Featuring David Boykin, Krista Franklin, and
Andres L. Hernandez
ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION:
Sunday, July 20, Logan Center Gallery, 12-1:30pm
Public Discussion
with Andres L. Hernandez as part of the on-going series
Absence is Fullness: A (E)utopian Assembly
Thursday, July 23, Logan Center Gallery,
6-7:30pm
Krista
Franklin in conversation with Alexander G. Weheliye
Wednesday, August 27, Logan Center Gallery,
6-7:30pm
David
Boykin in conversation with Nicole Mitchell
915 East
60th Street
Chicago,
IL
From arts.uchicago.edu:
The
University of Chicago’s Arts + Public Life initiative,
the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, and Logan Center Exhibitions present Testimony,
an exhibition featuring the 2013/2014 Arts + Public Life/Center for the Study
of Race, Politics, and Culture artists-in-residence. Coming from diverse
disciplines and approaches but finding common ground in their interest in oral
culture (both musical and discursive) David Boykin, Krista Franklin, and Andres
L. Hernandez set out to develop ambitious new works that move beyond the act of
witnessing towards laying truth claims and also grounding fantasies.
Testimony – which spans the
Logan Center Gallery, the North entrance to the Logan Center, the building’s
courtyard and Gidwitz Lobby – makes space for critical reflection and
ritual.
David
Boykin’s initiative Sonic Healing Ministries “believes in the power of
sound/vibration to transform physical matter. Thought is a finer
vibration that has the potential to shape the physical world, as our thoughts
eventually manifest in the physical world.” His project for the exhibition, Drone
of Testimony: A Vigil Against US Drone Attacks (2014), produced in
collaboration with the sound engineer Angel Elmore and the researcher Kasandra
Skistad is a vigil against US military drone attacks. As the artist
writes: “The sonic drone that is created out of the testimony of US military
drone attack survivors is a vigil against future attacks. Some people
light a candle, we make a sound. Let there be a fire always burning, a
song always sung, a sound always resonating until this madness stops. Let
there be a Drone of Testimony till there are no more drone attacks.”
Krista
Franklin’s ongoing interest in AfroFuturism and AfroSurrealism, has
consistently manifested itself through her poetry and collage and she has used
the occasion of her residency to extend these methods to the creation of
environments, where the energies of multiple authors from the past, present and
future combine. “Hybridization is at the core of what I do,” she notes (in an
interview with Tempestt Hazel). Developed especially for the exhibition at the
Logan Center, her collaborative work, Fantastic (2014), is
loosely inspired by the legacy of Detroit's late and legendary producer and
hip-hop artist J Dilla. Working with graffiti artists Kane One and Stef Skills,
Franklin sets out to produce an environment that furthers an evolving
imaginary.
Andres L.
Hernandez’s project Benign Neglect (2014) takes its title from
a policy term coined in 1969 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, President Richard
Nixon’s urban advisor, purportedly as a means of ‘easing tensions’ following
the Civil Rights Struggle, but widely understood as the institutionalization of
a slow and deliberate abandonment of predominantly African American
neighborhoods to poverty and arson. Hernandez’s project reimagines the
resulting vacant lots of Chicago’s Washington Park, using aerial images, not as
pure documents but as ‘plans’ for a Zen Garden. Made from the debris collected
on the lots in an ongoing practice of walking as research, Hernandez’s ‘garden’
will be constructed in the courtyard of the Logan Center and tended as a rite,
a rhythm, and a prompt for dialogue about a wealth of social and spatial
possibilities.
More about the artists and their projects during
the 2013/2014 Arts + Public Life and Center for the Study of Race, Politics,
and Culture Residency:
David Boykin is one of the most original and dynamic
artists in the Chicago music scene. He is a composer, bandleader, and
multi-reed instrumentalist performing on the tenor and soprano saxophones, the
soprano and bass clarinets, and the drum set. He has received many grants and
awards for his talents as a composer. He is the leader of the David Boykin
Expanse, founder of Sonic Healing Ministries, and an occasional collaborator
with a few other artists. Boykin began studying music on the clarinet at the
age of 21 in 1991 and first performed professionally in 1997. Since 1997 he has
released 10 album-length recordings as a leader, contributed as a featured
soloist to other musicians’ recordings, and performed at major international
jazz festivals and smaller jazz venues locally and abroad. As part of his
residency, Boykin’s Sonic Healing Ministries has been holding Free Jazz Jam
Sessions, each Sunday at 2-5pm in his studio at the Arts Incubator in
Washington Park.
For details visit sonichealingministries.com
Krista Franklin is a poet, visual
artist, and performer who lives and works in Chicago. Much of Franklin’s
creative output concerns itself with the intersection of the literary and the
visual, and often explores the conceptual concerns of Afrofuturism and Afro-Surrealism.
Her collages have been featured as the cover art of award-winning poetry
collections and exhibited nationally. Franklin is the recipient of Chicago’s
Community Arts Assistance Program Grant, the Albert P. Weisman Award, and
Columbia College Chicago’s Aiko Fellowship, and she has held residencies at
Cave Canem and A Studio in the Woods. A co-founder of 2nd Sun Salon, a
community meeting space for writers, visual and performance artists, musicians,
and scholars, Franklin holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts. As part of the
residency at the Arts Incubator, Franklin created the exhibition Library of Love (February 12-March 31,
2014), working in collaboration with Stephen Flemister, Norman Teague, and Raub
Welch.
For details visit kristafranklin.com
Andres L. Hernandez is an
artist-designer-educator who works to re-imagine the physical, social, and
cultural environments we inhabit. Over the last 16 years, he has worked within
a variety of institutions to develop innovative art and design curricula; to
assist with research, installation, and educational activities for museum
exhibitions; and to organize collaborative, community-based art projects
throughout the city of Chicago. Hernandez received his Bachelor of Architecture
degree from Cornell University and a Master of Arts in Art Education degree
from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has been an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Art Education since 2006. He is also a Lead
Artist with the Teens Re-Imagining Art, Community & Environment (TRACE)
program of the Chicago Park District, and is co-founder of Revival Arts
Collective. His discussion forum, Absence
is Fullness: A (E)utopian Assembly, presented in the Second Floor Flex
Space of the Arts Incubator, continues through August 17, 2014.
For details visit whimplaceknow.com
