All posts tagged: sex

Intimate Justice: John R. Harness

Published by S. Nicole Lane

Intimate Justice looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. Hyde Park resident John R. Harness wears many hats: he’s a creator of table-rop role-playing games that are aggressively gay, a blow-job extraordinaire, and an expert Klingon speaker (helping coin the first term for the LGBTQ community). I met John at his apartment over the summer where we sat between his two cats in his living room and discussed gay bathhouses, fascists, and what heteronormative spaces can gain from gay spaces.  This interview was edited for length and clarity.  S. Nicole Lane: So I don’t know really anything about games… John R. Harness: My work is in the realm of table-top role playing games. I learned about Dungeons and Dragons when I was a young kid—I was like 6 or 8. A friendship of mine deteriorated because my friend’s father had been into D&D and introduced me to it and suddenly that was all I wanted …

Intimate Justice: Vesna Jovanovic

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Vesna Jovanovic via email about medical illustrations and the act of drawing.  S. Nicole Lane: I think I saw your work a few years ago actually (I think at the Museum of Surgical Science?), and recently stumbled upon it again thanks to the internet. I’ve been interested in your attention to bodily subjects. Can you discuss how your work relates to sex and anatomy and why those topics interest you? Vesna Jovanovic: My focus on bodily subjects developed slowly over time. Many years ago, at SAIC, I took an experimental drawing class with Barbara Rossi. She asked us to create something along the lines of a Rorschach test and then draw directly on top of the inkblot. I was working a day job in an R&D laboratory at the time, so my mind was saturated with lab equipment and glassware. …

Intimate Justice: Cameron Clayborn

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Cameron Clayborn in his Bridgeport live-work studio space about popcorn ceilings, inner dialogue, and letting your freak flag fly.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  S. Nicole Lane: Are you from Chicago? If not, how did you end up here? Cameron Clayborn: I’m from Memphis. I was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and then my parents moved me to Memphis. SNL: Cool. And do you live in Bridgeport? CC: Yeah. So this is a live-work space. Everyone who has a space here works here, except for one person. But she’s awesome. So she lives around the corner. SNL: And what did you study at SAIC? CC: I studied sculpture and sometimes sound. I never took a performance class except for one time, which was about the practicalities of being a performance artist. I don’t know, it just never felt …

Intimate Justice: Hyegyeong Choi

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Hyegyeong Choi in the summer over the phone about friends with benefits, violence in sex, and to formality in painting.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  S. Nicole Lane: You’re new to New York, but can you maybe talk about the city and the community there and if it differs any way from what you experienced? Hyegyeong Choi: Sure. I had such a strong community in Chicago from grad school at SAIC in Chicago. It was like a family environment. I know or see a lot of people whenever I go to openings. When I moved to New York, I only knew a few people here. My best friend, Seth Stolbun, who is also my collector said “It’s the same thing. You will know everyone since it’s a small world like you had in Chicago.” I had a …

Featured image: Maggie Robinson and Allison Sokolowski performing in “I Am” at the Chicago Danztheatre Auditorium, as part of the Body Passages culminating event. Maggie balances with one foot, knee, and hand on the floor, as Allison stands on Maggie’s lower back. The performers hold each other’s left hands and look at each other. Both are barefoot and wear white t-shirts and jeans. Behind them is a well-lit stage, with a string of colorful paper suspended across it. Still from a video by John Borowski.

Body Passages: Culminating Collaborations

Published by Marya Spont-Lemus

This is the fourth and final article in a series about Body Passages, a partnership between Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and The Chicago Poetry Center (the first, second, and third pieces can be found here). These articles provide brief looks into a 10-month, interdisciplinary creative process between Body Passages poets and dancers, documenting and reflecting on aspects of that process as it happens. Launched in 2017, Body Passages is an artist residency and performance series curated and produced by Sara Maslanka (Artistic Director of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble) and Natasha Mijares (Reading Series Curator of The Chicago Poetry Center; Natasha also writes for Sixty). Trigger warning: The performance “Blood Memory,” discussed below, contains references to sexual assault, including in childhood. During a culminating event featuring groups’ final performances, the Body Passages artists offered the audience sugar cereal, sparkling cider, and glowsticks; invited us to dance with them and record ourselves reading their poetic curations; and asked us to travel back in time with them to New Year’s Eve 1998. Especially appropriate given Body Passages’ collaborative focus and …

Intimate Justice: Marzena Abrahamik

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Marzena Abrahamik about women in the cannabis industry, friendship, and sisterhood.  S. Nicole Lane: What brought you to Chicago? How has the community influenced your practice? Marina Abrahamik: I was born in Poland, raised in Greece, and arrived to Chicago at the end of the summer before my freshman year of high school. I went to a Catholic high school in the city for a year and then to a public high school in the suburbs. I went to Loyola for my undergrad and then attended SAIC before grad school. Having the opportunity to experience different cultures and neighborhoods made me outgoing, easygoing, and independent but also awakened a curiosity for the unknown and to love open ended questions. In a similar way, each body of work is composed of photographs that have been made not only in various locations, but also in …

Chicago Archives + Artists Project: Leather Archives and Museum

Published by S. Nicole Lane

The Chicago Archives + Artists Project (CA+AP) is an initiative that highlights Chicago archives and special collections that give space to voices on the margins of history. Led by Chicago-based writers and artists, the project explores archives across the city via online features, a series of public programs and new commissioned artwork by Chicago artists. For 2018, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation has funded a series of pilot projects pairing three artists with three archives around the city: Media Burn + Ivan Lozano, the Leather Archives & Museum + Aay Preston-Myint, and the Newberry Library’s Chicago Protest Collection + H. Melt. This series of articles will profile these featured archives and artists over the course of their collaboration, exploring the vital role of the archive in preserving and interpreting the stories of our city as well as the ways in which they can be a resource for creatives in the community. The CA+AP Festival will take place at Read/Write Library on July 13-14. For this installment, we sat down with Mel Leverich, the archivist …

Double Feature: Intimate Justice: Manal Kara & “Immanentizing the Eschaton” Exhibition Review

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Manal Kara about living in the woods, the thousands of sexes in fungi, and BDSM subculture.  SNL: Where are you from originally? What brought you to Chicago? MK: I was born in Pennsylvania but grew up in England and Kansas. My parents are from Morocco and the rest of my family all still live there and I have dual citizenship. I moved to Chicago on a whim 12 years ago. SNL: Can you talk about living in Gary, Indiana? How has your art practice changed since moving there? MK: I live in a big forest on the dunes. My relationship with non-human organisms has deepened considerably, which has had a huge influence on my artwork and my intellectual interests more generally.  SNL: You work in a variety of medium. Can you talk about your craft based work, like your ceramics? MK: …

Intimate Justice: Jeanne Donegan

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Jeanne Donegan in her warm apartment over wine and chocolate about pleasure as a spectrum, the mouth as a vagina, and the importance of desire.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity. S. Nicole Lane: I stumbled upon your work and it was the video piece—I think it’s called “Sink,”—when I first moved to Chicago, so a few years ago, I guess. Jeanne Donegan: Oh, cool. SNL: And then somebody emailed me—a colleague from Sixty [Greg]—and they were like, “Hey, you should look at this artist for your column?” And I freaked out when I saw that “Sink” video because I was like, “Oh my god!” I loved this person’s work and so I’m glad it’s made it full circle.  JD: Yeah. That’s so cool. It’s always so cool to hear when people are talking about me behind my …

Intimate Justice: GLAMHAG

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to GLAMHAG (née Molly Hewitt) in the Pilsen neighborhood about compulsions, empowerment through a chosen identity, and queer sexual narratives.  S. Nicole Lane: What does performance mean to you? Are you always in character? Who are you right now? GLAMHAG: I guess I’ve always been compelled to perform in my work, whether that’s live performance or in my video work. I think it’s really a compulsion. I do feel that with the kind work I’m making, communicating with my body when it’s so much about my body—other bodies—and sexuality, using my body makes the most sense. I do definitely have a compulsion to perform. And then I also do things that come along with a lot of other performers too, I definitely have exhibitionist tendencies. I like attention. SNL: Where are you from originally? GH: I’m from England originally, I was born in London. …

Intimate Justice: Liz McCarthy

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Liz McCarthy about shifting from photography to sculpture, the performance of making objects, and pleasure as resistance.  S. Nicole Lane: When did you start creating art in general? What’s your educational background, how did you end up in Chicago? Liz McCarthy: Sure. I went to the University of North Carolina at Asheville. And when I was there I was doing photography with mixed media. I was super into photography and the dialogue of gaze and kind of taking/capturing the moment and these documents of experience. I also dabbled in clay a little bit, because there was such a big clay community. Then I moved to Chicago in 2009 and started Roxaboxen Exhibitions, which was an art space in Pilsen. I ran that for three years. I’ve also worked with Acre for a long time—Acre is a residency. I’d say my work has shifted a lot—was …

Intimate Justice: Derrick Woods-Morrow

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Derrick Woods-Morrow in his studio about childhood romance, the inherent racism in photography, and how power operates in sex.  S. Nicole Lane: So let’s start with where you’re from. You’re from North Carolina, like me. Derrick Woods-Morrow: Yeah! I went home last summer and there was a confederate parade. It was pre-Trump. It was right before the election or something, and it was 8 men with rifles and confederate flags walking up and down the highway shouting and marching. I live on the North East Side, closer to Brown Summit, so closer to the country. It’s almost like I grew up with that. That didn’t scare me. Charlottesville, which is considered mostly progressive is sort of scarier in a way, but that behavior [in NC] was like, “Oh who are these idiots, they’re probably the cousins of someone I went …

Intimate Justice: Lauren Steinberg

Published by S. Nicole Lane

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Lauren Steinberg in the grass of Lincoln Park about a queer future, pop culture, and rolling around online.  S. Nicole Lane: We can begin with your background. You’re from New York City.  Lauren Steinberg: Yeah. I grew up in New York City. Manhattan. My dad, he’s 75, he’s an older dad. He grew up there too, and he never left. He refuses to leave. He kind of tried to instill that in me. It worked for a while, I ended up going to undergrad at Pratt in Brooklyn. I think I wanted to punish myself a little bit for being an artist. Not that I didn’t love Pratt, Pratt was amazing, but it was definitely the most rigid school that I got into at the time. I was like, “If I’m really going to do this and suffer, because everyone tells …