Retrogarde

November 11, 2016 - January 1, 2017

Opening Reception: Friday, November 11, 6-8pm

Retrogarde is an international group exhibition that explores contemporary artists’ recuperation and appropriation of avant-garde strategies, histories, and archives in their work. Conceptually and formally, the works in this exhibition adopt a series of recognizable avant-garde forms—fusing play with the profane; detourning language, space, and matter; and working through performative actions and interventions—to address the politics of everyday life. Taken together these works highlight the continued relevance of avant-garde perspectives today. Yet the artists’ attitude towards this lineage is not one of blind veneration but rather pervasive disobedience, mirroring the transgressive actions of their predecessors. Consequently, Retrogarde infuses other viewpoints, narratives, and contexts to open up our collective reading of avant-garde traditions. Artists in the exhibition include Caroline Bergvall, Brendan Fernandes, Samson Kambalu, Matthew Metzger, Catherine Sullivan and Samson Young.

This exhibition is part of Concrete Happenings – a series of exhibitions; screenings and symposia that mark the return of Wolf Vostell’s landmark sculpture Concrete Traffic (1970) to public view following a major conservation effort.

Retrogarde is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and curated by Yesomi Umolu, Exhibitions Curator.

Caroline Bergvall
Caroline Bergvall (b. 1962) is a writer of French-Norwegian origins based in London and Geneva. Her publications include Drift, Meddle English: New and Selected Texts, and Fig. She has presented her work at the Fundacio Tapiès, Barcelona; Theatre du Grütli, Geneva; The Serpentine Gallery, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Modern, London. Bergvall was the Director of the Performance Writing program at Dartington College of Arts (1995-2000) and co-Chair of MFA in Writing at Bard College (2005-2007). She is a recent Judith E. Wilson Fellow in Poetry and Drama at the University of Cambridge (2012-2013).
Brendan Fernandes
Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979) is a Canadian artist of Kenyan and Indian descent. He completed the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art (2007) and earned his MFA (2005) from the University of Western Ontario. He has exhibited internationally and nationally including exhibitions at the Soloman R. Guggenheim, New York; Bergen Kunsthall; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the third Guanghou Triennial. Fernandes has participated in residencies around the world, including The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Work Space (2008). He lives and works in Chicago.
Samson Kambalu
Samson Kambalu (b. 1975) is a Malawi-born, London-based artist and author who received a BA in Fine Art and Ethnomusicology from University of Malawi (1999), an MA in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University (2003), and a PhD from Chelsea College of Art and Design (2015). His first book The Jive Talker, or How to Get a British Passport (Jonathan Cape, 2008 / Unionsverlag, 2010) was voted favorite of National Book Tokens’ “Global Reads” (2010). He was included in the Liverpool Biennial (2016), Dak’art (2016), and the 56th Venice Biennial (2015).
Matthew Metzger
Matthew Metzger (b. 1978) attended the University of Chicago and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Residency Program. His most recent and forthcoming solo exhibitions include Regards, Chicago; Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago; Arratia Beer, Berlin; and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago. Recent and forthcoming group exhibitions include The Freedom Principle at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and The Works at CAB Art Center, Brussels. He lives and works in Chicago and currently teaches at The University of Illinois at Chicago.
Catherine Sullivan
Catherine Sullivan (b. 1968) studied at the California Institute of the Arts, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting. In 1997 she received her MFA from the Art Center College of Design, Pasedena, CA. Exhibitions include the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford; Biennale de Lyon and Opera de Lyon; Volksbühne, Berlin; Kunsthalle Zurich; Secession, Vienna and Kunstverein Braunschweig; and Tate Modern, London.
Samson Young
Artist and composer Samson Young (b.1979) studied music, philosophy, and gender studies at the University of Sydney and holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton University. Young was the inaugural winner of the BMW Art Journey Award at Art Basel Hong Kong 2015. He recently presented solo projects at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2015); Team Gallery, New York (2015); Para Site, Hong Kong (2016); Experimenter, India (August 2016); and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (December 2016).
How to Make a Holy Ball
November 1, 2016, 6-8pm
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts | 915 E 60th St
Logan Center Exhibitions and students from the Department of Visual Arts gathered to create Samson Kambalu's Holy Balls, on behalf of the exhibition Retrogarde.
Opening Reception
November 11, 2016, 6-8pm
Logan Center Gallery | 915 E 60th St
Please join us to celebrate the opening of Retrogarde, featuring works by Caroline Bergvall, Brendan Fernandes, Samson Kambalu, Matthew Metzger, Catherine Sullivan, and Samson Young. Caroline Bergvall will deliver a selection of readings during the reception.
Artist Talk with Samson Kambalu and Jennifer Wild
November 12, 2016, 2pm | Room 201
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts | 915 E 60th St
A conversation with artist Samson Kambalu and University of Chicago Associate Professor Jennifer Wild (Department of Cinema and Media Studies), moderated by Yesomi Umolu, Logan Center Exhibitions Curator. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Retrogarde, the discussion will address alternative readings of avant-garde art and cinema in Kambalu’s and Wild's artistic and scholarly work, respectively.
Presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and the Counter Cinema/Counter Media Project at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
ABOUT JENNIFER WILD
Jennifer Wild is Associate Professor in the Departments of Cinema and Media Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. Wild specializes in the history and theory of modernism; the European and American avant-garde; interdisciplinary historiography; and the history of cinematic forms. Her book, The Parisian Avant-Garde in the Age of Cinema, 1900-1923 (The University of California Press, 2015), was short-listed for the Kraszna-Krausz Best Moving Image Book Award (2016), and was awarded Honorary Mention for the Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies (2014-15).