This July Jen and I had the extreme pleasure of collaborating with fellow artist Leah Gipson and our good friends at Revival Arts Collective to put on Revival Bronzeville. The first in many happenings focused on historically ignored communities in Chicago engaging with artists. She and I along Leah Gipson have developed an installation piece that functions as a physical space to engage with community members. The installation is entitled Project Lot#: Bronzeville it takes place off the southeast corner of 47th and King Drive. The Revival is the first in a series of events coming down the line from RAC. A still and link to our footage and the Revival Artists Collective after the jump.

Revelutionary Photography Principle Photographer Eve Sanford is a participating artist in the South Side Community Art Center's 45 Annual Art Auction "Coming Home" this Saturday June 26th, 2010. from 5p to 9p.
Please come out and support not only the RP staff in out own personal endeavors but help to preserve and maintain the SSCAC a staple in the Chicago and specifically  Bronzeville community and a treasure to the art world.
We hope to see you there in support

Will Nicholson solo exhibition TIME IS MONEY ART

June 11, 2010
5052 N. Troy Chicago, IL
6:00PM - 11:00PM
The exhibition is free, open to the public features and the artist's latest works. Most of the art displayed on Nicholson's blog will be there for sale. There will be a silent auction for work that doesn't sell.
Albert Einstein once said, "Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” At the end of this destructive era of waste and corruption it is time to shift the dominant materialist paradigm of "time is money” to that of "time is art.” The latter is a philosophy that Nature is intrinsically beautiful and that all endeavors should ultimately result in the beautification of the world we live in. Every moment holds an opportunity to create a beautiful experience. I have made it my hobby to symbolically illustrate this concept... Turning trash into treasure and time into art, I have made sculptures from decaying urban artifacts and ‘paintings’ out of live plants. Enter vibrantly cacophonic yet harmonic and playful mishmashes of contemporary culture re-appropriated, re-contextualized and immortalized in the form of artwork for the infinite appreciation of the intricate and tantalizing graphics that grace our garbage, in a post-consumer setting.

For more info check our links page for Will's blog. He has some great work especially the live plant paintings. He a fellow School of the Art Institute alum like RP founder Eve Sanford. Support Chicago's own!

Some folks have expressed concerns about pricing being listed on the site. Have no fear folks changes will soon come. For the time being please use the contact form under the contact page to submit quotes to us. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks

On April 16, 2010 Eve and Jen will be traveling to Milwaukee with Theaster Gates to participate in "To Speculate Darkly". They will be joining the chorus that performs as apart of the exhibition. All our Milwaukee folks come out and see it. Check out the press release below from Theaster's website.

To Speculate Darkly, Milwaukee Art Museum Theaster Gates Artist Installation To Speculate Darkly Reinterprets Craft and Fosters Community

http://www.mam.org/info/pressroom/2010/02/theaster-gates-artist-installation-to-speculate-darkly-reinterprets-craft-and-fosters-community/

Theaster Gates Artist Installation To Speculate Darkly Reinterprets Craft and Fosters Community

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Claudia Arzeno
Tel. (414) 220-4321
Cel. (773) 629-2853
Email: Claudia@chipstone.org

Theaster Gates
Artist Installation To Speculate Darkly Reinterprets Craft and Fosters Community

Milwaukee, WI February 08, 2010 – Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, Jr. has reached out to area craftspeople and the African-American community to reinterpret for the present day the legacy of Dave Drake, a slave in antebellum South Carolina who famously adorned his pots with poetic couplets. The installation, titled To Speculate Darkly, will transform the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Decorative Arts Gallery from April 16 through August 1, 2010, into an engaging exploration into the significance of craft labor and race in America.

To Speculate Darkly juxtaposes the uniquely spectacular pots of Dave Drake, known as Dave the Potter, with a built environment comprised of a glass lantern slide tunnel, ceramic speakers, and vessels created by Theaster Gates Jr. “Race, craft, and labor are at the center of my work on Dave the Potter,” says the artist. Recently selected to participate in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, Gates is a potter, musician, and performance artist who has earned national acclaim for his intelligent commentaries on race, the city, and the museum. “As the show was starting in Wisconsin, I wanted Dave’s story to engage both craftsmen and the African-American community of Milwaukee. To do this, I worked closely with the Kohler Manufacturing Company and several African-American churches—with Greater New Birth Church being our most amazing collaborator. The ambition of To Speculate Darkly is twofold: to amplify the life and work of Dave the Potter and to ask new questions about the ‘function’ of craft objects in contemporary art practice.”

The installation will feature a music component as well, giving a resounding voice to Dave the Potter and, by extension, craftspeople working today. Drawing on the relationship Gates has created with Dave’s persona, the artist arranged Dave’s poems to music and engaged a local, two-hundred-person Milwaukee church choir to perform a captivating sound piece. The choir will perform live during the MAM After Dark event that shares the exhibition’s opening on Friday, April 16.

To Speculate Darkly reinterprets a section of art history that is often ignored. Through this work, Theaster Gates, Jr. reaches out to a wide and diverse audience by making the artwork contemporary and accessible, as well as creating a space where conversations can take place.

Friday, April 16, 2010, 5 p.m.–midnight
Theaster Gates opening and MAM After Dark

Sunday, May 16, 2010, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Target Family Sundays: Making Pots Sing

To Speculate Darkly is supported by a generous grant from the Joyce Foundation, which fosters the development of new works in dance, music, theater, and visual arts by artists of color. Additional support provided by the African American Art Alliance. The exhibition is curated by Ethan Lasser, curator at the Chipstone Foundation.

  RECESSION
April 2–May 2 , 2010
Reception: Friday, April 2, 2010, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
South Side Community Art Center, 3831 S. Michigan Ave.

Recession chronicles the only remaining Works Progress Admin­istration art institution in the U.S., the South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC). SSCAC and SAIC have maintained a long history together as SAIC alumni founded the art center in the late ’30s. SSCAC’s impact was immeasurable as it served as one of the few venues where black artists could exhibit their work and engage in critical discourse. To honor its legacy, work will be shown by SAIC alumni and students, including Margaret Burroughs, Jonathan Green, and Archibald Motley, Jr.

Participating Artists
Aleksandrovna Amerik, Greg Bray, Sylvester Britton, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Colleen Coleman, Julius Dorsey, Leah Gipson, Jonathan Green, Richard Hunt, Calvin Jones, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Rodney Lee Jones, Geraldine McCullough, Leonard Moody, Archibald Motley, Ray Noland, Lorenzo Pace, Eva Richardson, Duhirwe Rushemeza, Eve Sanford, Margaret Tarr, Al Tyler, Anna Tyler, Charles White, John Yancey

RECESSION programming includes:
Conversation on Black Contemporary Artists
April 3, 2010, 1p.m.
Lorenzo Pace, Professor, University of Texas at Edinburg
John Yancey, Chair, Department of Art & Art History, University of Texas at Austin

WPA Discussion
April 17, 2010, 1p.m.
James Parker - Art Collector/Former SSCAC Board Member
David Lusenhop - Gallerist/Art Scholar, Daniel Schulman - Art Historian

For more information contact
Multicultural Affairs
maffai@saic.edu or 312.629.6869