Performances by Restroy from 6:15 – 7:45
Assembling works from materials sourced in both Chicago and Michoacán, his ancestral home in the West of Mexico, artist Abraham Cruzvillegas meditates on the nature of rootedness and drift in The Ballad of Etc. Fabricated on site, the constructions draw upon traditional Mexican lacquer technique known as “maque” to produce new imagery that is juxtaposed with found materials and products made by Chicago’s skilled workers. Chicago experimental jazz ensemble Restroy joins Cruzvillegas performing interpretations of the artist’s texts throughout the public reception.
To support and participate in the Natalia Goncharova retrospective mounted by the Tate Modern in 2019, The Arts Club of Chicago loaned a significant work from its permanent collection: a Goncharova screen made in 1927-28. This video documents the extensive conservation work done to the screen in advance of its exhibition and travel to Europe, while telling the story of who The Arts Club commissioned the work by Goncharova.
This video was created by The Arts Club of Chicago and On the Real Film.
For her Garden Project “garden/ruinate”, artist Eliza Myrie will open a gate to The Arts Club, hosting monthly gatherings within the transformed garden space. This series of programs, under the heading “Tie Up”, will explore the nature of extended invitations, caring, community, and existence mediated by both built and imagined structures. Programming will include conversation, sound, and poetry, among other things, so feel free to drop by and hang out. If you’re late to your plans later on, you can just let your friends know you got “tied up” hanging out in the garden.
“Tie Up” will be kicked off by a conversation between Eliza Myrie and artist Yasmin Spiro on August 1st. Free and Open to All.
About Eliza:
Eliza Myrie, b. 1981, New York. Myrie is a sculptor working in Chicago, IL. She received her MFA from Northwestern University and BA from Williams College and was a participant at The Skowhegan School. Myrie has been in residence at Yaddo, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The MacDowell Colony, and Arts + Public Life at The University of Chicago. Myrie is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a co-founder of The Black Artists Retreat [B.A.R.]. She has received grants from The Propeller Fund and 3Arts. Exhibitions include Gallery 400, Chicago; Vox Populi, Philadelphia; Shane Campbell, Chicago; Roots and Culture, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Hyde Park Arts Center, Chicago; Davidson Contemporary, New York.
About Yasmin:
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and living and working in Chicago, Spiro’s interdisciplinary work explores issues of cultural identity and socio-economic issues within the framework of urban development and social politics, often through the lens of Caribbean culture. The work is multi-disciplinary, primarily based in sculpture and immersive installations, with video, drawing and performance. According to the late art historian Petrine Archer Shaw her work uses, “performative body parts and delicate drawings, tethered with umbilical-cord-like ropes as a way of charting personal journeys between different geographies and urban locations.” Recent work considers the city as organism and – integrating personal and collective issues of safety and cultural identity. Spiro’s work has been shown at galleries in the US and Jamaica and she is a founding member of the tART women’s collective in NY (F2004). Her work has been covered in Art News, Washington Times, Miami Herald, New City and others. She attended Pratt Institute. Spiro has been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Chicago Artists Coalition and an upcoming residency at the the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Friday & Saturday August 9 – 10
Public Program: Sound and Performance
Ekene Ijeoma’s Deconstructed Anthems
Artist Ekene Ijeoma’s Deconstructed Anthems is an ongoing series of music performances and installations in which a self-playing piano and/or musicians deconstruct “The Star-Spangled Banner,” repeating it multiple times, removing notes at the rate of mass incarceration in The United States, and ending in silence. Deconstructed Anthems will be presented as a player piano installed in The Arts Club’s gallery, performing multiple 45-minute data-driven deconstructions of a traditional arrangement of the national anthem by itself throughout the day and a live performance of a deconstruction of a jazz arrangement in collaboration with Chicago-based pianist and composer Alexis Lombre. Following Lombre’s performance, the player piano will continue performing throughout Saturday (from 11 am – 3 pm).
Ijeoma will discuss the work at 1 pm on Saturday.
Ekene is an artist and founder and director of the Poetic Justice group at MIT Media Lab. He creates artworks at the intersections of life experiences and data studies, poetic acts and analytic insights, and aesthetic quality and social efficacy. His artworks embody social issues and expose the systems affecting us as individuals. He engages with topics and mediums ranging from a website visualizing racial inequality in the design industry to a music performance/sound-reactive light installation sonifying mass incarceration.
Free & open to all
Schedule:
Friday 11am – 6pm Performances by the player piano in Gallery at The Arts Club
Friday 6pm – Performance by Pianist Alexis Lombre
Saturday 11am – 3pm Performances by the player piano in Gallery
Saturday 1pm – Conversation with Ekene Ijeoma and Alexandria Eregbu of Envisioning Justice, an initiative by Illinois Humanities.
Photo credit: Katrina Barber
At 6 pm on July 17th, join Executive Director and Chief Curator Janine Mileaf in our galleries for an exhibition walk-through of Amy Sillman: The Nervous System. The exhibition, which runs through August 3rd, presents new paintings and works on paper by the New York-based artist.
