Tania Bruguera (b. 1968, Cuba) is an artist and activist whose performances and installations examine political power structures and their effect on society's most vulnerable people. Her long-term projects have been intensive interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education and politics. Bruguera has received many honours such as the Robert Rauschenberg Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Prince Claus Fund Laureate and her work has been extensively exhibited around the world, including the Tate Turbine Hall Commission and Documenta 11. Her work is in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, the Van Abbemuseum, Tate Modern and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana.
She holds an M.F.A. in Performance from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), as well as degrees from the Instituto Superior de Arte and the Escuela de Artes Plásticas San Alejandro in Havana, Cuba. She has been awarded Doctor Honoris Causa at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and from her alma mater (SAIC).
DATES & LOCATIONS,
Wednesday, February 5, 5:00pmat KRESGE HALL
ROOM 1515
1880 CAMPUS DRIVE
EVANSTON, IL 60208
Diane Simpson, born 1935, is a Chicago-based artist who for the past forty years has created sculptures and preparatory drawings that evolve from a diverse range of sources, including clothing, utilitarian objects, and architecture. The structures of clothing forms has continuously informed her work, serving as a vehicle for exploring their visually formal qualities, while also revealing their connections to the design and architecture of various cultures and periods in history. Her wide selection of materials (wood, perforated metals, linoleum, fabrics ) reflect her interest in the coexistence of the industrial/architectonic and domestic worlds.
She has exhibited widely in the US and abroad; most recently in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. In 2010, a thirty-year retrospective was held at the Chicago Cultural Center, and she has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Simpson's work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Art Institute of Chicago; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL; Perez Museum, Miami, FL; and the Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco and Paris, FR. She received a BFA in 1971 and an MFA in 1978 from the Art Institute of Chicago. Simpson is represented by Corbett vs Dempsey Gallery, Chicago; JTT Gallery, NY; and Herald St Gallery, London.
DATES & LOCATIONS,
Thursday, January 16, 5:00pmat KRESGE HALL
ROOM 1515
1880 CAMPUS DRIVE
EVANSTON, IL 60208
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, 7:00pmat 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, 5:00pmat Kresge Hall
Room 1319
1880 Campus Dr
Evanston, IL 60208
