First solo show by Lee Blalock explores digitizing corporeality and the post-human body at Hyde Park Art Center
 
Chicago (February 2013) — How will the human body adapt and evolve in the wake of technological advances? Artist Lee Blalock speculates on the progression of the evolving body through drawings, video, sculpture and sound work presented in her first solo exhibition, Neue, which explores the mechanics of prosthetics, and how rhythm and movement can be interpreted through body amplification and prosthetics. Neue will be on view from March 17 until June 23, 2013 in Gallery 5 at the Hyde Park Art Center.
 
Building from her personal history, an obsession with rules and order, and a love of Speculative Fiction, Blalock creates a new series of artwork that documents and hypothesizes a process of the future superbody and its daily operations. Her works on paper combine computer code, geometric diagrams, and organic hand-drawn gestures to render the imagined figure. Repetition, duplication, and looping of sounds, shapes, and typographic characters are techniques she uses to enliven the work with a mechanical pulse. Far from a modern day Frankenstein, but not quite the bionic woman, the bodies Blalock creates absorb the digital into the corporeal, and question the possibility of a body without race, gender, or biological deficiency.
 
The exhibition Neue will also debut a site-specific performance by the artist. Blalock’s performances combine her training in martial arts and contemporary dance, and often activate her sculptures and installation. Her performance at the Art Center will explore what a new movement vocabulary might be for a body with sculptural appendages that entail certain limitations and enhancements.
 
Lee Blalock is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist exploring the possibilities of a post-human and post-gendered world. Through her work, she aims to describe and reimagine the ‘amplified’ human, destroying the existing framework of identity and replacing it with the re-engineered body. For the past five years, Blalock’s work has shown internationally, including in Toronto and Korea. She is a recipient of the Archibald Motley Award and a Clare Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize finalist. Originally from Chester, PA, she received a BS from Spelman College and a MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she currently teaches digital art, core studio, new media, and research topics.
Lee Blalock: Neue will be on view from March 17 until June 23, 2013 at the Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 South Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60615; 773.324.5520 and www.hydeparkart.org. The Art Center’s exhibitions are open daily and admission is always free.
 
The Hyde Park Art Center is at once an exhibition space for contemporary art, learning annex, community resource, and social hub for the art curious and professional artists alike—carrying out its mission to stimulate and sustain the visual arts in Chicago. The Art Center is funded in part by: the Alphawood Foundation; Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts; a City Arts III grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events; Field Foundation of Illinois; Harper Court Arts Council; Harpo Foundation; Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; The Irving Harris Foundation; Joyce Foundation; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince; National Endowment for the Arts; Polk Bros. Foundation; Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust; and the generosity of its members and people like you. The Hyde Park Art Center does not discriminate against any person for reason of race, gender, age, place of national origin, handicap, religious conviction, marital status, veteran status, or sexual preference.

Equestrian monuments come to life in emerging artist Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford’s Hall of Khan at Hyde Park Art Center
 
Chicago (April 2013) — Equestrian war monuments get a modern makeover from artist Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford in a grand new site-specific installation, Hall of Khan, on view from April 14 until July 28, 2013 in Gallery 1 at Hyde Park Art Center. A culmination of Hulsebos-Spofford’s yearlong residency at the Art Center, the exhibition will feature abstracted forms astride live horses in the gallery to replace the traditional bronze equine sculptures that carry historical riders whose lives and legends have shaped history. Having long been a celebratory symbol of territorial conquest and cultural domination, the artist calls both the form and purpose of the monument into question in this exhibition.
 
Genghis Khan, Robert Oppenheimer, and Joan of Arc are some of the heroes and villains evoked to interrogate the typical construct of monument: that of the larger than life horse rider in bronze, usually set high on a plinth. The interactive exhibition will present symbolic constructions of historical place, cultural space, and living equestrian sculpture, including an architectural construction entitled “Hall.” Modeled after a graffiti-covered structure in the English Gardens in Palermo, Sicily, which is itself a replica of the Crystal Palace built in Hyde Park, England to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, “Hall” will conjure up the space of exhibition halls for World’s Fairs throughout the ages, and the excitement they generated around cultural advancement and scientific progress. Of particular interest is the connection between Hyde Park, England and Hyde Park, Chicago as sites for these fairs.
 
A full program of events exploring the connections between horses, technology, cultural progress, and the contemporary public art monument will accompany the exhibition. The Art Center will run a Horses and Heroes summer camp (June 24 – 28) for teens, a free art-making workshop for families (April 14), trips to the Palos Hills Riding Stables, and occasional visits from live horses in the gallery (dates and times at hydeparkart.org). The closing picnic on Saturday, July 27 will include the Art Center as a stop in the 24th annual High Noon Ride organized by The Black Arrow Horseback Riding Club, a south side group of nearly 200 African-American equestrians.
 
Hall of Khan is generously supported in part by the Harpo Foundation, a Community Arts Assistant Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, an Artist Project Grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency and with special assistance from Palos Hills Riding Stables/New Traditions Riding Academy.
 
About the Artist:
Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford approaches his practice as a conduit into many worlds, intervening in spheres of activism, art discourse, education, science fiction fandom, and equine technology. Recently he attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and received an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a BFA from Bard College in New York. He is a Fulbright grantee and the recipient of numerous awards, including an Illinois Arts Council Project Grant, a CAAP grant, and a grant from the Propeller Fund. He teaches Sculpture at DePaul University and the Chicago High School for the Arts. The Chicago-based artist is currently in residence at the Hyde Park Art Center from September 2012 through April 2013.
 
Hall of Khan will be on view from April 14 until July 28, 2013 at the Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 South Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60615; 773.324.5520 and www.hydeparkart.org. Exhibitions are always free and open to the public.
 
The Hyde Park Art Center is at once an exhibition space for contemporary art, learning annex, community resource, and social hub for the art curious and professional artists alike—carrying out its mission to stimulate and sustain the visual arts in Chicago. The Art Center is funded in part by: the Alphawood Foundation; Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts; a City Arts III grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events; Field Foundation of Illinois; Harper Court Arts Council; Harpo Foundation; Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; The Irving Harris Foundation; Joyce Foundation; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince; National Endowment for the Arts; Polk Bros. Foundation; Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust; and the generosity of its members and people like you. The Hyde Park Art Center does not discriminate against any person for reason of race, gender, age, place of national origin, handicap, religious conviction, marital status, veteran status or sexual preference.

Passages exhibition a chance for farewell and reflection for community of Canter Middle School, closing in June
 
Chicago (April 2013) — Hyde Park Art Center is pleased to announce the opening of Passages, a group exhibition of art created by students from Canter Middle School during a yearlong arts education program provided by the Art Center. During the program, students learned about a wide range of materials and processes including printmaking, silkscreen, darkroom photography, sewing, clay sculpture, and painting, discovering how to express themselves in a variety of media. Elke Claus, an Art Center Teaching Artist, led the program, assisted by Wilma Rodriguez, a Canter School Instructor. The group show will be on view at Hyde Park Art Center from May 26 until August 4 in Gallery 5.
 
The energy and camaraderie that developed in the studio is reflected in the youth artists’ colorful and dynamic creations. But this exhibition represents more than just an opportunity to showcase young talent. With Canter Middle School closing at the end of the 2012-13 school year, this show documents a transformative and uncertain time for these students. Quite possibly the final activity undertaken by the school’s community, Passages provides an opportunity for farewell, closure, and reflection to the students and their families.
 
The youth artists include: Shirah Billups, Destiny Brady, Paige Butts, Kayla Echols, Lariece Grayer, Kennedy Hawkins, Nick Johnson, Christian Jones, Neema Kimanelo, Unique Kimbrough, Adriana Lopez, Justice Saunders, and Emani Smalley.
 
Passages from Canter Middle School will be on view from May 26 until August 4, 2013, at Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 South Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60615; 773.324.5520 and www.hydeparkart.org. Exhibitions are always free and open to the public.
 
The Hyde Park Art Center is at once an exhibition space for contemporary art, learning annex, community resource, and social hub for the art curious and professional artists alike—carrying out its mission to stimulate and sustain the visual arts in Chicago. The Art Center is funded in part by: the Alphawood Foundation; Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts; a City Arts III grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events; Field Foundation of Illinois; Harper Court Arts Council; Harpo Foundation; Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; The Irving Harris Foundation; Joyce Foundation; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince; National Endowment for the Arts; Polk Bros. Foundation; Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust; and the generosity of its members and people like you. The Hyde Park Art Center does not discriminate against any person for reason of race, gender, age, place of national origin, handicap, religious conviction, marital status, veteran status, or sexual preference.

Revealing the complex layers and stark contrasts of Delhi, Indian artist Gigi Scaria’s site-specific installation City Unclaimed combines a large photo-based mural of an imaginary cityscape with a working fountain that stands as both a monument to a glorious past and also a reminder of bubbling societal tension.
 
Covering the central wall of the Smart Museum’s reception hall, the immersive mural is manipulated and stitched together from photographs Scaria has taken around his home city of Delhi. The collage of images shows the extreme differences and layers of social and economic class that are characteristic of the city, which Scaria says “grows and decays by its own logic.” In front of the mural stands a twelve-foot high fountain that mirrors the architecture and images behind it. The five tiers of the fountain resemble Delhi apartment buildings with windows and balconies, and the flowing water raises issues about scarcity, abundance, and the allocation of resources in urban spaces.
 
City Unclaimed is the artist’s first project for a U.S. museum.
 
Curator: Jessica Moss, Smart Museum Associate Curator of Contemporary Art
 
Support: City Unclaimed has been generously supported by BMO Harris Bank.

Tracing a chronological arc of almost a century, this exhibition showcases both familiar and lesser-known works from the Smart Museum’s collection of American art. It presents approximately eighty works—paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs—by American artists, while exploring national context and changes in art between 1850 and 1940.
 
The exhibition will make a subtle nod to the hundredth anniversary of the 1913 Armory Show with paintings by two key artist-organizers, Arthur Davies and Walt Kuhn. Among other highlights are a wealth of survey photographs—including exceptional panoramas of the American West—taken by Timothy O’Sullivan and William Bell in the 1860s and 70s; celebrated etchings by James McNeill Whistler; landscape paintings by Tonalist master George Inness; and photographs by Walker Evans.
Artists: William Bell, William Merritt Chase, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Arthur Davies, Manierre Dawson, Arthur Dove, Walker Evans, Margaret F. Foley, Childe Hassam, Lewis Hine, Winslow Homer, Georges Inness, Rockwell Kent, Walt Kuhn, John La Farge, Robert Laurent, John Marin, Timothy O’Sullivan, Guy Pène du Bois, Ben Shahn, John Sloan, Raphael Soyer, and James McNeill Whistler, among others.
 
Curator: Anne Leonard, Smart Museum Curator and Associate Director of Academic Initiatives.