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 20th 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

 

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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

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