All posts filed under: Interviews

Image: A view of "Dreamscapes: Imaginings of a Black Pastoral" at Roots and Culture. Photo by Colectivo Multipolar. IG: @colectivomultipolar

The Black Pastoral, a landscape of abundance

Published by isra rene

Featured image: A view of “Dreamscapes: Imaginings of a Black Pastoral” at Roots and Culture. Two the left is a doorway covered in sheer green fabric that leads into a room with a video piece on display. The right side of the image shows a hallways leading to a larger room with additional artworks. Photo by Colectivo Multipolar. Entering the space of Roots & Culture on the opening night of Dreamscapes: Imaginings of a Black Pastoral, you are transported through a portal into the familiar realm of fellowship. For me, in the fellowship found in the hall of my childhood Baptist church, a gathering space designated for the communal unravel immediately following Sunday morning service, or in the fellowship found in the yearly ritual of my family reunion, a tradition of Black joy where familial cohesiveness can be restored, generational collectivism is centered and celebration is key. Aunties, grandmas, cousins you didn’t know you had, family friends and friends of friends all coalescing for one singular premise: communion. Walking through Dreamscapes: Imaginings of a Black …

FOLD/UNFOLD: Interview with Sam Fissell

Published by row särkelä

Featured image: Sam Fissell is in a backwards crouching position on the floor with his back to the viewer. He is wearing tan trousers, a white tank top, and white shoes with a white cloth tied around the ankle. Photo by Ryan Edmund Thiel. FOLD/UNFOLD: fashion designers and artists on dress, tactics, community, and power in zhegagoynak/zhigaagoong (Chicago) and beyond. Sam Fissell’s light-washed apartment is sparse, modular, and neat. As a fashion designer, he has made the space feel ready for anything. Fissell’s approach gives a mix of precision and unpredictable intensity –  someone who gets things done, but who also wildly trusts collaborators and leans into the unknown. Talking to and witnessing Fissell, you can feel his commitment to process over product and to the relationships and inheritances that make fashion matter to begin with. Care emanates from him as he picks minute pieces of dust off a garment we’re documenting from his most recent collection, crossing his legs to showcase the white leather boots his friend made for the collection. He holds that …

Snapshot: Sculpture Milwaukee

Published by Sixty Inches From Center

We hope this exhibition serves as a reminder of the resilience of art in a social context. Over the last year and a half, through the conditions of a global shutdown and time marked by a renewed social justice movement and chapters of political turmoil, sculpture remained in the streets. Public art has the unique pleasure of being available to everyone, all of the time.

Image: Mehran Salari, "Untitled," 2017. Monoprint and pencil and pen, 40×40 cm. A black and white image that is largely abstract with a group of organic shapes. Image courtesy of Didaar Art Collective.

Space: Chapter One – A conversation with Didaar Art Collective

Published by Kaveh Rafie

Featured image: Mehran Salari, Untitled, 2017. Monoprint and pencil and pen, 40×40 cm. A black and white image that is largely abstract with a group of organic shapes. Image courtesy of Didaar Art Collective. Last Spring, Didaar Art Collective, a cooperative group of Iranian artists based in Chicago, organized a group show titled Space: Chapter One at Oliva Gallery. The exhibition was on display from April 9 to May 8, 2021, and featured drawings and printmaking by twenty-nine emerging Iranian artists. Toward the end of the lockdown, I visited the exhibition. I was yearning for a moment of reflection on the intricacies of our spatial bound beyond the insipid private experience in front of my laptop screen. This was an experience that I had greatly missed, and the exhibition, beyond its visualizations of space and possibilities, was uniquely positioned to give insight into the ongoing contested-over space in Iran.  It was refreshing to see how these artists work around the difficulties of the current moment while standing their ground during a time of mass oppression, …

Featured image: "007" SHAN Wallace, 30 x 24 x 1.75 inches (framed in black) (76.2 x 61 x 4.45 cm) 30 x 24 inches (unframed) (76.2 x 61 cm), 2020. A black and white showing a group of people dancing. Courtesy of the artist and FLXST Contemporary.

wont you celebrate with me: Erin LeAnn Mitchell & Shan Wallace in Conversation

Published by isra rene

Featured image: 007, Shan Wallace, 30 x 24 x 1.75 inches (framed in black) (76.2 x 61 x 4.45 cm) 30 x 24 inches (unframed) (76.2 x 61 cm), 2020. A black and white showing a group of people dancing. Courtesy of the artist and FLXST Contemporary. The words “won’t you celebrate with me“—the title of Erin LeAnn Mitchell and Shan Wallace’s duo exhibition at FLXST Contemporary in Chicago—comes from the title of a poem from acclaimed Black poet Lucille Clifton. In the poem, Clifton declares for a celebration of her shapeshifting, of her molding, and of her becoming simply true to all of the multitudes that live within and through her. Clifton points to the challenges and obstacles that she’s faced and understands that the world may want to take her tenderness and joy away, but she crafts her own worlds where she is undoubtedly celebrated, uplifted, and loved for her triumphs everyday. In their two-person exhibition, artists Mitchell and Wallace continue this declaration of jubilee, pointing to a Black femme supremacy that complicates …

FOLD/UNFOLD: Interview with Madeline Hampton

Published by row särkelä

FOLD/UNFOLD: fashion designers and artists on dress, tactics, community, and power in zhegagoynak/zhigaagoong (Chicago) and beyond. When you first walk into fashion photographer Madeline Hampton’s apartment/studio, the number “27” painted on the entrance wall in chaotic white strokes doesn’t assert itself as separate from the overall industrial aesthetic of the space. It takes time to notice that this is a signal that Hampton, also known as “27,” lives and works here. It’s an uncanny and highly personal visual that feels appropriate for an artist who based a recent shoot around Yves Tumor’s feeling of licking an orchid.  Hampton makes cinematic fashion images that don’t so much attract you to double-tap, but instead compulse an ongoing encounter with the picture. Hampton’s power to interrupt the scroll culture of Instagram feels like a power coming from somewhere not quite here–an offering to feel otherwise through the medium of fashion photography. The colors hit somewhere in your jaw, the angles glimmer. It feels possible to be both here in the material body and moving in a dream dimension. …

Unreasoned Scores 1/6: Katie Chung and José Santiago Pérez

Published by Fabiola Tosi, Katie Chung, José Santiago Pérez

The following article is part of Unreasoned Scores, a series of six articles edited by Fabiola Tosi, Juelle Daley, and Stephanie Koch, the 2019-2020 HATCH Curatorial Residents with Chicago Artist’s Coalition (CAC). When social distancing posed a challenge to building community between the artist residents of the program, Daley, Koch, and Tosi created a structure for artists’ interviews which asked: How can we be isolated together?  Through a series of exercises, curators encouraged artists—paired together based on artistic practice, experience, and personalities—to connect through a series of interviews with one another. The goal was to foster a human-scale connection between artists, beyond the hyper-mediated space of online meetings. With this experimental editorial project, the curators seek to investigate “How does one archive ephemeral works which may not fit the formats of a traditional archival record?” Read part 2 of Unreasoned Scores featuring artists Ellen Holtzblatt and Salim Moore. Katie Chung and José Santiago Pérez, edited by Fabiola Tosi When meeting someone for the first time, maybe even after a few conversations, you would get to …

Sweet Bitter Love: Interview with Jeffrey Gibson

Published by Analú López

Sweet Bitter Love, presenting artist Jeffrey Gibson’s reflections on representations of Indigenous peoples in cultural institutions, is now on display at the Newberry Library through September 18, 2021.  Responding to a series of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century portraits by Eldridge Ayer Burbank in the Newberry collection, Gibson (a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent) refutes the stereotypical imagery that has reinforced pernicious myths about Indigenous people for centuries. As he enters into critical dialogue with the collections of the Newberry and also the Field Museum, Gibson’s works attest to the resilience of Indigenous cultures. The exhibition is part of Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, which is organized by the Smart Museum of Art in collaboration with exhibition, programmatic, and research partners across Chicago. Analú López (Guachichil/Xi´úi), Ayer Indigenous Studies Librarian at the Newberry, recently spoke with Gibson about his evolution as an artist, the challenges of presenting the complexity of the past through art, and how his work might surface silenced …

My Linh Mac: Life After F-1

Published by Lauren Iacoponi

All artists graduating from institutions experience the anxiety and fear of what comes next, entering “the real world” and trying to figure out a lucrative career path (in a not so lucrative field). However, most artists have the option to work outside of their field of study. This is not the case for international artists (F-1 Students) who have one year to find employment in a relevant position under Optional Practical Training (OPT). Following a single year of work, foreign artists are expected to gain enough professional experience to submit a work visa to stay and work in the United States. Moreover, most international students pay 2 to 3 times more tuition compared to domestic students. Chicago-based Vietnamese artist My Linh Mac (Millie) is intimately familiar with the challenges following F-1 Status: the immediate search for employment and visa sponsorship, visa application fees, lawyer fees, the pressure to demonstrate her value as a foreign worker within the United States – the list goes on. Mac is originally from Vietnam and pursued an education in Singapore, …

Featured Image: Stephen Signa-Aviles stands in his studio at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is wearing dark jeans and a dark, short-sleeved hooded sweatshirt, and a black face mask with a white graphic pattern. He looks up and into the camera. His studio space is narrow and cluttered. There are various works in progress, as well as shelving units with paints, books, and other materials. Photo courtesy of Stephen Signa-Aviles.

Working From Home: Four Art Students Reflect on Making in a Pandemic

Published by Jessica Hammie

During the summer of 2020, with COVID-19 cases rapidly rising, it became clear that higher education would have to look different in the near future. There was a lot of press coverage about how colleges and universities could, would, and should function during a global pandemic. How could it be safe to bring tens of thousands of people to one place, many of them living three or four to a space? How could students continue their education under these stressful conditions? What type of accommodations should be made to allow for those who want to return to campus to do so safely? What about fiscal solvency? A lot of conversations and articles about the reopening of college campuses were about economics, the ways a virtual or hybrid model could greatly alter or damage traditional ideals of higher education, and the exploitation of professorial labor (both tenured and nontenured). The University of Illinois system originally announced in mid-June that Fall 2020 would be a hybrid model of education, with in-person and online classes. This model was …

Learning and Making: Reparations for the Earth

Published by Grace Needlman

Learning and Making invites teachers, students, artists, and people who are all three at once to explore the radical possibilities that exist at the intersection of making and learning. Learning is the act of deepening human experience and increasing human agency. Many artists work as educators and consider this work as part of their practice. Arts programs in and out of schools foster intergenerational communities that not only generate critical contemporary art but act as laboratories for radical experiments in power, care, and collaboration.  The Reparations for the Earth Curriculum, created by the Young Cultural Stewards team at the Park District, offers strategies for sowing seeds of creativity and collective power that transcend discipline. Over Zoom, I spoke with the two program stewards, Irina Zadov and Najee Zaid-Searcy, and Teaching Artist, Juliet Montelongo to better understand the foundations of their collective practice. Our conversation touched on returning to art as an experience of personal healing, putting reparations into practice, learning from nature, and the nuances of flocking.   This interview has been edited for clarity and …

The Door Ajar: A Conversation with Leah Ke Yi Zheng

Published by Nicky Ni

My friendship with Leah Ke Yi Zheng (Instagram) started rather serendipitously. She was a stranger sitting next to me at a communal table inside Intelligentsia Coffee on East Randolph Street. I somehow initiated a conversation, and that was how we became friends, without knowing that we would soon both join the graduate program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; I would study art history and she, painting and drawing.  As a curator, I cherish a personal conversation with my artist friends in which we also chat about life––sometimes a bizarre dream from the night before or favorite foods from our hometowns. But in the grand scheme of things, art reflects our lives. Over the years, Leah has come to use Painting to pose a variety of formal and personal inquiries about objecthood, perception, and the nature of difference. Despite a transformation in styles and subjects, her paintings continue to mirror their maker’s personality: calm, contemplative, but uncompromising and fearless. Coinciding with Leah’s two-person show with David Hartt, Memory’s Great Vertigo at Paris …

Celeste Malvar Stewart fitting a model in her Columbus, Ohio atelier. Photo by Jake Holler.

Celeste Malvar-Stewart: Zero-Waste Haute Couture in Columbus, Ohio

Published by Amber Gibson

Celeste Malvar-Stewart has been a pioneer of sustainable and ethical fashion for 25 years, creating zero-waste bespoke felted dresses made with alpaca and sheep fibers from her appointment-only Columbus studio. She knows the names and can recognize the fleece from each individual alpaca and sheep. When I made a felted scarf with her last year, she showed me how Sugar has tighter corkscrew curls, while Gandalf is looser and fluffier. Celeste works directly with local Ohio farmers to source her fibers and is proud to be part of a fashion revolution where it’s becoming a statement to re-wear pieces. Prices range from $800-$1,500 for one-of-a-kind cocktail dresses and up to a few thousand for wedding dresses.  “When there’s that value and connection with the animals and your dress, you’re so not going to throw it away,” she says. With a minimal carbon footprint and without relying on imported fabrics, she’s creating farm-to-dress fashion. With her atelier, Celeste is more of an artist than a designer in the traditional sense. Her dresses are seamless because she’s …

Featured image: (Mariano's mural) Color Me South Side, 2019 by Dorian Sylvain. A crowd of people stand in front of a colorful mural depicting several people. Photo by Chris Devins.

Dorian Sylvain: Muralist, Teaching Artist, Curator, and Community Planner

Published by Alkebuluan Merriweather

As a long term resident of South Side Chicago, Dorian Sylvain‘s artwork is no stranger to myself or others. I first met Dorian in 2015 at Mana Contemporary during the ChiArts visual arts senior thesis show. Five years later, I would reintroduce myself to Dorian and proceed with asking her if she needed an artist assistant. While I am still learning from Dorian, she has taught me much thus far and has even encouraged me to take on different mediums within my artwork. It is an immense pleasure to interview Dorian on her practice, career, and what’s next down the line. Alkebuluan Merriweather: Who is Dorian Sylvain today as opposed to 40 years ago? Dorian Sylvain: Today I am a more confident artist and certainly a more experienced artist. Through the years, I evolved my practice, relationships, and have expanded on the dreams of a young artist growing up on Chicago’s South Side. In my early 20’s I recognized my commitment to working as a teaching artist, receiving my first grant to operate a free arts …

My First Chicago Film: Bri Clearly

Published by Imani Davis

Chicago has long been a place for indie creators to get together and make something beautiful. The filmmaking community in the city is one filled with ideas galore and the determination to make it happen. Throughout the years, we’ve seen many writers, directors, and producers start and grow their careers here, always recognizing Chicago in the process, even if they move to the coasts to pursue entertainment.  Chicago Made Shorts, a new platform hosted on Instagram TV, provides a hub for said filmmakers, simply looking for a place for their work to get seen. Imani Davis, Founder and Creative Director of Chicago Made Shorts, is deeply curious about how people make their way through the film scene in Chicago and get that first short film made. What was the impact of that first project made here? Who was involved? Why Chicago? In this series, Imani dives deep into these questions as well as the stories and beginnings of five different Chicago-based filmmakers. Through these interviews, she’ll make her way through topics such as making your way …

Image: A photo of Tonina Saputo sitting on a rug while posing with her guitar. Photo by Danny Zones, courtesy of the musician and the photographer.

The Undefined: Tonina Saputo

Published by Meghana Patnana

Tonina Saputo is an out-of-the-box musician who doesn’t know how to exactly define herself or her music. Playing the upright bass, she might tell you she’s folk, but she could change her mind. Either way, she knows how to pull a crowd here in St. Louis, Missouri.  “This is my third,” “This is my fourth Tonina concert,” or, “I’ve lost count,” are pretty common phrases one might hear entering a Tonina set.  I went to my first (socially-distanced) Tonina concert in a sea of seasoned vets in the summer of 2020. I had never heard of her, but like the honest concert go-er I am, I made sure to listen to her music before. I was transfixed with her bold tones and spicy flare—and not because she sings in Spanish, but because her Latin music techniques are obviously brought into her English songs. She definitely brings a unique song and style to the St. Louis music scene, which she describes as “supportive” and “close-knit”. Her albums and singles go back and forth between strong alternative-like …

Two poster designs by screen printer Jay Ryan. The poster on the left contains two bears on bicycles holding tacos. The poster on the right says "I will hug you in the future."

Chicago Archives Dive: Chicago Music Posters with Jay Ryan

Published by Ryan Edmund Thiel

Chicago is home to a long tradition of printmaking. In this video, Jay Ryan, the artist behind Chicagoland’s print studio The Bird Machine, talks about his experiences learning his craft at Screwball Press, another print studio in Chicago celebrated for its innovative production of rock music posters since the early 1990s. This video was produced by artist Ryan Edmund Thiel of Sixty Inches from Center, in collaboration with Chicago Collections Consortium and Art Design Chicago Now.

Two poster designs by screen printer Alexandrea Pataky. The poster on the left contains a bird, a rabbit, and a fox all holding instruments. The poster on the right is an illustrated gig poster for The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.

Chicago Archives Dive: Chicago’s Screenprinting Community with Alexandrea Pataky

Published by Ryan Edmund Thiel

From scientific illustration to rock music posters, artist Alexandrea Pataky, owner of High Lonesome Print, talks about her work, the screen printing community in Chicago, and being taught to print by Steve Walters of Screwball Press. This video was created in collaboration with Art Design Chicago and Chicago Collections Consortium, and was produced by Ryan Edmund Thiel.