For 25 years, Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby have been producing one of the most singular and exciting bodies of work in experimental cinema. Their videos combine animation, wry humor, and custom-written songs into interwoven vignettes that explore the perplexities, heartaches, and fleeting wonders of the contemporary world. This program features a selection of Duke and Battersby’s earlier work, as well as their most recent video, You Were an Amazement on the Day You Were Born, which tells the story of a fictional woman, from her birth in the 1970s to her death in the 2040s—a life, the artists write, that is “characterized by damage and loss, but in which she finds humor, love, and joy.”
In person: artists Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby
DATES & LOCATIONS,
Thursday, November 21, 7pmat The Block Museum
40 Arts Circle Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Hamza Walker is the Director of LAXART, an independent nonprofit art space in Los Angeles. From 1994–2016, he was the Director of Education and Associate Curator at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, a non-collecting museum devoted to contemporary art.
Recently, Walker was a juror for the Venice Biennale’s prestigious Golden Lion award. In February 2019, Walker curated the talks and programs at the first edition of Frieze Los Angeles. In 2018 he curated Sperm Cult and Sol LeWitt, Page Works 1967 - 2007, an exhibition of works LeWitt made specifically for reproduction in magazines, journals and books.
In 2017 he co-curated Reconstitution at LAXART. Walker co-curated the Made in L.A. biennial at the Hammer Museum. Recent exhibitions include A Painting Is A Painting Isn't A Painting (2015) at the Kadist Foundation in San Francisco; Wadada Leo Smith, Ankhrasmation: The Language Scores 1967 - 2015, which he co-curated with John Corbett at the Renaissance Society; Teen Paranormal Romance (2014) and Suicide Narcissus (2013) two thematic group exhibitions both mounted at the Renaissance Society. He has contributed reviews and art criticism to Parkett, and Artforum, and to numerous catalogue essays. He is the recipient of the 1999 Norton Curatorial Grant and the 2004 Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement. In 2010 he was awarded the Ordway Prize for contributions to the field in the form of writing and exhibitions.
DATES & LOCATIONS,
Thursday, October 31, 5pmat Kresge Hall
Room 1319
1880 Campus Dr
Evanston, IL 60208
In converstation with Matt Morris and Phyllis Bramson about their current exhibition at The Suburban.
Wisconsin-born, Michelle Grabner works in variety of mediums including drawing, painting, video and sculpture. Incorporating writing, curating and teaching with a studio practice grounded in process and productivity she has created a multi-faceted and dynamic career.
Grabner holds an MA in Art History and a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University. She joined the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996, and became Chair of its prestigious Painting and Drawing department in the fall of 2009. She is also a senior critic at Yale University in the Department of Painting and Printmaking. Her writing has been published in Artforum, Modern Painters, Frieze, Art Press, and Art-Agenda, among others. Grabner also runs The Suburban and The Poor Farm with her husband, artist Brad Killam. She co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art along with Anthony Elms and Stuart Comer. Grabner served as the inaugural artistic director of FRONT International, a triennial exhibition in Cleveland, OH and the vicinity that ran from July through September of 2018.
I Work From Home, Michelle Grabner’s first comprehensive solo museum exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland organized by David Norr opened in October of 2013 and was on view through February, 2014. She was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art curated by Tricia Paik in May 2015. Solo exhibitions of her work have also been held at INOVA, The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Ulrich Museum, Wichita; and University Galleries, Illinois State University. She has been included in group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate St. Ives, UK; and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland. Her work is included in the permanent collection of Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; MoCA, Chicago; MUDAM, Luxemburg; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Daimler Contemporary, Berlin; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
DATES & LOCATIONS,
Thursday, October 10, 5pmat Kresge Hall
Room 1515
1880 Campus Dr
Evanston, IL 60208
Jefferson Godard is a video art curator, gallery director, educator, and trained architect. Currently he serves as Director of Aspect/Ratio, a contemporary art gallery located in the West Town neighborhood of Chicago and teaches in Art and Art History at Columbia College Chicago. He has curated video art based exhibitions and screenings at spaces including: The Chicago Architecture Biennial, Gallery 400 at UIC Chicago, Nice and Fit Gallery Berlin, Souvenirs from Earth channel in France, Shane Campbell Gallery Chicago, and The Mission Chicago. Godard has worked on several high-rise residential projects in his hometown of Miami, Florida and worked on an award-winning urban park competition Bahndeckel in Munich, Germany. In addition to his curatorial and gallery endeavors, Godard has spoken on panels at the MCA Chicago, Moving image Art Fair New York, Chicago Artists Coalition, Art Cologne, and chaired a panel discussion at the College Arts Association Conference.
DATES & LOCATIONS,
Wednesday, May 29, 5pmat Kresge Hall
Room 1319
1880 Campus Dr
Evanston, IL, 60208
Amy Sillman (born in 1955 in Detroit, MI) grew up in the Midwest, but has been based in New York City since 1975. Primarily known as a painter, her process is drawing-based, and weaves together many side interests, such as animation and writing. She aims for an approach to painting that is at once materialist and discursive, articulate and curious. Her work has been widely shown and collected at private and public institutions in the US and Europe, including MoMA, The Met, The Whitney, LA MoCA, Portikus in Frankfurt, Lenbachhaus and the Brandhorst Museum in Munich, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and The Tate Modern, London. She has been the recipient of many awards including a Guggenheim in 2001 and a Fellowship at The American Academy in Rome in 2014. Sillman's traveling mid-career survey show "one lump or two," curated by Helen Molesworth, opened at the ICA Boston in 2013. Sillman received a BFA from The School of Visual Art in NYC in 1979, and an MFA from Bard College’s MFA Program in 1995. Sillman currently holds a position as Professor at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt, Germany.
Amy Sillman: The Nervous System will be at The Arts Club of Chicago May 22nd through August 3rd, with an opening reception on May 22nd at 6pm.
DATES & LOCATIONS,
Friday, May 17, 12pmat Kresge 1305
1880 Campus Dr
Evanston, IL, 60208
