Tag Archive
Seductive Powers: Three Romanian artists explore politics, morality, and progress
Over the past three weeks, the fourth floor of the University of Chicago’s Cobb Hall has been a bustle of construction. Slowly taking shape inside the Renaissance Society is “The Seductiveness of the Interval,” a two-story structure integrating a series of art pieces by three Romanian artists. Walking through the yet-to-be-completed structure, with its... »
Old movies, new frames: Antiquated movie stills find new life at Renaissance Society exhibition
In the silent and shadowy light of the Renaissance Society’s gallery space, the subjects of Matt Saunders’ portraits seem to want to say something. The headshots that are part of Saunders’ show “Parallel Plots” stare out at the viewer inquiringly, even demandingly. Breaking the stillness, three animated videos running on loop constantly flicker on... »
Poetry as rhetoric
Charles Bernstein has been a major figure in American poetry since 1978, when he coedited the influential magazine L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E. “One of the things that interested me was poetry that was eccentric, that diverged from the norms, that was weird and queer and extreme and very self-conscious about how its forms were provisional and imaginary... »
Faith on Film: Anna Shteynshleyger’s photographs examine Orthodox Judaism
“Art is a kind of religion, in a sense,” said photographer Anna Shteynshleyger in a public conversation with Renaissance Society associate curator Hamza Walker last Sunday. “For me, there’s not just an overlap—there’s similarities.” Not something often heard coming from a successful contemporary artist, but Shteynshleyger, it seems, is an exception. A practicing Orthodox... »
Portraits of Polonia: Allan Sekula explores Polish identity at the Renaissance Society
Juxtaposing images of fighter jets, CIA black sites, and industrial factory farms with family portraits and shots of Polish-Americans at ethnic festivals, the forty photographs and wall-mount quotations that comprise “Polonia and Other Tales,” Allan Sekula’s current exhibition at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society, vacillate between depicting “a romantic role of Poland and... »
Art: It’s What’s for Brunch
“It’s a cult,” Renaissance Society curator Hamza Walker said, addressing a room filled to the brim with art students from across Chicago. The statement was in response to a question posed by a student that he rephrased as, “Why does contemporary art work? How can artists get away with it?” »
Renaissance Man of Sound: Joe McPhee’s Survival Unit III brings avant-garde jazz to Bond Chapel
Joe McPhee is a Renaissance man of sound. The 70-year-old horn and reed player’s versatility has made him one of the free music community’s most cherished members since he released his first recordings on his own label in the late 1960s. The idea of revolution has been crucial to McPhee’s prolific career, and appropriately,... »
The Sounds of Silence
In honor of the current exhibition at the Renaissance Society, “Several Silences,” curator Hamza Walker invited music critic and Bard College professor Kyle Gann to give a lecture last Sunday on John Cage’s “4’33”,” a controversial piece which inspired many New Music composers at its premiere in 1952. Gann, whose book on Cage will... »
