A graphic, editorial overview of art, artists, and visual art events, found in and around Chicago over the course of the preceding month. All artwork copyright original artists; all photography copyright Paul Germanos.
Above: Mothergirl, a performance art duo featuring Sophia Hamilton, foreground, and Katy Albert, background, working within wooden boxes.
Above: The Happy Collaborationists, Meredith Weber, left, and Anna Trier, right, hosting Mothergirl’s “Two Women Do Three Things,” on February 9, 2013.
Mothergirl
“Two Women Do Three Things”
February 9, 2013
Happy Collaborationists, in partnership with ACRE Residency
1254 N. Noble
Chicago, IL 60642 http://happycollaborationists.com/
Martin Creed @ MCA Chicago
Above: A 10 second exposure, hand-held, indicating the kinetic potential of Martin Creed’s popular piece “MOTHERS.”
Above: Visible in the museum lobby, background, are the geometric architectural paintings Work No. 798 (2007) and Work No. 1349 (2012).
Martin Creed
Work No. 1092, Work No. 1357 (MOTHERS)
Museum of Contemporary Art
MVDR Plaza – till May
220 E. Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611 http://www.mcachicago.org/
Chris Smith @ The Franklin
Above: Chris Smith’s “Visitation Rites” art burn in progress on Februrary 9, 2013.
Above: Chelsea Culp and Ben Foch view Chris Smith’s “The Visitor’s Hours” within The Franklin, opening night.
Above: A gallery patron embraced by a neighborhood resident during the opening reception.
Christopher Smith
“The Visitor’s Hours” and “Visitation Rites”
February 9 – 24, 2013
The Franklin
3522 W. Franklin Blvd
Chicago, IL http://thefranklinoutdoor.tumblr.com/
Drawer’s Drawing @ PEREGRINEPROGRAM
Above: Leslie Baum’s “In the Forest,” 2012, full work and detail.
“Drawer’s Drawing”
February 3 – March 3, 2013
Julius Caesar and Peregrine Program
3311 W. Carroll Ave.
Chicago, IL 60624
Curated by Carrie Gundersdorf and Eric Lebofsky
Artwork by Leslie Baum, Avantika Bawa, Elijah Burgher, Lilli Carré, Chris Edwards, Anthony Elms, Richard Rezac, and Paul Schuette http://lesliebaum.net/
Peculiar Poetics @ Design Cloud
Above: Kayl Parker’s 60″ x 75″ photographic print on vinyl
“Plant Life”
February 1 – March 9, 2013
Western Exhibitions
845 W. Washington Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60607
Curated by Geoffrey Todd Smith
Artwork by Chinatsu Ikeda, Eric Wert, Heidi Norton, Jonathan Gardener, Mindy Rose Schwartz, Scott Wolniak, and Tyson Reeder http://www.westernexhibitions.com/
Shit is Real @ devening projects + editions
Above: “You Can’t Win Them All” by Cody Hudson.
Above: Artwork by Aron Gent, as photographed during the opening reception at devening projects + editions, on February 3, 2013.
Above: Aron Gent at his own gallery, Document, photographed on February 1, 2013.
“Shit is Real”
February 3 – March 9, 2013
devening projects + editions
3039 W. Carroll,
Chicago, IL 60612
Artwork by Aron Gent, Carrie Gundersdorf, Cody Hudson, Sofia Leiby, Josh Reames and Cody Tumblin http://deveningprojects.com/
Judith Geichman @ Carrie Secrist
Above: Gallery patrons view Judith Geichman’s installation during the opening reception.
Above: Chicago writer and artist Erik Wenzel, bon vivant in the shadow of existential doubt, at Judith Geichman’s opening reception on February 9, 2013.
Judith Geichman
“New Paintings and Works on Paper”
February 9 – March 30, 2013
Carrie Secrist Gallery
835 W. Washington Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60607 http://www.secristgallery.com/
Color Bind @ MCA
Above: Rudolf Stingel’s oil painting “Untitled (after Sam),” 2006.
Above: Joel Shapiro, Untitled, 1971, foreground; Glenn Lingon “White #11,” 1994, and Imi Knoebel, “Untitled (Black Painting),” 1990, background.
“Color Bind: The MCA Collection in Black and White,”
Organized by MCA Curator Naomi Beckwith
November 10, 2012 – April 28, 2013
The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago
220 E. Chicago Avenue (MVDR Drive)
Chicago, IL 60611 http://www.mcachicago.org/
Mary Patten @ threewalls
Above: Mary Patten’s “Schizo-Culture” performance live, February 9, 2013
Above: Dr. Darrell Moore as Michel Foucault in “Schizo-Culture” at threewalls.
Mary Patten: “PANEL”
January 11 – February 23, 2013
threewalls
119 N. Peoria #2c
Chicago, IL 60607 http://www.three-walls.org/
Sarah Hicks @ Thomas Robertello
Above: Ceramic artist Sarah Hicks greeting a guest at her opening reception on Friday, February 22, 2013.
Sarah Hicks
“Pop Garden!”
February 22 – April 6, 2013
Thomas Robertello Gallery
27 N. Morgan St.
Chicago, IL 60607 http://www.thomasrobertello.com/
Goshka Macuga @ MCA Chicago
Above: Goshka Macuga’s “The Nature of the Beast” booked for a meeting, social dimension evident, on February 12, 2013.
Above: “Of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not,” (panel 1).
“Goshka Macuga: Exhibit, A”
December 15, 2012 – April 7, 2013
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
220 E. Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611 http://www.mcachicago.org/
Luc Dratwa @ Kasia Kay
Above: Exterior window, looking in gallery from sidewalk, at night.
Luc Dratwa
“NY Tales”
February 22 – March 30
Kasia Kay Projects
215 N. Aberdeen St.
Chicago, IL 60607 http://www.kasiakaygallery.com/
Tom Costa and Christina McClelland @ Roxaboxen / ACRE Projects
Above: Christina McClelland, foreground, and Tom Costa, background.
Above: Christina McClelland at the opening reception on February, 10, 2013.
Tom Costa & Christina McClelland
“After the After Party”
February 10, 2013
Roxaboxen Exhibitions in partnership with ACRE Projects
2130 W. 21st St.
Chicago, IL http://christinamcclelland.com/
Gabriel Vormstein @ moniquemeloche
Gabriel Vormstein
“Tempus fungit – amor mannet”
February 1 – March 30, 2013
moniquemeloche gallery
2154 W Division St.
Chicago, IL 60622 http://moniquemeloche.com/
Johanna Billing @ Kavi Gupta
Johanna Billing
“I’m gonna live anyhow until I die”
February 9 – March 30, 2013
Kavi Gupta Gallery
835 W. Washington Blvd.
Chicago IL 60607 http://www.kavigupta.com/
Robert Burnier @ Andrew Rafacz
Above: Robert Burnier at his opening reception on February 9, 2013.
Robert Burnier
“The Horseless Carriage”
February 9 – March 30, 2013
Andrew Rafacz Gallery
835 W. Washington Blvd.
Chicago IL 60607 http://www.andrewrafacz.com/
Matt Nichols & Kristina Paabus @ ACRE Projects
Matt Nichols & Kristina Paabus
“The Jerks”
February 10 – 25, 2013
ACRE Projects
1913 W. 17th St.
Chicago, IL 60608 http://www.acreresidency.org/
Xavier Cha @ Aspect Ratio
Xavier Cha
“Hourglass”
February 9 – March 8, 2013
Aspect Ratio
119 N. Peoria St., Unit 3D
Chicago IL 60607 http://www.aspectratioprojects.com/
Paul Germanos: Born November 30, 1967, Cook County, Illinois. Immigrant grandparents, NYC. High school cross country numerals and track letter. Certified by the State of Illinois as a peace officer. Licensed by the City of Chicago as a taxi driver. Attended the School of the Art Institute 1987-1989. Studied the history of political philosophy with the students of Leo Strauss from 2000-2005. Phi Theta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi. Motorcyclist.
MCA programming edgier than a basement party in Pilsen
THE MCA IS OOC
In her recent AFC review, Robin Deluzen wrote that the MCA is “on a roll” and What’s the T? couldn’t agree more.
This Tuesday will mark the opening of Jason Lazurus’ much anticipated and hotly discussed 12×12BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works Exhibition. The exhibition appears to actually be three in one and has more programming than Michigan Avenue has drunk people on St. Patricks Day. The schedule includes (but is not limited to) signs for strolling, piano performances, a gif film screening (April 18th at Gene Siskel Film Center/ Conversations the Edge), and sign-making tutorials. The exhibition(s) and performances will be on view through June 18th.
Next Tuesday, March 26th, Chicago’s White/Light will be performing with [freaking] Kim Gordon. The only thing more exciting would be a Sonic Youth secret reunion show, but WTT? isn’t complaining. Tickets are free (!), but space is limited. Get our your camping gear out, this will be one for the ages.
As if all that and a bag of chips wasn’t enough, Oak Park natives, Tavi Gevinson and Jonah Ansell will be at the museum on April 23rd to discuss their work on the animated short, Cadaver. No offense Jonah Ansell, but OMG TAVI! The event includes a screening of the short and a discussion with Gevinson and Ansell moderated by Heidi Reitmaier, the MCA’s Beatrice C. Mayer Director of Education.
Oak Park Suburbanites, Gevinson and Ansell
Reading is Fundamental
because we know your feed has been awash with #SXSW and #Pope Whoever updates
Don’t let his deep commitment to the creation of a sustainable music scene fool you. Chicago free jazz impresario, Mike Reed, initiates plan to take over the world…
If you’ve ever walked by The Mutiny, you’ve probably noticed the “Bands Wanted” notice prominently displayed in their front window. If you’ve ever actually been inside the Fullerton Ave bar, you probably know why.
Regardless, a consortium of artists from The Hills to The West Pilsen Sculpture Garden have somehow managed to further expand their practices and are now “with the band, man.” The innocuously named “Chicago Music CDs showcase / CD release party” promises to be a glorious happening of music and stuff.
The show will feature “emerging new chicago music and experimental performance talent” such as FREE THE UNIVERSE (members of Fish, New Capital, Auditor), Fish (members of FREE THE UNIVERSE, Auditor), Ghosts (members of My Bad) and My Bad (members of Ghosts), amongst other bands no one has ever heard of because they probably didn’t exist until this show.
At least it’s free.
Thursday, March 28th at 8PM. The Mutiny 2428 N Western Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60647.
Michelle Obama has bangs!
100 characters on 100 paintings
Brandon Alvendia’s Sofa King What?
Show was worth the trek to Bridgeport. His practice invigorates others and that’s what’s important.
‘Over the line’ and ‘Hey motherfucker, we’re that Spic band’ aren’t two expressions you might simultaneously hear unless you like The Big Lebowski and Los Crudos. But you may have heard it at some point in the 1990s while bowling your mediocre 104, eating a pizza and watching an iconic hardcore punk show at Fireside Bowl. Seldom do you get the productive slippage between national slacker pastime and radical teenage angst that would have been a mainstay at Fireside. This modern gem modularly clad in red-and-white metal tile façade, symmetrically planned with bowling on one end and horizontal circulation on the other, activating corner spaces where the action happened – stage left and bar right – looks more like a Firestone than a punk bowling alley.
Los Crudos show, 1999
Beginning with its 40 ft signage that is part pop-advertising, part surrealist call-to-bowl, Fireside’s modernism plays out in typical plan, allowing basic front-to-back bowling to occur next to stage dives, dog piles and circle pits in a circulatory space no wider than 15 ft – folding slow-paced sport and high-energy hardcore into the same form. Sporting seedy bar décor and MS-DOS-like scoring machines, Fireside’s ability to transport you to a time you never experienced is uncanny. Built in the 1940s, no doubt typified by modernist aesthetic leanings, Fireside is a monument to simplicity of a pre-digital era, where you could’ve killed two birds – bowling and slamdancing – with one roll.
Night shot of Fireside facade
Fireside still has shows, although not as iconic or plentiful as this show list from the mid 90s. Take a gander, go to Logan Square and be a shitty bowler, while this building still exists between eras, pastimes and subcultures, easily annihilating any validity to cosmic bowling.
The Fireside is located at 2646 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago, IL 60647.
Alvendia and Sofa King proprietor Christopher Smith speaking with a visotor at the opening.
Comfort Station regains will to comfort
Local Hang to Offer Year-long Programming
The much-beloved Logan Square Comfort Station is much-missed during the winter months when the tiny art shelter is too cold to host their usually full schedule of exhibitions, screenings and musical performances. As a result of actual community effort, the 1915 structure is embarking on a much needed and environmentally friendly weatherproofing, funded in part by a Kickstarter and in-partnership with Logan Square business, Biofoam, a sustainable insulation company.
Comfort Station Logan Square has impressively reached their Kickstarter goal with over a week to go, but if you donate now you still have a chance to get the most Logan of Squares tote bag possible and your name on a list alongside Chicago art luminaries and trendsetters (this reporter included).
* Which is, thankfully, not in conflict with the April 7th two-hour Mad Men Season 6 premiere.
Miguel Gutierrez comes to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago this weekend with one of his newest works, And lose the name of action. The evening-length piece features a striking cast of note-worthy performers – Michelle Boulé, Hilary Clark, Luke George, Miguel Gutierrez, K.J. Holmes, and Ishmael Houston-Jones. Inspired by Jørgen Leth’s film The Perfect Human, the elusive logic of dance improvisation, philosophical quandaries about the brain, and the 19th century spiritualist movement, the piece draws connections between the analytical and the unexplainable, grappling with the limits of language and the ever-present spectre of death. It features music by Neal Medlyn, lighting design by Lenore Doxsee, and film/text by Boru O’Brien O’Connell.
KJ Holmes in Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, And lose the name of action, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. Photo: Chris Cameron
Often cited as a provocative voice in the contemporary dance and performance scene, Gutierrez — like many in his generation — works across mediums. His poems appear as published performance texts and he designs solo performance works as well as projects with collections of performers and collaborators under the moniker the ‘Powerful People.’ A Guggenheim Fellow, his work has appeared as such venues as the Festival D’Automne in Paris; the TBA Festival/PICA in Portland, OR; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN; UNAM in Mexico City, and ImPulsTanz in Vienna, among others. Equally admired as a teacher, he has built a following for his improvisation/choreography classes as well as his ‘DEEP Aerobics’ workouts. In mid-January, I met Miguel Gutierrez at the Abrons Arts Center amidst the first weekend of the American Realness Festival – an annual festival of contemporary dance and performance in New York. We chatted in a quiet spot near the dressing rooms about his upcoming engagement at the MCA – including the powerhouse cast performing, the ghost hunt they went on during a residency to build the work, and the limits of language when it comes to dance. Here are some excerpts from our conversation…
Abrons Arts Center, New York, NY, January 13, 2013
Jane Jerardi: Maybe first we should start first with you just talking a bit about the genesis of the project you’ll be performing at the MCA, And lose the name of action?
Miguel Gutierrez: Sure. I think I’m going to paint my nails as we do this [pulls out two shades of blue metallic nail polish] if that’s okay with you.
JJ: Sure. Talk about mind and body…!
MG: It feels like the right question to paint your nails to… Well, the piece really came out of a couple of things. In some ways it was an extension of Last Meadow [Gutierrez’s previous piece], which is unusual for me, because usually when I finish a piece I want to change gears. But, by the time we got around to finishing Last Meadow, I realized I was only beginning to understand what I was doing. Towards the end of the project, I was introduced to this book The Meaning of the Body, by Mark Johnson, which calls for getting rid of the mind/body split, once and for all. It’s beautifully stated, but reading it as a dancer, there was a moment where I thought, “This seems fairly obvious.” For a person who has any kind of relationship to somatics, you of course recognize that the mind and body are connected; that perception is an embodied practice, and that all contexts are experienced through a sort of corporeal interaction. I thought to myself, This sounds like a contact improv class. And I thought, why is this new? I think it was that initial indignation that led to the piece. I felt like why isn’t this something that is known? The second impulse for the work, was my dad. My dad had a series of neurological problems in 2008. He had a series of blood clots in his brain that were note properly diagnosed for several years. He had stroke-type things and then seizures, which then progressed during my research for And lose the name of action.
JJ: That sounds scary.
MG: Aside from the fact that it sucked, I think a couple of things came out of it. Here was a person I knew in a certain way, and suddenly he was changing. It sounds sort of basic, a basic experience of change. I say basic, but it was a quite radical. Suddenly, I was subjected to doctors telling me, This is what’s happening, This is what’s not happening – but no one knows what’s happening. Everyone is guessing. You start to see that that the way we constitute a sense of self and reality are deeply subjective. And, out of your control. You’re in the hospital with your dad and there’s nothing you can do, aside from being present. At the time I was thinking, “What is it that I can offer here? As a dancer? As a person with some naïve study of somatic practices?” I can be present. I can be an emotional support. I can be resonate and present in a way that is specific to what I do. It felt clear, but I felt very conscious that I don’t share a language with these doctors. I can’t assume they know of specific somatic practices or say, “Hey, have you heard of the Feldenkrais Method?” or “Do you know about Body Mind Centering?”
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, And lose the name of action, National Center for Choreography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. Photo: Chris Cameron
JJ: You realize how marginalized some of these movement practices are.
MG: Absolutely. I mean marginalized isn’t even the word. They’re invisible. I started to see how when people talk about brain, they are talking about mind. Lots of words are being used interchangeably. There’s a lot of lack clarity in definition between disciplines. How is it that we have the same vocabulary but we aren’t using words in the same way? I started to examine the value system around my teaching and practice. What is valuable about an improvisational performance practice? It is a kind of knowledge and a way of knowing, but quite different than other modes of knowing. And I though about Why am I so invested in this ‘unknowing knowing’? Why am I so mistrustful of alleged truths? That was all the stuff that led me into And lose the name of action. Then, I started thinking about ghosts and the paranormal. What about an immaterial body? What about a discipline of study that doesn’t even presume that the body has to be tangible anymore? When we had our first residency we went on our first ghost hunt.
JJ: Tell me about that.
MG: We went on this ghost hunt with paranormal investigators–crazy ladies in Tallahassee, FL… which sounds funny, but are these ‘paranormal investigators’ wrong? For them, it is true. If they see a ghost or hear a voice, if they’re having that experience, then that’s their embodied truth. That’s what’s going on here in this conversation of perception and truth. If I experience my father as my father even if he’s in a coma, is he not my father? If I feel that this is blue [pointing to his nail polish] and this is a lighter blue than the other blue [pointing to another bottle of darker blue nail polish] and I have a certain feeling about it. Am I wrong? Because there’s actually no way for me to definitely know how blue this is. It’s all these kinds of…
JJ: Big questions. Really big questions.
MG: So, yeah [laughing] that’s what the show is about. [Joking] It’s just about a couple small things…
JJ: So how did this all play out in your explorations in the studio?
MG: A lot of talking, a lot of improvisational exploration… In the piece, the bodies are the proof of themselves.
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, And lose the name of action, National Center for Choreography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. Photo: Chris Cameron
Because of the way that the piece exists – even though the audience is onstage, even though people are really close to us – it feels like something is at a distance. I had originally thought it would be really great to make a piece that didn’t involve bodies at all. I mean why do there have to be bodies? It’s so weird and silly – why are there bodies on stage at this point in history? Can’t we just go…
JJ: Totally virtual?
MG: Yeah – not even virtual or holograms – but… there are people that are doing that – work that’s about post-human bodies – but, I am still invested in the interpersonal dynamics of being in the room with people. That’s what keeps me interested in my work.
JJ: I think it goes back to the value thing. What’s at the core of what you do?
MG: And where do you build knowledge? Where do you build a sense of how you understand things and how you perceptively locate yourself in the world? When I look at dance, I can understand it. What does that mean? Not one specific, concrete meaning. Rather, as I’m watching the dance, I am understanding it and grappling with comprehension. And that perceptual act becomes a way to construct meaning. That doesn’t necessarily translate easily into language. I mean I like words. I can talk. But, dance actually offers another perceptual experience in time. I don’t think this is exclusive to dance, either. Mark Johnson argues that reality is actually an aesthetic experience. He doesn’t use this exact language – but we’re choreographing our way through our lives. And, that feels really powerful in relationship to what performance or a body in action can do. It doesn’t always happen. Most of the time, dance is written about exclusively as a visual rendering but, that’s not the whole picture…
Working with Deborah Hay was pretty instrumental for me. Something she would say is, “The movement is just a costume for perception.” And, I feel that’s really true. That’s my experience of dancing actually… So much of what intrigues me about dancing is about contending with myself in the moment. And all the fucked-up-ness of that question.
JJ: “Contending with things in the moment” is the way that people talk often about improvisation. You’re working with a pretty incredible set of improvisers as collaborators performing in the work. I wondered if you wanted to talk a little bit about that? I mean it’s a very diverse, powerhouse group of people.
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, And lose the name of action, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo: Boru O’Brien O’Connell.
MG: Yes. I wanted to have a group – well first, that weren’t all young 20-year olds. I wanted a diverse age range for this piece. I hadn’t worked with a group of people who were older than me before. And, I wanted a group of improvisers who could own themselves in a very clear way. I wanted to work with people who seemed restless or curious. And, I feel like that’s pretty true of this group!
JJ: So, you’re working with Michelle Boulé…
MG: Hilary Clark, Luke George, KJ Holmes, and Ishmael Houston-Jones. At first, I was a little like – oh my god, who am I to tell these people what to do? It really did feel that way. Which was great, because I wanted to be challenged directorially.
JJ: It seemed to make a lot of sense to me because you’re dealing with a kind of big existential topic – life and death, philosophical truths such as ‘person-hood’ and ‘being.’ It requires a certain maturity.
MG: Yes. It feels important that the audience is looking at people who have contended with things. I also think that I was going through something about casting in general. This thing that often happens in the dance field is people don’t take into consideration the representational value of the bodies that are there.
JJ: Which is kind of saying, maybe the visual does matter. The way that we read bodies matters.
MG: Absolutely. Bodies come marked. But, it feels like often the problem with the visual rendering thing is that people ignore it in the most important aspects in some ways. Because they think “I’m dealing with abstraction.” Or, something neutral. I know that when I first went into dance as an adult, I was excited about how it contrasted to theater, because I didn’t feel like I could get type-cast in the same way. I didn’t have to audition to fulfill just one thing. It wasn’t like – “Oh, I’m that Latino kid.” So, it’s funny to have come full circle and now become hyper-conscious about who is on the stage. But also, I think now more than ever – the way artists work – you’d be hard-pressed to find a choreographer whose not working explicitly collaboratively with their dancers. Although, I sort of suspect that’s always been true. There’s a real thought around how you have people involved in your process.
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, And lose the name of action, National Center for Choreography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. Photo: Chris Cameron
JJ: I wonder if we could talk about some of the other collaborators involved and, some of the sources because in a way you could think of sources as collaborators.
MG: Somewhere towards the beginning of the process I read Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. I realized that writers give themselves permission to do so much. You really can go there. You can interrelate different things. A novel – or that kind of novel let’s say – doesn’t aspire to be minimalist. Certainly there’s editing. But it doesn’t see reduction as the only compositional value to explore. As someone who has struggled with living in an aesthetic climate where minimalism is privileged above all else, I’m excited to encounter work that deals with interrelating or association. I started to realize that what we were making – in a sense – was a novel. For example, each dancer wears multiple costumes in the piece – I’d never done that before. Or, even having people leave [the stage space].
JJ: By having people leave and re-enter there could suddenly be chapters.
MG: Yes, I really feel like the piece does unfold in that way.
JJ: Even though a lot of the piece comes from the idea of embodiment, you’re also using text in the piece. Could you could talk a little bit about how the text figures into the work? What drew you to using text?
MG: The bulk of the text it written by Boru O’Brien O’Connell (who also collaborated to create video projections). Some of the text is an appropriation of George Berkeley’s writings.
Text is often used as the locator of meaning. And, if it exists in a performance – that’s when we’re like – there’s the meaning! That definitely happens in this piece. But, it also functions as a texture. It functions…almost like a kind of perfume….
JJ: That’s a nice image.
MG: …A kind of experience that’s not even exclusively about it being attached to understanding.
Jane Jerardi is an artist working in the media of choreography, performance, and video installation. Currently based in Chicago, her work has been presented at such venues as Transformer and The Warehouse (Washington DC), Defibrillator (Chicago IL); Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church and the LUMEN Festival for Video and Performance (New York), among others. She is one third of the cohort that runs Adult Contemporary, an alternative art space in Logan Square. She teaches at Columbia College, Chicago, where she is also on staff at the Dance Center.
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This week: The second installment of our pirate radio sessions, recorded live from NADA 2011! We are joined by local heroes The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago curators Michael Darling and Naomi Beckwith.
Naomi Beckwith is a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Beckwith joined the curatorial staff in May 2011. A native Chicagoan, Beckwith grew up in Hyde Park and attended Lincoln Park High School, going on to receive a BA in history from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She completed an MA with Distinction from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, presenting her master’s thesis on Adrian Piper and Carrie Mae Weems.
Afterward, she was a Helena Rubenstein Critical Studies Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York. Beckwith was a fall 2008 grantee of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and was named the 2011 Leader to Watch by ArtTable. She serves on the boards of the Laundromat Project (New York) and Res Artis (Amsterdam).
Prior to joining the MCA staff, Beckwith was associate curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Preceding her tenure at the Studio Museum, Beckwith was the Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, where she worked on numerous exhibitions including Locally Localized Gravity (2007), an exhibition and program of events presented by more than 100 artists whose practices are social, participatory, and communal.
Beckwith has also been the BAMart project coordinator at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and a guest blogger for Art21. She has curated and co-curated exhibitions at New York alternative spaces Recess Activities, Cuchifritos, and Artists Space.
Beckwith curated the exhibition 30 Seconds off an Inch, which was presented by the Studio Museum in Harlem November 12, 2009 – March 14, 2010. Exhibiting artworks by 42 artists of color or those inspired by black culture from more than 10 countries, the show asked viewers to think about ways in which social meaning is embedded formally within artworks.
Michael Darling (born 1968) is the James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA). Darling joined the MCA staff in July 2010.
Darling received his BA in art history from Stanford University, and he received his MA and PhD in art and architectural history from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Darling has worked as an independent writer and curator, contributing essays on art, architecture, and design to publications including Frieze, Art Issues, Flash Art, and LA Weekly. Darling frequently serves as a panelist, lecturer, and guest curator on contemporary art and architecture.
Prior to joining the MCA, Darling was the Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), where he was awarded SAM’s Patterson Sims Fellowship for 2009-10. In 2008, Darling began the program SAM Next, a series of contemporary art exhibitions presenting emerging or underappreciated artists from around the globe. Artist Enrico David, who exhibited as part of SAM Next, has since been nominated for the Turner Prize.
Darling curated the SAM exhibitions Target Practice: Painting Under Attack 1949-78 (June 25 – September 7, 2009), and Kurt (May 13 – September 16, 2010). Target Practice showcased the attacks painting underwent in the years following World War II. Kurt explored Kurt Cobain’s influence on contemporary artists.
Darling was associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, before joining SAM. He co-curated The Architecture of R.M. Schindler (2001), which won the International Association of Art Critics “Best Architecture or Design Exhibition” award. The exhibition also won merit awards for interior architecture from the Southern California American Institute of Architects and the California Council of the American Institute of Architects.
Riding the wave of ridiculously good buzz the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago has been receiving from the local press concerning all the big changes there as of late, the MCA today announced that it has named Dieter Roelstraete as its new Manilow Senior Curator. Roelstraete is currently the Curator of MuHKA, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst) in Antwerp, Belgium, and will join the MCA in February 2012. The MCA’s press release on the hiring follows:
Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, announced today that Dieter Roelstraete has been appointed the new Manilow Senior Curator at the MCA. Roelstraete is currently the Curator of MuHKA, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst) in Antwerp, Belgium, where he has organized large-scale group exhibitions and monographic shows. He will assume his new responsibilities at the MCA in February 2012.
“Dieter is a wildly productive and extraordinarily smart curator who has addressed a wide range of art — geographically, generationally, materially — in his writings and exhibitions over the past several years, says Darling. “We felt his range of knowledge and broad curiosity would be perfect for the MCA in our attempt to cast as wide a net as possible in seeking out the most compelling art from around the world. Importantly, I first started hearing about him from artists who found in him a sympathetic and intelligent translator of their projects, and that kind of endorsement is very important to us. He brings with him an international network of colleagues and collaborators which will extend the MCA’s reach far beyond Chicago; but at the end of the day, he is also a really charming person who we are all very much looking forward to working with.”
Originally trained as a philosopher at the University of Ghent, Belgian-born Roelstraete has worked at the MuHKA since 2003. His curatorial projects there include Emotion Pictures (2005); Intertidal, a survey show of contemporary art from Vancouver (2005); The Order of Things (2008); Auguste Orts: Correspondence (2010); Liam Gillick and Lawrence Weiner – A Syntax of Dependency (2011); A Rua: The Spirit of Rio de Janeiro (2011) and the collaborative projects Academy: Learning from Art (2006); The Projection Project (2007); and All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (2009). He is currently preparing a retrospective of Chantal Akerman, opening at MuHKA in February 2012.
In 2005, Roelstraete co-curated Honoré d’O: The Quest in the Belgian pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale. He has also organized solo exhibitions of Roy Arden (Vancouver Art Gallery, 2007), Steven Shearer (De Appel, Amsterdam, 2007), and Zin Taylor (Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal, 2011), as well as small-scale group shows in galleries and institutions in Belgium and Germany.
Roelstraete is an editor of Afterall and a contributing editor to A Prior Magazine, and has published extensively on contemporary art and philosophical issues in numerous catalogues and journals including Artforum, Frieze, and Mousse Magazine. He is one of the founders of the journal FR David and a tutor at De Appel in Amsterdam. In 2010, his book Richard Long: A Line Made By Walking was published by Afterall Books/The MIT Press, and a volume of his poetry will be published by ROMA in May 2012. He lives in Berlin with his wife Monika Szewczyk.
