As an alien cross between natural beauty and endless preservation, the rose and candle transform the installation into an altar, driving home the exhibition’s larger questions about time and ritual. 

Cast lead car cigarette lighters by Margaret Crowley rest alongside a large encaustic image transfer by Eli Greene. Photo by Bob (Robert Chase Heishman), Courtesy of the artists and the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

Further in the show, Greene’s Breadcrumbs, three large encaustic image transfers on thick slabs of wood, pay homage both to the architecture of the church and to an important South Side artist: Pope.L. The forms of the wood and wax sculptures resemble gravestones, but they also fit the exact shape of interior windows leading from the bell tower to the inner sanctuary. Images contained within the yellowy wax reference Pope.L’s infamous Hansel and Gretel seminar, which the artist ran for years with MFA students at the University of Chicago. Breadcrumbs’ attention to its context demands focus on the surrounding landscape—and the painful cycles of change and transformation it endures. 

Paired with the waxy sculptures are scattered cast lead car cigarette lighters by Crowley, titled Torch. These cigarette lighters offer a kind of light that doesn’t consume itself, much like the burning bush in the Old Testament. At the same time, Crowley’s material choice evokes the labor history of lead in Chicago, utilized by union licensed commercial plumbers for decades. The pairing of Breadcrumbs with Torch creates a relationship of transformation. The lighters could melt the beeswax, or the beeswax could become candles, appropriate to their religious environment. But they’re also fixed—images preserved in wax, a light that never fades, forms cast into lead, marking times past and rituals celebrated. The rest of the exhibition proceeds with similarly sharp devotion to historical legacies, with each piece a historical reference treated with the utmost sensitivity and attention. 

Talulah R.M. and Clare Koury reference unseen construction processes. Courtesy of the artists and LVL3.

On the northern side of Chicago, “Conduit” at artist-run gallery LVL3 also utilizes close attention, stripping mundane construction materials and roadside sights from their context to create an historiographic project. Sharp curation by Luca Lotruglio and Liam Owings unite the differing gazes of exhibiting artists Hope Wang, Talulah R.M., and Clare Koury into a cohesive investigation of construction. One of the first pieces encountered in the show, Talulah R.M.’s Untitled (Dupe), is extremely slight. Scattered screws—or rather, pewter pieces resembling screws—are installed haphazardly over Waveguide, a bold installation spelling out its title in copper pipes by Koury. 

Above the word art, Untitled (Dupe) could be the remnants of mistakes by lazy preparators. It’s a universal experience to encounter spare screws as graves marking the past lives of objects on a wall. But Untitled (Dupe) brings what’s typically a ghost of a time past into focus, pausing on the traces of transformations in cycles of construction. A similar kind of exposure is at play with Waveguide—typically hidden beneath a layer of drywall, the copper piping silently channeling lifeblood through building interiors becomes a focal point in Koury’s configuration. The “guide” in Waveguide might be literal; copper pipes moving water with prevision. But it also suggests a pathway for something larger: a shuffling of energy, a natural cycle, a beginning and a destination. 

Hope Wang transforms the blue all-purpose tarp with surprising tenderness. Courtesy of the artist and LVL3. 

Across the gallery, another of Talulah R.M.’s works brings the possibility of the divine into everyday construction materials. (Wings) is it graffiti or was it god, a green tarp with jagged tears spelling out “Wings,” poses thrilling questions amidst the drudgery of urban materials. Could a holy force be so literal? Or was it an average passerby? Is it any less magical either way? Along the same wall, the flowing textile piece Fruit-blue Fingertips by Hope Wang transforms the standardized polyester weaving of blue all-purpose tarps into a breathtakingly intricate pattern. Loose fibers falling downwards invite a hand forward to stroke what must be a comfortingly soft fabric—a gesture of attention when such tarps typically turn away curious eyes. 

At LVL3 and the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, artists face the dread of decaying urban environments head on, with careful attention that reveals the history, transformation, and magic contained within. The gaze of these artists is strikingly intimate—a reminder to look at banality without fear, and a promise of beauty just beyond the harsh fading surface. WM

“Midnight” is on view at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago through June 9, 2025. “Conduit” is on view at LVL3 in Chicago through June 15, 2025.