photo by Jessica Turcios, 2010

I don’t remember the first time I met Noé, but I do remember the first time I saw his work. He and Joseph Clayton Mills performed in a dark room while standing opposite one another. Noé had an accordian strapped to his back and he played, very softly, while Joseph moved closer and farther away. Depending on their distance from one another, something concealed in Joseph’s hand (perhaps a hearing aid?) changed pitch. That performance epitomizes what I’ve seen of Noé’s work. He is dedicated to creating an awareness around silence within a performative space. The manifestation of the body, as a tool for the range of sound is integral, as are the relationships between performative bodies. His ability to instill the necessary parameters for such an awarenes–particularly in collaborative settings–is, to me, remarkable. I wanted to ask him more about that, but felt like direct questions would somehow do away with the very thing I was trying to ask. Consequently I tried to ask around the idea of silence, in order to better understand the way Noé uses sound. Because sound requires space, that seemed a good place to start.

Caroline Picard: How do you think of space?

Noé Cuéllar: Space evokes potential, but also communicates very directly to my sense of placement.  I think a sense of placement paves the way for the rest of the senses… it’s like a background sense made up by all the senses. I enjoy compound forms even when the individual pieces can still be recognized, in this case, space is the glue.

CP: It sounds like you think of space as something both sculptural (3-d figures) and linguistic (i.e. compound verbs). I appreciate the idea that space would be some experiential amalgam of those fields, even though I’m not quite sure how that would work. Is that what you mean? What do you mean by compound forms?

NC: Yeah, it’s like our sense of space is happening before we find out how we actually feel.  I’m in a room now, but a second ago I was just fine without actively thinking how comfortable it is.  I think of artistic expression as a compound form that always involves more than one thing.

CP: How do you use space as a medium for performance?

NC: The outcomes are quite unexpected when the sense of physical space is combined with the spatial sense of the actual sound.  I think my work most often expresses rigidity and confines, but space is what can allow [the work] to be experienced with more spread – perhaps more than I would choose to imply in the work itself.  I would say I focus primarily on sound, but with a sense of belonging in a space.

CP: I’d love to hear about some examples of how this has occurred in different pieces…

NC: Last year I composed Kilter, a piece for Jeb Bishop (trombone) with accordion, and two speakers inside boxes with hinges that would rattle.  I had in mind pressure and magnetic repulsion, yet the site-specific performance gave it a more wide-ranging effect, even in a dark, gritty basement with a short ceiling.

I’ve also been working with Joseph Kramer as Coppice, making site-specific installations and site-variable compositions, recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art, where the space was so large we were able to prevent any of our sounds from becoming part of a whole “surround experience,” but remain dislocated and in motion, scattering the perception of their source.

Coppice performing "Vinculum (Coincidence)", part of Without You I’m Nothing: Interactions, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Photo: Nathan Keay, © 2011 Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

CP: What, to you, is the relationship between the space inside of an instrument and the space around an instrument?

NC: The outside speaks for the inside.

CP: Can you talk a little bit about your collaboration with Joseph Clayton Mills? I was just thinking of the piece where you stood opposite one another and he kept opening and closing his hand, to change the frequency of buzz that magically manifested and grew stronger the closer you moved to one another. Then too, I think of more “traditional” pieces, where you sit down and perform for a definite period of time…

NC: Working with him is very factual, much in natural state.  We share a fascination with the attributes of objects and mechanisms, their hidden sound character and emotional effect.  It makes me think a lot about photography, which we also practice on our own.  A lot of what we do together is often a simple gesture, “subtlemost” more than “minimalist.”  I think we both find that simplicity very lasting.

CP: Will you talk a little bit about the way you use silence in your work?

NC: Silence is space but also glue.  It’s an encouragement that is easy to miss.  I like using silence as a way of pronouncing presence, or as a bearer of tension, or as a moment to coast on something that just happened.  Silences can be essentially the same in different moments, but it is how it is accessed that makes it feel different.  It carries the weight of the three tenses, it can be very prominent in itself, while also reflecting personal inner processes.  It can even be felt even when sounds are present.

CP: Do you feel like you are interrupting silence? Or are silence and sound variations within the same medium?

NC: My listening is constantly active, therefore I wouldn’t say I interrupt silence with my sound work, but rather bring the sound more forward to emphasize the moment.  Silence can be framed between those sounds, but in the end I feel like sound and silence are only evocations of a deeper level of silence – and of sound potential – more than what they simply sound like.  The repercussions of focused listening tap on that depth, beyond the temporal.

Performing "H" with Joseph Clayton Mills & Carol Genetti, part of Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain, curated by Jessica Turcios Photos: Seonaid Valiant, 2010

CP: I know that you regularly collaborate with other performers as well; sometimes you do so in a more traditional improvisation venue (like The Green Mill, for instance) and at other times you seem to locate yourself more definitively within a contemporary art/performance oeuvre. How do you negotiate those different contexts? Does a venue change the work you do?

NC: Venues shape the work more than they change it.  What feels right about performances in site-specific and gallery settings is that the audience-performer space is diffused, with more listening nodes available, and open to variation.  The stage setting has the advantage of centering a performance as a clear message.

CP: Can you talk a little bit about transcription? Or, how you translate and document your temporal, acoustic sound on a static piece of paper?

NC: I’m interested in some precise musical qualities, but also variable, interpersonal, implicit qualities that happen in the process of working one-on-one with a performer.  Transcription varies from one work to another; sometimes I don’t put anything on paper, or very little just for my own reminder.  When working with performers I let them write their own parts over a skeleton score I make for them. We talk, try, sharpen, and write.

CP: Do you use that score as a kind of document? I’m thinking about John Cage’s “score’s'” for instance; do they look like that? Or are they more traditional pages of notes?

NC: It’s a document of an idea but it’s interesting to use that word, especially when thinking of it as a document for a future event.  Sometimes they take a more traditional shape but with custom symbols, sometimes they’re just scribbles, and sometimes they’re graphic.

Drawing 2/3 from Harrow/Dormant (2010)

CP: Can you give me an example?

With Harrow/Dormant I wanted to figure out what my interpretation of a graphic score would be, and what it would be like to suggest sound from a more abstract visual departure.  I combined drawings with directions to set a structure on which the performers can stay afloat their own decisions. Julia Miller has been interpreting it with incredible tact several times now, as part of a study for a larger project of hers… which is great because multiple iterations reveal how sensitive interpretation is to one’s standpoint.

(See this video)

CP: How do you think about sound when it is happening?

NC: Sound is a constant vibration that stimulates our impulse to imagine, stir remembrance of events that perhaps haven’t quite happened to us directly.  It’s kind of way of keeping check of our experiential ability and our location.  It’s a way to be present and also to be somewhere else, beyond our windows.

CP: You enact such precision in your work; I’m trying to understand how you think about that precision, and how you locate the “action” of your work in time and space…so somehow, sound becomes the vehicle for that action, right?

NC: I regard presence and intention very highly as a basis.  In my mind those two things almost make sound all by themselves.

CP: But then what does that mean? For sound to be a vehicle? A vehicle for what?

NC: A vehicle for transportation…

CP: It’s also really interesting to think about intention—I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that…it sounds like you’re thinking of your mind as an auxiliary component—and extension of the instrument?

NC: My sister is a graphic designer, and browsed many art and design magazines when I was growing up.  I have many vivid memories of her explaining contemporary artworks to me and she would talk a lot about intention.  I remember there was an advertisement all white with only one small logo in the middle, and I asked her why they would waste so much space, and she pointed out that the blank space lead our eyes to the logo, that was the focus.  That got me thinking about doing only what felt like enough.  Insights like that built up very solidly, and I’m reminded of that particular one quite often.  The intentional framework for a message.

Related Posts

• Sense as Consenus: An Interview with Justin Cabrillos
• New ‘Centerfield’ on Art:21 Blog | Interview with Matthew Goulish
• In The Midst of Life : A Requiem at The Lincoln Park Conservatory
• Studio as Portal : Musing Carrie Gundersdorf’s summer 12×12
• Episode 252: Natasha Wheat

Recently I had the chance to ask Edra Soto a number of questions about how she approaches her practice. While I’ve been well aware of her work for some time, most of my encounters have taken place when I’ve visited a show or caught images on-line; in other words, I haven’t before had a chance to talk to her specifically about what she’s up to. As always, these weekly posts are welcome opportunities to do just that: to approach artists I admire and ask them things. For instance, I’ve noticed that Edra integrates an idea of performance in her work–whether  painting figures on a  stage or fabricating a real one, I always get the sense that she’s trying to call attention (and therefore engage?) the spectator. In order to do so, she must adopts a certain hybridity, making use of different mediums to activate a concept from multiple directions, thereby reflecting multiple perspectives. There are a number of questions this brought to mind and I was excited to pursue some of them.

CP: Can you tell me a little bit about your background? How did you come to Chicago and how does it contrast with the other places that you’ve lived?

ES: I’ve been interested in the arts since I was a girl. I love theatre and wanted to be an actress. I also love music and used to write songs and sing them accompanying myself on the piano. I focused on visual arts during the last part of my high school years and ended up at the Escuelade Artes Plasticas de Puerto Rico, which is located at one of the most beautiful landmarks of the island: San Felipe del Morro, a 16th century Spanish fort. The school has a ridiculously beautiful view. Those were the days! I completed a bachelor’s degree in visual arts and started a minor in education. After graduating, I won a fellowship to live and work in Paris for a year. I was 25, and that experience changed my life. I still think of the person I was then and how I thought Puerto Rico was the last place on earth. At that time, I was a painter in the commercial art scene of Puerto Rico. I had no idea about the financial aspect [of the art world], the types of people I needed to meet, what a curator was… I was selling paintings for $5,000 dollars and being interviewed for the local newspapers. The gallery that was representing me at the time also represented the premier artist of Puerto Rico, Arnaldo Roche. He was a graduate from SAIC (1984), and the gallery owner kept telling me, “You should go to the Art Institute”…so, I did. Again, it radically changed my perspective. I learned to understand American sarcasm and cynicism and I learned about the real me, the one I didn’t understand when I lived in Puerto Rico. I stopped painting because I needed to explore the part I had denied myself because I thought it was unimportant, irrelevant. I always had the need to make things that were not paintings, but didn’t understand their importance.

Caroline Picard: What does your studio process look like? Do you need different frames of mind to accommodate different spatial impulses? Or do you find your sculptural pieces come from the same place as your 2D work?

Edra Soto: I don’t have a romantic studio process at all. I start with ideas on paper. I write my ideas and organize the concepts of what I want to do and how I want it to read, which leads me to the conception of the artwork. In my last three solo shows I used the same process. Before The Chacon-Soto Show, The Greatest Companions series was an explosion of ideas. I struck on something that took me way too long to find. It was a prolific time and I think I did not edit enough. I was completely emotionally connected. Since then I have been conscious of having to edit my work more.

I tested myself again with Forever (part of Forever Vegetal at Roots and Culture). Forever incorporated some of the images I started during the production of the Chacon-Soto Show that I felt were pertinent, drawing from the energy of The Chacon-Soto exhibition, but aesthetically with a more organic and dark variation. I wanted to change the look of the materials, reduce the scale and make a collection that was a hybrid; organic, fragmented and strange. I was confident that’s what I needed to break from the emotional burst that The MCA exhibition provoked in me. I’ve never felt so sad about taking down a show.

Producing work in different formats and materials comes from a very honest place. More than 20 years ago I questioned my urges to work in other formats and mediums. Obviously, I don’t restrict myself now. As an artist, I am interested and attracted to many types of formats and ways of communicating an idea.

To answer your question more directly, yes, everything comes from the same place.

C.P: One of the things that I’ve always loved about your drawings is your use of the line. Often you build up very complex textual areas on top of loose washes. I’ve also noticed a reoccurring motif of hair in your work, (like the wookie, or the dog, or also these phenomenal female(?) figures with massive manes). Could you talk a little bit about that?

E.S: You are very perceptive! I don’t think anyone has asked this before. Yes, I love the delicate aspects of drawing and painting, and I do it for my personal pleasure. In painting, I went from figurative to abstract ways of expressing myself during my college years. I’m afraid my work might be a strange matrimony of my love for both styles. I do not question it so much. I do feel comfortable flowing around…it keeps things fun. The hair issue: yes, yes, yes, I love to paint hair so much! I used to love to paint water when I was in college. For a while now, it’s been hair. My love for animals in general is very real. It is just meant to happen, I guess!

CP: I’m also interested in “The Chacon-Soto Stage (la Tarima)”—partly because some of your paintings feel staged to me (as though the “action” of the work is presented as a finite visual occasion within a larger field—I suppose that goes back to my experience of heavily detailed portions occurring on simpler backgrounds, but also with some of your earlier work there seemed to be a very deliberate stage that was part of the painting). What interests me in particular about TCSS is the way you manifest a physical stage, appropriated from a television program, where suddenly what was once a 2-Dimensional experience, becomes contemporary and interactive….

ES: Most of the series of paintings I produced for the Chacon-Soto Show were culled from video stills of the Chacon Show that I watched on youtube. I selected hundreds of video clips, made prints, and used them to make the paintings. The colors, the retro look, were all very alluring and I just craved painting them. Painting them literally was not an option, but soon enough I started creating my own scenarios in those settings.

Nevertheless, I maintain clear goals as a conceptual artist to have my language and ways of communicating art to be relevant to contemporary life. My ideas about making spaces that became communal has always been a philosophical preoccupation as an artist.  For instance: how to create a space of comfort for my audience? How to erase the boundaries between the audience as spectator and the audience as integral participator?  The exhibition Homily at Ebersmoore gave me the opportunity to once again challenge myself into mastering my way of communicating, edit my ideas, and provide an installation with a variety of formats where the audience can decide when to keep a distance and when to get close.

CP: When you refer to yourself as a conceptual artist, I am struck by how you seem to contrast that with an earlier approach to art-making, wherein you were called and thought of yourself as a painter. How do you differentiate those gestures of painting for painting’s sake vs. conceptual work?

ES: I paint when I need to express an idea in painting, but I don’t dedicate my life exclusively to painting. For 8 years, before and after college, that’s all I did. Even at SAIC during the post-bac program, I painted. When I reached abstraction, I stared to think that I was done with painting, that I didn’t have anything else to say with it. I don’t think that anymore, but that’s how I stopped painting for a while. I started to paint again in 2008. For health reasons, I had to be in bed for a month and spent most of my time with my dog Foster. His loyalty inspired me and I developed my first series of paintings that was called ‘The Greatest Companions’, exhibited at Mutherland and Rowland Contemporary.

CP: In wanting to erase the boundaries between the audience and spectator and the audience as an integral participator—how do you make that distinction? (In particular with the way you hope people will interact with your work?) Also, where do you feel the tendency to be “spectator” in relation to art comes from?

ES: Scale generally provides the distinction. I will use the small scale of a painting and the very delicate details, for example, to provide a feeling of intimacy. Inversely, I will design a space (usually in sculpture format) where the spectator must introduce themselves physically to experience the space. Conceptual art can be challenging to a general audience. Because I come from a background where conceptual art was largely ignored, I think about the type of audience (and I include a younger me in that group) that might feel apprehensive about getting close to the artwork.

CP: You have a big project around the corner—Tell me about Dock6!

ES: Dock 6 is a collective of independent designers, furniture-makers and fabricators, including Dan Sullivan, my husband.  They’ve been together since 2009 and have grown into what is now the Dock 6 Collective. They have an amazing workspace and have done open house events and collaborated with underground supper club Clandestino, curated by Vicki Fowler. For that event they fabricated a 50 foot modular dining table from salvageable material. Some of my work that Dan has fabricated for me has ended up being exhibited at their events.  That’s how it occurred to me to propose to Dock 6 Collective the Design and Art Series.  Aside from Dock 6 being an amazing space, this series will gather two communities, merging through this creative outlet. As curator, I am in charge of inviting the artists, and Dock 6 Collective invited architects and designers with whom to collaborate.

Among the artists featured are Kirsten Leenaars, who is currently working on a soap opera called On Our Way to Tomorrow, a companion of the ongoing exhibit Without You I’m Nothing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Tricia Van Eck.

Dan invited the Kujawa Architecture firm, who collaborated with Theaster Gates in the fabrication of his project for the Whitney Biennial. Their work is also reflected in the beautiful hotel rooms of Longman & Eagle.

This will be a one-night, one-day only event because it is being held at their workshop. We are incredibly excited to share this project with our artists, designers and architects communities in the hopes of generating more collaborative projects in the future. Our goal for now is to make this project happen twice per year.

Related Posts

• Top 5 Weekend Picks! (2/18 & 2/19)
• Interview with Edra Soto: Heaven, Hell and ‘the Jesus of Dogs’
• Top…4? for 7/3, 7/4 & 7/5
• Protectors of the Handmade: Craft Mystery Cult convenes in Chicago
• Top 5 Weekend Picks (11/4-11/6)

Work by Chris Bradley.

Shane Campbell Gallery is located at 673 N. Milwaukee Ave. Reception is Saturday from 6-8pm.

2. Life in the Aviary at ACRE Projects

Work by Kyla Zoe Rafert.

ACRE Projects is located at 1913 W. 17th St. Reception is Sunday from 4-8pm.

3. Charades and All That Glitters at Linda Warren Gallery

work by Loretta Bourque and Rob Bondgren respectivly.

Linda Warren Gallery is located at 1052 W. Fulton Mkt. Reception is Friday from 6-9pm.

4. UBS 12×12 at the Museum of Contemporary Art

Work by Takeshi Moro.

Museum of Contemporary Art is located at 220 E. Chicago Ave. Reception is Friday from 6-10pm.

5. Grandeur and Catharsis at Walsh Gallery

Work by the Gao Brothers.

Walsh Gallery is located at 118 N. Peoria St. Reception is Friday from 5-8pm

Related Posts

• Interview with Chris Bradley
• Top 5 Weekend Picks! (1/21 – 1/23)
• Top 5 Weekend Picks! (10/15-10/17)
• Top 5 Weekend Picks (2/3-2/5)
• Top 5 Weekend Picks (12/2-12/4)

Notes on a Conversation.

With—Arielle Bielak (Coordinator of Alumni Programs & Exhibitions at the Marwen Foundation)

In—Marwen’s classrooms and galleries, 833 N. Orleans St, Chicago, IL

Commenced—on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011, 7:00–7:30pm

Unless you grew up in Chicago, there is an art school in River North that you’ve probably never heard of. Marwen is a particular kind of secret, one that is kept by this city’s young people. Offering free visual art classes to underserved Chicago youth in grades 6 through 12, this non-profit organization has a mission of wide-reaching creative education. Despite its low profile along the well-trodden Chicago artways, if you are a creative person and you start to ask around, I bet you’ll find at least one person that you know who has a connection to the school.

I started assisting with classes this summer, and it is to Marwen’s credit that the educators often learn a lot there, too. The environment is incredibly supportive, and it is so rewarding to interact with young people who are actively excited about creativity, while watching creative projects unfold before your eyes. Students do projects outside of Marwen’s walls, too, such as working with artist Jan Tichy and the MCA on Project Cabrini Green: a public piece with LED lights illuminating the last days of the housing project, blinking in time to audio recordings (which will be available at the MCA), allowing young people to share stories about home, community, and public housing in Chicago.

Marwen also holds another well-kept secret; on the second floor of the building lies a contemporary art space called the Untitled gallery. Designed to connect Marwen alumni with each other and back to the school, it is also an added educational component, with an aggressive exhibition schedule and powerful presentations by contemporary local and international artists. In 2010 the gallery’s exhibits showcased radical printmakers from Oaxaca, Mexico; emerging artists from Mexico City and Chicago; contemporary fiber and sculptural works; photographs from the Ukraine and Chicago; and more.

Coming up in the Untitled gallery, the exhibit opening April 1st is a curatorial project of mine, group show called Territories. It will feature works on paper by Suzanne Caporael, Ryan Travis Christian, and B. Ingrid Olson; paintings by J. Austin Eddy, Erika Hess, and Ryan Ingebritson; sculptural work by Maria Gaspar, Jessica Taylor, Matt Nichols, Josué Pellot, and Kevin Reiswig; experimental video by Russell Weiss; zines from Anne Elizabeth Moore via Cambodia; and a performance piece by Aurora Tabar and Sara Zalek.

My friend and colleague, Arielle Bielak, is the Untitled gallery coordinator, as well as a talented photographer in her own right. She is very much the driving force behind this gallery, and I asked her to answer some questions about her life and work. [Note: all of the photographs that follow are copyright Arielle Bielak].

JH: Can you give some background on the history of the gallery and your vision, goals, and ideas for Untitled?

AB: The Untitled Gallery at Marwen, formerly known for nine years as the Alumni Gallery, shed its Title in 2010. The whole shift is a culmination of years of hard work and relationship building with alumni, art educators, artists and curators. Its main inspirations are the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Antonia Contro, Sadie Woods, and the Arts Club of Chicago. The gallery is as unique as the building and community that it holds. It is due for a logo treatment and slick neon sign at its entrance.

My choices in artists and co-curators in 2010 were pretty intuitive, steeped with international aesthetics, microcontroller technology, and a sense of wonder. The whole run was organized around a Marwen sensibility of gallery education, a huge commitment to engage students and alumni at several levels, and a deep desire to manifest the art of social justice and the social justice of art.

2011 is moving forward with all of the direction of 2010, but there is a greater collaboration with other staff and programs in the Untitled space.

JH: Can you chart a brief trajectory about how you got to Marwen?

AB: I migrated to Chicago from New York via Virginia after an intensive yearlong stint working in the Big Apple Circus. I knew instinctively that I needed to get myself to Chicago, and settle directly in the middle of this big-ass country that I had bi-coastally divided and tangentially traversed for six years. Chicago was a dual return and a beginning. Marwen was the embodied trifecta of professional, personal, and creative desires I held in 2005. I did a lot of physical labor to allow myself to stay long enough in Chicago to meet the job of my dreams, and as it turns out, the marriage of Marwen, Chicago, and me was a powerful catalyst. I sit here today as a born again Chicagoan, and a self-proclaimed artist. This was not something that I had the proper huevos to declare before 2007. I believe in what I am doing here and everywhere I go. This is a magical and powerful home base.

JH: What kind of work were you making before you got to Marwen?

AB: A three year stint doing photo and installation work with Deadline Projects was nearly neck in neck with my relationship with Marwen. Walking into Marwen’s front door I was making stuff that was strongly influenced by a Miami aesthetic, and infused by an Etsy and glitchy nerdtech aesthetic. This is of course thanks to the other artists in the collective. What does that translate as literally? BIG photos. Narrative. Humor. Dressing up my dad and sister as the Anglo god and Satan, respectively, and putting them into a hotel room bed. Pressing a shutter. Gold leaf crutches.

Even FURTHER before, if you want to know, I wasn’t really making art as much as I was traveling around with a death grip on the body of an AE-1 that my dad gave me in the early 1990s. Later it was a Nikon D70 that I gave myself when I was 20. I pressed those shutters thousands of times around the people and musicians from the Warped Tour and Take Action Tour who were there alongside me trying to cope with and raise awareness around depression and suicide.

In the circus it was a similar story. I was going for anything that moved in the circus with that D70. I didn’t share much of any of that work with a public audience other than bragging about the circus a lot.

I’m sure that all of this was influenced by the time i spent in Florence in 2001 as a terrified art student abroad during the whole debacle of 9/11. How can I explain this time? People around me were setting miniature radios into jello molds and calling it art, while I convinced my TA and best friend to do my sculptural bidding for me as I stood there shocked and speechless.

JH: How has your work evolved since being at Marwen? Is it impossible to make work when other creative people surround you, or when you’re in an educational capacity?

AB: Nice question, Julia. You know it’s hard.

It is also paradoxically the most supportive environment in my universe. Go figure.

I find that the overwhelming amount of artists in my life force me to draw on my memories and photos from the past in order to find paradox. It also pushes me into the role of curator, and then further into the role of producer. I am drawn to the most powerful, dedicated and radical voices among the artists who approach me as an advocate of their vision. I seek out different experiences in my limited spare time. I seek out architects and free Spanish classes. I seek out Mexico City. I look into microscopes. I curate the artistic energy that I find all around me into elaborate and spontaneous happenings in my personal time.

Evolution? In my own mind, my creativity moves as a more fluid, performative, and elegant animal than ever before. My formative beginnings are less pronounced, and more sublime, embedded. I am myself. I am not concerned as much with being inauthentic. I am all of my thirty years, and more.

JH: How do you sustain communication with Marwen alumni, and keep a network of all of the working artists out there? Do you see yourself tapped into a unique contemporary art scene? Do Marwen alums network and organize as twenty and thirty year olds?

AB: If Marwen had a soul, that soul is the confluence of the individual and the greater artistic spirit. Alumni are the proof, the echo, the rhythm of that phenomenon. It is my honor and pleasure to learn how to converse with those who continue to feel connected and inspired by Marwen. It is my challenge to reach out to those who are doing great things and have not reconnected. I do this strategically and organically. I talk to people all the time. I talk and I listen. I email and I collaborate. I support and am supported.

Lately, I have been in awe of the possibilities that our new website promises for alumni in particular, and I can’t wait to move into this new and exciting mode of communication with more of Marwen’s former students. I can see clearly that more alumni will reconnect with each other, their own artistic practice, scholarship, job and exhibition opportunities.

And, yes, of course people network as twenty and thirty year olds. Some do it completely naturally, based on long-established bonds that I could never fully understand. Others come to me looking to help them reconnect with old friends. I’m also planning a pretty promising alumni reunion and exhibition this August.

This artistic universe, at which Marwen is the center, is completely unique, and 90% of every person who experiences this place understands this. You simply cannot find another place in this time and space that establishes such a fluidity of learning and artistic expression across generations, experience, and discipline. The work here isn’t being made or shown anywhere else. Art is always the queen.

—————————————

ABOUT:

Julia V. Hendrickson is a native of eastern Ohio who lives and works as a visual artist, writer, and curator in Chicago, Illinois. In 2008 she graduated with a B.A. in Studio Art and a minor in English from The College of Wooster (Wooster, Ohio). Julia is currently the gallery manager at Corbett vs. Dempsey, as well as the office manager and design assistant for Ork Posters. She is a teaching assistant at the Marwen Foundation, an active member of the Chicago Printers Guild, and has taught at Spudnik Press. A freelance art critic and writer for Newcity, Julia also keeps a blog called The Enthusiast, a documentation of the daily things that inspire, intrigue, and inform. She is currently exhibiting at Anchor Graphics (Columbia College Chicago) in a solo show titled FANTASTIC STANZAS, on view through March 26th.

Related Posts

• Episode 252: Natasha Wheat
• Episode 214: Constellations: Paintings from the MCA Collection
• Episode 213: Rob Davis and Michael Langlois
• Sir Robert J. Loescher: 1937 – 2007
• Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich down right unfriendly to artists.

As part of the ongoing collaboration between Bad At Sports and Art Practical, as well as the summer series exploring social practice, this week Brian Andrews and Patricia Maloney sit down with Natasha Wheat as she prepares for her upcoming exhibition and temporary restaurant “Self Contained,” which opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago on July 13.

Currently based in San Francisco, Wheat is an American artist whose work attempts to understand and interrupt the way that human beings exist together. She is interested in the social hierarchy of space, utopian attempts, and the tension between exclusivity and inclusion. Wheat founded Project Grow, a Portland Oregon based Art Studio and Urban Farming Project that includes people with mental diversity. Her recent work examines agriculture in relationship to human culture, distribution, and control. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.

Wheat has exhibited collaboratively and individually at The UC Berkeley Art Museum; The Pete and Susan Barrett Gallery, Santa Monica; Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger, Norway; G2, Mess Hall, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Check out the text version of this interview, starting July 1, in Issue 18 of Art Practical.

Related Posts

• Episode 220: Liam Gillick
• Episode 219: Jeremy Deller and Esam Pasha
• Episode 304: The Kadist Art Foundation/ Lauren Levato
• Subtlemost Sound Force: An Interview with Noé Cuéllar
• Notes on a Conversation: Arielle Bielak

L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art says it will name its new director Monday, and one of the names in play is that of Jeffrey Deitch, a high-flying New York City art dealer who, if chosen, would represent a break with art museum convention.
….

Two names from more traditional museum-world backgrounds also are being mentioned. Lisa Phillips is the longtime director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, and Lars Nittve, the former director of London’s Tate Modern, is with the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, where he recently staged an exhibition focusing on Los Angeles artists.

But the possibility of Deitch, with the novelty of a gallery owner and art dealer assuming a major museum directorship, was a topic of discussion in the art community.

American museum directors typically come from within the curatorial, academic or other nonprofit ranks. No major art museum in the United States is directed by a former gallery owner.

It’s unclear when MOCA will announce who it has actually chosen for the post (a press conference for the announcement had been scheduled for  10:30 am Pacific time today, but a conflict with a mayoral press conference forced postponement). At this point, however, I think it’s safe to say that whether or not Deitch ultimately wins the job, the damage (so to speak) has been done. That a commercial gallery owner could be a top contender for one of the country’s most significant museum directorships says something about the direction in which the art world as a whole is trending.

So what does it all mean (besides the fact that I don’t know how to spell the word ‘controversy’)?

I’m still working it out for myself, but here’s who I’m looking to right now for the local spin on the issue: Matt Gleason at the online L.A. art journal Coagula, whose bitchy but often dead-on takes on the backroom deals that drive L.A.’s art world have entertained me for years (subscribe to Coagula’s Twitter feed here), and whoever is behind Artwhirled, another L.A.-based art blog that has perfected the art of the Twitter art review (follow them on Twitter here). And of course, New York’s art bloggers are all over the story too, but you already know who they are.

A few more links to get you up to speed: Gawker’s “rumourmongering” post on Deitch as a “gamechanging” possibility here; and the New Yorker’s lengthy profile of Jeffrey Deitch in its November 12, 2007 issue here (full access requires subscription or one-time payment).

At any rate, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that those of us living in Chicago and other Midwestern cities will never have to worry about this kind of thing happening round these parts. Our winters are so fucking unpleasant there’s no way any celebrity candidate of Deitch’s ilk would seriously consider moving here.

Related Posts

• LA Times Gives Advice to Jeffrey Deitch For His First Day On The Job
• L.A. Museum Professionals Weigh In On Deitch as New MOCA Head
• Some More MOCA Updates
• MOCA Recap
• Subtlemost Sound Force: An Interview with Noé Cuéllar

1. A Crash of Critters at Fill in the Blank

Kate O'Leary

Ok, so I’ve got the love for Fill In The Blank, it’s in my neighborhood, and they always put out a good spread and some tasty eye candy. This round is no exception. Based (as I understand) on the idea of ascribing hilarious names to groups of animals, this will appeal to all people interested in cartoon animals and those of us who own, willingly, a copy of James Lipton’s “An Exaltation of Larks.”

Fill in the Blank is located at 5038 N. Lincoln Ave. Opening reception Friday, 7-10pm.

2. Obsession In Ice at Carl Hammer Gallery

Wilson Bentley

So, I’m not generally one for holiday themed art shows. As a matter of fact, I generally hate them. This show, however, is an exception. Featuring the work of Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, this show brings to us some of the first images ever made of individual snowflakes. A farmer/scientist, Bentley captured the first image ever of an individual snowflake in 1885. So, go to the show, muse on old-school science, and remember: you are an unique and individual snowflake, just like everybody else.

Carl Hammer Gallery is located at 740 N. Wells. Opening reception Friday, 5:30-8:30pm.

3. 12×12: Carrie Schneider at the Museum of Contemporary Art

Carrie Schneider

Ya’ll probably know, or at least know of, our dear Carrie Schneider. A fellow SAIC Grad Photo Alum, Schneider has been rocking the scene, both here and in Helsinki, since she was freed from the harry paws of the ‘Tute. Now, after much success at Monique Meloche Gallery, Carrie has been presented with the MCA crown, the 12×12. Now, though I won’t be at the opening (the meat market of MCA’s First Fridays isn’t worth the cash, ever), I will hopefully see ya’ll on a subsequent day.

The Museum of Contemporary Art is located at 220 E. Chicago. Opening reception Friday, 6-10pm (costs $16, btw).

4. Soft Throat at Monument 2 Gallery

Daniel Sullivan

No idea. Looked kind of weird and maybe awesome. I also have vague memories of Monument 2 Gallery’s website, and remember liking what I think I saw there one time. Couldn’t find Daniel’s website. ‘Dunno. I’m going to stop by. You should too.

Monument 2 Gallery is located at 2007 N. Point. Reception Saturday, 6-10pm.

5. Exhibition 3.12052009 at MVSEVM

Yeah, it's there logo-thingie. What of it?

Last time I went to MVSEVM, there were taxidermied squirrels. Thus, they have bought my allegiance for at least a couple shows. I fucking love taxidermy. I know it’s a lot to hope for more taxidermy this time ’round, but I’m gonna give it a whirl anyway. Who’s showing? Zak Arctander, Joe Craig, Cameron Crawford, Sarah Elliott, Tom Kinsella, Ira Murfin, Forrest Nash, and Alison Rhoades.

MVSEVM is located at 1626 N. California #2. Reception Saturday, 6-10pm.

Got a response to this post? Let us know! Email your comments to  mail@badatsports.com. We’ll feature thoughtful responses to issues generated by our posts in our Letters to the Editors Feature on Saturdays.

Related Posts

• Top 5 Weekend Picks (8/26-8/28)
• Top 5 Weekend Picks! (11/12-11/14)
• Top 5 Weekend Picks! (6/4-6/6)
• Top 5 (from a super secret location around Fenton, MO)
• The Chimera In Me Greets The Gobot In You: An Interview with Tessa Siddle

Liam Gillick. That is right, the man whose imagination can take him anywhere. A transparent master of the question of Modernity? Cat lover? Designer/author/theorist/artist/architect? The son Donald Judd never wanted? Enigma cloaked in riddle? Relational Aesthetic celebrity? All these things and more… We at Bad at Sports try and get to the bottom of Liam’s magic in this hour-long interview.

The last element in Liam Gillick’s 4 part global retrospective, “Three perspectives and a short scenario” will run through January 10th at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Accompanying that exhibition, Gillick has produced “The one hundred and sixty-third floor: Liam Gillick Curates the Collection,” which is also be on view.

Liam Gillick emerged in the early 1990s as part of a re-energized British art scene, producing a sophisticated body of work ranging from his signature “platform” sculptures — architectural structures made of aluminum and colored Plexiglas that facilitate or complicate social interaction — to wall paintings, text sculptures, and published texts that reflect on the increasing gap between utopian idealism and the actualities of the world.

His work joins that of generational peers such as Rirkrit Tiravanija and Philippe Parreno in defining what critic Nicholas Bourriaud described as “relational aesthetics,” an approach that emphasizes the shifting social role and function of art at the turn of the millennium. Gillick’s work has had a profound impact on a contemporary understanding of how art and architecture influence, and are themselves influenced by, interpersonal communication and interactions in the public sphere.

This exhibition is presented in association with the Witte de With in Rotterdam, Kunsthalle Zurich, and the Kunstverein in Munich. It is the most significant and comprehensive exhibition of Gillick’s work in an American museum to date, comprising a major site-specific installation in the gallery ceiling as well as a presentation of his design and published works, and a film documenting projects from the entirety of his career. The MCA is the only American venue for the exhibition.
Liam Gillick
Columbia University
Gabriel Tarde
Thomas Hirschhorn
Guerrilla Girls
Damien Hirst
Jeremy Deller
Lawrence Weiner
The Whitney
The Tate
Goldsmiths University
Yale
relational aesthetics
Musee D’Art Contemporain De Bordeaux (CAPC)
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Michael Asher
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Hell’s Kitchen
Giardini
Making Worlds
Steve McQueen
Bruce Nauman

Related Posts

• Episode 219: Jeremy Deller and Esam Pasha
• Episode 252: Natasha Wheat
• The Public is the Teacher: An interview with Justin Cabrillos
• Subtlemost Sound Force: An Interview with Noé Cuéllar
• 12 x 12 x 100: An assessment of the MCA’s emerging artist series

Jeremy Deller. That’s right, this week we have one of the world’s most interesting contemporary artists talking about “What It Is,” a show and tour he has worked on, that appeared at The Hammer, the New Museum and now, Chicago’s MCA, featuring a car that was bombed-out during the Iraq war. He is joined by artist Esam Pasha to talk about “What It Is”

Deller’s work often challenges our assumptions about what “is” and “is not” art and uses the banner term “art” to gain access to, extend, push, and develop local cultures. Deller is also the first Turner Prize-winner to appear in the 230 hours of the Bad at Sports show.

Schedule of Participants at the MCA
Jeremy Deller
Esam Pasha
MCA Release about the show

Related Posts

• Episode 220: Liam Gillick
• Episode 252: Natasha Wheat
• The Public is the Teacher: An interview with Justin Cabrillos
• Subtlemost Sound Force: An Interview with Noé Cuéllar
• 12 x 12 x 100: An assessment of the MCA’s emerging artist series

This week we talk Painting.

We assembled a crack team team of two Chicago painters (Wesley Kimler and Vera Klement), one Art Provocateur (Paul Klein), and a Curator from the MCA (Julie Rodrigues Widholm) and we talk painting and what makes the show “Constellations,” currently on display at the MCA, an important show for Chicago.

During the interview you will also hear the flock of parrots that inhabit Kimler’s studio and his daughter playing in the background, please do not be alarmed. You may also hear Duncan being made fun of for his love of Chris Wool, but if loving Wool is wrong, Duncan may never be right.
Julie Rodrigues Widholm
Vera Klement
Wesley Kimler
Paul Klein
Constellations
MCA
Bradley University Gallery
The Art Letter
The Huffington Post
Olafur Eliasson
Andreas Gursky
Robert Hughes
Peter Schjeldahl
New Yorker
James Ensor
Edvard Munch
Sigmar Polke
Warhol
Roy Lichtenstein
Karen Kilimnik
Scott Reeder
Michelle Grabner
Judy Ledgerwood
Kerry James Marshall
Angelina Gualdoni
Dubuffet
Gertrude Abercrombie
Jasper Johns
Christopher Wool
Ellen Gallagher
Piero Manzoni
Lucio Fontana
Bob Fitzpatrick
Elizabeth Smith
Francesco Bonami
Lynne Warren
Magritte
De Kooning
Rothko
Philip Guston
Ed Paschke
Roger Brown
Smart Museum
Koons
Art Chicago
Chuck Close
Anselm Kiefer
NewCity
Tony Wight
Philip von Zweck
Ed Moses

Related Posts

• Episode 213: Rob Davis and Michael Langlois
• Interview with Dmitry Samarov of “Hack”
• Notes on a Conversation: Arielle Bielak
• Episode 281: Klein Artist Works
• Episode 252: Natasha Wheat