GROUNDINGS
November 3, 2018 - May 12, 2019
Performances in the galleries begin on January 15
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presents Groundings, a unique exhibition that brings together performance and live movement in the galleries of an exhibition. MCA Assistant Curator of exhibitions Grace Deveney and MCA Associate Curator of Performance Tara Aisha Willis jointly curate the Groundings exhibition, showing how movement is integral to the artistic process. Featuring artists such as George Brecht, John Cage, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Rashid Johnson, Carrie Mae Weems, and James Welling, Groundings presents works from the MCA Collection that explore forces in motion -- both seen and unseen -- from history and politics, to natural and supernatural phenomena.
A series of six residencies with artists who work in dance, music, and performance art hold open rehearsals in the gallery space during select museum hours. The performers create movement-based works and physical objects that document their different practices, allowing viewers to connect with the remnants of the residencies in the gallery. Groundings is on view through May 12, 2019, with rehearsals and performances in the galleries from January 15 to April 5, 2019.
Works from the MCA Collection, from the 1970s to the present, play with the connections between movement, time, and space. For example, Stan Shellabarger’s Untitled (Walking Book 30, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL) is a ‘drawing’ the artist created by walking across a sheet of paper on the MCA Plaza while wearing shoes covered in graphite. The result is a record of the artist’s movement over time, documenting the texture and arrangement of pavers in the specific location on the MCA Plaza.
Blending visual and movement-based art, artist Julia Dault engages in a site-specific process each time her sculpture Untitled 38, 11:12 AM-2:20 PM, October 25, 2018 (2015) is displayed. Dault wrestles the sheets of Plexiglas and formica into place, binding them together with boxing wraps in a process determined by her own physical ability. As an index of her labor, she retitles the sculpture each time to reflect when it was last assembled, and how long it took.
Other works, such as Rashid Johnson’s The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Marcus) and Blythe Bohnen’s Self-Portrait: Vertical motion down, medium, record the sheer energy of motion, with the artists eluding typical conventions of portraiture by refusing to be still in front of the camera.
Performers-in-residence Anna Martine Whitehead (Jan 15-19), Mariana Valencia (Jan 29 - Feb 2), Rosé Hernandez (Feb 26 - Mar 2), Jennifer Harge (Mar 19-23), Patricia Nguyen (Mar 26-30), and Brandon Markell Holmes (Apr 2-6) perform and create objects in conversation with the MCA Collection works, exploring the connections that arise from this cross-disciplinary exchange. Each residence culminates in a Friday evening performance in which the artists showcase their works in progress, followed by an opportunity to solicit feedback from visitors.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Open rehearsals for Groundings take place from January 15 to April 6, 2019 on Tuesdays from 1 to 6 pm and Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 5 pm. In progress performances take place at 6 pm on Fridays.
PERFORMERS-IN-RESIDENCE
Anna Martine Whitehead
Open rehearsals January 15-19, In progress performance on January 18
For her residency, Anna Martine Whitehead works on Notes on Territory, a performance lecture about architecture and freedom centered on ideas of space, surveillance, sound, and light. Whitehead explores the architecture of the museum as well as the constraints and flexibilities of the Groundings gallery, adding to her research on how certain architectures – such as prisons and public housing – shape bodily movement.
Mariana Valencia
Open rehearsals January 29 - February 2, In progress performance on February 1
Mariana Valencia uses her own stories of growing up in Chicago to explore various ways of making sound. The dance for her Groundings project will be developed from different stepping forms of American folk dances, tap, and flamenco, and prompts her audience to learn, listen, and think about their own narratives and production of sound.
Rosé Hernandez
Open rehearsals February 26 - March 2, In progress performance on March 1
Rosé Hernandez utilizes the gallery space as a performance lab for the creation of Viscera, a durational performance that uses movement to ask questions about personal identity. The piece draws from themes of early Italian Renaissance sculpture, such as the draped nude, to explore the various ways the human figure has been monumentalized in history.
Jennifer Harge
Open rehearsals March 19-23, In progress performance on March 22
Jennifer Harge is in the process of developing TOMBOY, an immersive exhibition exploring black space and black queer liberation practices. During her residency, Harge develops and experiments with a series of written prompts or ‘scores’ that cultivate intimacy within the public gallery space, investigating how mundane interactions take on new meaning in the context of a museum gallery.
Patricia Nguyen
Open rehearsals March 26-30, In progress performance on March 29
Patricia Nguyen sews herself into moving sculptures, experimenting with her own breath and khăn tang, a white fabric used in Vietnamese death ceremonies to honor lost lives. During this residency, the fabric’s measurements are based on the dimensions of various detention centers across the US, while the thread is sourced from the flags of countries that have signed repatriation agreements with the US. Nguyen imagines possibilities for transgression as her body slips across the cracks, fissures, and holes created by these materials, investigating gestures of resistance within and through conditions of capture.
Brandon Markell Holmes
Open rehearsals April 2-6, In progress performance on April 5
Brandon Markell Holmes turns his five hours a day, five days a week spent in the Groundings gallery into a piece called Office Hours. Diligently marking time, Holmes investigates how time passes, how the present moment can be suspended, and the ways time can be used as an artistic medium and manipulated through music and photography.