Evening Academies

Based on my experiences at the Sommerakademie at the Zentrum Paul Klee and the informal critique groups I have carried on with friends and fellow alumni from school, I have programmed a series of talks, discussions & conversations to co-incide with my exhibition Live A Little, Live Ennui at Harold Washington College President's Gallery.

The fourth and final Evening Academy is scheduled for tonight: Thursday, November 11 at 6:30pm
Ethan Breckenridge will present recent work for discussion.

Also > Seven Artists of the Week


Drawing by Ethan Breckenridge

Harold Washington College President's Gallery
30 E. Lake, Room 1105
Chicago, IL

FUTURE ACADEMICIANS:

Ethan Breckenridge
Thursday, November 11 at 6:30pm
TV Ad from 2006…A scientist, after driving his electric/eco friendly go-cart like car to an observatory, looks through his telescope to discover an apocalypse-heralding asteroid tumbling towards the earth. In a heartbeat he is online finding his nearest Hummer dealer, and then off in his go-cart to the dealership…

Breckenridge is interested in the presentation and rhetoric of social systems, originating from a curiosity and regard for not the pathology associated with these systems, rather how these systems are often subtle, but animated monologues for our pathologies. His purlieu with transitory places, objects and architectural motifs all facilitate a stylized encounter with the everyday, where the literal and metonymic locate and emphasize the metaphoric. In the end, the work never exclusively becomes a representation of an experience, or a literal object, rather, the division and displacement of both.

Ethan Breckenridge was born in Madison WI in 1977. Lives and works in NY, earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, and MFA from Columbia University. He has exhibited in galleries and institutions internationally and produced projects in, Berlin Germany, Santa Cruz Bolivia, and Bern Switzerland. Most recently he has exhibited at Mark Selwyn Gallery, Los Angeles CA, Derek Eller Gallery New York NY, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY. With upcoming shows at The Suburban, Chicago IL, and Portugal Arte 10, Lisbon Portugal, and was a 2010 recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation grant. Ethan has also been working on “Off The Record” a collaborative TV talk show based in New York that will be broadcast live over the now defunct U.S. Television airwaves…

> THE PRESIDENT'S GALLERY
> LIVE A LITTLE


ACADEMIES PRIOR



Marilyn Volkman
Wednesday, November 10, 5:30pm
"ANSWERS" offers a space for participants to discuss and explore the fate of the meaning of words within collective environments. In its upcoming installation, "ANSWERS" will be holding sessions within the administrative offices of Harold Washington College in downtown Chicago during normal working hours... with HWC staff.

Volkman describes the project as one that lessens the gap between realistic life and theoretical life by prompting philosophical introspection and dialogue surrounding language in the workplace. ANSWERS explores words integral to the collective mission statement of the institution, directing our attention toward the larger social issues therein.

Marilyn Volkman currently lives and works in Chicago. She received her MFA from the University of Chicago in 2009 and her BFA from the University of Arizona in 2007. Using art as a strategy for reconfiguring our use of language, images and objects, her work takes on diverse forms including object arrangements, paintings, social interactions and quasi-documentary video projects. Volkman’s work is often site specific and developed in collaboration with particular groups, collective communities and organizations. Her most recent projects have taken place in the commercial marketing firm Cutters, in downtown Chicago, at the U.S. Army’s Intelligence Center on Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and at the NATO Command Headquarters in Brunssum, Netherlands.


Diego Leclery
Wednesday, October 13, 6pm
For this, the second Evening Academy, Diego Leclery will be talking about God.
Diego Leclery is a French-Brazillian artist who lives and works in Chicago. He runs the exhibition space Julius Cæsar with Dana DeGiulio, Colby Shaft, Hans Sundquist & Molly Zuckerman-Hartung. He edits, on occasion, the pdf arts journal "BDBBDB" In December Leclery will stage "Polar Bear Village: A New Holiday Spirit" at The Suburban... in Oak Park.
> JULIUS CÆSAR
> BDBBDB
> SUBURBAN

Erik Wenzel
Wednesday, October 6, 6pm
For the first Evening Academy Erik Wenzel will present ideas relating to the subject of a book he recently co-edited and contributed to: Internal Necessity: a reader tracing the inner logics of the contemporary art field (Sternberg Press 2010). Theses ideas, along with concepts of memes, knowledge production/transmssion & how things that don’t make any sense are more interesting to think about than things that do, not only apply to the exhibition but provide a frame for the subsequent Evening Academies.