Brown People are the Wrens in the Parking Lot
November 10 - January 7, 2017-18
Installation View, Logan Center Gallery. Photo by Robert Chase Heishman
Who are "The Brown People"? What does a "Wren" connote? Where is the "Parking Lot"? Why would someone ask these questions?
Initiated by artist and University of Chicago Department of Visual Arts faculty member William Pope.L, Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot is a DIY media campaign and exhibition facilitated by faculty, students, staff and community members of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts to reflect on issues of connectedness, home and immigration. The campaign took place in the halls of the Logan Building over the course of six weeks and was composed of posters, whispers, video interviews and a library containing over 1,200 books on the subject of immigration.
On view from November 10, 2017 through January 7, 2018 in the Logan Center Gallery, the exhibition Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot gathers various ephemera from the campaign as well as serves as a space for open conversation, relaxation and reflection.
This campaign and exhibition are happening at a significant moment in our country’s history. Nationally and globally, we are witnessing heightened debates over immigration, race, and the fight of the 99%. On a local level, race relations and class distinctions affect daily experiences in Chicago as in many other American cities. Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot provides an opportunity for us to collectively address questions and create actions concerning difference and possibility in our society. Using the Logan Center as the locus of its activities, the Wrens campaign and exhibition highlight how immigration is a part of our lives in so many ways.
Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions. Generous support provided by the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago.
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About Pope.L
Pope.L (1955, Newark, NJ) is a visual artist and educator whose multidisciplinary practice uses binaries, contraries and preconceived notions embedded within contemporary culture to create art works in various formats, for example, writing, painting, performance, installation, video and sculpture. Building upon his long history of enacting arduous, provocative, absurdist performances and interventions in public spaces, Pope.L applies some of the same social, formal and performative strategies to his interests in language, system, gender, race and community. Pope.L received his BA from Montclair State College in 1978 and his MFA from Rutgers University in 1981. Major performances include Baile (2016); The Problem (2016); Pull (2013); The Black Factory national tour (2002–2009); The Great White Way (2001–2002); Community Crawls (2000–2005); Eating the Wall Street Journal (2000); Black Domestic aka Roach Motel Black (1994); How Much is that Nigger in the Window (1990-1992); Times Square Crawl (1978); and Thunderbird Immolation (1978). Recent exhibitions, performances, and projects include documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel Germany (2017); the Whitney Biennial (2017); "PLAMA" (“The Spot”), a commercial commissioned for On the Tip of the Tongue at Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2016); the 32nd Biennial de São Paulo (2016); The Freedom Principle at ICA Philadelphia (2016) and MCA Chicago (2015); and Trinket at The Geffen Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2015); Pope.L is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Joyce Foundation Award, the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship, Andy Warhol Foundation grant, Creative Capital Foundation grant, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and Artists Space grant. He lives and works in Chicago, IL.