Weinberg/Newton Gallery

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1 MEDIA ALERT Weinberg/Newton Gallery EXHIBITION In Acts EXHIBITION DATES April 7 June 10, 2017 OPENING RECEPTION Friday, April 7, 2017, 5 8 PM LOCATION Weinberg/Newton Gallery 300 W Superior Street, Suite 203 Chicago, IL HOURS Mon Sat 10 AM 5 PM VISIT US ONLINE weinbergnewtongallery.com ALL MEDIA REQUESTS Please contact Claire Arctander claire@d-weinberg.com High-resolution images of artwork are available upon request. OVERVIEW In Acts is a group exhibition inspired by the summit that will bring international artists to the University of Chicago s campus to ask: What is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights?. In Acts will allow a deeper look at the work of the presenting artists, who explore various ways that creative labor can widen the vistas of advancing human rights. These artists, hailing from around the world, address their practices as endeavors in political engagement and sensitive creative explorations at once. They aim to spur all those who encounter their works to take action in matters of human rights - from immigrant and refugee justice to LGBTQ rights to the eradication of poverty and youth violence. ARTISTS Lola Arias, Jelili Atiku, Tania Bruguera, Zanele Muholi, Carlos Javier Ortiz, and Laurie Jo Reynolds PARTNERS The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is a forum at the University of Chicago for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars. The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts advances arts practice, inquiry, and presentation at the University of Chicago, and fosters meaningful collaboration and cultural engagement at the university, on the south side, and in the city of Chicago. The Pozen Family Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago supports innovative interdisciplinary teaching and research initiatives that critically explore the theory and practice of global human rights. ABOUT WEINBERG/NEWTON GALLERY Weinberg/Newton Gallery is an exhibition space with a mission to educate and inform the public on social justice issues. Through artwork and programming, the gallery provides an engaging environment for discourse on critical contemporary issues facing our communities. Connecting artists with social justice organizations, the gallery works to drive change and cultivate a culture of consciousness.

2 PRESS RELEASE 2 Weinberg/Newton Gallery EXHIBITION In Acts EXHIBITION DATES April 7 June 10, 2017 OPENING RECEPTION Friday, April 7, 2017, 5 8 PM LOCATION Weinberg/Newton Gallery 300 W Superior Street, Suite 203 Chicago, IL CONTACT The gallery may be reached at or info@weinberg newtongallery.com HOURS Mon Sat 10 AM 5 PM VISIT US ONLINE weinbergnewtongallery.com ALL MEDIA REQUESTS Please contact Claire Arctander claire@d-weinberg.com High-resolution images of artwork are available upon request. Opening April 7, Weinberg/Newton Gallery presents In Acts, a group exhibition inspired by the summit that will bring international artists to the University of Chicago s campus later that month to ask: What is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights? Featuring Lola Arias, Jelili Atiku, Tania Bruguera, Zanele Muholi, Carlos Javier Ortiz, and Laurie Jo Reynolds, In Acts provides a setting for artworks by these artists who advance human rights discourse and policy through their art. These artists are performative, searching, and ambitious, yet incisive in emotional acuity. Their practices are at once endeavors in political engagement and sensitive creative explorations. In Acts makes apparent the intricate systems that undergird the discrimination and inequality in global culture. The exhibition strives to amplify a sense of political efficacy amongst its visitors, willing them to take action in matters of human rights from immigrant and refugee justice to LGBTQ rights to the eradication of poverty and youth violence. Two artists use fresh approaches to the tradition of documentary photography and filmmaking in order to shed light on underrepresented communities, in which they have personal stakes. Zanele Muholi makes images of members of her own community queer and trans South Africans. Her portraits on display from the series Faces and Phases vibrate with the energy of their subjects. Muholi regards her practice as visual activism, a stand against the frequently violent homophobia that pervades contemporary South African culture. Carlos Javier Ortiz makes documentary films and photographs that capture the effects of violence on American families in cities like Chicago. Ortiz often depicts Puerto Rican and black families that have experienced the loss of kin to violence in order to provide viewers with insight into the nuances of such violence, the factors that produce it, and the resilience of people who live through it. His short film A Thousand Midnights illustrates socioeconomic realities for African-Americans living through the Great Migration and in its wake. Two more use their own bodies and personae in high stakes live performances to elicit reactions and mobilize their audiences. Jelili Atiku addresses pressing human rights struggles while incorporating elements of traditional Nigerian performance into his works. Atiku s emphatic, boldly embodied performances often traverse public space, dragging issues of poverty, corruption, climate change, and prejudice out into the open air. In preparation for his Chicago performance, which will begin in Hyde Park at the summit and end at Weinberg/

3 PRESS RELEASE 3 Newton Gallery, Atiku will collect written responses to questions about LGBTQ rights. During the performance, he will wear a cloak made from hundreds of glass bottles that contain the collected responses. The material aftermath from his performance on April 29 will be added to Atiku s gallery installation. Tania Bruguera s performances situate themselves in the space where art and activism overlap. Although she performs in her work, her projects are often not truly realized until other people respond, participate, and interact utilizing the very model of participatory democracy as artistic practice. In doing so, Bruguera poses subversions of the individualistic status quo and solutions to political problems through art. For Vigilantes, her series of performances on airplanes in , Bruguera asked the passengers who happened to be sitting next to her to direct and record her actions, disrupting conventions of selfimposed isolation and instigating troubled dynamics of observation and communication. political inheritances that shape our time. Weinberg/Newton Gallery has partnered with the University of Chicago s Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, Logan Center for the Arts, and Pozen Family Center for Human Rights to bring the work of these artists into dialogue with one another for this exhibition. The summit What is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights? will take place on April 29 and May 1. The remaining artists reframe existing structures of power in order to remake them for the future. Laurie Jo Reynolds confronts tools of discrimination within the US criminal justice system, like solitary confinement in prisons and public crime registries. Ephemera that conveys her current efforts to disrupt the 20-year long systematic registry of sex offenders will be on display. Reynolds refers to her practice as legislative art and regularly engages institutions and people outside of the art world to yield tangible effects. Lola Arias retells prevailing realities from the past and the present. She imaginatively reconstitutes localized histories through her theatre-based projects. Veterans is a five-channel video installation examining the longlasting effects of military action on Argentinean men who served in the Malvinas/Falklands War in Arias collaborates with non-professional performers in the creation of her work, asking them to combine their lived experiences with aestheticized embellishments to shed light on the

4 CALENDAR OF EVENTS 4 LOCATION Unless noted, events take place at Weinberg/Newton Gallery 300 W Superior Street, Suite 203 Chicago, IL All events are free and open to the public. The gallery may be reached at or info@weinberg newtongallery.com In Acts OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 5 8 PM HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 6 8 PM At the gallery, a panel discussion of human rights on Chicago's south side, considering dimensions of public health and safety, criminal justice, and creative expression. Presented in collaboration with the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago. OPEN ENGAGEMENT EVENTS: OPEN HOUSE FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1 3 PM Join Open Engagement (openengagement.info) and gallery representatives for a walk-through and discussion of In Acts. SYMPOSIUM FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 4 6 PM Head to the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago for an event co-organized by In Acts artist Laurie Jo Reynolds and Lynne Johnson, titled: We Shouldn't Have Policies We Are Afraid to Talk About: A Symposium on Public Crime Registries. WHAT IS AN ARTISTIC PRACTICE OF HUMAN RIGHTS? SATURDAY, APRIL 29 MONDAY, MAY 1 A multi-day summit taking place on the campus of the University of Chicago, which asks What is an artistic practice of human rights -- conceptually, aesthetically, and pragmatically? Join distinguished artists whose work is featured In Acts as they propose, interrogate and/ or challenge how an object, image or performative intervention might open up a novel vision of human rights. Details at graycenter.uchicago. edu IMAGINING HUMAN RIGHTS THURSDAY, MAY 18, 6 8 PM A conversation at the gallery with Mark Philip Bradley, author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, to explore the role of artistic expression in the development of global human rights. Presented in collaboration with the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago.

5 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 5 LOLA ARIAS is an Argentinean writer, performer, and theatre director. Collaborations with artists across many disciplines as well as non-professional performers are integral to her practice. Arias s works oscillate between reality and surreality, fiction and nonfiction, in order to delve into complex political histories and the ways that they form individuals lives. For instance, for her most recent play, Atlas des Kommunismus, presented this past fall in Berlin, Arias worked with female performers aged 8 to 84 to tell stories of life under communism in the German Democratic Republic. Arias has published books of poetry, fiction, and plays. She composes and plays music in collaboration with Ulises Conti. Her works have been presented at Maxim Gorki Theatre (Berlin), Lift Festival at the Royal Court Theatre (London), Festival d Avignon, Theatre Spektakel (Zurich), Festival Theaterformen (Hanover), Wiener Festwochen, Spielart Festival (Munich), Alkantara Festival (Lisbon), Under the Radar (New York), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), REDCAT (Los Angeles), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. IMAGE: LOLA ARIAS, VETERANS (STILL FROM VIDEO), 2014

6 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 6 JELILI ATIKU is a Nigerian performance artist whose durational actions use striking attire, unsettling body language, and unusual props to encourage dialogue regarding matters of human rights and justice. His works in drawing, installation, photography, video, and live performance aim to widen audiences scope of apprehending diverse political realities. He considers the larger emotional and social effects of the traumas associated with poverty, war, corruption, and climate change. He was arrested and detained in 2016 in Nigeria during his performance of Aragamago Will Rid This Land of Terrorism, a work taking a stand against domestic terrorism. Since 2008, he has been involved in an ongoing performance project, In the Red, which uses red as a symbol of life, suffering, danger, and violence. He has presented works at the International Video Art Festival (Yorkshire), The Elterwater Merz Barn Estate (Lake District, UK), 1st Arts and Culture Congress (Lomé, Togo), Protest Art International Festival (Harare), SICA Festival (Cotonou, Benin), Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), Centre for Contemporary Art (Lagos), Tate Modern (London), Manchester Art Gallery, and The Broad (Los Angeles). IMAGE: JELILI ATIKU, COME LET ME CLUTCH THEE, PERFORMANCE, 2017

7 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 7 TANIA BRUGUERA creates performance based works that explore the relationships between art, activism, and social change. She creates interactive proposals for potential action against repression, encouraging others to follow her models of aesthetic engagement. Her projects are often fully realized only when other people participate in them. She routinely works with multiple institutions and individuals for any given project. Her open studio reading of Hannah Arendt s The Origins of Totalitarianism was halted by Cuban authorities in May 2015, and she was subsequently detained for eight months. In late 2016 at the Creative Time Summit in Washington DC, she announced herself as a candidate for the 2018 Cuban presidential election and called for other Cuban citizens to do the same. A Guggenheim fellow (1998), Bruguera has presented work at Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Queens Museum, National Museum of Wales, the Havana Biennial, the Venice Biennale, Tate Modern (London), the Moscow Biennial, the Shanghai Biennial, SITE Santa Fe Biennial, and San Francisco Art Institute. IMAGE: TANIA BRUGUERA, VIGILANTES, PERFORMANCE ON FLIGHT # UA-1107,

8 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 8 ZANELE MUHOLI uses photography and visual activism to investigate black queer identities and politics in contemporary South Africa. She has produced hundreds of portraits of members of South Africa s lesbian community in order to challenge the stigma surrounding gays and lesbians in that culture, to challenge the rhetoric that homosexuality is un-african, and to address the prevalence of hate crimes against queer South Africans. Muholi s work is held in permanent collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has presented solo exhibitions of her work at the Brooklyn Museum, Stevenson Gallery (Johannesburg), Casa África (Las Palmas, Spain), Ryerson Image Centre (Toronto), Schwules Museum (Berlin), Williams College Museum of Art (Williamstown), Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, and Goethe-Institut (Johannesburg). IMAGE: ZANELE MUHOLI, 'TK' THEMBI KHUMALO, BB SECTION UMLAZI TOWNSHIP, DURBAN, 2012

9 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 9 CARLOS JAVIER ORTIZ is a director, cinematographer, and documentary photographer from Puerto Rico who focuses on urban life, gun violence, racism, poverty, and marginalized communities. In 2016, Ortiz received a Guggenheim Fellowship. His film, We All We Got, conveys a community s deep sense of loss and resilience in the face of gun violence. Ortiz s current project is a series of short films chronicling the contemporary stories of black Americans who came north during the Great Migration. His photographs have been published in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Mother Jones. His work has been exhibited internationally in a variety of venues including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York), Worcester Art Museum, International Museum of Photography and Film (Rochester), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Library of Congress. IMAGE: CARLOS JAVIER ORTIZ, FROM THE PROJECT A THOUSAND MIDNIGHTS, 2015

10 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 10 LAURIE JO REYNOLDS is an American artist and policy advocate whose work challenges the demonization, warehousing, and social exclusion of people in the criminal legal system. Her works are often long-term efforts that begin at the margins of political viability. As a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow, she advocated for best practices to stop sexual abuse and reduce recidivism, educating legislators about the harmful impact of public crime registries, residency restrictions, and exclusion zones. Previously, Reynolds focused on Tamms, the Illinois state supermax prison designed for sensory deprivation, which was subsequently shuttered in She is currently working on cultural and policy fronts to assess the unintended consequences of public crime registries in Illinois and to support efforts to bring back discretionary parole for long-term prisoners. Reynolds is a Creative Capital grantee, a 2014 Blade of Grass Foundation Fellow, a 2015 Opportunity Agenda Communications Institute Fellow, and the 2013 recipient of Creative Time Foundation s Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change. IMAGE: LAURIE JO REYNOLDS, DEAR PARENT + OTHER CALLING CARDS, 2016

11 FROM OUR SUMMIT PARTNERS 11 The University of Chicago s Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, Logan Center for the Arts, and the Posen Family Center for Human Rights are pleased to be working with Weinberg/Newton Gallery on the exhibition In Acts that is being held in conjunction with our summit: What is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights? (April 29th- May 1st, 2017). This partnership is especially rewarding for us at the University of Chicago because it both extends and deepens our commitment to issues pertaining to social justice, diversity, human rights, and artistic excellence. By giving the artists participating in the summit a platform to exhibit their work, it affords audiences the opportunity to get a firsthand encounter with their dynamic practices and allows our efforts to have a larger footprint in the city of Chicago while reaching an even broader audience who care deeply about human rights. We could not be more pleased with our colleagues at the gallery and we look forward to continuing the conversation around the arts and human rights in the years ahead. Zachary Cahill, Curator Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry

12 ABOUT WEINBERG/NEWTON GALLERY 12 Weinberg/Newton Gallery is an exhibition space with a mission to educate and inform the public on social justice issues. Through artwork and programming the gallery provides an engaging environment for discourse on critical contemporary issues facing our communities. Connecting artists with social justice organizations, the gallery works to drive change and cultivate a culture of consciousness. Weinberg/Newton Gallery 300 W Superior Street, Suite 203 Chicago, IL info@weinbergnewtongallery.com Monday Saturday 10 AM 5 PM