Since 2011, I have worked for The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in a freelance capacity to document a variety of performances, lectures and events. I am responsible for filming, editing and delivering video content for The Renaissance Society's archive and website.
This performance by artist Kevin Beasley was commissioned by The Renaissance Society and presented at the opening reception for exhibition Between the Ticks of the Watch on April 24, 2016.
Performers: Matthew Davis, Inès Dobelle, Finn Jubak, Adam Kerbel, Nabiha Khan, Hannah Kovacs, Charles Lee, Devin Mays, Ayanna Redwood-Crawford, Emilio Rojas, Maryam Taghavi, Angela Zhang
This reading, "Ambiguity Forum," was staged at the Renaissance Society on Jan 14, 2017, as part of the program accompanying Sadie Benning's exhibition Shared Eye (Nov 19 - Jan 22, 2017).
In both form and content, Sadie Benning’s works often suggest how indeterminacy or ambiguity can take on a political dimension or an active quality. More generally, in many different contexts, ambiguity becomes a concept to contend with, whether as something to embrace, challenge, or question. A number of artists and writers were invited to send in short written responses to these ideas. Their replies were also joined by selected excerpts from other books, essays, and poems. A performative reading of these varied texts in the gallery space staged a polyphony of sorts, with different voices rising up within the exhibition.
The reading featured new contributions by Alex Chitty, Mashinka Firunts, David Getsy, Matthew Goulish, Sara Magenheimer, Jesse Malmed, Jennifer Reeder, and Steve Reinke.
Constance DeJong is a New York-based artist, writer, and performer for whom language and time, and experiences of the two unfolding together, are at the core of her practice. From her celebrated 1975 experimental novel Modern Love (reissued last year by Primary Information/Ugly Duckling Press) to more recent works like 2018’s Nightwriters, DeJong complicates traditional paradigms, from literary structures and chronological flow to representations of gender and sexuality.
For the opening of Let me consider it from here, DeJong presents "Candle Night Radios Insomnia," a performance of four nocturnal narratives. “It’s always night, the night is place and state of mind and a sender-receiver ready zone for the person out night walking, frequency hopping. And for the sleepless person in bed, a candle burns, emitting presences, attracting visitors across centuries, keeping time — an inch is an hour on the candle clock.”