the archives

threewallsSALON: Curating the Turn

threewallsSALON

Tuesday, February 1, 7:00 pm

Due to incelement weather, we have changed the date! Please join us for this threewallsSALON on Tuesday, February 8, 7:00 p.m.

In the first session of the @work SALON series, we explore alternative models of curatorial practice.

In May 2010, e-flux editor Anton Vidokle published “Art Without Artists?” in which he described the dangers and demerits of the rising power of the Superstar Curator. The polemic essay elicited a flurry of equally polemic critical response from curators and artists, thus kindling the flames of a discontent with the increasingly independent role of the curator that have flickered since the 1970s.

In this SALON session, we respond to this discussion by proposing to move beyond it. Instead, we accept the premise of the creative curator, and ask: what are some boundaries-pushing, interdisciplinary curatorial models that fully embrace all the potential inherent in that role? How has the “educational turn” changed the stakes for independent and institutional curators? How are curators (aspiring or established) responding to, profiting from, or perhaps even ignoring, the academicization of their practice? And what are some thoughtful ways in which curatorial practice is responding to different institutional models, as well as reaching beyond the arts institution, to address activism and politics?

Invited guests Anna Cerniglia (Johalla Projects), Nicholas Frank (Inova), Eric May (Roots and Culture), Aay Preston Myint (No Coast) and Kelly Shindler (Art:21) will help to lead a discussion that will address these questions and many more.

N.B.: Unfortunately, Nicholas Frank is unable to join us for the February 8 SALON. However, we are very happy to welcome Eric May (Roots and Culture) to join the discussion!

Anna Cerniglia is a curator, visual artist, and the director of Johalla Projects. She received her BFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2006. Over the past five years, she has worked throughout Chicago to convert unconventional spaces into alternative venues for exhibiting art. Cerniglia founded South Union Arts in 2005 and has since curated for ALLRiSE Gallery, Grolsch, Buchanan Art Project, Lakeview East Art Festival, and Johalla Projects. Outside of the United States, she has worked as an assistant curator as at Berliner-Liste and as a co-curator at La Porta Blu Gallery of Rome. Most recently, she has begun working with the aldermen of Wicker Park and Logan Square (Joe Moreno and Rey Colon, respectively) to foster and promote public displays of art.

Eric May is a Chicago-based artist, gallerist, and chef. He runs Roots and Culture. He cooks for Ox-Bow. This spring he will launch E-Dogz Culinary Community Center, a mobile food happening project.

Aay Preston-Myint is an artist, printmaker, and educator who does collaborative programming with No Coast, Mess Hall, ACRE, and Chances Dances, and edits an online journal called Monsters and Dust. He has exhibited nationally in San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York, and has contributed original writing as well as had multiple reviews of work in the Chicago Reader, New City, Proximity, and AREA. He is currently an MFA candidate in Studio Arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Kelly Shindler is currently completing a dual Master’s in Art History, Theory, & Criticism and Arts Administration & Policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since 2003, she has worked at Art:21, producer of the Peabody award-winning PBS documentary series, Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century, where she is presently Director of Special Projects and runs Art:21’s blog. She also works with SAIC's experimental moving image series, Conversations at the Edge. As a curator, Kelly co-founded of the Package Deals film series, whose programs have screened in over thirty cities around the world. She has curated exhibitions and programs for the Australia Cinematheque, Oulu Music Video Festival in Finland, Scandinavia House in NYC, Sequences Festival in Reykjavik, and the Sullivan Galleries in Chicago, among others.