Where:
Coalition Gallery
217 N. Carpenter St
Chicago, IL
When:
Opening Reception
Fri, Oct 7 | 6-8pm
Free and open to the public
Artist Reception
Fri, Oct 21 | 6:30-9pm
Meet the artists; performances by Ibrahima Kaba, Linda Rodriguez, and May Lee-Yang
Free and open to the public
Gallery Hours
Oct 7 - 29
Mon-Thurs, 10am-5pm
Fridays, 9am-1pm
Saturdays, 12-6pm
By appointment, 312.491.8888
Curator
Elizabeth Chodos
Featured Artists
Willy Chyr
Patrick Hammie
Ibrahima Kaba
May Lee-Yang
Adolfo Martinez
Linda Rodriguez
Mitchell Squire
Midwestern Voices and Visions Exhibition 2011
“The opportunity to step away from my day job and my responsibilities as a parent allowed me to be a full-time writer for the very first time in my life. And I seriously believe there was no other way to do what I did here. Midwestern Voices and Visions gave me exactly what I needed to travel back to Guinea and remember the paths, stories, and feelings I had when I was there last year…before it was too late.” - Ibrahima Kaba, performance poet
Join the Alliance of Artists Communities for the Midwestern Voices and Visions exhibition, featuring seven outstanding Midwestern artists of color. The show is curated by Elizabeth Chodos. The artists were selected from more than 100 applicants from Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The Alliance of Artists Communities – the national association of artist residency programs – presents seven outstanding Midwestern artists of color with the prestigious Midwestern Voices and Visions awards every three years; this exhibition features the award recipients from 2009-2011.
According to the show’s curator, Elizabeth Chodos, “The Midwestern Voices and Visions artists are all working in radically diverse media and represent a broad range of practices. From literature to performance to sculpture to painting, these artists’ rich and varied viewpoints and approaches are brought to bear in the exhibition.”
For many of the featured artists, the work to be presented at the exhibition was created during and inspired by their residency experiences. Willy Chyr – who spent his residency at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska – explains that, “During my time at the Bemis Center, I took steps to explore animation, a field I’ve been interested in for quite some time. While playing with a camera one evening, the idea occurred to me to recast a sculpture I had built as a roller coaster ride using stop-motion animation. With the help of a fellow resident artist, I quickly took a series of photographs along the sculpture, not thinking about what the final sequence of images would look like or the underlying meaning of the work. The biggest impact my residency has had on my work is the incorporation of play and experimentation into my creative process. ‘Roller Coaster’, the video piece I am showing as part of the exhibition, came about as a direct consequence of this practice.”
The exhibition takes place at the Chicago Artists Coalition’s new gallery space – Coalition Gallery – in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. It will be held in conjunction with Ragdale’s New Ways: An Exhibition of Ragdale Fellowship Artists and will be part of Chicago Artists Month. An Artists Reception will be held on October 21, 6:30-9:00 p.m. with all seven artists scheduled to be in attendance and featuring live performances from Ibrahima Kaba, Linda Rodriguez, and May Lee-Yang. All events are free and open to the general public.