This season's CSA offering mentioned in TOC's Holiday Gift Guide
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This season's CSA offering mentioned in TOC's Holiday Gift Guide
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Artist Christine Tarkowski contributed the bowls to this Winter's Community Supported Art, check out this short interview to learn more about her work. More about Christine at http://christinetarkowski.com/
]]> The pieces in this season's CSA are all objects designed for everyday use - a placemat, a plate, a cup, a bowl. Do you see your piece for the CSA as a work of art, a designed object, or both? How does this reflect your practice as a whole?
It's all sorts of things.... a drawing, a plate, a sculpture, an original, a multiple. I studied applied arts in undergraduate so have allowed for the high/low, fine/applied, art/craft discussion to enter into my work at various intervals.
With my edition, each piece has resin dripped and drawn onto the back of each clear plate. A reverse drawing of sorts. These materials and process reference recent conceptual and technical components of my work- in part resiny, drippy, models, sculptures and prints.
For you as the maker, what is the significance of these items being artist-designed and handmade rather than commercially produced and store bought?
Many of the gifts I give my friends are works made just for them. It isn't important if the gift is functional or not, but what's significant is that it's produces with the recipient in mind. In making this edition I've been aware of the recipient even if I don't know the individual. Each piece is made in consideration of an appreciative user.
What is your favorite thing to do in Chicago around the holidays?
I love bringing my young son to see the Zoo Lights in Lincoln Park!
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Artist Karolina Gnatowski contributed the Feel Good/Good Feel placemat to this Winter's Community Supported Art, check out this short interview to learn more about her work. More about Karolina at http://karolinagnatowski.com
]]> The pieces in this season's CSA are all objects designed for everyday use - a placemat, a plate, a cup, a bowl. Do you see your piece for the CSA as a work of art, a designed object, or both? How does this reflect your practice as a whole?
I dont make a distinction between Art and Design, for me the two coexist. Ive worked on many projects that could be thought of as both including my collaboration with Heather Mullins where we designed two fainting couches. They functioned as sculpture when nobody was sitting on them, then became designed objects when in use but ultimately they exist as both simultaneously. For me utility doesnt make art into design, you can use art and you can look at designed objects.
For you as the maker, what is the significance of these items being artist-designed and handmade rather than commercially produced and store bought?
It means I get to be puckish with these placemats. A store wouldnt sell a placemat that demanded so much from the user and could potentially fail in their utility. The fact that they are hand made allows for a different relationship to form between user/viewer and object, a more challenging one.
What is your favorite thing to do in Chicago around the holidays?
Zoo Lights! On very frigid days nobody is at the zoo, you have the entire place to yourself. Makes a great date night.
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Artist John Preus contributed the bowls to this Winter's Community Supported Art, check out this short interview to learn more about his work. More about John at http://johnpreus.com/
]]> The pieces in this season's CSA are all objects designed for everyday use - a placemat, a plate, a cup, a bowl. Do you see your piece for the CSA as a work of art, a designed object, or both? How does this reflect your practice as a whole?I love this idea of a place setting, put together in some ways like an exquisite corpse. We don't know what the other objects look like, or how they will visually work together. The bowls that I am using were found at a thrift store, and modified so as to re-invest some degree of subjective agency back into their mass-produced perfection.
The function existed prior to my intervention, and I have in some cases made them somewhat less functional, or at least more awkward to use.
It is both a work of art and a designed object. I don't think that the distinction between the two worlds really holds, nor is very interesting to insist upon. Art objects are undoubtedly designed objects, functional or not. The distinction remains a loose one that is more useful for defining the general activities of educational departments. But I think what the question drives at is, how it changes a things ontology, its particular form of being, and therefore the sort of attention that it asks of us. An art object asks to be looked at and thought about. A functional object asks to be used, and falls back into the world of craft and design. Can it be used easily, efficiently, and does it disappear once it is employed? And if not, is that by some failure of the designer, or a deliberate effort at troubling the thing's equipmental nature?
My practice generally fluctuates between making functional things and spaces, working as a builder, an art fabricator, at times making speculative objects, but almost always considering function, and the loss of function in some way. I am interested in how the poetic or aesthetic gesture trickles down into pragmatism, and how the preconfigured world that we are all thrown into, can be reclaimed and reinvested, slowed down, and drawn out. Much of my work revolves around forms of attention, how places receive attention and care, how things command attention and care, and how this reflects more broadly on who we are and what we are doing here.
For you as the maker, what is the significance of these items being artist-designed and handmade rather than commercially produced and store bought?
The objects that I begin with, are in fact mass-produced and store-bought. My intervention takes a mass-produced object, a ready-made, and modifies it, more or less subtly, to reinvest the thing with the mark of the hand.
I am not convinced of the intrinsic value of the handmade thing as opposed to the mass produced thing, per se. The mass-produced thing also includes a human hand running the machine, or keying in the program, or packaging the object, or driving the forklift. I do not want to undermine these forms of care and investment.
The thing that i find most troubling about mass production is the way in which it skews the process and the productive act away from an encounter, toward a set of proscribed transactions; the way a thing no longer becomes a means of meaningful exchange and interdependence, but is simply one of a series
of disengaged means to an end.
What I think is valuable in the exchange of objects in general, is that things that are chosen and made as gifts, or bought as gifts are invested with some degree of intentionality and care, and some thought has been put into the receiver, and into the way in which the receiver will engage with the object. A human relationship is created/enriched and mediated through an object. The object becomes an investment of thought, and care between a maker and a user. This is in my view the basis of an interesting economy, a set of weighted interdependencies that have engagement at their core.
What is your favorite thing to do in Chicago around the holidays?
to play music, and eat and drink too much with friends and family.
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Previous threewalls artist-in-residence Daniela Ehemann has work in INSIDER/OUTSIDER, a group show at Lincoln Arts Project in Boston.
From the LAP website:
INSIDER / OUTISDER
November 3 - December 1
RECEPTION: Friday, November 16, 7-10pm
Insider/Outsider features photographs, videos, and other traces of live art pieces originally created in non-art contexts. This exhibition addresses the ethics of making art in public, private, and intimate space; investigates art’s role within various social and political structures; and examines the interstices between art action and contemporary life. Local artists show beside artists from China, Australia, The Czech Republic, Israel, Canada, and other parts of the United States, offering a diverse range of perspectives around the concept of place and its power to shape experience.
]]>ELIJAH BURGHER, DEREK CHAN, DAN DEVENING, CARSON FISK-VITTORI, DIANNA FRID, KELLY KACZYNSKI*, BETSY ODOM, & BERNARD WILLIAMS
We will unveil images of the artists' anticipated editions at the end of April.
SAVE THE DATE FOR THE CSA RELEASE EVENT ON MAY 26!
threewalls will be co-hosting our Spring 2012 Release Event with Nite Market, Chicago's first market for unlicensed artisan food vendors. The event will be at Rebuilding Exchange on May 26, 6-9pm located at 2160 N. Ashland Avenue. An individual CSA work from each artist will be framed and available via silent auction that night, shareholders can come pick up their work, and the general public is welcome to attend, check out the work, and peruse the delicious vendors of the Nite Market community.
Entering the Nite Market costs $2 and the Community Supported Art Silent Auction and pick-up zone is free. Shareholders who cannot attend the event are welcome to pick up their work at threewalls anytime after May 26 during open hours, Tuesday-Saturday 11-5pm.
*An extended interview with KELLY KACZYNSKI is published here, check it out.
]]> Kelly Kaczynski [K] took the time to unearth more detail about the premeditation of her practice. The following dialogue evolved from an extended interview with Brook Sinkinson Withrow [B] following the initial CSA questions.B: How does living in Chicago contribute to your practice?
K: I am highly susceptible to the influence of environment. Place can affect how I work as well as how I am thinking of the work. There is a cultural engagement living in Chicago that I really enjoy, but what has been significant in the way it affects my work has been the influence of terrain. In relocating to Chicago 7 years ago, I was introduced to living in flatness, meaning the experience of a 360 degree horizon interrupted only by the verticals of the city. While this does not play out directly in the work, it has greatly impacted my thoughts on the idea of distance, depth and platform to which my most recent work employs.
B: Will you talk more about how distance (or perhaps, proximity) and depth play into your work?
K: I’ve been thinking a lot recently about distance but in relation to time and qualities of new technologies. A significant writer that has influenced the way that I’m thinking is Paul Virilio and his book Open Sky and ways in which he talks about how the advent of new technologies have actually affected our physiological sense of perceptual experiences such as depth. The idea is that there is a loss or rather, I might prefer to say, a shift; we no longer understand the horizon line in the way that we used to. When we see the horizon, we have knowledge beyond that horizon. You can imagine in early days the significance of the horizon or how we understood distance if we’re on a ship or we’re on a horse or walking. But when we started moving faster with transportation systems we produced a different relationship to speed and to distance than we did previously. Now we have an extended relationship to distance with the advent of communication systems that employ a state of immediacy as in technologies like remote video chatting or simultaneous feedback. This complicates notions of what it is to be there, versus being here. You and I could be miles apart or even never have met but develop a relationship of proximity because we are communicating in real time, especially with the employment of the video monitor. So I can be in places and understand places without actually being on site.
Also, what fascinates me, especially recently, is the idea of the monitor as a type of flatness, even though it’s a vertical flatness. The “monitor” presents – because of the Internet – a type of expansive, if not horizontal, then a kind of constant container arena where we get to navigate an infinity of the container.
Originally I thought my work was about landscape but it’s not. Rather, it is affected by my experience of landscapes. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest which has access to mountains and forests and the ocean; so the landscape has qualities of vastness, of density, of enclosure, of openness, of height, the monumental height versus the miniature and what foliage is in terms of patterning. All of that is a part of how it is that I understand conditions of sculpture.
So moving to Chicago, my first time living in the Midwest and actually being here, and a way of seeing... I would have to say the lake is a huge influence for me. Because it’s the most flat, horizontal horizon I’ve ever experienced. The ocean also has a horizon but it’s swelling. The lake is a super flat, most level line, but there’s ways in which when you see it sometimes, because of the colors, it comes up at you vertically and the sky drops behind it. So rather than attenuation or the atmosphere making it so that we see it like a perspectival situation, we usually see it or experience it either as a crossfade or as a kind of super verticality.
But part of that, I wonder, is a kind of knowledge; if we see that because we understand verticality and horizontality in really different ways than perhaps we used to perceive these. So all this is tied in together.
In terms of the platform, it was pointed out to me at one point (I don’t remember by whom) that there’s something about my current work with the stages – between Olympus Manger and Study for Convergence Performance – where I’m using the platform as a kind of horizontal that has implication of verticality. This is creating the narrative, whereas the vertical is embodied by the bodies that are on the stage (or the assumed bodies relating to the stage). Bodies are vertical; we are vertical beings ultimately. So there’s a way in which I’ve emptied out the mountains and reduced it entirely to just the platform, the flatness, or the horizontal arena, as opposed to Olympus Manger, Scene II having mountains on it, the current platforms – or stages - are super emptied out. And I think that somehow that’s at least influenced by these ideas of the horizon line or loss thereof or kind of the conflation of horizon with the monitor and with field and what blank field is.
B: When you mentioned Virilio I thought about immediacy in the way in which the screen flattens. Through the internet things that were otherwise distant become immediate not just in space, but also in time. Transportation systems and the photograph are alike in that way; they make distance and detail traversable. Virlio writes about this in terms of visionics (the telescope as an early paradigm of a technology of immediacy) in The Vision Machine.
K: Yea, we don’t have to leave. We can just open up the monitor and find the thing. And then we can choose to investigate further, like we can actually investigate through the tactile, the physical, the analog. But it’s now about choice as opposed to mandatory. When making things, necessity is in a different position than it ever had been before; there’s a necessity of the physical.
B: Does the flatness or openness of Chicago contribute to the way you approach audience participation? That is, by seeing all around your environment and simultaneously being visible, are you more aware of this kind of visibility in the “platforms” you create in the exhibition space?
K: Yeah, but I don’t think that has anything to do with Chicago per se. I think that it’s a continuation of the ideas I just talked about and it’s ultimately something that through the course of my work, through the years, I’m recognizing that it’s something I’ve always been doing. Early on, when I was an Undergrad, or just out of college, I was really invested in interactive work and the idea of giving somebody choices through the object or the situation where the thing would be present and then the viewer would come upon it and have choices about how they wanted to interact, like whether they’d touch it or how far they’d go in touching it. I was largely invested in understanding those choices and understanding how far I was going and then letting myself give in to ways in which people interact with them that I didn’t predict. And that helped me a lot in terms of the larger installations where I understood how to create a type of interaction without language, without a kind of directive through the sign, like “touch this” or “do this.”
I think with that question about interactivity what struck me was that in parenthesis it implied it was somehow about what the viewer should experience themselves - and I think the way I answered was that I have come to understand that I’m less interested in what the viewer feels. In other words, what your content is or what you bring to the work is not my concern except by understanding you always are bringing subjective content, it’s a given. Rather, I’m more interested in using the viewer so that their experience and the way that their body or the way that they illustrate their experience within the content of the piece becomes part of the work or is implicated in the work itself.
I was just talking with somebody recently about the difference between the felt body and the feeling body. I’m less interested in the feeling body, less interested in how you feel, like whether you have joy or whether you feel like you belong with a community when you’re interacting with the work as opposed to the felt body. In other words, the body that is awkward or the body where there’s a perceiving state but the perceiving state is being perceived and thus the sort of sense that viewers can somehow feel the body that is participating. I’m more interested in that. So when I’m talking about a psyche-social, I mean the viewing public is a kind of conflation of psyches into a felt body, perhaps a narrative body. We’re perceiving each other but more than that we must interact while we all have a kind of individual choice. My work doesn’t particularly care about how you feel, but my work cares a lot about how you’re felt. So I was always invested in that awkward body or that perceiving body, but in part, it’s because I, as the artist maker, have always been invested in that body. It’s not particular to putting you in an emotive state. But I hope that somehow it’s an affective state.
B: I’m also really interested in the social psyche and the notion that we edit each others' experiences via our co-presence. By seeing someone else walk in front of a screen, touch an object, or get on stage, our notions of interaction are influenced. It’s similar to the way that co-presence of different works in the same space edits our understanding of each of them; we generally situate ourselves with a work in relation to its environment. I’m not sure if this is the felt body you’re referring to, but now I’m thinking about that awareness of your presence as an audience.
K: It’s similar to Dan Graham and his Pavilion pieces whereas you see the viewer viewing while perceiving of yourself as a viewer. However, in my recent work, I’m more interested in using the perceiving body as a body to be seen. I sometimes think of it as a way of releasing - or excusing - or extracting - agency from the viewer. While they are making a choice in their position, the choice becomes history and it is their body relation to the total image that matters most. Yes, it is co-presence… in a way, the body of the viewer becomes another material gesture amongst or within the larger environment, also made of material presence. Sometimes I think of it as perverse, which is kind of wonderful.
B: Are you interested in Brechtian theater?
K: I’m totally interested in a Brechtian theater. In my work I’m shifting -- I’m adding my own conditions to it.
B: Is your interest in the engagement with the platform space or the engagement with a formal structure like a sculptural stage related to the ways in which you, as the author of the space, can reverse the role of audience participation? In other words, the audience might become aware of their presence or active participation in the work, becoming actors. How might this play into experiencing your platforms as sculptural objects or performative stages?
K: I absolutely think that what I’m trying to do is that apperceptive notion of the audience recognizing that they are viewing and yet simultaneously I think that it’s a kind of friendly perversity.
Look, I have two parts of the work: it can be really structural and formal. The other part is that it always comes from me - in the way that it has to do with my life, how I traverse my life - so there’s a kind of messy in the affective sense.
So in terms of the Brechtian theater, he already did all or a lot of the work by saying, “Hey, you’re not just watching a play, you can’t just watch this and believe that you’re in it. Because you’re not. Because all of you have different notions. And here, let’s just remind you that you’re not actually in it, you’re not immersed, you’re not embedded, you’re not any of that.” And I think that in my case I keep saying, “Oh, you’re not immersed, you’re not embedded, but you are implicated.” Right? So sometimes, especially with Olympus Manger, I’m using my audience with the idea that they’re still making choices, they still don’t have to interact, they still make choices about how they see the work, but at some point even within those choices, I’m using them. I’m using the image of the audience as an image of the audience or I’m using the image of the viewer as an image of an actor-viewer. So it kind of has to do with a lens; it depends upon which lens you look through and if you are an audience looking through that lens, you’re still playing the role.
And all of that is kind of easy because I’m using the stage as a platform. As soon as you use a platform for people to get on, they’re going to get on it and either something happens or nothing happens. But then looking at the stage as kind of a formal element and object in and of itself, immersing you with ideas of scale and perspective. The model stages and the 1:1 stages could have the same exact scenario, like it could still be a type of galactic scene in the same place with the miniscule scene that takes place in a simple closet. I don’t know what that is, it sort of depends upon how people want to determine the scale of the stage versus its size.
I use my viewership and audience as actors within the work. And I think the same thing in some ways goes for the small objects or keepsakes, or handhelds - takeaways - there is still this shift between a kind of structural formal quality and the idea of the takeaway, the keepsake, as about a type of traverse or a type of souvenir or a type of love for the object - the sentiment, the desirable, the nostalgic. But it’s just an object, it means nothing except for what’s inscribed into it or how you’re choosing to look at it. Like the notion of language or linguistics in which the object itself is not a mountain, then we call it a “mountain” then it’s a mountain, but it will never ever be a mountain. Because it can’t be. It’s only the image of or how we want to look at it.
I love the Chinese scholar’s rocks for that same notion. Even though the scholar’s rocks are rocks that come from geological terrain opposed to the made terrain that I’ve been doing. It’s still about language. You identify or want to see it as the thing and so we see it as the thing, but that’s an optical knowledge-based linguistic concern.
Brook Sinkinson Withrow is a marketing and outreach intern at threewalls. She is completing her Bachelor of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where her studies emphasize exhibition practices and the moving image. Brook is an independent curator, programmer, and artist engaged in a varied critical writing practice.
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Past resident artist Adia Millett has a solo show at Mixed Greens. Stop by if you're in NY!
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From past residents Camlab:
Please join us this Thursday evening March 1st from 7-10pm for Two in the Bush at MOCA (Grand Ave)
In response to an economy gone to the birds, this third installment in CamLab’s Engagement Party residency will “instrumentalize” money and intention in a large-scale hands-on group gathering. Longtime “economicalists,” the members of CamLab invite you into their efficiently excessive installation for a material meditation on the distribution of resources. While occupying a cipher of fabric and song, participants will address their immediate surroundings by graphically converting cash amid the sounds of steel (oil) drumming. Join us to find your sense of re-purpose and build collectivity with conversation and contemplation, not walls with wealth. Make audible your values. CamLab will don “Feast and Famine” outfits designed by Australian artist Glenda Wyman. At the end of the evening, the duo’s Engagement Party series will conclude with a celebratory live performance by Hotel La Rut.
CamLab has apportioned a part of its series’ budget to W.A.G.E. Working Artists and the Greater Economy, in an effort to support the group’s continued work ‘to draw attention to economic equalities that exist in the arts, and to resolve them.'
Volunteers needed to help bring artwork to people's homes for a curiously fun and radically democratic Art Lending Library.
The Hull-House Museum's Art Lending Library provides artwork for Chicagoans to check out and enjoy in their own spaces for 3 months at a time.
For many, it may be the first time they have had a chance to have an original piece of art in their homes.
Here is how it works:
Interested participants come to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum to choose a piece of art from our lending library collection.
We contact a volunteer to arrange a mutually convenient time to deliver the art.
The volunteer delivers the art, installs it, and takes a photo to document the art in place.
Happiness and satisfaction ensues to everyone involved!
After three months, a volunteer will return to de-install the art and return it to Hull-House for others to enjoy.
Our initial collection of artworks, curated by Abigail Satinsky and Shannon Stratton, comes from Community Supported Art (CSA) Chicago, a project of threewalls started by Satinsky and Shannon Stratton. Much like Community Supported Agriculture, in which shareholders invest in a local farm and receive a monthly payout of fruits and vegetables, CSA Chicago asks shareholders to invest directly in the arts community and receive limited edition contemporary artist projects in return. Satinsky will continue to work with us to grow our collection with other CSA projects throughout the country.
Contact Heather Radke for more information at heather.radke@gmail.com
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Check out the recent CSA press in the Huffington Post and Chicago Magazine, and reserve your share before they sell out!
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Stop by threewalls before December 10th to see the exhibition! You can also check out an interactive component of the show at http://www.voicesfromthecenter.net/
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Help fund this project by threewalls artist in resdience, Casey Droege!
"For my current project "Tracks of my Tears" I have compiled a list of every song that has made me cry, dating back to 1991. (It gets a little fuzzier before that.) For each song, I've written and recorded a story about the moment I remember tears being induced. The recordings will be pressed into a limited edition run of 100 colorful 12 in. records."
More information is available at kickstarter.com
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Gitte Bog's recent work is included in "Art of Work," an exhibition focusing on art and labor. Her piece, "La Chalana" stemmed from an interest and exploration into shoe shining. More information about that piece and other work in the show can be found here: Chicago Art Magazine. Gitte Bog completed a thematic residency at threewalls in the summer of 2009.
"Art of Work” is currently on view at Waubonsee Community College:
Arrowhead Room Gallery
Waubonsee Community College
Rt. 47 at Waubonsee Drive
Sugar Grove, IL 60554-9454
At the Reading Room // Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts
"writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular system
(Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of languages" -Roland Barthes
Visit the blog or continue reading for a schedule of events.
]]> THURSDAY, JUNE 16: 5-8PMErin Thurlow and Rena Leinberger, two past artists in residence, will be participating in an upcoming show at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, New York. If you're in the area this summer, check it out:
Heat Island:: Smack Mellon
Brooklyn, New York.
June 18 - July 31
Opening: Saturday, June 18, 5-8pm
Rena Leinberger. Plan, 2011
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Place/No Place by Chiara Galimberti
Resident Bia Gayotto's video "Trading Places: Los Angeles" is included in In a Strange Land, a group exhibition organized by AREA Chicago at Calles Y Sueños. The shows opens tonight, June 4th, and there will be a weekly series of events in conjunction with the show.
June 4 - July 4
Calles Y Sueños
1900 S Carpenter
Opening event: Saturday, June 4, 7-11 PM
Closing event: A counter-nationalist cook-out, party and speak-out – Sunday, July 3, 5-11 PM
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--Ania Szremski, SALON curatorOf course, the idea of a curator whose role is increasingly hybridized with the figure of the artist and the educator, and for whom the role of language is increasingly important (whether through the scholarship that he or she produces in conjunction with the exhibition, or through roundtables or other such pedagogically-oriented events) hardly feels novel anymore. But, interestingly, during our SALON on February 8th, there appeared to be some resistance to that idea here in Chicago.
As independent curator Kelly Shindler pointed out during the Salon, Chicago is not exactly an “institutional” city. If debates about the relative power of the creative curator (or the ethics regarding his or her “co-authorship” of an exhibition) make sense in New York or in European cities, it’s because those cities have a very different artistic ecology, so to speak. As Eric May and Aay Preston-Myint attested to, Chicago is characterized by its plethora of small, independent artist-run spaces, where such concerns don’t really enter into the equation. Both Eric and Aay described their curatorial work as a relatively hands-off endeavor, through which they tried to help other artists show their work in the best manner possible, without imposing a curatorial vision. The concept of “ethics” or “responsibility” towards the artist was often mentioned in this regard; both artist-curators felt they had a responsibility towards other artists to allow them to represent their work as they saw fit, and in their own terms. This point of discussion brought forth a lot of comments from SALON attendees, and piqued my curiosity as to why this unspoken ethical code for artist-run spaces exists (you must not show your own work, you must show the work as the artist intended, etc.). It was often brought up in the discussion that Chicago is great for artists and curators alike because there are so many of these small spaces that are so easy to access; which makes me wonder, if there are so many “safe spaces” for experimentation, why be so cautious? Perhaps Chicagoans should not be so self-congratulatory in this regard. Why not think more self-reflexively about the possibilities for curating, and engaging more actively with the debates that occur elsewhere in the world - could the reticence to do so be indicative of a somewhat apathetic hermeticism?
Our annual winter ball kept everyone warm with holiday performances and hot toddies!
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Check out more images on Facebook
All images © Jenny Ramos
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Dana is also showing paintings in Behind the Image, a traveling group show curated by James Hull with Marc Mitchell, Director of Georgia Southern University Gallery. It is currently on view in Savannah, Georgia, through November 30th: http://calendar.georgiasouthern.edu/event?id=12303.
The full article is available here: Eye Exam: The Self-Hanged Jury
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Public Culture 1 with Mark Bazer kicked off the the Public Culture Series. The series is co-organized by Randall Szott and InCUBATE, and seeks to highlight examinations and enactments of public culture. If you missed this one, be sure to stop by the next in the series, Public Culture 2 with Paul Durica on Tuesday October 12th.
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More images of the project can be found at http://firefuloffear.blogspot.com/.
This is What Gives Life to Our Living Culture (Rambla Las Flores), 2008-]]>
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Adia Millett The In Betweens #1
During her residency this summer, Adia Millett created a constantly changing installation. The project was on view at threewalls and acted as the backdrop for a series of photographs. Based in California, Adia Millett works in various media, including film, photography, and installation. More information about her work can be found at www.adiamillett.com.
While at threewalls, you've been working on an installation that changes each week. Can you tell us about that project?
The project that I began at threewalls is one that I will be working on for the next ten months. It’s entitled, The In Betweens. The structure I built at threewalls is being re-built in my studio, here in Oakland where I will continue producing temporary installations inside of an 8’x8’x4’ box. While the installations I build in museums or galleries are usually designed for viewers to enter and interact with, the temporary installations, like these, are primarily constructed for photographing. The images of this series will take a few different forms. In the Spring I will start an on-line photo novel, in which a new image from the series will be added each week. Each image will help to expand an intricate story containing more than 30 characters. There will also be a series of printed triptychs and eventually a book. And my hope is that this project will be the fountainhead for my next film.
Is there anything else you've been working on, or plan to work on during your residency?
While in Chicago, I also built an installation which was the second of a series of three entitled, Blood, Sweat, & Tears, at SAIC. A photograph, documenting the installation will be part of a show there entitled Process in Product, in October.
There’s a strong visual presence in your work that comes both from a saturated palette as well as repeated forms – birds, paper planes, chairs and domestic objects, among other things. Can you tell us more about your use of color and imagery?
I think I’m less concerned with color than I am with light. Directing the viewer’s eye towards a specific place within the frame is most successfully done through the use of shadows and focused light. More importantly the light or lack there of, influences the psychology of an image. My work is always attempting to develop a conversation between the allure of darkness, fragility, innocence, and senescence. I believe that my use of light and imagery help to convey those connections.
Your work has an accessibility to it that I appreciate, and it doesn’t always necessarily reflect a specific place or time. Is having that flexibility to interpretation a primary concern of yours, or has it just naturally emerged?
Thanks! Accessibility is an issue that keeps me up at night. My philosophy is that successful work, figures out a way to be extremely simple yet somehow complex in a way that requires it’s viewers to question their own psyche. When an idea I have for a piece becomes to locatable in any way, I’m likely to change it.
]]> Your installations involve a number of media and types of skills. What did you focus on while in school?I painted most of my undergrad, until my last year, when I took a few photo classes with an amazing photographer , Lewis Watts. That initial training as a painter still plays a huge role in the composition of my photography. Grad school was two years of training myself how to be a craftsman/woman, building miniature homes and cross-stitching, as well as developing a conceptual palette to build work from.
There are often two (or more) ways to experience your work - as installations and as documented in photographs. In person, I really appreciate being able to see the labor you’ve put in to the piece through the physical structure and details. As photographs, an ethereal presence emerges. Can you describe that process, from making and gathering the components of the installation to the final documentation of the work?
Like I mentioned before, there are often two types of installations. In both cases I want the viewer to feel like they are entering a painting or a photograph, a space where reality is slightly altered. Theoretically the spaces are built according to an idea I want to speak to, like domesticity or death, but often I am simply inspired by an object, like a wedding dress or a pair of crutches.
As a minimalist at heart, I hate collecting found objects, but I see them like a poet sees words. You find one you really love and you figure out a way to make it scream.
Although often referencing the home, these spaces don't necessarily feel inhabited, or maybe, no longer inhabited, until entered by the viewer, creating an intimate and temporary experience. I’ve read some of your writing on Bardo and intermediate states – can you tell us more about that and other ideas you’ve been exploring in your work?
Oh boy, I could write a novel on this one. I’m constantly exploring a variety of ideas, usually initiated by my skepticism with what our society calls normal. The way that my mind has learned to process the contradictions, failures, fears and desires of what I witness, is through the use of metaphor. Here is an example: You have grown up your whole life believing that you are white. You are taught that marriage will ensure commitment in your “love” relationships. Being naked in public is not okay. And if you don’t believe in God, you’re probably not going to heaven. I try to create spaces where we can find clarity, space where one can be critical of and embrace an idea simultaneously, where death is beautiful and your identity is a myth.
The Buddhist term Bardo is probably one of the most profound examples of a physical and mental space that we all come to eventually, the space between being alive and being dead. This concept has been present in my work since I can remember, as my racial, gender, and intellectual identity has exists somewhere in between a variety of categories my whole life.
There’s often an atmosphere of memory, dreams, and melancholy present in your work, hinting at an unidentified narrative. Are your installations structured around a sort of narrative?
My installations, miniatures, embroidery, and photography all operate as traces of multiple narratives. I have pieces that I did six years ago which are connected to a story I plan to tell this month. Sometimes I will make a piece and I will have six different versions of what is happening in the space in my mind. In my film the Birth of Bardo, I’m telling five different stories all at once.
Much of your work includes some sort of architecture, whether it’s something like the structure you’ve been creating your installations within at threewalls, or the miniatures that you’ve built. Are you interested in architecture, or do you consider these structures more as a part of the language of your work? What/who are your influences?
I think I was more interested in architecture about four years ago when the outside of the space s were being taken into account. As a metaphor I do think architecture is a great example of human subjectivity. We gain so much information based upon the design, materials, age, and location of a building, just like we do with people. What my work does have in common with architecture, is it’s investment in space: angles, size, openings, light, etc.
I’m influenced by emotions, poverty, children, conflict, and my own obsession with balance and equality.
Along with installation and photography, you also work in video. Watching a selection from The Birth of Bardo helped inform the other parts of your work for me. Can you tell us more about how you’ve incorporated film into your practice?
The Birth of Bardo came about on the third day of silence at a meditation treat. I had never put any people in any of my work, let alone make film. One of the main things I realized when I left New York two and half years ago, was that its easy to trap yourself into making the same thing over and over again. I know a lot of artist who are stuck making a different version of the same painting. Though, it is important to have a distinct voice, we’re artists, not car manufactures. And if a moving image can say something that a photo can’t, why not take advantage of it. In the case of video, unlike art, I don’t know the rules, so I don’t care if I’m breaking them.
Has being in Chicago within the community of threewalls influenced what you've made here?
Yes. Threewalls provided me with access to SAIC’s facilities such as the wood, metal, and ceramics shops. I wouldn’t have been able to make any of the objects I made otherwise. Threewalls also introduced me to the amazing artists who posed for my photographs.
What's next for you? Any upcoming exhibitions/projects/residencies?
I will continue with this project, which I will show next Fall in New York at Mixedgreens and hopefully at Threewalls. I am working on a new series of cross-stitch pieces. And I am working on an on-going collaboration with Stephanie Diamond, a New York based artist.
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On August 26th, Cauleen Smith hosted a screening of her work as a part of her Carousel Mircocinema series.
Exhibition runs through October 15th.
http://www.charlottestreet.org/
More to come on the Chicago opening in November!
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On July 31st, threewalls' resident, Cauleen Smith, hosted Carousel Microcinema #4, the most recent in a series of screenings. This screening included Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual by Barbara McCullough, Didn't We Ramble On: Black Marching Bands by Billy Jackson, and The Epic Crossing of an Ife Head by Wura-Natasha Ogunji, as well as a post-screening discussion with Kerry James Marshall. Program notes are available here.
More about Carousel Microcinema events can be found at http://carouselmicrocinema.wordpress.com/
All images © Jenny Ramos
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During her tinkertank residency at threewalls, Rena Leinberger has been investigating the intersections of urban ruin, constructed notions of optimism, artifice and progress through stock photography and prefabricated materials. For this one-day culminating exhibition, she will show a reconstructed debris pile made of sandpaper, and documentation from her Optimism Pack, a portable studio fabricated to strategically deploy images and color in the urban landscape.
If you missed it, click below for more images!
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This week, our summer residents, Adia Millett and Cauleen Smith, have been busy conducting workshops with Chicago Public Schools teachers. The week involves presentations on the work of resident artists, group discussions, as well as projects and studio time. This ongoing exchange between threewalls and CPS results in an annual exhibition of work inspired by the workshops.
Want to see what went on at these workshops? Adia's posted interactive documentation from her workshop here: http://web.me.com/amillett/CPS/Home.html
The group was just getting started when we stopped by Cauleen's workshop. Check out the pictures below for a sampling of what the teaching artists were working on.
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Iowa City based artist, Pete Schulte, recently completed a residency at threewalls. Pete's past and current work is number of projects, including drawings done in graphite and pastel, installation, and objects. Towards the end of his stay, Pete opened his studio to the public, showing an installation of his own work and "Not Here Not There", a group show he organized within the studio space and back rooms of threewalls. More of his work can be seen at schulteprojects.com.
Having already completed two other residencies this year, the studio seems to be an important part of your work. Can you describe your process in making work?
Drawing is the cornerstone of my practice. It is my daily activity and the point of departure for all of my projects. From there, a variety of activities commence, including sculptural, social, site-conditioned, time-based, and curatorial projects. I don’t privilege any particular media or work from a specific position - theoretical or otherwise. I simply try to move through the world with eyes, heart, and mind open. As experiences and ideas impress themselves upon me they often find tributaries into the work that I make. In so far as the studio is concerned, I’m less interested in the idea of The Studio (writ large), than I am in the idea of collapsing the distance that exists between where the work is made, and where and how it is presented.
I’ve noticed that the studio space also comes into play in your documentation. Shadows cast on drawings are thoughtfully placed, and windowsills become backdrops. How would you describe the role of the time and of the physical space around you in your work?
The conditions of a given site are important to me regardless of whether they are in my studio, a traditional exhibition space, or perhaps something less rigorously defined. In the contemporary artworld, site-specificity has become increasingly, and to my mind, rather narrowly articulated by mere responses to a given set of architectural conditions. While architectural conditions obviously inform one’s response to site, the potential field of inquiry is vastly larger. It seems far more interesting to me when artists working in this realm expand their line of inquiry to include the potential psychological, historical, political, social, and/or spiritual implications involved in working with a particular site.
Can one frame a space and time the way one traditionally frames a drawing? On some level it’s a very simple question, but it has continued to fuel my exploration and practice. My studio has generally been the arena where this process unfolds. On a practical level, treating the space and time as the work helps me to keep anything and everything in play and worthy of consideration - be it the drawings, a sculpture, a windowpane, a pile of records, a stone given by my daughter, etc.
What have you been working on during your stay at threewalls?
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a book called The Drop Edge Of Yonder, by Rudolph Wurlitzer. At the beginning of the novel, the main character is cursed to live between life and death, not being able to discern the difference between the two. Not Here Not There is the name of the character that places the curse, and it is also the name that I’ve adopted for the installation at threewalls. Between leaving my home and losing someone very dear to me, I’ve been struggling with an inevitable sense of drift; questioning where I am, reflecting on what’s been lost, at what cost, taking one-step, then another, and, invariably, trying to move a little further up the road. An obvious metaphor for life is also a reality that’s being compressed into a very short period of time for me. While I may not have been completely conscious of it while making the work, this sense of drift, loss, reflection, and uncertainty seems to be coursing through everything that I’ve done over the last few months - sometimes more apparent, sometimes less.
Narrative seems to be a significant part of your work. Can you describe its function in your practice? How does it relate to your use of text?
It’s funny to hear that because, for many years, my work suppressed - or at least attempted to suppress narrative completely. As my work has evolved over the last five years or so, that has obviously changed - a change that I’ve come to embrace. I tend to work from the heart, as opposed to some sort of ironic posture or theoretical position, and the seems to resonate on an emotional level. I’m interested in art not as it is separated or divorced from life, but deeply enmeshed within it. I don’t set out to tell stories or dictate meaning, but – as the answer to your next question will attest - narrative seems to attach itself to the work and accrue meaning over time.
The trapezoid is a repeated shape in your work, often translated in different forms - on paper, as a frame, as a piece of fabric. Can you tell us a little more about that recurrence, and its transformation in different materials?
About five years ago I made a small, rather unassuming drawing; graphite on paper. I’d been concentrating on work in this vein for several months, but something about this drawing felt different, both in terms of my facility with the materials, as well as the manner in which I had been thinking about conceptual resonances within the work. The paper was becoming slightly soft and compromised, and the image sort of breathed itself up and into the surface. It just felt right, and I continue to identify with this drawing very strongly. Around the same time that I made this piece a friend related the story of a mutual acquaintance that had recently passed. On his deathbed he scrawls a note to family and friends telling them not to worry, that he would indeed be taken care of when he crossed over. He signs his name, and in the post-script writes, “Quiet please. When I am gone, I am gone.” Eventually, that phrase – which completely blew me away - latched itself on to the aforementioned drawing. If nothing else, my work on whole tends to hinge on nuance and subtlety, and when I give artist talks I usually try to take few drawings, as it is difficult to get a sense of these qualities when the work is projected and dramatically enlarged. Several years later, I’m giving a talk at small college in northern Iowa. After the talk I packed-up the drawings, and took them home. When I unpacked, that particular drawing was gone and I have not seen it since. After the initial disappointment, I became amazed that the drawing had become the title. Quiet Please. When I am gone, I am gone – was indeed gone. My next impulse was to simply re-make the drawing. I was immediately reminded of the phrase (which I later found to be attributed to Heraclitus) – You can never step into the same river twice because new water is always washing over you. I can make a drawing - same size, same materials, same imagery (for lack of a better term) - and not ever replicate the original. Which really calls into question any notion of a multiple. This experience has had a profound effect on my development and continues to open doors and fuel aspects of my work. When I’m not sure what to do, what to draw, what to make, I will often re-visit this idea – the trapezoid, as you call it. I’ve drawn it and remade it in several permanent and ephemeral forms over the years. It seems to function as something of a marker for me; showing me where I’ve been, where I am, and where I might be able to go. Quiet Please. When I am gone, I am gone.
Your work has a similar sensibility to the way you arrange a space. Do you approach your curatorial and collaborative projects in the same way as you do your studio work?
I try to find the most interesting and efficient ways possible to communicate and resist privileging one over the other. I approach all of my projects in this way, whether it’s my work proper or curatorial projects. Collaboration is tricky, as it necessitates a negotiation between the parties involved. Generally, I find collaborative projects to be immensely difficult and rarely engage in them. The collaborative projects that I’ve been able to sustain, particularly The Men’s Sewing Club with David Dunlap, work because of the deep respect and the shared sensibilities of the participants. David and I occasionally question the production of our collaboration. Is it the drawings that we produce - or - the conversations and ideas that evolve as we share the space and time. I tend to think it’s the latter.
You’ve created an exhibition in your studio here at threewalls, which includes your own work as well as the work of other artists. Can you tell us about some of those artists and the pieces you’ve chosen for the show? The show isn’t limited to artwork, and also includes threewalls debris, such as leftover floor planks from Claire Pentecost’s recent installation and stacks of our yellow folding chairs. The result feels deliberate and well put together. How did you decide to utilize the space in this way, embracing the objects the gallery keeps hidden away?
My initial plan for threewalls involved opening an ad-hoc alternative space in my studio. I have long been interested in the work of Chicago artist Gaylen Gerber and thought this the perfect opportunity to not only foreground the curatorial aspect of my practice, but to also engage him in something of a guerilla collaboration. Unbeknownst to him, I intended to call the space The Gaylen Gerber Gallery and would promote the evolving exhibition as Pete Schulte and Gaylen Gerber with… (insert names of participating artists here). I painted a portion of the space middle gray and brought with me the work of several other artists whose work would be, in Gerber’s language, foregrounded in this exclusively Chicago context. I offer this simplified précis because I still love the idea and would like to see it come to fruition at a later time. However, when I arrived at threewalls and got a feel for the space, it simply did not feel right for the project and I decided to go in a different direction. As luck would have it, (threewalls director) Shannon Stratton paid me a visit toward the end of my stay, and asked if I would like to open my studio/installation to the public during Eric Fleischauer’s opening the next night. There are two different storage/work rooms situated between the main gallery and resident studio at threewalls. Over the course of our conversation Shannon expressed a desire to have residents utilize those spaces as well. I told her I might have an idea, she told me to do whatever I want, and in less than 24 hours I put together a show that included some of the work that I brought, some work in the threewalls collection, and some debris and ephemera that was hanging around the space. As I mentioned above, I really just try to be sensitive to the spaces that I’m working with/in, to allow the histories and conditions of the space to be revealed, and to hopefully spark resonances between the site and work presented. To offer one example - it turned out that the debris from the previous show was completely conversant with John Dilg’s amazing painting of an ice-laden tree. I usually come back to a place where I simply ask myself, “How does it feel?” Dialing it down to this degree helps me to not pay so much heed to established logic and academic propriety. Like the installation of my personal work, the group-show was titled, Not Here Not There, and seems to embody a similar spirit of drift and wandering. The show included the work of Mariah Dekkenga, Julia Schwadron, John Englebrecht, Sophia Toal-Schulte, John Dilg, Josh Anderson, David Dunlap, Stacie Wilson, Noel Allen, and Claire Pentecost’s Debris.
What’s next for you? Any upcoming exhibitions, projects, residencies?
I’ve spent the last five months on the road and in various residencies, so I’m looking forward to a little bit of consistency and stability, at least for the foreseeable future. Before embarking on my travels I left my home in Iowa City, not knowing where I would land at the end of it all. As fate would have it, a very exciting opportunity has just emerged in - of all places - Iowa City. I’m about to take up a new position there as curator and director of a space called The Times Club, which is part of the legendary Prairie Lights Bookstore. The Times Club has an interesting history, as it is located in the exact same space that the local literary society met throughout the 1930's, hosting writers Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, and e e Cummings, among others. Reportedly, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were scheduled for a reading but were sleeted-in at Waukesha airport-- or so the story goes. At any rate, the owner wants to explore new possibilities and programming in the space, and seems to like the curatorial ideas that I’ve brought to the table. I am also scheduled to have a solo show at Iowa City’s PublicSpaceOne in February.
Our current SOLO artist's, Eric Fleischauer's, artist talk on June 17th gave a background on the range of work in his show, from video to drawing to a three volume handmade book. The talk also sparked a debate about the Guggenheim's upcoming YouTube exhibition. Stop by and see Eric's show before July 3rd!
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All images © Jenny Ramos
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Resident artist, Pete Schulte, exhibited an installation of his work as well as a group show, Not Here Not There, in the residency space and back rooms of threewalls on June 4th. Curated by Pete Schulte, the group show included the work of Mariah Dekkenga, Julia Schwadron, John Englebrecht, Sophia Toal-Schulte, John Dilg, Josh Anderson, David Dunlap, Stacie Wilson, Noel Allen, and Claire Pentecost’s Debris.
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Continue reading for more images from the opening of POST CURSOR. Eric Fleishauer's show runs through July 3rd.
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Continue reading for more images of our spring fundraiser and auction!
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If you didn't get a chance to make it to the opening, continue reading for more images from Claire Pentecost's SOLO show. Come see the show in person before it closes on May 22nd!
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THE PEOPLE CONCERNED
Anna Mayer
4755 York Blvd Los Angeles CA 90042
May 8 - 30, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 8, 7-10 pm
Closing Event: to be held at Tree and Space, Sunday, May 30 from 4-7 pm
For her solo exhibition, The People Concerned, Anna Mayer will present numerous works made for the gallery space as well as performance documents from events and moments occurring in the weeks leading up to the show. All works emanate from Mayer’s attempt to establish an “outcantatory” practice that uses language, fire, and intention to propose relationships encouraging embodiment and the rejection of discreet, linear modes of reception. Wavering between collectivity and introspection, the exhibition offers different access points for experiential discovery. The works included articulate a functional, insistently generative process taking place between people, elements, and hands touching objects.
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All photos courtesy Jenny Ramos
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All photos © Jenny Ramos
All photos © Jenny Ramos 
There's still time to make an appointment with the Gesture Guild!
Continue reading for more images from this week's appointments.
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Presented by Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Performance Dept.
Friday, March 26
1:00 PM — 5:30 PM
Chicago Cultural Center
VENUE CHANGE: Claudia Cassidy Theater, 2nd floor
FREE, Reservations Required
IN>TIME 2010 Symposium
Performing Futures: Sustaining and Continuing a Live Art Performance Practice
To accomodate demand, the venue has been changed to CLAUDIA CASSIDY THEATER, located on the second floor of the Chicago Cultural Center, entrance at 77 E Randolph.
Presented by Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Performance Dept.
Saturday, March 27
6:00 PM — 9:00 PM
Chicago Cultural Center
FREE
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Jemima also will have work included in the 17th Biennale of Sydney, curated by David Elliott.
"The Will to Deceive"
March 25th - April 10th
Opening March 25th 6-8pm
Milani Gallery
54 Logan Rd
Woolloongabba, Qld 4102
www.milanigallery.com.au
If you had fun at last year's Spring Fling: You Oughta Be in Fangs, we hope to see you this May 28th at The Library for Office Romance.
A one-of-a-kind event, Office Romance is an immersive evening where Mad Men era romps abound in Chicago’s spectacular Philip-Johnson designed penthouse club, The Library at 190 South LaSalle St. Unlike any other event, our spring benefit is an annual artist-designed and directed “experience” where guests become “part of the art.” Naughty secretaries, worn-out office workers and well-heeled bosses eat, drink, dance and watch office capers unfold. As in all our immersive spring benefits, period costumes are encouraged!
The event will feature performances by office workers (i.e. performance artists working with the “Office Romance” theme), burlesque-dancers, Sinatra-like singers and more. Attendees can take in a peep show, a kissing booth, gender-bending capers (hey, it is 2010), dancing, a scavenger hunt in the stacks, manhattans, naughty photocopies and much much more.
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This winter, threewalls hosted a two week animation festival that featuring local and national artists. Below is a sampling of images from Chasing Two Rabbits, a program curated by Sonia Yoon and Shannon Stratton. The program began with a screening of an experimental film by Norman McLaren, the inspiration for the show. Animations from several arists followed, moving around the gallery from wall to wall. The screening also included live sound and performance.
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All photographs by Jenny Ramos.
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Armita Raafat's current show at threewalls has been called "the most visually arresting of the work of the day" (Erik Wennermark). We spoke with Armita about her practice, research, and experiences behind her work. If you haven't seen the show yet, stop by threewalls by Saturday February 13th.
The pieces in the show appear to have almost become a part of the gallery's architecture. Can you describe your process, from idea to installation?
I usually start from an image that, most of the time, I’ve documented myself, and write about what I am planning to do. I start the piece based on my interpretation of forms and structures of the image. Also, the readings I do relate to my concept. The work is very process-oriented, and it changes a lot in the course of making. Intuitive working has a role, too. So, it’s a combination of logical/structural decisions with intuition and process making.
Along with a notion of ruin and reference to Middle Eastern structures, pattern and ornament are an integral part of your work. How do you conduct your research, both visual and historic/cultural?
I do readings on ornament, as well as destruction and ruin related to different parts of the world, not just the Middle East. I also look at different imagery. So, the research starts general, and then sometimes gets very specific. Like last year, I documented and researched Muqarnas of a specific era in the city of Isfahan/ Iran.
One of the pieces in the show is a collaboration with another artist. Tell us about that piece and your collaboration.
The collaborative piece is a beginning of series of works between me and an American/Pakistani Artist. We are both working on Muqarnas for some different and some similar reasons. We are collaborating for a bigger project to come soon.
]]> You've studied both in Iran and in America. How has this influenced your practice?The School of the Art Institute of Chicago had an interdisciplinary and conceptual approach, which I found very interesting. My training in Iran was very traditional and was very focused on techniques, skills, and knowledge on material. I could only do painting, since I was in that department. I think the combination of both of these approaches and what I've learned in both schools was very important and helpful for developing my work.
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Armita Raafat's SOLO exhibition openned last night in our freshly renovated space. If you missed it, stop by before February 13th! You can also check out the show after hours during Armita's Artist Talk on Thursday February 4th at 6pm.
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threewalls wrapped up 2009 with a holiday debutante ball. Festivities included party games, dancing, a photobooth, mint juleps, and lots of red velvet cake.
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As a part of In Search of the Mundane, we explored Anthony's Elm's Collection of Artist and Exhibition Ephemera last Sunday afternoon. Anthony explained how his collection came to be and his process of maintaining it, as well as how it has expanded over time. The collection is housed mostly in stacks of archival boxes, organized by name and type of media. Some boxes contain material from only one artist, and others are simply labeled "ephemera". Along with the countless brochures, postcards, cd's, letters, invites, posters and everything else that Anthony allowed the attendees to browse, he also pulled a few selections from his Artist's Books collection.
Don't miss Wine and Time: Lecture and Tasting with David Tamarkin tomorrow at
7 PM!
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Follow THE STUDIO CHICAGO!
Studio Chicago is a yearlong collaborative project that focuses on the artist’s studio. Through exhibitions, talks, publications, tours, and research, participating organizations will celebrate the working artist and reveal their sites of creative production from historical and contemporary perspectives. With concepts ranging from the “studio as muse,” “virtual studios,” “street as
studio,” and “gallery as studio,” Studio Chicago invites participation from artists and the art-curious, beginning with Chicago Artists Month in October 2009.
Core Studio Chicago partners include: Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Columbia College Chicago, Gallery 400, Hyde Park Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and threewalls.
threewalls will be participating in the program through linking residents to The Studio through The Studio Chicago weblog, publications like Artists Run Chicago Digest, the summer symposium and summer residents. This summer's residents, TBA, will be working at Sullivan Galleries from July 5th to September 6th.
Read TIME OUT Chicago's Blog here.
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“In Search of the Mundane” consists of a series of events on the art of living. There’s a number of activities that could have been included. How did you decide on the programming for the show?
InCUBATE: In general, the programming was chosen based on all of shared interests. We had done some of the activities together before and enjoyed (team trivia, boozy brunches), and others were activities one or more of us had always wanted (the food tour of Maxwell Street Market, the wine tasting). The Public Culture Lectures are part of a regular series of events we have co-organized in the past and which are usually hosted at the Orientation Center in Logan Square. The opportunity to base a series of events from threewalls has allowed us to share these things with a greater number of people, many of whom we weren't previously in contact with.
The thematic titles for each event are based in another shared interest of ours, Michel de Certau's book The Practice of Everyday Life. The titles are poached from the subheadings of sections within the book that have been particularly thought-provoking to us.
RS: Programming is always a balance among what you'd like to do and what is actually feasible due to budget and the availability and willingness of others to participate. In other words the decisions were highly pragmatic (in the most basic sense of the term).
This exhibition relates to conversations in He said, She said, The Department of Aesthetics, as well as in the programming at InCUBATE. How has “In Search of the Mundane” expanded upon those conversations?
RS: It provides opportunities to literally expand them by increasing the number of potential participants. It also allows for a pragmatic (in the larger sense) test of the ideas and conversations in experience. It is also a useful test to see how the site of activities impacts the enactment and perception of them.
What are InCUBATE‘s upcoming projects, events, or plans?
InCUBATE: We're going through the selection process for our thematic residency in December. We also host one Sunday Soup Brunch a month. With Material Exchange and Adam Bobbette, we participated in an exhibition that's up right now in Buffalo, NY at CEPA Gallery called "Conversation Pieces." In December we'll head back for the closing to give away a grant. We'll also be launching the Artist Run Credit League this fall.
Randall, what‘s next for you?
RS: Just plodding along in search of meaningful experiences to share with others...
Last Sunday, In Search of the Mundane took us to Maxwell Street Market, where Robert Gardner gave a comprehensive culinary tour. Robert led the group through the market, stopping at his favorite stands and explaining each vendor’s specialties. While unraveling the mystery behind menu items for the non Spanish speaking attendees, he recommended his favorite dishes, some of which are only available in Chicago at Maxwell Street Market. Robert noted the best places at the market to get familiar staples, such as tortas and fresh churros, as well as where to find top fare for the more adventurous eater, such as buche, a dish made of pork stomach.
Everyone agreed that Mexican Coke-a-cola, served in glass bottles at the market, was way better than corn-syrupy American Coke. Mexican Coke is made from raw cane sugar, which makes all the difference!
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Join us for In Search of the Mundane’s next event, Doing Cooking: Boozy Brunch and screening of “Trekkies 1” on October 27th from 11-5.
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In Search of the Mundane opened last night with its first event, New Knowledge: Team Trivia Night. Teams competed against each other in heats, until the highest scorers fought for the grand prize in the final round.
Organized by Randall Szott and InCUBATE, In Search of the Mundane is a series of events taking place at the gallery and throughout Chicago, including tours, movie screenings, and public lectures, amongst other excursions and activities. The next event is a culinary tour of Maxwell Street Market happening tomorrow, October 18th. Meet your guide, Robert Gardner, at Des Plaines and Roosevelt at 10 AM. A detailed schedule of all the events is available on our calendar.
Stop by threewalls to help us complete the world’s largest crossword puzzle, enjoy a cup of coffee, or play a game of darts!
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Winnipeg Babysitter
by Daniel Barrow
Saturday, October 17th at 8:00 pm, $10
The Nightingale
1084 N. Milwaukee Chicago, IL 60642
In 2004, Daniel Barrow was threewalls' first Resident Artist. He's back in Chicago and will be showing Winnipeg Babysitter at The Nightingale next Saturday. More information is available here, at the bottom of the page.
Stefano Cossu is threewalls’ current Tinkertank artist in residence. We caught up with Stefano during his open studio hours and discussed what he‘s been working on while in Chicago. Stefano’s studio is open to visitors on Saturdays from 12-8pm and by appointment, until October 13th.
Tell us about yourself. What were you working on before coming to threewalls? What are your upcoming plans?
My work is currently based on pinhole photography and storytelling. I have created a fictive firm called SoFiET (Science of Fiction Entertainment Technologies), which is like a movie production company, but not quite - its movies are made out of not more than a dozen frames, but it takes much longer to shoot them than a feature film. And the "technological" part is not what one may think.
Recently I have been working on two shows. One is a group show and prize at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, in October, for which I made a series of pinhole monotypes, printed with pigment, resin and gelatin on paper.
Another show is planned to be next year at the Museum of Photographic History in Krakow, through the Italian Cultural Institute.
And I am loving Chicago. I would like to come back soon (but late enough to let the winter pass).
These are a selection of images from the opening of Philip von Zweck's SOLO show on September 11th. Stop by threewalls by October 10th to see the show!
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... and filming a sign in her street for eight hours.
The stills are from films she is in the process of editing.
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Jemima Wyman is already back in Brisbane preparing for her exhibition, The Declaration of Resemblance and Fluid Insurgents, which will be opening at the Institute of Modern Art this Saturday from 5 -7pm. If you find yourself in Australia this weekend, check it out! More information can be found at www.ima.org.au.
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InCUBATE
The Orientation Center
2129 North Rockwell
http://incubate-chicago.org/
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Moderated by Peter Taub, the afternoon began with a series of presentations from a panel of arts professionals, who discussed the influence of performance art on the developments of the alternative art movement and studio practices.
Citing various artworks and arts institutions, Jenni Sorkin highlighted the connections between performance, alternative venues, and women in the arts. Women have had a strong role in the development of not-for-profit galleries and publications, fueling alternative modes of making and exhibiting art.
Both professional artists and educators, Mark Jeffery and Sara Rabinowitz spoke of the influences on and projects within their art practices. Mark Jeffery brought up the idea of seemingly everyday actions as performative, and the play between an individual’s presence online and in real life as a form of dance. Sara Rabinowitz described the influence of collaboration and textile production on her work, seeing both as processes of “incremental building,” imbued with slowness and pleasure. Although operating very different practices, both artists noted the roles of community and performance within their work.
After hearing the presentations, the conversation opened up as a discussion between the panel and attendees. More to come on what followed at the Symposium’s Open Forum with our Summer Residents!
During a week-long residency at Ox-Bow, CamLab extended on its project, Studies for Durational Performances. For this series of photos, we use graphically patterned expanses of fabric 60’ long to map the space between our bodies and various landscapes. www.camlab.infoBELIEVE IT! Come see it FOR REAL on August 30th
A certified Suz-ercise crew will be working out live on Chicago's lakefront. On site will also be our faux real certified marketing associate from the Chicago branch.
Find out where we are on 8/30/09 by following our path on twitter: http://twitter.com/WeAreTheSuz -or- become a fan of The Suz on Facebook and track us through our posts and status updates.
More information and details will follow. We hope to see you on August 30th.
SPECIAL OFFER for Threewalls blog readers: Tell the marketing associate "I'm ready to start Suz-ercising now" and receive a free gift courtesy of The Suz. This offer is valid for only 8/30/09 or until supplies last.
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CamLab performed at the opening reception of BEN RUSSELL : BURNS this past Sunday evening. A few of us from threewalls attended the performance, which was staged in front of the gallery, allowing both visitors and passers-by to watch from the sidewalk. Connected by long sheet of green striped fabric, one performer stayed inside the gallery at a window while the other moved outside. The two spoke to each other about physical space and architecture through personal antecdotes and quoted texts.
Along with their performance, CamLab installed a social sculpture for the show. Stretching across most of the gallery’s backyard, the sculpture is sewn of articles of clothing and hangs at shoulder level. Visitors mingled neck-up through collars, waistbands, sleeves, and other natural openings within the stratum of black fabric.
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Aug 3, 2009, "National Night Out Against Crime" at the front yard of Chicago Police District @ Palmer St & California Ave. It was impressive and refreshing to see all those happy neighbors with food, beverages, music, Michael Jackson and Elvis filling up the space where normally only police cars are around.
Kang-hyun and Kanghyuni are dancing in this video to Elvis's "Burning Love," but after this 30 seconds of dancing, they were asked not to do it again. In fact, it seemed like the organizers didn't want anyone dancing in front of the stage for some strange reason. One man complimented us and complained that "they are making us sit still like paintings," and then proceeded to get into a dispute with the organizer. We then decided to leave the scene.
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CamLab used hand-drawn fabric to create a suit that is available for gallery visitors to take out of the gallery for up to three days at a time in order to perform with it. When not in use, the suit hangs on the wall at ThreeWalls, acting as a kind of 3-d drawing. Each participant agrees to document their performance with a photo, which will then be added to the collection of images posted near the costume. The suit will be available for check-out until August 15. Please join us!!
photo: Rachel Wakeman's documentation of her "Check Out Spoonersim" experience
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When it rains, Kang-hyun has to tie Kanghyuni's limbs around her body and run. Fingers crossed for beautiful weather till they accomplish the rest of journey - which is nearly 200 CTA routes. :-)
photo: July 30 - bus X20 // at the Blue Line train station, getting ready to ride out the raindrops.
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photo: Kanghyuni seems much happier during the brief moments in between buildings on Milwuakee Ave when the sun comes through. July 29th - Bus 56.
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Follow them here under entries tagged CPS Thinktank!
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Just prior to the start of their threewalls residency, CamLab performed with the Black Eyed Peas at the MTV Music Awards Japan 2009.
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Our Summer Residents‘ work is currently on view in the gallery. The opening of “No Other One Is” included performances by Susan Lee-Chun and Kang-hyun Ahn. Visitors tasted samples of Gitte Bog’s “International Chicago Soups” and entered a raffle to participate in a Suz-ercise event to be held at Chicago’s lakefront later this summer. Visitors also signed up to engage with Camlab’s “Check Out Spoonerism,” a costume that can be checked-out on loan. Videos, installations, and ephemera from the opening night’s performances can be seen in the gallery now through August 15th.
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Gitte was working with a group of children on the day we visited. These participants were too young to write down their guesses, so they drew pictures instead.
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The following are some items we're on the hunt for to be donated to the artists for their piece:
ATTENTION Star People * Light Workers * Indigo, Crystal & Rainbow Children
speakers and audio amplifiers (the bigger the better)
small oscillating fans
motion activated lights / motion sensors
all kinds of small healing devices
2 8' lengths of 2"x4"
Please email shannon@three-walls.org if you can help!
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We were excited to receive news in the mail that we were nominated by for Best New Publication by Utne Independent Press Award! Check out other nominees at Utne.
]]>Is There Such a Thing As a Chicago Artist?
]]> Also, take a look at an earlier blog post by Shannon in response to the forum.]]>A 'word-of-mouth' society for female artists, 1000 Legger meetings will happen at Mutherland with Fowler and colleagues inviting female artists and other visual-arts cultural workers to come and talk about their practice over casual drinks and snacks.
This first installation will include presentations by Abigail Satinsky of InCUBATE, Emily Green of Harold Arts and Shannon Stratton of threewalls.
There is a $10 suggested donation (proceeds go towards making this and future Leggers happen). Vegan black bean soup and refreshments available.
Please join us!
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Series Description: This series of five articles published in <H>Art Magazine in Belgium will be an introduction to Chicago, Illinois USA and it's local critical cultural experimentation, written from the perspective of a magazine editor and curator committed to navigating the city. Look for three more articles in 2009 dealing with cultural institutions, art media and individual artists.
Another great project of Daniels is a series of questions he's been posing on 5 Questions About Art in Chicago.
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See you next year!
Organizations that offer artists opportunities for contemplation, connection to nature and community appeared in the form of artist communes and colonies in the United States as early as the 1850's. Most contemporary organizations that house working artists for a period of time (ranging anywhere from one week to two years) have reworked the artist colony model into a newer formulation: residency programs. This seemingly nominal shift in vocabulary represents major ideological and methodological changes in art practices. Evolving art practices and increasing pressure on artists to develop resumes mutually influence the type of residencies that exist. Artist residencies throughout the country, including Ox-Bow in Saugatuk, Michigan, Artpace in San Antonio, Texas, and The Lower East Side Cultural Council, in New York, New York, demonstrate the various organizational structures that foster career development, a place for contemplative retreat, and a sense of community. The shifting and evolving forms of artist residencies demonstrate how this format offers responsive support for developing creative practices that range from the socially engaged and ecologically conscious, to craft based work and the production of discrete objects.
threewallsSALONS are an ongoing project that invites creative producers and thinkers into the gallery for an open-forum discussion about currents in contemporary visual art and culture. SALONS pose a discussion topic, gather a few key contributors and then open up the floor for discussion between those actively engaged in the 'question' and anyone and everyone who would like to come and be apart of the conversation. Discussions are gently moderated to keep the ideas flowing.
]]>If you have any questions for Sarah about her project and how to participate, you can email her at wonderfuller@gmail.com
Turned Intos will be up until December 20th.
]]>Both exhibitions featured work by: Josh Mannis (Los Angeles), Jenny Walters (Los Angeles), Duncan McKenzie (Chicago) with Christian Kuras (London), Daniel Anhorn (Chicago), David Coyle (New York), Caleb Jones Lyons (Chicago) and Heather Mekkelson (Chicago). With the Philly show including work by Ann Toebbe (Chicago),Joseph Kohnke (Los Angeles), Bill O’Brien (Chicago), Lisa Boumstein-Smalley (Chicago), and Chelsea Tonelli Knight (Chicago).
Former Kelowna resident, Dan Anhorn's work was featured in the Kelowna press, and the work of former Philadelphia resident, David Coyle was also pictured in the Philadelphia City Paper.
]]> A bellwether is a herald or a harbinger. ThreeWalls brings a group of artists, all based in or formerly based in Chicago, whose work imparts a kind of warning or predication. Riding the line of disaster prophesy, the work suggests both decline culturally and environmentally, as well as simultaneously deconstructing the meaning of art or the Avant-garde as a pilaster of faith in the abstract. Positioning a group of artists whose work creates disruption within the accepted narrative of modern art alongside work that proposes a menacing or hesitant narrative, Bellwether is both a document of current doubt and anxiety in the face of cultural disrepair, as well as a provocation from a group of artists working from outside the traditional poles of the Avante-garde.
David Coyle, Edgar Allen Poe, pictured left, Heather Mekkelson, Debris Field, put his out on the last, installation, pictured right.
Caleb Jones Lyons, Radio Stack, the dream is over, pictured left; Jenny Walters, Better Miller, pictured right; running perimeter of room: Duncan Mackenzie and Christian Kuras, Values Values Values
]]>Please submit jpegs by January 15th, 2009 to Shannon Stratton at shannon@three-walls.org with your contact information and a short description of your T-shirt: where it was made, how many you made, how often you wore it, if you gave away or sold any of the shirts.
Obama T-shirt by Lee Tracy
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First of all - we'd like to welcome Scott Speh and Western Exhibitions to our floor at 119 N Peoria. Scott has moved into our original 2A location, and we're really happy to have him. 2A was where threewalls started in 2003/04 as a residency program. Last year we held our first year of 'SOLO' exhibitions in that gallery. But don't be confused, we are still programming SOLO, those exhibitions will just happen in 2D, just down the hall. The first SOLO exhibition for 2008 is Amy Mayfield, opening October 17th.
Second, we want to thank John Preus for the beautiful work he did on 2D, building out the front space into our new bookstore. You might recall a rather lame Ikea shelf functioning as a distribution area last year - well this year we are committed to the bookstore concept, with the 'lobby' of the gallery designed by John from repurposed building materials like old oak doors, shutters and part of the tree Material Exchange used in their spring exhibition. We'll be building our inventory over the next months, but please put the word out and come by for a look and sit on the swing to browse some books.
As for the residency - its gone 'mobile.' The apartment and studio are on the 3rd floor, and residents will be town both to do self-directed research as well as participate in thematic residencies. Those in the latter group will work with our staff in producing an exhibition or presentation in collaboration with other organizations or sites.
All of us at threewalls would like to thank you for your ongoing support! We look forward to seeing all of you this year!
- team threewalls.
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