Spring at threewalls
Spring is here at last and that means its time for threewalls annual spring gala! Mark your calendars for May 20th for Vie de Boheme at Maxim's, Chicago's underground art nouveau gem! In the meantime we have some great programs, including our last SOLO show for the season: Betsy Odom with Montgomery Perry Smith in the Project Room, opening May 6th.
In this Issue:
1. April 26th: threewallsSALON - Rethinking Arts Administration 7-9pm
2. April 27th: Resident artist Erin Thurow performs at SPOKE, 6:30pm
3. April 30th: Community Supported Art Chicago (CSA) launch party, 6-9pm
4. May 6th: Betsy Odom/Registry and Montgomery Perry Smith/Milking opens, 6-9pm
5. May 13th: Betsy Odom artist talk, 7-9pm
6. May 20th: Vie de Boheme at Maxim's, 7-midnight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. April 26th: threewallsSALON - Rethinking Arts Administration 7-9pm
Join us for our final threewallsSALON of the season, curated by Ania Szremski.
Almost paradoxically, the blending together of roles in the art world has accompanied the specialization of arts-related careers. As the last gathering in the @work SALON series, we will wrap up with a look at that always hard-to-define role, the arts administrator, in the context of the discussions we’ve had throughout the series.
Are we observing a conflicted moment for arts administrators? Why are arts administrators forced into a demanding fluidity that requires a never-ending accumulation of skills in order to support the flexibility and creativity that is now encouraged (in fact, demanded) of other positions in the arts? It is "support," after all, that arts administrators are understood to be good for. So, where does this leave the arts administrator? If the so-called "educational turn" is generating new possibilities for artists, curators, critics and educators that include an increased self-reflexivity and transparency, how can arts administrators not follow suit? How can we define or describe this profession, which encompasses so many specialized roles? And why can’t anyone think of a better name than “arts administrators”?
Arts administrators don't work in isolation, and frequently collaborate with (or step into) many of the other roles that have been discussed in this series. So isn't it just as important for administrators to critically embrace (or reject) these changes in ways that push for an increasing dynamism in the arts?
This discussion will be lead by invited guests Rebecca Keller (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Faheem Majeed (South Side Community Art Center), Erin Nixon (Noble and Superior Projects), Daniel Tucker (miscprojects.com), and Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook (Plausible Artworlds).
2. April 27th: Resident artist Erin Thurow performs at SPOKE, 6:30pm
OH WHY DID I DID IT MY WAY: The IPhone Monologues: (We Have) Hard Drives/ The Prison Planet.
A work in progress by Erin Thurlow
Erin Thurlow's new performance/ social sculpture, set in the dystopian near-present, incorporates aspects of action poetry, prop-art and an interactive comedy workshop.
The performance will start at 6:30 PM and hosted upstairs at Spoke (119 N Peoria #3D), more information at http://spokechicago.blogspot.com/
More information on Erin Thurlow here
3. April 30th: Community Supported Art Chicago (CSA) launch party, 6-9pm
Join us for the CSA launch event on April 30, 2011 from 6 to 9 pm. The event will feature the first box of the season, hand-crafted cocktails by the Hornswaggler Bar, food and performances by Tamalli Space Charros Collective, live music, the 1st editions of all 12 works for auction and a chance to meet participating artists. If you bought a subscription, come and collect your share, if you have yet to buy one, they will be available for $350.00 up until that evening, including a special "family share" size (all 12 artworks) for $650.00. (After April 30th, CSAs are $400.00 per subscription).
Community-Supported Art Chicago is a yearly art subscription service of locally produced art. 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 with a “buy local” mentality. The pilot year of commissioned artists include Conrad Bakker, Sara Black, Edie Fake, Jesse Harrod, Jessica Labatte, Jason Lazarus, Laura Mackin, Eric Fleischauer, Pamela Fraser, Aay Preston-Myint, Steve Reinke, and Dan S. Wang.
How it works: The program offers a reasonably priced way to support Chicago and regional artists and and receive limited edition contemporary artist projects in return. Each share costs $400 and subscribers receive 6 signed and numbered artworks over three months, from April to June 2011. Each artwork is a limited edition of 50 and shareholders receive a selection from participating artists. Shares are a curated mix of mediums, disciplines and conceptual projects, each one will be unique.
CSA Chicago has been written about in The Reader, TimeOut and Bad At Sports, get your share now before the crop is gone!
Thanks to our sponsors: Armand Lee, Other People's Pixels and 3Arts.
4. May 6th: Betsy Odom/Registry and Montgomery Perry Smith/Milking opens, 6-9pm
Exhibition on view until June 18th.
Betsy Odom will speak about her work May 12th at 7pm.
Betsy Odom mines a vast array of materials and techniques culled from traditional crafts and trades to explore the display of identity. Working from leather tooling to woodturning, ceramics to air-brushing, mold making to metalworking, Odom explores how these techniques and their materials become cultural signifiers, and in particular, have informed her development. Whether Southern culture, women’s athletics, car enthusiasts or hobbyists, the aesthetics of these groups, which often serve to reinforce embedded messages about gender, class, race, and sexuality, become material for Odom to manipulate in the subversion of their dominant associations, ultimately creating objects that entertain a fantasy of moving freely among social groups.
Embracing the “hubris” of making, Odom meticulously works her objects, never shying away from their materiality or the evidence of investment in their making. She uses this labored craft as a display of pride in craftsmanship, one that for her parallels the pride claimed by minority communities: dignity in opposition to a history of shame.
For Registry, Odom has amassed a number of her sculptures, displayed on a set of tables that simultaneously reference worktables, a museum archive and retail display. Her sculptures are at once romantic, humorous and symbolic, calling on a list of characters that Odom cites: the ghosts of women’s gym coaches, crushes on camp-counselors, slightly too old tomboys and brassy-old maids-- illuminating and conflating the unique aesthetics that accompany these invisible cultures.
Concurrent with Odom, Montgomery Perry Smith presents Milking, two new sculptures that focus on an otherworldly relic and the tools used to milk it. Smith’s work combines
portions of domestic furniture and fixtures, decorative textiles, fake flowers, and miscellany from candy to incense in the creation of primarily wall mounted sculpture. His evocative forms are often orifice, portal, flower and reliquary at once, resulting in ‘creatures’ that hover between sci-fi beast, rare organic growths and sexual innuendo. His objects are simultaneously available for ‘contemplation’ and entrance – inviting the viewer into their intimate space through Smith’s seductive handling of familiar materials made strange.
Betsy Odom was born in 1980 in Amory, Mississippi (pop. 6000). She left Amory to study first at the United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico, then at the San Francisco Art Institute where she earned her BFA in 2002. Odom completed her MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 2007. She has exhibited in several solo shows in Texas and in the Chicago area, as well as in group exhibitions nationally. Sis Boom Bah, an exhibition of her work organized around the idea sport, is currently on view at the Hyde Park Art Center.
Montgomery Perry Smith is a Chicago based sculpture artist. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. Since graduating, he has exhibited at numerous Chicago galleries, including Co-Prosperity Sphere, Harold Arts, LVL3 and Pawnworks. Smith’s most recent solo show was "Pit Worship" at Johalla Projects in 2010. Smith was named November 2009's "Artist to Watch" by Chicago Artists' Coalition and is one of the nine "Breakout Artists" of 2010 featured in Newcity.
5. May 20th: Vie de Boheme at Maxim's, 7-midnight
Maxim's: 24 E. Goethe Street
In keeping with threewalls’ tradition, *Vie de Boheme* is an immersive experience, inspired by early 20C Bohemia: the politics, music, art and fashion that inspired the counter-culture state of mind we describe as ‘bohemian.’ Set in beautiful Maxim‘s, an exact copy of the art nouveau restaurant opened in Paris in 1893, *Vie de Boheme* will be the underground meeting place for the wanderers, adventurers and vagabonds in search of the good life.
Unlike any other event in the city, our spring benefi t is an annual artist-designed and directed “experience” where guests become “part of the art.” Fortune tellers, poets, dancers, radicals and general bon vivants gather at our underground club to argue about art, life and love. As in all our past bene fits, thematic costumes are encouraged! This year’ s benefit will feature soap box lectures, solo musicians, fortune tellers and a hypnotist, cabaret and more alongside our annual live and silent auctions of over 40 works. Works will range in value from $100 to $10,000, and will be available for preview on our website May 1. Artists include: Jerome Acks, Alberto Aguilar, Samantha Bittman, Dana Carter, Justin Cooper, Stephen Eichhorn, Ben Fain, Edie Fake, Ryan Fenchel, Conrad Freiburg, Ben Foch, Theaster Gates, Ben Gill, Karolina Gnatowski, Adam
Grossi, Dan Gunn, David Harper, Jesse Harrod, Raquel Ladensak, Eric May, Aspen Mays, Bobbi Meier, Heather Mekkelson, Rachel Niffenegger, David Parker, Steve Ruiz, Ben Russell, Sarah Schnadt, Mindy Rose Schwartz, Montgomery Perry Smith, Hans Peter Sundquist, Tony Tasset, Kaylee Wyant, Stacia Yeapanis, Philip Von Zweck and more.
Each year, threewalls produces limited edition glassware by Chicago-based artists in conjunction with the gala. This year's glass is designed by collaborative artists Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger.
Join us underground in a celebration of art and life and the end of the winter!
Vie De Boheme thanks its generous sponsors: Armand Lee, Dot Press, Midwest Generation, NFA, Pernod, Sotheby's, Sugar & Spice, Three Floyds Brewery and Vinic Wines.
Tickets are on sale now!
Image: Betsy Odom
Enter title here
|
