Resonant Objects
July 8 - August 28, 2016
Resonant Objects, 2016, installation view in Logan Center Gallery. Photo by Tom Van Eynde.
Opening reception: July 8, 6-8pm
Resonant Objects showcases the breadth of production by Chicago-based artists Greg Bray, Aquil Charlton, and Nazafarin Lotfi during their participation in the University of Chicago’s Arts + Public Life and Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture Artists-in-Residence Program. Over the course of ten months, Bray, Charlton, and Lotfi worked in close proximity to each other in studios at the Arts Incubator in Washington Park, generating research, artworks, and happenings that fostered interactive relationships with diverse publics and spaces on Chicago’s South Side. On view in the Logan Center Gallery and at the Arts Incubator in Washington Park, Resonant Objects features works that examine the artists’ shared interest in the social and spatial conditions of their surroundings.
Working across painting and sculpture, Greg Bray blends collage and assemblage with an exploration of random structures. For Resonant Objects, Bray presents abstract sculptures informed by his research into the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear purge that occurred in Eastern Japan in 2011. Fashioned from discarded chairs, Bray’s works are uncanny contortions of wood, plastic, metal & electrical cords. At once acquiring anthropomorphic guises and suggesting new forms, Bray’s sculptures speak to humanity’s resilience and capacity to create anew following moments of rupture.
As the resident musician in this year’s cohort, Aquil Charlton’s work focuses on his music education, sound design, and songwriting practices; as well as his research into the life and work of influential American singer/songwriter Eugene “Gene” McDaniels. McDaniel’s politically motivated recordings garnered success in the late 1960’s and in recent times various hip-hop producers including Prince Paul and Q-Tip of Native Tongues have sampled his work. Following this lineage, Charlton’s presentation infuses music creation with a deep social consciousness and pedagogical intent. Culling elements from McDaniel’s music and lyrics, as well as from his own repertoire Charlton presents a series of sound installations that interpolate the unique acoustic and spatial qualities of the presenting galleries. Also on view is Charlton’s Mobile Music Box, an interactive vehicle made in partnership with Ava Grey Designs and West Town Bikes that features instructions and recycled materials for making musical instruments.
Nazafarin Lotfi’s sculpture- and performance-based practice explores the relationship between object, body, and space. Lotfi engages in daily rituals of walking between her home and several spaces across Chicago’s Hyde Park and Washington Park neighborhoods, accompanied by large-scale, boulder-like sculptures crafted from papier-mâché. These mundane experiences—often reserved solely for the artist and without a prescribed audience—are recorded in physical impressions on the object’s delicate surfaces as they are rolled on the ground, as well as through the artist’s own body as she negotiates holding and carrying them aloft. For the exhibition, Lotfi presents a series of sculptures with distressed and painted surfaces alongside video and photographs documenting her actions in the public sphere.
Resonant Objects is organized by Yesomi Umolu, Logan Center Exhibitions Curator; Alyssa Brubaker, Logan Center Exhibitions Coordinator; Nadia Sulayman, Associate Director for Community Arts and Programs, Arts and Public Life; Lauren Basing, Interim Program Manager, Arts + Public Life; and Dara Epison, Program Coordinator, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture.
Presented by the University of Chicago’s Arts + Public Life Initiative; the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture; and Logan Center Exhibitions.
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Greg Bray is an artist who works primarily in painting, collage and assemblage. His work moves along the arc of representational abstraction, producing in its wake spontaneous improvisations that interpret space and suggest random structures. Through these mediums and the continued evolution of his technique, Bray builds narratives about the urban milieu, including daily happenings just outside of his doorstep. Finding inspiration in the futurist, cubist, afrofuturist and early muralist movements of the twentieth century, Bray uses texture, geometric shapes, vibrant color and found objects as a way to recall, transform and translate the stories of urban life and it cultural capital. Bray received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute in 1978 and has received several awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.
Aquil Charlton is a teaching artist and consultant who applies his youth development experience & artistic practice as a musician, writer, DJ & visual artist toward his vision for a more just society. Charlton started off as a teaching artist and muralist with Umoja Student Development Corporation, then went on to co-found The Crib Collective youth arts and entrepreneurship organization; launch ALT-City, the first new music ensemble of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) All City Arts program; and serve as a cultural ambassador for the US State Department. He received his degree in non-profit administration from North Park University in 2011. Besides making and teaching music, Aquil consults with grassroots organizations on leadership, program design, and development. He is currently one of the first class of Citizen Artist Fellows hosted by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and a teaching artist with Urban Gateways and CPS. Aquil, known as "AQ," also performs electronic music with his experimental group, Wheat Paste Viaducts; and hip hop with his band, Simpson X.
Nazafarin Lotfi is a visual artist and educator who lives in Chicago. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and her BA from the University of Tehran in 2007. Lotfi works with quotidian and discarded objects and materials and her work is rooted in the ambiguities and uncertainties of perception. Recent solo exhibitions include: Poiesis at Fernwey Gallery, Chicago; White Light at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago; Love at Last Sight at Brand New Gallery, Milan; Circles at Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago. She teaches at Harold Washington College and College of DuPage.
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Friday, July 8
Resonant Objects Opening
6:00pm – 8:00pm | Logan Center (915 E 60th St) and Arts Incubator (301 E Garfield Blvd)
After Party with a performance featuring Aquil “AQ” Charlton and his band, Simpson X
8.30pm – 10.30pm | Tac's Lounge 5114 S Prairie Ave
Saturday, July 9
Workshop with Aquil Charlton and the Mobile Music Box
1:00pm – 2:00pm | Arts Incubator 301 E Garfield Blvd
The Mobile Music Box is a bicycle & solar-powered music class, instrument-making workshop, and street studio. Charlton, a musician and teaching artist from Chicago’s South Side, has developed the Box to provide innovative and intuitive music education in communities where there is limited access to such programs.
Resonant Objects Panel Discussion
3:00pm – 4:30pm | Arts Incubator
Join us for a conversation with Resonant Objects artists Greg Bray, Aquil Charlton, and Nazafarin Lotfi led by Yesomi Umolu, Logan Center Exhibitions Curator and Tempestt Hazel, independent curator.
Sunday, August 21
Head Cleaner
Wheat Paste Viaducts Performance
6:00pm – 8:00pm | Logan Center Gallery (915 E 60th St)
Head Cleaner is the last in a series of events produced by 2016 Artist-In-Residence, Aquil "AQ" Charlton, for the Resonant Objects exhibition. It is also the first in a series of performances and recordings that will lay the groundwork for Wheat Paste's first official release. This beat driven, mixed-media performance features the trio as they combine hand-edited 16mm art films, made from a variety of public domain prints, with hardware-based electronic music that will include both live improvisation and compositions.
Presented by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; Logan Center Exhibitions; and Black Artists Retreat 2016.
Resonant Objects Panel Discussion 7.9.16