Saturday, March 16, 2013 4:00-6:00 pm
Chicago Cultural Center, Millennium Park Room, 5th Floor

Panel Discussion & Book Release with Joyce Fernandes, Stuart Keeler and Allison Peters Quinn

There are all kinds of overlaps in this art world of ours, old friends and close friends and collaborators — I find myself working with people in different capacities all the time. This weekend my press, The Green Lantern, is releasing a book three years in the making. It’s a project that exemplifies the overlap and intersection of various networks — what is perhaps especially fitting, given that it centers on the subject of socially engaged art practice. To celebrate the release of the GLP’s next book, “SERVICE MEDIA: IS IT PUBLIC ART? OR IS IT ART IN PUBLIC SPACE?” we’ll be having a panel discussion at the Cultural Center, moderated by Bad at Sports’ own, Duncan MacKenzie. Details are as follows:

Inspired by The Green Lantern Press’ 30th title, Service Media: Is it “Public Art” or is it Art in a Public Space?,  this panel, a Poetry Center of Chicago Heap of Language Series event,  will discuss unconventional art works and practices that take place outside of galleries. As such, the panel extends a conversation that Service Media begins, from text-on-the-page to an evening of public discourse.  Service Media: Is it “Public Art” or is it Art in a Public Space? is a collection of essays that investigates socially engaged art. Editor Stuart Keeler strives to reexamine the terminology surrounding this discipline, just as ensuing contributors explore and critique a range of socially minded projects as artists, administrators and critics. It’s a collection that deserves attention for its careful assessment of a once-radical practice that has since become a staple in contemporary art practices and institutions alike.

Joyce Fernades, Executive Director of archi-treasures since 1998, is a cultural worker whose career encompasses extensive experience in arts administration, lecturing and teaching, critical writing, and visual arts practice. Her primary focus has been to develop innovative community arts practices. As Executive Director of archi-treasures she works hard to facilitate strong community  partnerships by recognizing and honoring the tremendous assets and resources that are available in all communities, and designing creative projects that leverage and complement those assets. Fernandes is also the former Director of Exhibitions and Events at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the former Program Director at Sculpture Chicago. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from Tyler School of Arts in Philidelphia.

Stuart Keeler is an artist of public spaces who organizes exhibitions and multi-platform projects with the collaborative role of “curator” as the conceptual identity of his practice.  Is it “public art” or is it art in public space?  The role of the artist is challenged by his investigative projects interpreting social praxis as an innovative business model. Keeler aims to model a new process of curatorial practices by engaging with a continuing dialogue in public space centered on the expanded role of the artist. With an MFA from the School at the Art Institute of Chicago (2005), Keeler has exhibited at Gallery 400 UIC, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Center on Contemporary Art, Espace-Art Unit, The Hyde Park Art Center, John Michael Kohler Arts Center among others.  Innovative curatorial projects include Art 44|46, Chicago, Le Flash! – Atlanta, LEITMOTIF, Nuit Blanche – Toronto. Keeler has completed over 75 public art commissions in North America and Internationally. He is currently  completing a commission a the San Diego International Airport with Swaroskvi Crystal–Austria.  He currently holds the position of Director/Curator at The Art Gallery of Mississauga, Canada.

Allison Peters Quinn is the Director of Exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), where she has curated exhibitions, and produced symposiums, performances and publications since 2004.  She has organized significant exhibitions for emerging and established artists such as Cándida Alvarez, Theaster Gates, Kelly Kaczynski, and Bibiana Suárez.  She has served on critique panels and taught graduate seminars at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and The University of Chicago Graham School. Awarded the Ramapo College Curatorial Prize, she has served as juror for the Artadia Award, Efroymson Award, and the Ragdale Foundation.  Her writing has appeared in Proximity Magazine and artists’ monographic publications including William Steiger: Transport (2011) and Altogether Mutable: The Work of Mary Lou Zelazny (2009). Allison studied a MA at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and a BA at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Founded in 2005, The Green Lantern Press is an artist-run, non-profit press focused on emerging or forgotten texts in order to bridge contemporary experience with historical form. We celebrate the integration of artistic mediums. We celebrate the amateur, the idealist and those who recognize the importance of small independent practice. In a cultural climate where the humanities must often defend themselves, we provide intimate examples of creative thought. Dedicated to the “slow media” approach, the Green Lantern Press conceives each book as a   curatorial site;  small editions are printed with artist plates, ephemeral inserts and silk screen covers. We are efficient about the material we use, economic about our proportion and intent on local production. More information at www.press.thegreenlantern.org

An independent not-for-profit arts organization founded in 1974, The Poetry Center of Chicago’s mission is to promote poetry through readings, workshops, residencies and arts education, to make poetry accessible to the general public, to stimulate and encourage young poets, and to advance the careers of poets by offering them professional opportunities. The Poetry Center is in residence at the Chicago Cultural Center. A Heap of Language is the Poetry Center’s 2012/13 Event Series, at the Chicago Cultural Center.

by Abraham Ritchie

“Match of the Day II,” 2005, Industry of the Ordinary, as Old God and Young God, play table football, first to 100 goals, on the promontory point by North Avenue beach.
Photo credit: Greg Stimac

When is the proper time to review an exhibition? It’s a seemingly simple question that has become complicated because of another question: what constitutes an exhibition? Concluding on February 17, the Industry of the Ordinary’s sprawling retrospective Sic Transit Gloria Mundi pushes these questions to their limits, mirroring the shift in contemporary practice from traditional expectations.

Industry of the Ordinary (IOTO) is a collaboration between artists Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson, and as this exhibition demonstrates, IOTO is also a collaboration between their collective and other artistic collectives, the artists and the viewers, the artists and the general public. The objects on view reflect these interactions: photographs document various interactions both with a participating audience and with the unsuspecting public; an entire section is set apart by a kind of wooden mobile home-like structure that contain contributions from a healthy percentage of Chicago’s art world.

Given the artists’ wide-ranging connections to the art community it seems relevant to say that I have almost no connection to IOTO aside from meeting Mr. Brooks twice. However Bad at Sports as an entity does, and so may some of its constituent members, depending on the person.

Throughout the course of the exhibition, framed as a mid-career retrospective, a multitude of events have been scheduled and taken place. These have spilled out of the main exhibition hall into other galleries, into the interstitial spaces of the building, and to other locations throughout the city. They’ve branched off into multiple sub-events—the month-and-a-half performance series from the Happy Collaborationists featured no less than seven artists.

It should be abundantly clear that these events are to be considered just as much a part of the exhibition as the physical objects on display, which are themselves often documents of those events. Certainly a visit to the Chicago Cultural Center could yield a variety of experiences depending on the day, and the gallery has refigured itself over the course of the exhibition. A recent visit on a weekend day was the kind of experience that would be typical of a mid-career retrospective, with documentary materials and art objects occupying the space, whereas at the opening the art itself was set in motion, literally being actively created.

The crucial point above is that the exhibition becomes self-generative and therefore is not complete until the end. This is, of course, in contrast to the traditional art exhibition that is at the outset self-contained and complete. Therefore, one can only review and assess an exhibition like this at the end, when all of these elements have been realized.

This seems to be the essential point that the Wall Street Journal ignored to their own detriment.

"Troupe" photo by John W. Sisson, Jr.

Many of these discussions about hybridity seem to center on the borders of identity: those places we feel something might end so that another substance, or self can begin. Language is essential in the communication of those boundaries; it enables a consensual agreement. The very act of naming, for instance, differentiates one body from another. I am curious about how language is embodied and how an artist invested in movement-as communication might explore that position. I thought I could interview performance artist, Justin Cabrillos. He is particularly focused on how the body and language relate: what seemed like an additional progression from my last discussion with Vanessa Place. Drawing on elements of dance, performance art, poetry, and sound art, explores an inefficient use of breath, the valleys of nonsense and physical exertion. Cabrillos was an IN>TIME Incubation Series artist-in-residence at the Chicago Cultural Center, and a 2011 LinkUP Artist at Links Hall. He recently collaborated with Every House Has a Door in a performance for artCENA in Rio De Janeiro. He is the recipient of a Greenhouse grant from the Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum.

Caroline Picard: I’m interested in how you integrate language and the body: there is something about this process that makes a lot of sense to me, in so far as both the body and language are mechanistic. In your performances, you seem to embody the two at once, calling attention to the ways in which the body gives life/animates language. At the same time, I feel like you also illustrate a kind of twitch or glitch in both, as they merge  — is there some way that you could talk about this?

"Faces, Varieties, Postures" photo by John W. Sisson, Jr.

"Faces, Varieties, Postures" photo by John W. Sisson, Jr.

CP:  What is the function of breath in your work?

"Troupe." photo by John W. Sisson, Jr.

Recently I had the opportunity to interview Matthew Goulish on the Art21 blog. Much of that conversation centered around a performance by Every house has a door that took place this last June. I wanted to reenact some aspects of that performance through writing. Memory is like a muscle, in a way, and what follows is an exercise of memory. 

“The body (its matter) is eternal; the soul (the form of the body) is transitory” - Bela Bartók (1881-1945)

Every house has a door, "They're mending the great forest highway," 2011. Performance. Photo: John W. Sisson, Jr.

We met at the poolhouse in Holstein Park. It was a humid summer day—due to the heat we were asked to stay outside before the show. There was concern the room might get too hot from our cumulative body heat; the longer we could avoid its accumulation, the better. So we gathered around a bench, following incomplete conversational paths, subjects pursued to pass the time and, if necessary, abandon altogether should the doors open unexpectedly. In these preceding moments I realized, for the first time this year, that it was summer: a time for slow and amicable drifting.

Imagine you sit on this bench with us. You look at your watch; people have started to filter indoors. You follow them. You purchase a bottle of water from a vending machine and climb a set of stairs. I am just in front of you. The banister is wrapped with caution tape but you use it anyway. At the top of the stairs we enter a small, half-court gymnasium. Windows surround the upper third of the room. They are old fashioned, connected by a single metal bar; if you turned a specific rod, all the windows would open at the same time. Through the open windows, you hear the sound of children playing in the swimming pool outside. Sometimes you hear a car from the street. The room stills in anticipation of a beginning. You notice the sweat in your palms. It is very hot. Sun brightens the room and when you follow my gaze look through the windows, the sky is a Midwestern blue.

Every house has a door, "They're mending the great forest highway," 2011, Performance. Photo: John W. Sisson, Jr.

Hannah Geil-Neufeld approaches the microphone. The performance is beginning. It has begun. She begins to read from a rehearsal journal. Like the rest of the audience, we listen to her voice and thus enter the process that created the performance we have come to see. Her voice admits us back stage. She quotes Wallace Stevens. ”The poem must resist the intelligence almost successfully,” she says.

The rehearsal journal ushers an experience of intimacy. It welcomes the audience. It calms us with stable, descriptive footing. But of course this is a performance and we are in a theater watching people who have rehearsed the ensuing movement multiple times. This diary is also a practiced devise. It is a grounding point, coherent and personal and common. It opens the door providing a lens through which to see the rest.

Every house has a door, "They are mending the great forest highway," 2011. Performance. Photo: John W. Sisson, Jr.

Three men come to the stage. They wear coats and ties. Brian Torrey Scott is not among them. He has been struck from the rehearsal journal as well. Scott was one of the original dancers; he was in the preview of this same performance put on a year ago at the Cultural Center. He moved away, I heard, and Jeff Harms took his place beside Goulish and John Rich in this performance. Harms appears in the rehearsal journal as though he had been there from the beginning. His dance movements are the same–you remember for instance, the comic flop Scott enacted periodically. At the Cultural Center the arms out, face down semi-dive made people laugh. In the gymnasium we laugh at different moment.

In the gymnasium, these men enact a dance. The gestures comprise a vocabulary because they are specific and repeating and sometimes traded off. Each dancer opens and closes his body differently, as a kind of breath. A delicate syncopation, they execute repeated patterns of movement, weaving in and out of one another. Harm’s flops down and up. Goulish wraps his arms inward and twists. Rich rotates, turning back and forth on an ankle. While the movements themselves are coherent  and descriptive, it is impossible to translate their meaning into words. The letters of this language are limbs. The body almost resists the intelligence. Someone coughs at your shoulder. There are people sitting on gymnasium mats and I feel fortunate to have a chair. By watching the dancing men, you feel cooler. Because they must be very hot.

Charissa Tolentino sits in the center of the room with an economical table. She plays music from her computer, blending organic, forest sounds with varied samples. The samples weave in and out of one another. You catch a phrase from Iggy Pop and catch my eye. I drink some water. The bottle is perspiring also. The various beats of Tolentino’s music mix with the dancers’ claps and stomps, making the room’s noise greater than that of the children outside. And after a built-in rest (the men stand on the side lines breathing noticeably while Tolentino’s soundscape fills the center of the room), the dancers bring scores and music stands to the middle of the gymnasium. John Rich is the only one who keeps his coat on. He gathers with the others, resuming the focal point of the stage to read and perform the notes inscribed. Here we see the body as an instrument and movement becomes its muscular folk music.

The body is also a diary in which memories are embedded, bound by tissue and variously noticeable tensions. It can be inspired, unexpectedly. The tri-tone stirs the body even when it’s listeners resist (John Rich jumping up and down with a red plastic devil’s fork. His feet make stamping sounds when they land on the otherwise squealing wood).

The tri-tone, Bartok and Barry Goodman are all characters in this performance. They linger in the air, as spirited figments, swooping down to possess the dancers periodically. Bartok was a pioneer of ethno-musicology. He collected folk songs like the Grimms collected fairy tales, traveling through the countryside with an Edison phonograph. The ease of his travel was impeded by the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but he continued to visit what became Romania, trapping voices in an historical box. Folk singers regularly used the tritone without any evil associations and Bartok used it in his own compositions, smuggling the diminished fifth symphony halls. His violins were retuned to play dissonant notes on open strings and his audience was curiously moved in ways they didn’t understand. Americans were similarly afraid of Jazz (it made the young people dance) but in 1938 the Goodman Band played at Carnegie Hall, what had otherwise been a site for classical performance. By drawing you into this gymnasium, I am trying to conjure the ghost of experience. Now we have these figments between us, as they were in the gymnasium.

Every house has a door, "They are mending the great forest highway," 2011. Performance. Photo: John W. Sisson, Jr.

And so we come to the final act. Goulish approaches the microphone and begins to read from the rehearsal diary again. He describes the movements of an opera. He returns to the idea of mothers while describing an after-rehearsal walk. We have left the center of the performance. In leaving the center, we approach the bounds of its circumference and crossing that line will mark the end. Goulish conjures a looming maternal presence–a presence that seems to have always been in the room, lurking in the shadows of each and every one of us, ill-defined until it was named. Mothers are the beginning of material experience. Her multiple facets standing like a grove of aspens with one single root system. This is the forest we have been walking through inside of this bare-bright gymnasium. The wooden floors, rife with patterns to measure court games, collecting sweat like a forest floor. The performance is a delapidated road and by its enactment it wants to mend itself.

But first, there will be a death scene. In the first month of summer, in the middle of a very warm day, you watch three dancers die while thinking of an opera you have never seen. Goulish describes the opera as I am here describing their performance. Their bodies jerk differently as they imagine themselves drowning in this dry heat and when they leave they exit out the gymnasium door. Goulish drowns last.

We cannot tell if it is really over, which is what happens with death. Material bodies are stupefied when they can no longer move themselves. The room begins to applaud. Performers come out from their backstage retreat to bow. The Director, Lin Hixson, is called out from where she has been watching in the audience with a smile. The room applauds with a bigger noise.

Back down the stairs you realize the banister you’d been using for support is only partially screwed into the wall. Thus the cautionary tape. In addition to the memory of the performance, you also remember (perhaps by accident) the faces of those sitting around you. The same faces you walk down stairs with. Strangers watching a partially silent music.