Some great upcoming programming planned around Chicago Artist’s Month that I wanted to bring to your attention. This weekend, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art will present Henry Darger at Home (and) at Work, a program comprising two multi-disciplinary events about process, studio practice, and creativity in conjunction with Chicago Artists Month. The events start with a panel that includes some fantastic Chicago writers, and finish several weeks later with….a PUPPET SHOW. Awesome. You’ll find all the details below….
Intuit's Henry Darger Room Collection. Photo by John Faier.
Finding inspiration in the Henry Darger Room Collection and the texts and imagery Darger crafted within it, Intuit has collaborated with the Chicago Underground Library (CUL) and The Anatomy Collective (TAC) to examine the relationship between writing, art-making and the creative process.
In collaboration with the Chicago Underground Library, Contemporary Authors and the Artistic Process, a panel discussion of authors followed by a bookmaking project with the audience, will take place on Saturday, October 2 from 11:00am – 1:00pm. In collaboration with The Anatomy Collective, Henry Darger’s Life (&) Work, a puppet show based on the life and work of Henry Darger and the collaborative text will take place on Thursday, October 28 from 6:00pm – 8:00pm. Both events take place at Intuit, 756 N. Milwaukee, Chicago, IL
Contemporary Authors and the Artistic Process
Saturday, October 2, 2010, 11am -1pm
$10; includes admission to Intuit’s galleries
A panel discussion featuring authors John Bresland, Stephanie Kuehnert, Audrey Niffenegger and Bayo Ojikutu will explore their multi-disciplinary sources of inspiration, the role biography plays in their work and how their studio contextualizes their practice. The 45-minute discussion will be moderated by Nell Taylor, Executive Director of Chicago Underground Library, with an introduction by Thea Liberty Nichols, Intuit’s Study Center Manager, and panelists will have books available for purchase.
Immediately following the panel, Intuit and CUL invite you to participate in a collaborative bookmaking project in homage to Darger’s life’s work, the masterpiece, In the Realms of the Unreal… Audience members are encouraged to bring in an item (a photo, artwork, magazine or newspaper clipping, etc.) or use items made available to create the text and imagery for a book that, once collaged together, will be housed within CUL’s collection and serve as the inspiration for the puppet show Henry Darger’s Life (&) Work on October 28.
Henry Darger’s Life (&) Work
Thursday, October 28, 6pm-8pm
Admission is by donation
Following Contemporary Authors and the Artistic Process, Theater group The Anatomy Collective will have just over three weeks to develop an exclusive puppet show that blends the tracings, clippings, ephemera and writing generated and collected by Darger with the book collectively created by attendees of CUL’s panel. The resultant performance will showcase TAC’s talents and resourcefulness in a whimsical epic that re-interprets Darger’s (home) life and (studio) work and the readers and viewers it continues to inspire.
For further information about this exhibition or to inquire about other Intuit programs, please contact Intuit at intuit@art.org or 312.243.9088.
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