FAMILY PROGRAM

Using pavement, chalk, bouncy balls, and bean bags, artist Alberto Aguilar transforms the sidewalks surrounding the Madlener House into a floor game court and participatory performance. This event is designed as an outdoor program for children and families though participants of every age are invited to join.

This event is presented in collaboration with Cultural ReProducers in conjunction with the exhibition Estudio Tatiana Bilbao: Unravelling Modern Living.

Alberto Aguilar is a Chicago based artist. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; El Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba; Palo Alto Art Center; National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Minneapolis Institute of Art: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; and The Art Institute of Chicago. His work is held in the collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Soho House Chicago; and the Chicago Cultural Center. Aguilar is the recipient of the 3Arts Award.

Cultural ReProducers is an evolving group of active cultural workers—artists, designers, curators, musicians, performers, writers, etc.—who are also parents. Founded in 2012 by artist Christa Donner, the group is a creative platform, web resource, and community-based initiative that is for anyone interested in making the art world a more inclusive and interesting place by supporting arts professionals raising kids.

Image: Multiple Entires, latex paint and window signs on home, 2018.

Artist-led tours of Spirit of the Waves (approx. 45 min.):

Friday, August 9, 12 p.m.
Wednesday, August 14, 12 p.m.
Friday, August 16, 12 p.m.

Our current exhibition, Nelly Agassi: Spirit of the Waves, has been extended with special hours through August 16th. Join artist Nelly Agassi for a tour of her Graham Foundation Fellowship exhibition that explores erasure, preservation, identity, and architecture’s capacity to change. This newly commissioned body of work, includes a large-scale textile installation, intricate embroideries, works on paper, and sculptures that conjure historical and imagined narratives from the architectural details of the Foundation's headquarters, the Madlener House. Agassi will discuss her work and practice during her residency.

Advanced registration for the tours is not required; additional tours are available by appointment.

For more information on the exhibition, Spirit of the Waves, click here.

Wednesday, July 31, 6 p.m.
Sold out (Join the waitlist)

Wednesday, August 7, 6 p.m.
Sold out (Join the waitlist)

Nelly Agassi presents a new performance within her site-specific installation as part of her Graham Foundation fellowship exhibition, Spirit of the Waves. Developed in collaboration with Ryan Packard and Peter Maunu, the performance title refers to a line of poetry that was inscribed on a bracelet from Elsa Seipp Madlener—who, along with her husband Albert Fridolin Madlener, commissioned the house the Foundation inhabits—that has been passed down through the Seipp-Madlener family for multiple generations. The quoted passage is taken from the stanza “Vom Tode” (“From Death”), part of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert’s 1757 work Geistliche Oden und Lieder (Spiritual Odes and Songs), which was later adapted to music and popularized by both Bach and Beethoven, in 1758 and 1803 respectively.

Chicago-based artist Nelly Agassi (b.1973, Israel) received her MFA from Chelsea College and her BFA from Central St. Martins, both in London. Her work has been shown internationally at institutions and galleries such as The Arts Club of Chicago, Aspect Ratio, Hyde Park Art Center, The Israel Museum, Poor Farm, Tate Modern, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, La Triennale di Milano, and Zacheta Warsaw. Agassi is a cofounder of the nonprofit organization Fieldwork Collaborative Projects and a 2019 Graham Foundation Fellow. She is represented by Dvir Gallery and Foksal Gallery.

Guitarist and violinist Peter Maunu has toured, performed, and recorded with a long list of diverse musicians including Charles Lloyd, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bobby McFerrin, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Charlie Haden, Archie Shepp, and Grace Slick. As the guitarist on the Arsenio Hall Show, he performed nightly with legends like Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Ringo Starr, Madonna, Ray Charles, NWA, Public Enemy, and many more. Additionally, Maunu contributed to the soundtracks of film scores including Crash, Bobby, Food Inc., and television shows Chicago Hope, Arrested Development, and CSI New York. Since relocating to Chicago, he has performed and recorded with improvisers Fred Lonberg-Holm, Dave Rempis, Michael Zerang, Mars Williams, Jim Baker, Tomeka Reid, Katherine Young, Jason Roebke, Tim Daisy, Ryan Packard, Nelly Agassi, Avreeyal Ra, dancer Ayako Kato, and many others. In addition, he founded, curates, hosts, and performs at the Splice Series, a bimonthly improvisation series at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago.

Ryan Packard is a percussionist, composer, and sound artist based in Chicago. His sound installations have been featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Defibrillator Gallery, Hyde Park Arts Center, Galeria Labirynt, High Concept Labs, Constellation Chicago, and Experimental Sound Studio. His compositions have been performed by Fonema Consort, Ensemble Chartreuse, Seth Parker Woods, The Morton Feldman Chamber Players, and the AndPlay Duo. As an improviser and collaborator, Packard performs regularly with Nelly Agassi, Dave Rempis, Brandon Lopez, Jasper Stadhouders, Oscar Jan Hoogland,  ZRL (Zach Good and Lia Kohl), John McCowen, Nestle (Cyrus Pireh and Rob Lundberg), ombra di organo (Keefe Jackson and Manuel Troller), Kieran Daly, Jason Roebke, RGB (Paul Giallorenzo and Charlie Kirchen), Daniel Wyche amongst many others. He is in the newest reincarnation of the NYC experimental indie rock band, Skeleton$; Chicago’s Wei Zhongle; and collaborates with the Michael Albert Music Group, Slow Mass and VV Lightbody. He’s a member of Fonema Consort and has performed with Ensemble Dal Niente, Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society, MOCREP, a.pe.ri.od.ic ensemble, Chicago Composer’s Orchestra, Nate Kinsella’s Birthmark and Architek Percussion Quartet as a founding member. Packard has a master's of music from McGill University and bachelor's of music from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Image: Nelly Agassi, Untitled, 2019. Photo: Assaf Evron

Please note that registration for this performance is required, but does not guarantee entry. Doors open 30 minutes prior to the event and space is available on a first-come, first-serve basis for those registered in advance. Reservations expire 5 minutes before the event start time, at which point space will be released to the waitlist. No late entry will be permitted.

Accessibility: This event will be held on the second floor, which is only accessible by stairs, and will not be seated. A limited number of stools for those unable to stand for the duration of the 30 minute performance will be available. The first-floor galleries, library, and bookshop are accessible via outdoor lift. Please call ahead to make arrangements.

For more information on the exhibition, Spirit of the Waves, click here.

In 2018, Diane Simpson received a research grant from the Graham Foundation to support her project Architecture in Motion commissioned by FD13 Residency for the Arts in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN. Working over an extended research period of nine months, Diane designed her first costumes to be animated by two performers. Taking inspiration from the former Women’s City Club of St. Paul, designed by architect Magnus Jemne in 1931 in the Art Deco style, Simpson’s costumes reference key details of the elegant building. In collaboration with FD13, the costumes were first used in performance with Minneapolis-based dancers in June 2019. Building on the success of this first iteration, Every house has a door created a new performance to premiere on July 25. Following the 30-minute performance, Sara Cluggish, Director of FD13 joins Diane Simpson in conversation about the evolution of the project.

Diane Simpson is a Chicago-based artist who creates sculpture and preparatory drawings that evolve from a diverse range of sources, including clothing, utilitarian objects, and architecture. The structures of clothing forms has continuously informed her work, serving as a vehicle for exploring their functional and sociological roles and the influence of the design and architecture of various cultures and periods in history. Diane Simpson’s works were included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Other museum exhibitions include solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2016) and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (2015). Recent solo gallery exhibitions include Herald St, London (2018); JTT, New York (2016); and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago (2016).

Sara Cluggish is a writer and curator based in Minneapolis. She earned her MFA in curating and BFA in photography. Her research interests lie at the intersection of performance and moving image scholarship, with an emphasis on gender and sexuality studies. Cluggish is 2018 Guest Curator of FD13, Residency for the Arts in Minneapolis and St. Paul for which she is developing a season of events surrounding themes of health, illness, disability politics, and the body in a state of flux. From 2012 to 2014 she was the assistant curator at Nottingham Contemporary and has worked in the exhibitions departments at Chisenhale Gallery, London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is an occasional contributor to ArtReview, ArtReview Asia, Frieze, L’Officiele Arte Italia, and the Third Rail.

Every house has a door was formed in 2008 by Lin Hixson, director, and Matthew Goulish, dramaturg, to convene diverse, inter-generational project-specific teams of specialists, including emerging as well as internationally recognized artists. Drawn to historically or critically neglected subjects, Every house creates performance works and performance-related projects in many media. The company is based in Chicago and presents work for local, national, and international audiences.

Image: Diane Simpson, source images from the former St. Paul Women’s City Club, designed by Magnus Jemne in 1931, with Architecture in Motion costume drawings, 2019

For more information on the exhibition, Spirit of the Waves, click here.

The marble workers laboring on the decades‐long restoration of the Acropolis are inheritors of a millennia-old tradition. Their work is a highly technical amalgam of past and present, yet what these master marble carvers do and how they do it has been undocumented until now. As the restoration enters its final phases, On the Rock: The Acropolis Interviews reveals the marble workers’ techniques, training, and roles within the restoration in the their own frank, deeply personal voices, as interviewed by Graham grantee Allyson Vieira. The interviews address ancient building practices, the teaching of traditional craft, changes in the practice of architectural restoration, and social and class dynamics within the restoration site, while considering Greece’s economic crisis from the workers’ perspective. How has the Greek crisis affected the technicians’ thoughts about their craft, jobs, and citizenship? Vieira will explore the intersection of these issues in conversation with Terri Kapsalis, author of a recently completed novel set in Athens.

Artist Allyson Vieira lives and works in New York. She has exhibited extensively both internationally and in the US, including institutional projects at Kunsthalle Basel (Basel), Swiss Institute (NY), Storm King Art Center (NY), PinchukArtCentre (Kiev), Non-Objectif Sud (Tulette), Frieze Projects (NY), The Public Art Fund (NY), The Highline (NY), and SculptureCenter (NY), and recent solo gallery exhibitions at Daniel Faria (Toronto), Company (NY), Klaus von Nichtssagend (NY), Mendes Wood DM (Sao Paulo, BR), The Breeder (Athens), and Laurel Gitlen (NY). Her first major catalog, Allyson Vieira: The Plural Present, was published by Karma Books in 2016. She is currently assistant professor of foundations at the Corcoran School of Art at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Terri Kapsalis is a writer and performer. She is the author of Jane Addams' Travel Medicine Kit, The Hysterical Alphabet, and Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum. Her writings have appeared on Lit Hub and in various edited volumes and journals including Short Fiction, The Baffler, Denver Quarterly, New Formations, Public, and Parakeet. Along with John Corbett and Anthony Elms, she coedited Traveling the Spaceways: Sun Ra, the Astro Black, and Other Solar Myths and Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn, and Chicago’s Afro-futurist Underground and cocurated the touring Sun Ra exhibition Pathways to Unknown Worlds. As an improvising violinist, Kapsalis' discography includes work with Tony Conrad, David Grubbs, Mats Gustafsson, Junko, and Thurston Moore. She is a founding member of Theater Oobleck and has performed in over thirty productions since 1985. Since 1991, she is a collective member and health educator at the Chicago Women's Health Center and cofounded TGAP (Trans Greater Access Project) and the Integrative Health Program. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Soberscove Press seeks to make available art-related materials that fill a gap in the literature or are difficult to access. Our books tend to explore modes and functions of documentation and connect historical themes and issues to the present. Soberscove also works with artists on the production of books that resonate with our list.

Image: Work on the Parthenon continues as part of the decades‐long Acropolis restoration project. Photo: Allyson Vieira

For more information on the exhibition, Spirit of the Waves, click here.

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