performance of John Cage's "Speech" on Wednesday night

The Contemporaneity Seminar presents

John Cage's
Speech

a work for 5 radios and newspaper reader
Wednesday, November 5th

7:00 pm
@The Renaissance Society

Cobb 418

Come to Hyde Park to see all the new art

We created a Google Map for friends who are coming to Hyde Park to see art. You can go to this map to see six great spots to see art in Hyde Park. (And one great place to eat.)
Contemporary Art in Hyde Park
So come on down South!

The Renaissance Society invites you to be a Friend

The Renaissance Society is building a flickr page, a facebook page, and a Youtube Channel. Check us out, become a fan or friend, subscribe, and forward our page to your friends.

See the latest developments in the gallery, watch interviews with the curators and artists, listen to the concerts and lectures.

Francis Alÿs Installation in-progress

Francis Alÿs' Renaissance Society exhibition features two works installed in an ambitious two-story exhibition-design by the artist. Politics of Rehearsal, 2005-2007, is a thirty-minute video made with frequent collaborators, Rafael Ortega and Cuauhtémoc Medina, and Bolero (Shoe Shine Blues), 1999-2007, is an installation featuring a short animation and over five hundred of its attendant working drawings.



installation in-progress, September 12, 2008

The Renaissance Society presents Francis Alÿs, September 28 - December 14, 2008

Francis Alÿs, Bolero (Shoe Shine Blues), 1996-2007
Graphite, tape, and collage on vellum
384 framed drawings, installed with DVD animation, 9:40 min, maquette, wooden table, and string
Dimensions variable
©Francis Alÿs
Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York


Opening reception on September 28, from 4 to 7 pm, with a talk with the artist from 5 to 6 pm in Cobb Hall 307 (directly below the gallery)

The Renaissance Society will present the first solo Midwest museum exhibition of Mexico City-based artist Francis Alÿs. Using diverse media, Alÿs’ work frequently addresses Latin America’s recurrent social, economic, and political troubles. For his exhibition at The Society, Alÿs will present his animation Bolero, along with the 511 graphite drawings from which the animation is made, and Politics of Rehearsal, a 30-minute video that combines footage of a speech by President Truman, narration by critic Cuauhtémoc Medina, and a rehearsal for a striptease. Rehearsal parallels sociopolitical promises from Latin America with the tactics of a stripper—always leaving something to be desired.

An interview with Francis Alys

Fall 2008 concerts and lectures at The Renaissance Society

Concert
Thursday, October 2, 8:00pm

Bradley Brickner, clarinet
James Falzone, clarinet
Tomeka Reid, cello

For his first Society concert, Brickner, a Hyde Park native, aced a bill of Twentieth Century solo clarinet classics by the likes of Vincent Persichetti, Shulamit Ran, Burton Beerman, Elliot Carter, Paul Harvey and Igor Stravinsky. That was a warm up. This time he is back with friends who constitute greater fire power. Falzone, an outstanding clarinetist and composer, will be on hand to co-perform his work Sema for two clarinets. Reid, having appeared on bills and recordings with a who's who of the young Chicago Jazz scene, is a bona fide staple on a scene bursting with talent. This concert will take place in Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th St. (One building east of Cobb Hall on the main quadrangle of the University). FREE

Concert
Saturday, October 4, 8:00 pm

Polwechsel
Burkhard Beins, drums, percussion
Martin Brandlmayr, drums, percussion
Werner Dafeldecker, double bass
Michael Moser, cello & computer

Over the course of five releases, this Austrian Quartet has crafted a sound all its own by blurring the line between improvised and composed music. With an incredibly delicate and textural sound that could be discussed equally as a space, their last release, Archives of the North, still has this writer recovering from a bout with the sublime. This concert will take place in Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th St. (One building east of Cobb Hall on the main quadrangle of the University). FREE

Find more information about the concert on October 4 at Polwechsel.com
LECTURE
Tuesday, October 7, 6:00 pm

Alma Guillermoprieto
The New Narcocultura: A Talk About Mexico

The author of three books and recipient of numerous awards, Guillermoprieto has written about Latin America for more than 20 years.
She is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. Organized by the Center for Latin American Studies and co-sponsored by the Katz Center for Mexican Studies. Sponsorship provided by the Tinker Visiting Professor endowment at the University of Chicago. This event will take place in Social Sciences room 122 (1126 E. 59th St.) FREE

You can find writings by Alma Guillermoprieto here.

Concert
Friday, October 10, 8:00 pm

The Millennium Chamber Players
Works by Latin American composers

Carlos Chávez
Silvestre Revueltas
Rubén González
Paquito D'Rivera
Gustavo Leone
Gabriela Frank

This concert will feature a stellar range of styles by contemporary Latin American Composers. Led by Maestro Robert Katkov-Trevino, the Millennium Chamber Players are Chicago's newest critically-acclaimed chamber ensemble. This concert will take place in Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th St. (One building east of Cobb Hall on the main quadrangle of the University). FREE

You can find samples of contemporary chamber performances by The Millenium Chamber Players here and

Lecture
Sunday, November 9, 2:00 pm

John C. Cross
¿Somos Piratas y Qué? Survival and Resistance
on the Streets of Mexico City

Cross is Sociologist and expert on the informal economy, Mexico City's in particular. His oft cited, 1998 book Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City, is used by any number of disciplines including economics, urban studies, and political science. His recent work ¿Somos Piratas y Qué? Globalization and Local Resistance, The Case of Cultural Piracy in Mexico examines the global campaign against "piracy"-the theft of intellectual property rights-as it relates to NAFTA and other multi-lateral and bi-lateral trade agreements with the results being a popular backlash against globalization itself. This event will take place in Cobb Hall room 409


Concert
Sunday, November 16, 8:00 pm

Frances-Marie Uitti, cellist

The Society is excited to host Uitti who has performed definitive interpretations of works by some of the late 20th century's greatest composers including Kurtag, Scelsi and Nono. In 1975, she developed a double-bow technique that transformed her cello into a truly polyphonic instrument capable of sustained chordal and intricate multivoiced writing. With any luck, her custom, 12 gauge, stringless, electronic cello will be completed and we can exploit her eagerness to show it off. This concert will take place in Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th St. (One building east of Cobb Hall on the main quadrangle of the University). FREE
For more information about Frances-Marie Uitti look here.

Concert
Tuesday, December 9, 8:00 pm

Teodoro Anzellotti, accordion

Anzellotti is recognized as one of the world's foremost accordionists with a solo repertoire of incomparable scope. More than 300 new works having been written for him by the likes of composers such as Luciano Berio, George Aperghis, Brice Pauset, Heinz Holliger, Toshio Hosokawa, Mauricio Kagel, Michael Jarrell, Isabel Mundry, Gerard Pesson, Matthias Pintscher, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, Marco Stroppa, Jörg Widmann and Hans Zender. This concert will take place in Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th St. (One building east of Cobb Hall on the main quadrangle of the University). FREE

Find an introduction to Anzellotti's music at The Jazz Loft.

PRESS: Artforum on Black Is, Black Ain't

Black Is, Black Ain't was chosen as a Critics' Pick on Artforum.com. Britany Salsbury writes:

"Black Is, Black Ain't," illuminates both the complexity of racial discourse and its continued necessity.

Read the full article on Artforum's website.

The Wrens Study Break

Events at The Renaissance Society

View details for each event on our events calendar

LECTURE: Race: Effects and Intent
Tuesday, May 6, 6:00 pm
Jeffrey Grogger

STUDENT MIXER
Thursday, May 15, 6:30 pm
hosted by The Wrens

PANEL DISCUSSION: Roots Revival
Friday, May 16, 6:00 pm
Saidiya Hartman
Rick Kittles

POETRY READING
Sunday, May 18, 2:00 pm
Tyehimba Jess

LECTURE: The Black Eclectic...Revisited
Wednesday, May 21, 6:00 pm
Travis Jackson

STAGED READING: Orenthal by Maarten van Hinte
Thursday, May 29, 8:00 pm
Directed by Ron Parson

PANEL: Post-Black: There and Back Again
Sunday, June 1, 2:00 pm
Darby English, Kerry James Marshall, Kym Pinder, and Greg Foster Rice

LECTURE: Erasing Race: Transforming public housing in Chicago
Thursday, June 5, 6:00 pm
Janet Smith

LECTURE: From the Moynihan Report to Obama's Candidacy
Sunday, June 8, 2:00 pm
Camille Charles and Lawrence Bobo

LINKS: Black Is, Black Ain't

Terry Adkins
The Black Factory
Hank Willis Thomas
The Ballad of Emmet Till at Goodman Theatre
Hyde Park Art Center

Black Is, Black Ain't

Taking its title from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, this exhibition will explore a shift in the rhetoric of race from an earlier emphasis on inclusion to a present moment where racial identity is being simultaneously rejected and retained. The exhibition will bring together works by over 20 black and non-black artists whose work together examines a moment where the cultural production of so-called “blackness” is concurrent with efforts to make race socially and politically irrelevant.

Artists Include: Terry Adkins, Edgar Arceneaux, Elizabeth Axtman, Jonathan Calm, Paul D'Amato, Deborah Grant, Todd Gray, Shannon Jackson, Thomas Johnson, Jason Lazarus, David Levinthal, Glenn Ligon, David McKenzie, Rodney McMillian, Jerome Mosley, Virginia Nimarkoh, Demetrius Oliver, Sze Lin Pang, Carl Pope, William Pope.L, Robert A. Pruitt, Randy Regier, Daniel Roth, Joanna Rytel, Andres Serrano, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas.

Please join us for the opening reception Sunday April 20, 2008, 4 to 7 pm, with a discussion with the artists from 5 to 6 pm.

PRESS: Artforum on Katerina Seda

Read James Yood's review of Katerina Seda's exhibition "It Doesn't Matter" at The Renaissance Society in the April Issue of Artfroum.

The exhibition...was presented as the work of Katerina Seda, not her grandmother, and begged to be interpreted less a the discovery of some visionary portraitist of the mid-twentieth-century hardware than as a representation of an artist generating work through social activity.