Industry of the Ordinary (Adam Brooks and Mat Wilson) has been mediating the daily life of Chicago for over 16 years. Dedicated to an exploration and celebration of the customary, the everyday, and the usual, Brooks and Wilson use sculpture, text, photography, video, sound and performance to challenge pejorative notions of the ordinary and, in doing so, move beyond the quotidian.
At The Arts Club of Chicago, Industry of the Ordinary will spend a week intervening on the space in a variety of ways—subtly altering the trappings of the club rooms, feeding visitors edible historical artifacts, and performing with CSO cellist Katinka Kleijn in the gallery. Their residency, entitled Seven Days in March, celebrates and comments upon what is customary and usual at The Arts Club—that we might reevaluate our perception of normal vs. noteworthy.
Saturday March 7
Public Program: Industry of the Ordinary “invites you to eat history”
12:00 – 2:00 pm in The Drawing Room Bar
Public Program: Private Collection tour of The Arts Club (to include IOTO’s interventions)
1:00 – 1:45 (meet in gallery)
Swing through the club on Saturday to literally taste a piece of the club’s history, as provided by Industry of the Ordinary (between 12 and 2). And while you’re at it, join for a group tour of the entire club and its collection (1 – 1:45), which Brooks and Wilson have augmented with pieces of their own. Free and open to all
Tuesday March 10
Public Program: Industry of the Ordinary with Katinka Kleijn perform “If you’ve got a blacklist, I wanna be on it”
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm in the gallery
Visit here to RSVP.
Photo: Jay Wolke
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.
To close the project, Eliza Myrie will be joined by writers Emily Bock, Jersey-Shabazz Hosier, and others for a reading of written works related to black women and/or the Caribbean diaspora that have inspired, fortified, or soothed them. Please join us and feel free to bring words that you may want to share.
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.
We are deeply grieved to share the news of the passing of two esteemed members of The Arts Club, Mr. Stanley M. Freehling and Ms. Marilynn Alsdorf. Each served as a member of The Arts Club, guiding its institutional and artistic vision, for several years: Mr. Freehling was President for 24 years from 1981 to 2005, and Ms. Alsdorf followed as President from 2006–2011.
Both Mr. Freehling and Ms. Alsdorf served many cultural institutions throughout the city of Chicago, supporting the arts and culture with generous and fearless patronage to keep the city on the cutting edge. We honor their insight and love for culture through the Alsdorf-Freehling fund, an annual lecture fund which supports ambitious programming at The Arts Club.
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.
On Saturday we’ll be celebrating the new season with a kickback in the Garden. DJ Major Taylor will be spinning some reggae tunes, the gate will swing open for all visitors, and some light refreshments will be provided. Enjoy the project space for the new exhibition in the gallery when you stop on by!
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.
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.
