Wendy W. Jacob is an American artist who works as an urban interventionist

Urban Interventionism

Urban Interventionism is a name sometimes given to a number of different kinds of activist art practices, art that typically responds to the social community, locational identity, the built environment, and public places...

.

Life and work

Wendy Jacob received her bachelor's degree from Williams College

Williams College

Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...

 in 1980, and her Master of Fine Arts

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 (MFA) degree from the Art Institute of Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...

.

She has created installations and interventions in social spaces since 1989, and has developed a distinct body of sculptural

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 works which investigate the interface between architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 and the bodies of the people and animals who inhabit the built environment. Jacob is also a member of the Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

-based collaborative Haha, whose work focuses on the exploration of social positions relative to a particular site, and which has produced over two dozen influential projects since the late 80s.

One of Jacob's collaborations has been the creation of the Squeeze Chair, inspired by Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin is an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior...

's hug machine

Hug machine

A hug machine, also known as a hug box, a squeeze machine, or a squeeze box, is a deep-pressure device designed to calm hyper-sensitive persons, usually individuals with autism spectrum disorders...

. For several years, Jacob has worked with Grandin in developing furniture that squeezes or 'hugs' users.

She has worked as an associate professor of visual arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 in Cambridge

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, Massachusetts.

Exhibitions

Jacob has had solo exhibitions at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. The core of the museum's permanent collection is the Bebe and R. Crosby Kemper Jr. Collection, a gift of the museum's founders. The collection includes works created after the 1913 Armory Show to works by present-day...

 (Kansas City)

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, the Madison Art Center (Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

, 1999]), the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (1998), MIT List Visual Arts Center, the Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

,1998), and the Krannert Art Museum

Krannert Art Museum

The Krannert Art Museum is a museum of art at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, USA. It is the second-largest museum in Illinois, with of space devoted to all periods of art, from ancient Egyptian to contemporary photography...

 (Champaign

Champaign, Illinois

Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located south of Chicago, west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

)1997), and many other galleries and institutions in the United States and Europe. Her work resides in the collections of Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris, France; Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporain, Poitou-Charentre, Poitier, France; Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporain, Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego , in San Diego, California, USA, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present.-History:...

, California; and the MacArthur Foundation

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...

, Chicago, Illinois.

External links

• MIT.edu - 'MIT Architecture/People: Wendy Jacob'