upcoming exhibition at The Renaissance Society

The Renaissance Society presents an exhibition by Matt Saunders, February 28 to April 11, 2010

 

In drawings, paintings, short films, and photographic works, Saunders recasts images, often taken from film or television, into new narratives about portraiture and spectatorship. At the same time, he pushes boundaries between media to tell a parallel story of how images are made, are repeated and are embodied in materials. Saunders' subject matter is a diverse cast of characters, including an early Los Alamos scientist, a largely forgotten East German actress, a silent film star, and the highest paid British television actor of the 60's.   As a group, these characters span World War II and the Cold War, providing a kind of stuttering record of 20^th Century lives. It is an exhibition about painting, and also about moving pictures, how they are found, loved, and lost.

 

Opening reception

Sunday February 28, 4:00 to 7:00pm

There will be a talk with the artist from 5-6 pm, in Cobb Hall Room 307 (directly below the gallery.)

 

 

Related Events:

 

Lecture

Sunday, March 7, 2:00 pm

Louis Kaplan

Director, Institute of Communication and Culture and Associate Professor
University of Toronto
The Strange Case of William Mumler Spirit Photographer

 

As Kaplan's case study of William Mumler shows, faith in the truth-telling abilities of photography has always been accompanied by skepticism about the objectivity of the photographer. Beginning in the early 1860s, Mumler became famous in Boston and New York for taking "spirit photographs" in which ghostly images of departed family members or friends appear in portraits of living subjects. All photographs are, as Roland Barthes and others have argued, ghostly images of the past. Their very ghostliness inspires narratives that are in turn essential to understanding that past. This event will take place in Swift Hall room 106. 1025 East 58th Street (on the Main Quadrangle of the University, directly east of Cobb Hall) FREE

 

Lecture

Thursday, March 11, 6:30 pm

Stefan Andriopoulos

Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Languages,

Columbia University

Bernheim, Caligari, Mabuse: Cinema and Hypnotism

 

Andriopoulos is the author of Possessed: Hypnotic Crimes, Corporate Fiction, and the Invention of Cinema (University of Chicago Press, 2008,) which won the SLSA Michelle Kendrick award for best academic book on literature, science, and the arts. Tracing a preoccupation with mesmerism and possession through the era of silent films, Andriopoulos pays particular attention to the terrifying notion of murder committed against one's will.  Films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler famously portrayed the hypnotist's seemingly unlimited power on the movie screen.  Blending theoretical sophistication with scrupulous archival research and insightful film analysis, Possessed adds a new dimension to our understanding of today's anxieties about the onslaught of visual media and the expanding reach of vast corporations that seem to absorb our own identities. This event will take place in Swift Hall room 106. 1025 East 58th Street (on the Main Quadrangle of the University, directly east of Cobb Hall) FREE

 

Concert

Monday, March 22, 8:00 pm

Brian Labycz, electronics

Seijiro Murayama, percussion

Jason Roebke, bass

 

Space. Place. Energy. That is the time-honored recipe for this electro-acoustic concert of improvised music. The combined credits for these three musicians reads like a who's who in experimental music both home and abroad. Moments of combustion. Moments of meditation.  Their work can revolve around a gestural dynamic one minute and a serendipitous serenity the next.  This concert will take place in Bond Chapel, 1050 East 59th Street (directly east of Cobb Hall). FREE

Gallery Walk-through

Sunday, March 28, 2:00 pm

Christine Mehring
Associate Professor of Art History and the College

University of Chicago

 

Christine Mehring will lead a gallery walk-through.  Her areas of interest include postwar Western Europe, German art, relations between new and traditional media.

Her recent publications include Art of a Miracle: Towards a History of German Pop, 1955-1972, in Art of Two Germanys, Cold War Cultures, (exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles: LACMA, 2009). FREE

 

 

For more information, please contact:

Mia Ruyter

Director of Marketing

The Renaissance Society

773 702 8670

mruyter@uchicago.edu

 

Please join our email list at

http://tinyurl.com/RSmailinglist

Congratulations to Hamza Walker

The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago is delighted to announce that our dear colleague Hamza Walker has been awarded the prestigious Ordway Prize for his achievements as a curator/arts writer.

Hamza Walker has developed a unique and important voice in scholarship about contemporary art. Through his curatorial choices, he has introduced new artists to international audiences. In his insightful essays, he thinks outside the box, extending the boundaries of how art works are perceived.  Since 1994, The Renaissance Society has benefited from his intellectual prowess, adventurous spirit, and witty charm.  We are thrilled to congratulate Hamza on receiving this well-deserved prize.

The Renaissance Society

Current exhibition:

Anna Shteynshleyger

January 3 through February 14, 2010

Please join our email list at

http://tinyurl.com/RSmailinglist

Matt Saunders at The Renaissance Society, opening Feb 28

The Renaissance Society presents a solo exhibition by Matt Saunders, February 28 to April 11, 2010

 

For his exhibition at The Renaissance Society—the artist's first solo museum show—Berlin-based artist Matt Saunders will present several interrelated new works in diverse media.  In drawings, paintings, short films, and photographic works, Saunders recasts images, often taken from film or television, into new narratives about portraiture and spectatorship. At the same time, he pushes boundaries between media to tell a parallel story of how images are made, are repeated and are embodied in materials. Saunders' subject matter is a diverse cast of characters, including an early Los Alamos scientist, a largely forgotten East German actress, a silent film star, and the highest paid British television actor of the 60's.   As a group, these characters span World War II and the Cold War, providing a kind of stuttering record of 20^th Century lives. It is an exhibition about painting, and also about moving pictures, how they are found, loved, and lost.

Attached zip file has a CV, Press Release, Captions, and lo-res images.  For high res, please contact Mia Ruyter.

 

SHTEYNSHLEYGER OPENING SUNDAY JAN 3 2010

DECEMBER 31, 2009

ANNA SHTEYNSHLEYGER OPENING SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2010     Anna Shteynshleyger, "Masha" 2004 - 2009 pigment print, 24 x 29.9 inches, courtesy of the artist. Please join The Renaissance Society for an opening reception for Anna Shteynshleyger, Sunday January 3, 2010, from 4:00 to 7:00pm.  There will be a talk with the artist in Kent Hall room 120, from 5:00 to 6:00pm. Chicago-based artist Shteynshleyger belongs to a generation of photographers whose work is notable for its formal beauty and technical execution. Twenty-three works poignantly document Shteynshleyger's life over the past several years.  During this period Shteynshleyger renegotiated her relationship to Orthodox Judaism, which she began to practice at the age of 16 after moving to the United States from Moscow where she was born. Too personal to qualify as documentary of the Orthodox Jewish community, Shteynshleyger's work spans a variety of genres -- portraits, still-life, landscape, and interiors. The images display a sensitivity of their subjects that is as questioning as it is knowing.

RELATED EVENTS LECTURE Sunday, January 10, 2010, 2:00pm Margaret Olin Senior Research Scholar at the Yale Divinity School Jewish Space As a Senior Research Scholar at the Yale Divinity School, Margaret Olin's current research concerns documentary media, Jewish visual culture, and theories of witnessing and commemoration. This talk is part of a project called "Jewish Space," which examines sites identified as "Jewish," or in which Jews have a stake, as they mingle with others in imagination or reality. This event will take place in Swift Hall room 106.1025 East 58th Street (on the Main Quadrangle of the University, directly east of Cobb Hall). FREE LECTURE Sunday, January 24, 2010, 2:00pm Jan Schwarz Senior Lecturer in Yiddish University of Chicago Porfolk: Portraits of Married Couples in Yiddish Literature Schwarz is a professor of Yiddish culture. He is currently the Barbara and Richard Rosenburg Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, researching "Yiddish Literary Testimonies: Mordechai Strigler, Leib Rokhman, Eliezer Wiesel."  This event will take place in Cobb Hall room 409, just down the corridor from the gallery. FREE LECTURE Sunday, February 7, 2010, 2:00 pm Leora Auslander Professor of Modern European Social History, member of the Committee on Jewish Studies and the Center for Gender Studies University of Chicago Sexy Challahs, Pregnant Shabbat Candlesticks, and Women with Sidelocks: Anna Shteynshleyger's Embodied Judaism Currently professor of Modern European Social History, Auslander is the author of Taste and Power: Furnishing Modern France (1998), and Cultural Revolutions: Everyday Life and Politics in England, North America, and France (2009). She is a member of the Committee on Jewish Studies and the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago. Her current research is for an upcoming book titled Strangers at Home: Jewish Parisians and Berliners in the Twentieth Century. This event will take place in Swift Hall room 106. 1025 East 58th Street (on the Main Quadrangle of the University, directly east of Cobb Hall). FREE READING Sunday, February 14, 2010, 2:00pm Charles Bernstein Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature University of Pennsylvania Highly esteemed poet, professor, and literary scholar Charles Bernstein will do a reading dedicated to his daughter Emma. The reading coincides with the release of All the Whiskey in Heaven, a thirty-year anthology. In addition, the reading will celebrate the recent release of Radical Poetics and Secular Jewish Culture, a collection of essays in which poets and critics, Bernstein among them, address the question of what constitutes radical poetry written by Jews defined as ‘secular', and whether or not there is a Jewish component or dimension to radical and modernist poetic practice in general. The reading will be followed by a discussion and reception. This event will take place in Swift Hall room 106. 1025 East 58th Street (on the Main Quadrangle of the University, directly east of Cobb Hall). FREE    SPONSORS This exhibition is made possible through generous support from the Harper Court Arts Council.   SUPPORT THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY Get involved, become a member.  By becoming a member, you are joining a vital and ongoing tradition of forward-thinking presentations and innovation in art. JOIN HERE.   LOCATION AND HOURS The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago Cobb Hall, 4th floor 5811 South Ellis Avenue Chicago IL 60637 hours: Tuesday to Friday 10:00am to 5:00pm Saturday and Sunday noon to 5:00pm closed Mondays ALL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS ARE FREE

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Press Release: Shteynshleyger at The Renaissance Society

Press Release:

The Renaissance Society presents an exhibition by Anna Shteynshleyger, January 3 to February 14, 2009

The Renaissance Society will mount a solo exhibition of photographs by Chicago-based artist Anna Shteynshleyger (b. 1977).  Trained at Yale, Shteynshleyger belongs to a generation of photographers whose work is notable for its formal beauty and technical execution. The exhibition will feature approximately 18 works that poignantly document Shteynshleyger's life over the past several years.  During that period, Shteynshleyger has had to renegotiate her relationship to Orthodox Judaism, which she had practiced since the age of 16, after moving to the United States from Moscow where she was born. Too personal to qualify as documentary of the Orthodox Jewish community, Shteynshleyger's work spans a variety of genres—portraits, still-life, landscape, and interiors—all of which will be included in the exhibition. The portraits and interiors display a sensitivity that is as questioning as it is knowing of its subjects.

For more information, please contact:

Mia Ruyter

Director of Marketing

The Renaissance Society

773 702 8670

mruyter@uchicago.edu

Mia Ruyter

mruyter@uchicago.edu

The Renaissance Society

Current exhibition:

Allan Sekula: Polonia and Other Fables

through December 13, 2009

Please join our email list at

http://tinyurl.com/RSmailinglist

Press Release: Shteynshleyger at The Renaissance Society

Press Release:

The Renaissance Society presents an exhibition by Anna Shteynshleyger, January 3 to February 14, 2009

The Renaissance Society will mount a solo exhibition of photographs by Chicago-based artist Anna Shteynshleyger (b. 1977).  Trained at Yale, Shteynshleyger belongs to a generation of photographers whose work is notable for its formal beauty and technical execution. The exhibition will feature approximately 18 works that poignantly document Shteynshleyger's life over the past several years.  During that period, Shteynshleyger has had to renegotiate her relationship to Orthodox Judaism, which she had practiced since the age of 16, after moving to the United States from Moscow where she was born. Too personal to qualify as documentary of the Orthodox Jewish community, Shteynshleyger's work spans a variety of genres—portraits, still-life, landscape, and interiors—all of which will be included in the exhibition. The portraits and interiors display a sensitivity that is as questioning as it is knowing of its subjects.

For more information, please contact:

Mia Ruyter

Director of Marketing

The Renaissance Society

773 702 8670

mruyter@uchicago.edu

Mia Ruyter

mruyter@uchicago.edu

The Renaissance Society

Current exhibition:

Allan Sekula: Polonia and Other Fables

through December 13, 2009

Please join our email list at

http://tinyurl.com/RSmailinglist

ArtSci Chicago posting

Hello!

I am a choreographer here in Chicago, premiering a work-in-progress piece about neuroscience.  Could I post this information about my showing?  

 

Independent choreographer Megan Rhyme presents:

                       

Inner Cartography: The Science of new things

A work-in-progress showing by Megan Rhyme

November 22, 2009

8:30pm

Silverspace

1474 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago IL 60622

$5 suggested donation

There will be a discussion immediately following the showing 

 

Choreographer Megan Rhyme has spent the last six months researching neuroscience and conversing with neuroscientist Miriam Sachs, PhD at University California – San Diego.  The result is a work about body mapping, a term used to describe the spatial distribution of neurons in the motor cortex of the brain and the patterns of neurons that reflect our movement experiences.  A community of four people struggle with the creation of new body maps and the constant change present in the maps and themselves, and reveal the pressures and emotional burdens we put on ourselves when learning. 

 

Thanks so much! 

 

 

 

Press Release: Allan Sekula at The Renaissance Society

The Renaissance Society

at the University of Chicago

Cobb Hall, 4th floor

5811 South Ellis Avenue

Chicago IL 60637

773-702-8670

www.renaissancesociety.org

 

The Renaissance Society presents an exhibition by

Allan Sekula, September 20 to December 13, 2009

 

The Renaissance Society will present an exhibition of new work by photographer Allan Sekula.  This new series, titled Polonia and Other Fables, critically documents and examines the social impact of global economics.  Always aiming to position his work within an exhibition's local community, Sekula will develop this project to focus on Chicago's rich labor history, in particular on the city's large Polish immigrant population, and The University of Chicago's famous lineage of economic theorists.

 

In addition to being outstanding documentary photography in its own right, Sekula's work is also a critique of the genre.  Sekula's examination of the theory and practice of photography is as important as his inquiry into labor history and economics. Central to his work is an interest in documentation—as pictorial form, method of recording, narrative device, historical memory, and medium of social engagement. Sekula's work poses the rhetorical question, "Is it possible to discuss photography as a medium separate from the thing being photographed?" Put another way, is a photograph in and of itself capable of being self-reflexive while critiquing its subject?  Sekula's answer is no.  An integral part of his practice is writing, an activity he has maintained since the outset of his career 35 years ago.  His writings expose the inherent limits of a documentary genre based purely on photographic imagery.  Together, Sekula's images and text constitute the most trenchant and rigorous photographic discourse on globalization. 

 

For more information, please contact:

Mia Ruyter

Director of Marketing

The Renaissance Society

773 702 8670

mruyter@uchicago.edu

Mia Ruyter

mruyter@uchicago.edu

Join our mailing list:

http://www.renaissancesociety.org

The Renaissance Society

at the University of Chicago

5811 South Ellis Avenue

Chicago IL 60637

phone: 773-702-8670

fax: 773-702-9669

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The Renaissance Society

not what you expect

www.renaissancesociety.org