Site Unseen 2008






“SITE UNSEEN: OCCUPATION”

A Site-Specific Performance Event Throughout the Chicago Cultural Center with a Program of Short Videos by Local Artists
For One Night Only, Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 6-9 PM

For one night only on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 from 6 to 9 p.m., the Chicago Cultural Center will play host to Site Unseen 2008, a site-specific performance event featuring theater, dance, music and visual art by individual artists and ensembles of local and international acclaim.  Presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, these performances and installations will be specifically created for the rooms and architecture of the Chicago Cultural Center, located at 77 E. Randolph Street.  Additionally, this year the program will include a program of short videos that will be screened from 6-9 p.m., also. All the work for Site Unseen 2008 is based on the theme of, “Occupation”.

Returning for the fifth consecutive year, Site Unseen has been co-curated this year by long time collaborating artists Dolores Wilber and Julie Laffin.

The roster of participating artists creating performances and/or installations includes: Claire Ashley, Wafaa Bilal, BJ Krivanek & Community Architexts, Matthew Owens, H. Peter Steeves, and Chris Sullivan.

The video program features the following artists:  Sandra Binion, Chi Jang Yin, Susan Giles, Ania Greiner with 3 Card Molly, Emily Kuehn, localStyle (Marlena Novak and Jay Alan Yim), Catherine Sullivan and Tony Vega.

This is the broadest group of artists Site Unseen has presented to date, including both independent artists and artists affiliated with the following local universities; DePaul University, Northwestern University, The School of the Art Institute, and University of Chicago.

Performances and installations will take place concurrently throughout the galleries, halls and rooms of the Chicago Cultural Center and need not be viewed in any particular order.  The videos will be screened from 6-9 p.m. in the Claudia Cassidy Theater and the program will repeat three times during the course of the evening. Admission to Site Unseen is free. Open Studio artist, David DeRosa, will be showing his prints in the pedway adjacent to the Cultural Center on the evening of November 12th, also.

For more information on Site Unseen 2008, call 312.744.6630 or visit chicagoculturalcenter.org.

The list of performance events and installations for Site Unseen 2008 include:

EVENT: FORT
Claire Ashley returns this year to reshape the Randolph Street Café area of the building by creating a structure made entirely of cardboard boxes. Ashley’s work references both domestic and military themes.

EVENT: FOURTH OF JULY 2006, GRANT PARK, CHICAGO
Wafaa Bilal’s piece about our tendency to distance ourselves from violence will be presented as a video installation on the 4th floor Randolph St. area of the Cultural Center.

EVENT: WORK-PLACE
BJ Krivanek & Community Architexts create a participatory environment in the Sidney R. Yates Hall that defines and engages the theme of occupation by working with young adults with autism and charts their experiences upon their entry into the work world.

EVENT: AGENBITE OF INWIT
Matthew Owens stages a spectacle in the Preston Bradley Hall replete with a live traditional Irish band and free-wheeling, life-size, bicycle riding puppets. Owens cites the work as the product of his recent obsession with literary figures that includes Shakespeare, Beckett and Genet.

EVENT: YOU ARE HERE
Philosopher and writer, H. Peter Steeves presents an installation with performance-lecture. Steeves” meditation on the relationship between mapping and occupation can be viewed in the GAR Memorial Hall and adjacent Rotunda. The work can be described as a collection of installations and a performance-mimicking the tone and context of an antiquated, traveling science side show and cartographic carnival of curiosities.

EVENT: ESTHETIC: MARK THE ENCOUNTER:
Chris Sullivan stages a 90-minute performance separated into distinct acts and set in a divided set, contemporary on one side and medieval on the other. Each act spans a theatrical condition from theatrical suspended disbelief, to blocking of scenes, and adjusting bad lines. All personae are highly imperfect narrators. Sullivan’s work can be viewed in the 1st floor Studio Theater.

VIDEO SHORTS-CLAUDIA CASSIDY THEATER
Sandra Binion
Chi Jang Yin
Susan Giles
Ania Greiner and 3 Card molly
Emily Kuehn
LocalStyle (Marlena Novak and Jay Alan Yim)
Catherine Sullivan
Tony Vega

Discounted parking for Site Unseen is available at Imperial Parking, 60 E. Randolph Street.  Patrons can obtain $2 discount cards from the security desks of the Chicago Cultural Center, located at the building’s Randolph Street entrance.

Programs presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs are partially supported by grants from the Chicago Cultural Center Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.  Transportation has been generously provided by United, Official Airline for the Chicago Cultural Center.

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Desvios III:
RELATIONAL SPACES: THE NEW EXPANDED FIELD FOR ART AND THOUGHT

Torres Vedras, Portugal

DESVIOS / DETOURS III is the third edition of the international encounters hosted by Transforma in Torres Vedras since 2004 and curated by Gabriela Vaz-Pinheiro. They’re part of TRANSFORMA_B, Arts, Creativity and the City (www.transforma-b.blogspot.com)

http://desvios-transformaac.blogspot.com/2007/10/dolores-wilber-us-artist-and-performer.html

The current concern with extending the debate on site and identity has proved to be supported by something that could be called relational practices. Many artists investigate processes of interchange (based or not on commercial interchange) as an end to their artistic production, more than they invest solely in an object-oriented practice. Conversations and, in general, any kind of social currency are considered to be relevant artistic methodologies, as well as engaging others in the artistic experience. A debate on this territory, attempting, on the one hand, to unveil the pitfalls of excessive well-doing expectations put on socially engaging art practices and, on the other hand, the scope of the so called “relational aesthetics” and its importance for artists today are the subjects of this conference.
October 2007