First things first kiddos, have y’all gotten in your Ox-Bow and ACRE applications? It was sixty degrees today! The summer is pending. Get in on that dreamy Michigan/Wisconsin landscape. (My apologies to the jury committee.)
Also, The Art Institute of Chicago is looking for a new Associate Photography Curator.
THE ART INSTITUTE IS OF CHICAGO IS LOOKING FOR A NEW ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY CURATOR.
That being said, they will probably hire within… but regardless, join the masses and apply!
Details for all below. As always, good luck!
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Ox-Bow residency for MFA/Arts Faculty application time is coming to a close as April 5th keeps creeping up. Info Here
(psssst, if you’re a normal human who isn’t all up in that institutional drama, consider their Fall Artist Residency, which I will talk about a little later)
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Acre Residency, featured here, there, and everywhere, is accepting applications until April 15th.
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Associate Curator, Photography /// Art Institute of Chicago
Duties:
At the direction of the Department Chair, is responsible for conceiving permanent collection and loan exhibitions; researching and proposing acquisitions for the collection; researching the collection and contributing to scholarly publications; working closely with donors, scholars, dealers, and artists; supervising volunteers and special project staff; and contributing to fundraising activities. Serves as coordinator or local curator for traveling exhibitions. Develops relationships with artists and galleries that can guide future exhibition projects. Conceives of appropriate programming and conducts gallery talks. Takes an active role in conceiving and preparing the biannual Photography Gala.
Qualifications:
Must have a Master of Arts in Art History, preferably with a concentration in a photographic subject. Must have at least 3 years of experience with exhibition projects, preferably involving photographic objects and preferably living artists. Strong writing skills are highly recommended. Foreign language abilities are encouraged.
All info, including the online application submission, here via the AIC employee portal.
Boston based performance artist Garrett Yahn proved himself to be a grade-a sissy this past Saturday when, during his exhibition and performance “Old Work/New Work” at Happy Collaborationists, he applied women’s makeup to his face for nearly an hour.
Garrett Yahn doing “man stuff”
Yahn’s solo show in collaboration with ACRE and Happy C’s also featured two video works highlighting repetitive manual labor, the artist’s meticulously handwritten CV and a photo of Yahn with the goopy black mascara beard that his performance culminated in. One of the video works starred the artist’s father, who is probably horrified by the fact that his son parades around, wearing mascara in public.
Attendees of the show sheepishly sipped their beer while pretending to “get it.” Afterwards, many returned home to experiment with makeup and ponder the relationship between factory work and male drag.
Blog Roll
They Won’t Roll Themselves
Sometimes life imiates art. Other times art imitates life. But occassionally life kicks arts ass so hard that art gets really embarassed and has to stay home from school for at least a week. Internet gem “You Had One Job” is one of those times.
Girl Don’t be Dumb, because you shouldn’t be. And you can never get enough pink.
Meeting of the minds: Neff & Walker
“Does this cyanotype make me look fat?”
John Neff in Conversation with Hamza Walker at the Renaissance Society
John Neff killed it last night at his opening and artist talk The Renaissance Society. The 58 chronologically titled black and white photographs in the show, produced with a MacGyvered scanner camera were striking and solemn, framed identically and hung on dark gray walls that bisected the gallery.
Neff and Walker’s discussion at the opening nothing short of enlightening. Spanning 16 years of the artists work and evolution, topics discussed ranged from John Cage to instagram and went well over the allotted time, though no one in the packed and captive audience seemed to care. Footage of the conversation will soon be available on the Ren’s vimeo page.
More information on the exhibition can be found here.
Kate Moss commissions portrait
As if there weren’t enough already
Its been reported that the model/badgirl recently commissioned British street artist Bambi to create a painting of Moss for her home in the Cotswolds. Ever humble, Moss simply requested that her portrait be “similar to the iconic ‘Marilyn’ by Andy Warhol.” Since Kate’s country retreat has wall space to spare, What’s the T? has taken the liberty of creating a hypothetical art collection specially curated for the contemporary English Marilyn.
After announcing an in-depth partnership with the City of Chicago during a recent press conference, EXPO Chicago made a puzzling move this week by naming Los Angeles-based Shamim M. Momin as the curator of their IN/SITU program for the 2013 fair. No T, No shade; Momin is obviously qualified, but is the goal of EXPO Chicago ultimately to showcase the city or to become a platform for touring curators? Is there room at the young fair for both?
Erratum
What’s the T? would like to note a clarification concerning this article: EXPO Art Week is meant to be a separate city-wide initiative of arts and culture programming while EXPO CHICAGO is still the International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art.
The Weatherman Report
For Chicago IL
Per Kirkeby, Birds Buried in Snow, 1970
On The Street:
Fashion from the line outside the SAIC BFA show
All images taken in the unbelievably long line outside The School of the Art Institute’s 2013 Spring Undergraduate Exhibition Opening Reception last Friday night, unless not.
These things.
Stranger finds himself surrounded by mediocre art, after grueling wait
Onlookers struggle to make sense of SAIC BFA Exhibition
After waiting hours in a line full of respectable adults and “interesting” looking millennials, a lone Chicagoan found himself trapped amongst useless ceramics, twigs, rice and what appeared to be gigantic collaborative finger paintings at the SAIC BFA Exhibition Opening this past friday night.
“All of a sudden I was sitting inside of skinned muppet surrounded by kids who looked like they all got haircuts in the dark,” said the bewildered attendee.
Confused by the plethora of elaborate business cards in a place where absolutely no business could possibly be taking place, the lone outsider struggled to make meaning out of rocks covered with sponges and photographs of morose teenagers.
After spending nearly 20 minutes watching a video of a girl to licking a suspended donut, the visitor left in a hurry, stating angrily “What is this cracked-out corn-maze and and why is everyone drinking La Croix?”
Work by Megan Isaacs (Rebuild), 2013
Header image is a installation shot of “No Show” at the West Pilsen Sculpture Garden.
ACRE in Wisconsin. Ox-Bow in Michigan. Bemis in Nebraska. With so much midwestern residency happening, there is no excuse not to apply. Details below. (And for anyone who missed part one, BOLT and PLAND are still accepting applications.)
ACRE 2013 Application now open, deadline April 15th with $25 fee waved by February 15th
ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions) is a volunteer-run non-profit based in Chicago devoted to employing various systems of support for emerging artists and to creating a generative community of cultural producers. ACRE investigates and institutes models designed to help artists develop, present, and discuss their practices by providing forums for idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.
Residency: Steuben, WI
Exhibitions: ACRE Projects / 1913 W 17th St / Chicago, IL 60608
Our admissions panel comprises an impartial jury of established artists, critics and curators from Chicago and elsewhere. Jury members are asked to evaluate work samples and the written portion of the application. Scoring is based on quality of work, potential for growth, and feasibility of project proposed based on the facilities we offer.
Notification of acceptance will be issued in early May.
OX-BOW 2013 application now open, deadline for Summer MFA & Arts Faculty residencies is April 5th
Ox-Bow offers a wide range of opportunities for artists at all stages in their career. With year-round programs that cater to degree-seeking students, professional artists and those new to the field, Ox-Bow is a protected place where creative processes break-down, reform, and mature.
There are a variety of ways to engage in the program, from being a student, artist in residence, faculty member, visiting artist, or fellowship student.
Ox-Bow one and two-week residencies for Arts Faculty, June 2 – August 17th, 2013
Over the summer, Ox-Bow offers one and two-week residencies for artists who are also faculty members in the arts, in an adjunct or full time capacity. This program is designed to give teaching artists the much needed time to focus on their own work throughout the summer and also to connect to other faculty who are teaching at Ox-Bow.
Artists are selected upon the merit of their work and written statements describing their proposed use of the residency. During their stay, artists are encouraged to present a slide lecture or reading of their work and to participate in the community life at Ox-Bow. Recipients receive a small private studio and room and board. Please note that the classroom studio facilities are not available to artists in residence.
Cost: $225 per week, (includes room and board and studio use), due at the time the residency is awarded.
Deadline: April 5, 2013
Ox-Bow MFA Residency, three week residency, June 2 – August 17th, 2013
Ox-Bow will offer three to five 3-week residencies to MFA candidates from schools around the nation. Students must be currently enrolled in an accredited MFA program or have graduated from an MFA program on or after December 2012 to qualify. Students may apply as individuals or as pairs to live and work on campus on a project of their design. Applicants will receive one studio space, as well as housing for the duration of their stay (if applying as a pair, applicants will share a studio, as well as housing). Access to classroom studios and studio equipment is not guaranteed. Students should submit proposals to create work that is not dependent on studio access.
These three-week residencies are designed for graduate students who may not need the formal instruction provided by Ox-Bow’s traditional class structure.
Only one application is required from the applying group/collaboration. The first person listed on the application will be considered our main contact person.
Cost: $500 per 3-week residency for one artist; $800 for two artists, (includes room and board and studio), due at the time the residency is awarded.
Deadline: April 5, 2013
The Bemis Center Accepting applications for 3 month residencies featuring $750 monthly stipends, generously sized live/work studios and 24 hour access to facilities.Deadline February 28th, 2013 (!!)
The Bemis Center provides Artists-in-Residence with the gift of time, space and support.
TIME 3 months of uninterrupted, self-directed work time.
SPACE The Bemis Center is housed in two urban warehouses totaling 110,000 square feet. Each artist is provided with a generously sized live/work studio with a private kitchen and bathroom and 24 hour access to facilities including a wood shop, installation spaces, and 10,000 square foot sculpture facility.
SUPPORT $750 monthly stipend.
Applications are being accepted through February 28.
I came on as the Managing Editor of the Bad at Sports blog about a month ago. It’s been an exciting turn and I hope to do well by it. A few people have asked what my vision going forward is, and I thought I might say something about it here. I hope to continue reflecting on the dynamic energy in Chicago’s contemporary art world while connecting to conversations and aesthetic agendas in other cities and disciplines. That agenda was set in place a while ago and I believe I can continue to guide and focus that intention. There is room for experimentation in that vision, which seems necessary to me. Bad at Sports has never presented a tidy, singular package and as such, I believe it would go against the nature of the project to filter content and tone through a single, editorial lens. Its roots in independent, DIY and Punk Rock collectivism remain at the heart of the project’s vitality and the blog is a platform for unique and individual voices that pass through the subject of contemporary art and culture. As such it becomes a nexus of concerns and responses to culture at large. That is something I hope to preserve under my stewardship. As an artist-run forum, Bad at Sports has the unique capacity to reflect on a host of subjects, exposing the intellectual, aesthetic and social networks that define and subsequently influence cultural production. I believe it is our job to explore and discuss the contexts we inhabit. In doing so, we further establish a living touchstone and future archive of contemporary discourse.
Some changes should be apparent already — others will fall into place like pieces of a puzzle in the coming months. The process is organic, but I’ve been trying to set up a casual, thematic architecture that unfolds over the course of a given week. Eventually, I hope to schedule two posts a day, one before 2pm and one after. Built in to this, is room for special occasions and guest writers — those posts would either go live in the evenings, or fill in existing gaps. To that end I’ve been inviting a number of new writers, many of whom I have admired for a long time.
Here is something of a loose schedule:
Mondays: Essays and reflections from old favorites Jeriah Hildewin, Shane McAdams and Nicholas O’Brien — writers who have been posting with consistent dedication. In addition, I’m excited to announce a new bi-weekly column by Dana Bassett, whom you may know for her ACRE Newsletters.
Tuesdays are dedicated to three subjects: Performance, Social Practice, Language (or the performance thereof) and Object Oriented Ontology. Confirmed participants include longstanding contributor Abigail Satinsky and Mary Jane Jacob (Social Practice), Anthony Romero and João Florêncio (performance), Gene Tanta (language), Robert Jackson (OOO).
On Wednesdays, we will read about artists and art in other cities. The following writers will post on rotation: Jeffery Songco is covering the Bay Area, Sam Davis continues to represent Bad at Sports’ Los Angeles Bureau, Sarah Margolis-Pineo is writing about Portland. Juliana Driever will be relaying posts, interviews and artist profiles about New York, and then we’ll bring it back to the Midwest with Kelly Shindler’s dispatch from St. Louis, and Jamilee Polson Lacy writing about Kansas City.
Thursdays herald our illustrious Stephanie Burke’s Top 5 Weekend Picks and a new monthly contribution from author/translator Johannes Göransson whose writing you can also find here.
Fridays have been set aside for art reviews and artist profiles with contributions from Danny Orendoff, Monica Westin, Abraham Ritchie and myself.
WEEKENDS will feature a range and flux of the above, plus Brit Barton’s Endless Opportunities, cultural reflections and short essays by Terri Griffith, continued posts from Jesse Malmed, in addition to a monthly contribution from the newly confirmed Bailey Romaine and Adrienne Harris.
My last note is this — there is room in this schedule for additional posts, posts that would feature special events, festivals and conferences in the city. That space would also be available to, at times, connect the blog and the podcast. As a first indication of this, we will be highlighting IN>TIME, a performance festival that is going on as we speak, from January until March.
Otherwise if you have any comments, suggestions or, even guest posts you would like to submit, please feel free to contact me at: caroline@lanternprojects.com