School of the Art Institute of Chicago Magazine, Fall 2016

FA L L 2016

A BIA N N UA L MAGA ZINE

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

I N TH I S I SSUE: E L I SSA T ENNY TAKES T HE HELM AS P R E SI D ENT

FA L L 2016

A BIANNUAL MAGAZIN E

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO 3 F RO M TH E PRE S ID E NT 4 MY CHI CAG O

Andres Hernandez’s favorite places in Chicago

5 NEWS 7

CA RE E R CO N VE RSATIONS

Expert advice from Jayeon Kim 8 O N VI EW

In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street 1 7 ABA NDO NE D PR AC TICE S

SAIC opens summer intensive courses to students-at-large 1 8 F I E L D TRI P

Historic Preservation students at the Oak Park Art League 2 0 M E E T TH E NEW CL A S S 2 1 WH E RE I WO RK

In the studio with Michelle Grabner 2 2 ABO U T A WORK

24 TH E PRO C E S S

Garland Martin Taylor on his process

26 TH E CA MPAIGN FO R SAIC

An introduction to the campaign and the people behind it

28 F UND ING THE FU T URE

Scholarships put a world-class art and design education within reach for talented students 32 TH E E X E M PL ARS

Endowed professorships 4 4 WHAT CO ME S NE X T

Elissa Tenny takes the helm as president 4 7 TH E CA MPAIGN FO R SA IC UPDATE 4 8 MY OB S E S SIO NS

Cheryl Pope on her obsessions 4 9 CL A S S NOTE S 5 1 EVE NTS 5 5 F ROM THE ARCHIVE S

In the museum with David Raskin

Robert Loescher’s class at Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery

School of the Art Institute of Chicago Magazine Published by the Office of Institutional Advancement 116 South Michigan Avenue, 6th floor Chicago, IL 60603

Editor Bridget Esangga besang@saic.edu

Vice President Institutional Advancement Cheryl Jessogne (MA 1999)

Design Studio Blue

Executive Director Marketing and Communications Scott J. Hendrickson

The Black Athena Collective, Heba Y. Amin and Dawit L. Petros, billboard at 1010 East 43rd Street

Contributing Editor Zoya Brumberg (MA 2015)

Contributing Designers Riley Brady Patrick Jenkins (MFA 2013) Travis Saunders

Illustrator Patrick Jenkins (MFA 2013) Contributing Writers Richard Bader Zoya Brumberg (MA 2015) Chantal Chuba (MA 2017) Adrienne Samuels Gibbs KT Hawbaker-Krohn (MA 2017) Brontë Mansfield (MA 2017) Jeremy Ohmes

Photography Sara Condo (BFA 2009) Yoni Goldstein (MFA 2009) Lucy Hewett Stephanie Murano Todd Rosenberg Chris Strong Printing The Graphic Arts Studio Inc.

From the President

A S PRE SID ENT of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), I have the incredible opportunity to build on the traditions that have shaped this community of artists, designers, and scholars throughout its 150-year history.

As I learned in my six years as Provost, “tradition” stands for something different at our School. Here, tradition stands for dynamism. It stands for diversity. It stands for the generations of students, faculty, and alumni who have time and again reimagined the art and design world and what it means to lead a creative life.

In this sense, every day at SAIC marks a new beginning, and what excites me most about coming to work each and every morning is the chance I have to lead a community that is constantly reinventing itself and inspiring the world to change in return. Just a few weeks ago we welcomed our newest cohort of students to campus for their own new beginning here at SAIC. They are inquisitive in the classroom and studio, diverse in their backgrounds, and, as I observed to their parents at orientation, a little outrageous in how they express themselves.

We are also thrilled to welcome two wonderful new leaders to

our community: Craig Barton is Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Arnold Kemp is Dean of Graduate Studies. As creative professionals and educators, Craig and Arnold prize the interdisciplinary approach and exploration for which SAIC is renowned, and that have enabled our School to adapt throughout the past century and a half. I look forward to partnering with Craig, Arnold, and the rest of our community in the coming years to preserve this legacy and propel it into the future.

As we move forward, we will also be sure to celebrate the many other leaders, past and present, without whose commitment and generosity SAIC would not be the vibrant institution it is today. There are donors whose support for scholarships has enabled countless young artists, designers, and scholars to pursue their dreams. There are professors who have inspired generations of alumni to share their vision with the world.

And, of course, there is my predecessor, Walter Massey, whose continued support we are fortunate to have in his new role as the School’s Chancellor.

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Beautiful/Work, which we have designed with the past, present, and future of SAIC in mind. By funding scholarships, professorships, and innovative programming on campus and throughout Chicago, Beautiful/Work will ensure that our community persists as one of the most dynamic and influential schools of art and design in the world and as the incubator of creative talent and ideas it has been since its founding in 1866.

To learn more about Beautiful/ Work and how it will help SAIC thrive into the future, I encourage you to read the fascinating stories we have lined up for you in this inaugural issue of our freshly redesigned magazine. Enjoy!

ELI SSA TEN N Y, ED.D. PR ESI DEN T, SCHOOL OF THE A R T I N STI TU TE OF CHI CAGO Follow President Tenny on Instagram at instagram.com/saicpres.

Their example guides us as we prepare our community for another new beginning. That is the vision behind our $50 million fundraising campaign, FA L L 2 01 6

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Andres Hernandez’s Chicago MA 2004

MY CHI CAGO

Garland Court and Randolph Street

Associate Professor Andres Hernandez (Art Education, MA 2004) is a teacher, community activist, and interdisciplinary artist who works with the urban fabric of Chicago as his primary material. The recent winner of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s PXSTL Design-Build Competition, Hernandez told us about some of his favorite places around the city that inspire him.

CHICAG O’S BACK P ORCHE S When I was young, my brother, cousins, friends, and neighbors’ kids used the back porch of my grandparents’ apartment building as our playground.

Today back porches provide moments to hang with my people—laughing, debating, eating, and listening to music, but mostly annoying the neighbors.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

GARL A N D CO U R T B E T WE E N R A N D O L PH AN D WA S HI NGTO N I’m not quite sure where the “court” is, but this strip of alleyway next to the Chicago Cultural Center is where I go in the warmer weather months to people watch, think, and get away from the office. It’s a good place to watch delivery guys avoid work and people taking smoke breaks. About a year ago, the city reversed the flow of traffic here, but that hasn’t stopped my flow—and no, I don’t have a light, sir.

RE D PE PPE R ’S MA S QU E R A D E LO U NG E The bartender has to buzz you in at lounges and taverns on the South Side—Red Pepper is no exception. As a teenager, I lived two blocks away and wondered what happened in there. As I got older, I would stop by for some spirits and “atmosphere.”

I’ve had a birthday party with friends in the back room and copped some great bootleg DVDs at the bar, including the ‘77 Parliament-Funkadelic P-Funk Earth Tour.

USE D RECO RD S TO RE S I’m a music fiend. My close friends know that my father was a club DJ and record collector, and not only was I trained in the ways of the Technics, but I’m no stranger to the affliction known as “dusty fingers.” I grow my collection by frequenting used record stores, or getting friends to fess up about their neglected vinyl. There’s nothing like the fresh smell of a slightly mildewed album cover to brighten up my day: music IS my sanctuary.

Craig Barton Joined SAIC as Provost

SAIC Launches Career and Professional Experience This fall, SAIC launches Career and Professional Experience (CAPX) under the leadership of Dean Terri Lonier. This restructure of the former Career + Coop Center enhances career advising and internship services and adds several initiatives to guide students and alumni in exploring their creative future. New programs include the Nexus: Career Conversations workshop series and a weekly Expert Exchange, which bring alumni and professionals from creative fields to discuss their work. CAPX also offers a new job-search platform, SAIC Compass. For more information, visit saic.edu/careers.

Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice Inaugurated This Fall

Craig Barton has joined SAIC as Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, concurrently serving as a Professor in the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO). Coming to SAIC from his position as a Professor of Architecture at Arizona State University, Barton serves as the School’s chief academic advisor, replacing the newly appointed President and former Provost Elissa Tenny.

Starting in September the programs of the new Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice will offer new opportunities for critical exchange between the School, the Chicago arts community, and leaders in the curatorial field. Under the leadership of Mary Jane Jacob, Executive Director of SAIC’s Department of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies, the Institute will also serve as an incubator for creative inquiry leading to future SAIC exhibitions. Graduate students and faculty, as well as alumni, have the chance to become fellows as they come together with professionals from around the world around a research topic.

New Office of Engagement Combines SAIC’s Community Outreach Efforts

SAIC’s newly formed Office of Engagement combines the offices of the Vice Provost and Dean of Community Engagement, Continuing Studies, and the Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration in a coordinated effort to enhance ties between SAIC’s community outreach initiatives.

Overseen by Vice Provost and Dean of Community Engagement Paul Coffey, the Office of Engagement leads programming efforts at SAIC’s space in Homan Square in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago’s West Side, which won a $75,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant in May and was the site of SAIC’s first-ever Day of Service last spring. All sponsored classes and outside partnership opportunities also enter SAIC through the Office of Engagement.

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N EWS

News

Michelle Grabner Named Artistic Director of New Cleveland Triennial

Arnold J. Kemp Was Named Dean of Graduate Studies

Three New Faculty Members Join AIADO Department The Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects recently added two new Designed Objects faculty members: Ilona Gaynor, who holds an MFA from the Royal College of Art and founded the London-based architecture studio Department of No, and Peter Oyler, who holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and is the cofounder and lead designer of Assembly Design, a NewYork-City-based furniture design studio. The department also welcomed to its faculty the architectural designer and writer Ann Lui, who holds an MA from MIT and is cofounder of Future Firm, a Chicago-based architecture firm.

Arnold J. Kemp has joined SAIC as Dean of Graduate Studies, concurrently serving as a Professor in the Department of Painting and Drawing. Kemp came to SAIC from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), where he was an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Department of Painting and Printmaking. Kemp has been making and exhibiting critically engaging art for 25 years while writing and publishing critical and creative texts.

SAIC Professor Michelle Grabner and Jens Hoffman, a curator and writer at the Jewish Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detriot, have been named artistic directors of the new Cleveland Triennial, which will make its debut in 2018. The inaugural exhibition, An American City, will feature more than 50 international artists. Grabner cocurated the 2014 Whitney Biennial and most recently helped organize the 2016 Portland Biennial.

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2016 Commencement

The Mencoff Family Fellowship SAIC received a $1 million gift from Sam and Ann Mencoff to establish the Mencoff Family Fellowship in Historic Preservation, providing merit-based fellowships to SAIC graduate students in the Department of Historic Preservation. In addition to serving as a Trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sam Mencoff is a prominent business leader in Chicago and a director of several organizations of arts and culture, education, and public health. He is also Chancellor of Brown University.

N EWS

Lori Waxman Awarded Graham Foundation Grant

On May 16, SAIC celebrated Commencement for undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate students and their families. Artist, activist, and alum Tania Bruguera (MFA 2001) delivered the commencement address and received an honorary doctorate from SAIC, along with influential artist collective the Hairy Who—alumni James Falconer (BFA 1965), Art Green (BFA 1965), Gladys Nilsson (BFA 1962), Jim Nutt (BFA 1967), Suellen Rocca (BFA 1964), and Karl Wirsum (BFA 1962)—collectors and philanthropists Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson; and philanthropist and SAIC Board of Governor Emeritus Young-Ju Park.

Lecturer Lori Waxman (Art History, Theory, and Criticism) was awarded a grant by the Graham Foundation for the completion of her book A Few Steps toward the Revolution of Everyday Life: Walking with the Surrealists, the Situationist International, and Fluxus (Steinberg Press, forthcoming 2017).

Waxman traces the footsteps of artists from these movements through the aesthetic art history of walking.

Jesse Ball’s Newest Book Sets Literary World Ablaze

Annie Bourneuf Wins the 2016 Robert Motherwell Book Award The Dedalus Foundation, a major arts organization that “fosters public understanding of modern art and modernism through its programs in arts education, research and publications, archives and conservation, and exhibitions,” recently awarded the 2016 Robert Motherwell Book Award to Assistant Professor Annie Bourneuf (Art History, Theory, and Criticism) for her book Paul Klee: The Visible and the Legible.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

SAIC Writing Professor Jesse Ball, whose numerous accolades include a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, made waves with his new novel How to Start a Fire and Why. Since its July 5 release, the book was reviewed in numerous news outlets, magazines, and blogs including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Bustle. Additionally, Chicago magazine featured Ball’s book as one of “Six Chicago-Centric Books to Read This Summer.”

A Blade of Grass Foundation Recognizes Frances Whitehead Sculpture Professor Frances Whitehead was named a 2016 Fellow for Socially Engaged Art by A Blade of Grass Foundation. Over the last 10 years, Whitehead has created or been highly involved in a series of civic initiatives that bring the methods, mindsets, and strategies of contemporary art practice to the city of Chicago. Whitehead served as the Lead Artist on the 606, which recently received a National Planning Award for Urban Design from the American Planning Association.

Leading Corporations Support SAIC’s 150th Anniversary Gala The following corporations supported the Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship Fund with generous gifts of $25,000 or more at the 150th Anniversary Gala in May: BDT & Company, LLC; Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Foundation; GCM Grosvenor; MacLean-Fogg; ComEd; Goldman Sachs; Jenner & Block; and McDonald’s Corporation.

Expert Advice from Jayeon Kim BFA 2006

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L A S T YE AR the Career and Professional Experience office launched two programs to help students plan for life as creative professionals and give alumni opportunities to mentor the next generation. The Idea Exchange series brought Jayeon Kim (BFA 2006), User Experience Design Lead at Google; Mark Gallay (MFA 2006), Vice President, Video Technology and Strategy, Comedy Central; and Chris Jones (BFA 1992), Head of Creative Technology in Facebook’s Creative Shop to campus to meet students. The Expert Exchange series offered students one-on-one advising sessions every Friday with alumni working in various creative fields.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation with Kim and her advice to current SAIC students and recent graduates.

Describe your student experience at SAIC. I came here as a transfer student from Seoul National University in Korea. I came to study fine art, but didn’t know exactly which field to focus on then. SAIC provided a program where you can explore a wide range of art and design studies as you go, which was aligned to what I was looking for. I did an internship as an Assistant Production Artist at Remedy and as a designer at Grady & Cambell, which gave me an opportunity to experience a real work environment and build relationships with creatives.

How did you move into user experience design?

After working as a print-based designer for a year or so, I became interested in exploring the interactive design field.

Whenever projects related to interactivity came up in my studio, I volunteered to take those so I could add them to my portfolio. When I felt like I had enough ideas, I applied for interactive jobs.

CA R EER CON V ERSATI ON S

USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN LEAD AT GOOGLE

What do you look for in designers you hire?

People who are not only creative, but also strategic in their thinking process. They should be able to articulate what they are thinking and why they are proposing certain design directions. The ability to collaborate is also really important.

Any other words of advice?

Because the industry is changing so fast, approach it with an open mind. You may think that you are cut for a particular position, but that may change. In order to work at places you find interesting later, continue learning new ideas and techniques, and continue learning from other people, including those who may be younger than you.

Visit saic.edu/careers to learn more about SAIC’s career programs and find out how to become one of our experts.

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SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

in addition to funding and partnerships from individuals and organizations including filmfront, Activate! Chicago, ACRE Residency, Jane Saks of Project&, Theaster Gates, Angelique Power, and Esther Grimm among many others.

these visual interventions.

“The brevity of space and opportunities for engagement with the less traversed areas of the city become exciting moments for critical inquiry, site-responsiveness, and the activation of interstitial spaces,” says Glenn.

In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street Curator Allison Glenn (Dual MA 2012) invited SAIC faculty and alumni, along with other artists, to participate in the large-scale immersive exhibition In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street.

From June 6 to July 10 artwork appeared on 10 billboards embedded across a 19-mile stretch of the city landscape.

Performances, artist-led walks, and sound pieces enhanced

Participating artists: Carris Adams, Derrick Adams, Lisa Alvarado (BFA 2006), Assaf Evron (MFA 2013), the Black Athena Collective (Heba Y. Amin and SAIC visiting artist Dawit L. Petros), Becky Grajeda (MFA 2011),

Glenn received a $6,000 Propeller Fund grant and a Curatorial Fellowship in the Visual Arts Department of the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events to realize the project

Associate Professor Ayanah Moor (Printmedia) with Jamila Raegan, Krista Franklin and Anthony Williams, Nazafarian Lotfi (Post-Bac 2009, MFA 2011), Lecturer Faheem Majeed (Art Education), Assistant Professor Cheryl Pope (BFA 2003, MDes 2010), Martine Syms (BFA 2007, MFA 2009), and Amanda Williams.

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A selection of the work is featured in the following pages.

N KEDZIE AVE

LOGAN SQUARE

BELMONT CRAGIN HERMOSA

W ARMITAGE AVE

BUCKTOWN

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WICKER PARK

W NORTH AVE

HUMBOLDT PARK

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LITTLE VILLAGE

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LOCATIONS PATH TO ART CTA STOPS

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SOUTH LAWNDALE

MAJOR ROADS

PILSEN

ROAD NAMES NEIGHBORHOODS F/S: FACING SOUTH F/W: FACING WEST F/E: FACING EAST

MCKINLEY PARK

BRONZEVILLE

WEST ELSDON

BACK OF THE YARDS

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BRIGHTON PARK

ARCHER HEIGHTS

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WOODLAWN

1. Carris Adams (2313 W. Grand, F/W) 2. Assaf Evron (2540 W. Division, F/E) 3. Lisa Alvarado (2657 W. North, F/W) 4. Faheem Majeed (207 N. Kedzie, F/S) 5. Derrick Adams (2841 W. Madison, F/W) 6. Cheryl Pope (2859 W. Madison, F/E) 7. Ayanah Moor (2620 W Cermak, F/E) 8. Martine Syms (1146 W. 18th, F/W) 9. The Black Athena Collective (Heba Y. Amin and Dawit L. Petros) (1010 E. 43rd, F/W) 10. Amanda Williams (1130 E 63rd Street, F/W)

COTTAGE GROVE

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ON V I EW

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SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Ayanah Moor, Associate Professor of Printmedia with Jamila Raegan Recent incidents of police violence and misconduct have been flooding digital and print media. The proliferation of graphic images of black trauma and death inspire a call to action and protest just as it highlights the importance of gestures of memorial and self-care. Last January, Ayanah Moor and Jamila Raegan created Offerings, a performance that responds to injustice and allows space for mourning and healing.

For sometimes I left messages in the street, the billboard Altar/ Alter showcases Moor and Raegan framing a double altar: as a site for mourning and a portal toward the ocean. Altar/ Alter provides a conceptual point of entry to Untitled (Offerings) performed by Moor and Raegan with poet Krista Franklin and choreographer Anthony Williams at the exhibition’s opening. (From the artist statement)

Ayanah Moor with Jamila Raegan, Krista Franklin, Anthony Williams; Untitled (Offerings) performed at the public opening of In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street; 2016; voice, movement, poetry, painting, silkscreen. Photo Rashayla Marie Brown (BFA 2013)

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Ayanah Moor and Jamila Raegan, Altar/Alter, 2016, photo. Billboard at 2620 West Cermak Road, Chicago, facing east

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ON V I EW

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SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Nazafarin Lotfi Nazafarin Lotfi (Post-Bac 2009, MFA 2011) transformed spectators into performers as she walked them from the Garfield Park Green Line Station to the Black Athena Collective’s billboard on 43rd Street. Chicago-based Lotfi plays with her presence in public space, toying with the relationship between urban landscape, emptiness, and human contact. As a resident at the Arts Incubator at the University of Chicago, she focused her creative efforts toward “social sculptures” that activate the variegated spaces between her Hyde

Park apartment and the Arts Incubator. It was only natural that Glenn invited Lotfi to bring her playful approach to the city-wide social sculpture of messages in the street. Relics of Lotfi’s actions—small written notes and images of previous performances integrated into the urban environment— became trail markers for the walk. Lotfi provided a group of walkers with stickers to leave their own notes or messages along the journey, urging them not only to notice their surroundings, but to participate in their creation, leaving literal messages in the street.

Nazafarin Lotfi’s artist-led walk at the opening of messages in the street.

Photo: Allison Glenn (Dual MA 2012)

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Nazafarin Lotfi,Temporary Public Art, 2016. Courtesy of the artist

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ON V I EW

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SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

The Black Athena Collective Heba Y. Amin; Dawit L. Petros, Visiting Artist in Photography Bordering the North Kenwood and Oakland neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago, the billboard placed at 1010 East 43rd Street depicted a temporary and incomplete Tuareg building frame standing miles from its home in Morocco on the contentious Algerian border. In this lonely image of unlived space, the Black Athena Collective explores “parallel narratives of dislocation and rupture” across seemingly

disparate countries and peoples.

These themes pervade the body of work created by United-Statesbased Dawit Petros and Egyptbased Heba Amin, who look at the “architectures of migrancy and the various frameworks of space and territorial demarcations in relation to errant bodies” through cross-cultural—and crosscontinental—collaborations.

Image courtesy of the Black Athena Collective

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The Black Athena Collective, Heba Y. Amin and Dawit L. Petros, billboard at 1010 East 43rd Street

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GET CREATIVE THIS FAL

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SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Continuing Studies Offers Learning Opportunities for All Ages Join SAIC’s vibrant community of artists, designers, and scholars and take advantage of our world-renowned resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum. → Middle School Program (ages 10–13) → Early College Program for high

school students (ages 14–18) → Adult Continuing Education courses and certificate programs including our new certificate in studio art and design SAIC alumni receive a 25 percent discount, and Art Institute of Chicago members receive a 10 percent discount on courses.

saic.edu/cs 312.629.6170

Abandoned Practices A summer intensive course explores discarded rituals and their connections to contemporary art-making.

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BY KT H AW B A K E R - K R OH N (M A 2017 )

Students present installations that explore the abandoned practice of seriality, or focusing on a single task from beginning to end.

“The class is organized so socially engaged ideas can come forward through collaboration.”

A GROUP OF PEOPLE sit around a table, napkins draped over their faces. On the count of three, the diners lift a sizzling ortolan songbird with their fingers and devour it—bones and all. The now-illegal practice of eating this protected bird is a case study students discussed during SAIC’s Abandoned Practices Institute.

From July 11 through 29, students unpacked discarded customs through writing, installation, documentation, and live performance. Pulling from a multitude of histories, the case studies featured in the class provoked an array of collaborative responses from the students.

“The class is organized so socially engaged ideas can come forward through collaboration,” says Professor of Performance Lin Hixson, who cotaught the class with Associate Professor of Performance Mark Jeffery and Adjunct Professor of Writing, Matthew Goulish.

They hope that through collaboration each student will find an individualized experience that encourages creative cross-pollination.

Jeffery says that “truly interdisciplinary questions enable the students to ask: ‘How can this class begin to really support my individual practice?’”

Or, what can an outlawed dining experience teach us about art?

“There’s a folk belief they’re using the napkins to hide from God,” says Goulish. “But the fact this practice was left behind by time also addresses questions of ‘how did we get here?’ and ‘where are we now?’”

SAIC’s Summer Intensive courses were open to both degree-seeking SAIC students and students-at-large from other colleges and universities for the first time this summer.

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Historic Preservation Students at the Oak Park Art League

F I EL D TRI P

BY BRO NTË M ANS FIELD (M A 201 7)

BUI LT I N 1 9 02, the Oak Park Art League building began as a Victorian carriage house and stables. In 1937, the Art League acquired it, and since then, it has housed exhibitions and hosted studio art classes for the local community. But like any 114-year-old building, it’s seen better days—in fact, this building has seen better decades.

“I’m always keeping an eye out for nonprofits that own historic buildings and could use our help,” says SAIC Professor Anne Sullivan, John H. Bryan Chair in Historic Preservation. Each year Sullivan teaches a Building Diagnostic course, partnering with a local historic building. In spring 2016, her students completed a preservation plan for the Oak Park Art League building just west of Chicago.

“It’s a mutually beneficial relationship,” she explains. The nonprofits reap the benefits of free analysis, advice, and preservation maintenance plans; while SAIC students get field experience to prepare them for life after graduation.

Melanie Bishop (MS 2017) and Rebekah Trad (MArch 2018) evaluate the exterior of the Oak Park Art League building.

Ten of Sullivan’s students made visits to the Art League building. They took measurements with laser tools to create precise building plans, sketched features of the house, took paint samples, and surveyed the original wood frame and art glass windows.

“That first day was so cold,” Sullivan recalls. The students had to survey the exterior of the building in the snow. “We were on a ladder, we were poking around, and our feet were cold.” The next week, a beautiful spring day saw blossoms on the Art League’s tree and smiles on the faces of Sullivan’s students.

“But that’s the nature of what we do,” she laughs.

Rain or shine, historic buildings like the Oak Park Art League need to be preserved to connect us to our past. Sullivan is training the next generation of architectural stewards—one field trip at a time.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Historic Preservation Certificate student Rebekah Trad takes finish samples for microscopic analysis to identify layers of paint colors over time.

Program Director Anne Sullivan looks on as Candace Williams (MS 2017) takes detailed notes about deteriorated areas of the building.

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Notes about existing conditions are handwritten on building elevations, then are translated to detailed and keyed Autocad drawings.

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MEET THE N EW CL ASS

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Meet the New Class

CARLOS SAL A Z AR LERMONT (D UAL MA)

AYO JAN E E N JACK SO N (MFA)

MA D E L E I N E AG U I L A R ( BFA)

HA RRY WA RNA A R ( B FA)

Hometown: Caracas, Venezuela

Hometown: Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Hometown: Chicago

Hometown: Chicago

Describe yourself in three words: Strategist, team worker, pragmatic

Describe yourself in three words: Voroojack (a unique crazy character), siren, Sufi

Describe yourself in three words: Reflective, modest, inspired

Describe yourself in three words: Perceptive, ambitious, spacey

What are you looking forward to doing in Chicago? I want to get involved with art institutions from the inside, to know how they work in Chicago, and learn as much as possible. I’m also curious how the new environment will impact my work.

Why did you choose SAIC? I envisioned myself learning from these teachers in an easygoing, friendly atmosphere.

I will need that sort of environment as I embark on this journey into unfamiliar media.

Why did you choose SAIC? SAIC challenges the idea of what school can be with its interesting courses and innovative teaching artists. I was most excited by the fact that I could go to a school where I’d constantly be making things.

Where do you find inspiration?

All over, but mostly through people. I love to see how they interact with each other, what they say versus what they do, and how social hierarchies come into play.

What are your preferred media? I am a performance artist who uses a combination of my skills in dance and theater to create art. I plan to explore how photography and film can intersect with my choreography.

What are you looking forward to doing in Chicago? I love Chicago’s many different neighborhoods, each with its own characteristics, history, and good food. I’m looking forward to going on more adventures with my family and our hyperactive dog.

What are your preferred media? I’m particularly interested in oil painting, printmaking, and film. I’m very hands-on and love playing with materials, chemicals, solutions, and mixtures. You know you’re getting good art materials when they’re hazardous.

What are you passionate about? Sewing, comics, and making music

What are you passionate about? Pushing myself in my work, holding myself to a technical and conceptual standard. I direct my standards of truth, accountability, and responsibility to the world around me, fueling my passion for social justice.

What are your preferred media? My artwork is mostly performance art, photography, and video.

What are you passionate about? I’m passionate about social change. I believe that organization and cooperative thinking can enhance the ways we live. I want to promote that idea in my country. I have seen what people are capable of through teamwork, distribution, and trust.

What are you passionate about? I love how art makes us aware of ourselves and how it can be a wellspring from which peace flows.

Where do you find inspiration? Grimms’ Fairytales, museums, writing, and random subway rides What do you hope to accomplish in your time at SAIC? Even though I’m interested in the smorgasbord of media SAIC has to offer, I’d like to find a focal point where I can recognize my true voice.

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Where do you find inspiration? My family, outer space, Joan of Arc, Arizona, medieval times, Star Wars, Chinese food, Sufjan Stevens, The Giver, and my home What do you hope to accomplish in your time at SAIC? I really want to become an expert at working with my hands.

What do you hope to accomplish in your time at SAIC? To hone my skills and cement my creative process. I’m excited to join the flow and see what I can make out of it. I also hope to find the people who I’ll be working with for the rest of my life; I can’t accomplish my lofty goals alone.

In the Studio with Michelle Grabner

“My

studios are places of production and labor. I am a haptic learner, so I need to create environments conducive to material manipulation.”

“When

I was teaching at Skowhegan [School of Painting and Sculpture], I was fortunate to be given two studios to use. This gave me the courage to rethink my understanding of space, work, and home. Milwaukee is small enough to move from home to studio to studio to home in a single day.”

WHERE I WORK

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“Working

on a drawing in one space and then attempting the same type of drawing in another will always yield discoveries that you could not see before.”

I WORK FROM HOME was the name of Crown Family Professor in Painting and Drawing Michelle Grabner’s first comprehensive solo museum exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland in 2013. At the time, Grabner lived in Oak Park, Illinois, in a home with an adjacent studio and gallery space. Last fall, Grabner and her family moved their home, studio, and gallery to Milwaukee, into three separate locations around

the city. Her studio is a vintage building previously occupied by a printer in the Walker’s Point neighborhood. The first floor includes a small gallery and an expansive studio divided into painting and sculpture rooms. The second floor is a full apartment where visiting artists can stay. Grabner no longer works from home, but her studio maintains the domestic comforts and communal space the artist and educator built her practice on.

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In the Museum with David Raskin Cy Twombly, The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus

A B OUT A WORK

BY ZOYA B R U M BERG (M A 2015 )

THE SECOND PART OF THE RETURN FROM PARNASSUS, 1961, hangs in the 20th-century contemporary gallery of the Art Institute of Chicago just beyond Jackson Pollock’s emotive splatters and Mark Rothko’s abstract windows of color. The imposing size of the mostly bare canvas marked with seemingly unskilled lines evocative of children’s drawings is conspicuous among its neighbors. Set among Cy Twombly’s contemporaries, Parnassus forces Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History David Raskin’s students to compare “what they think art should be against what they see before their eyes,” he says.

This challenge makes Parnassus one of Raskin’s favorite pieces in the Art Institute of Chicago to use in both his introductory and advanced art history classes. Students gather around the painting and see “all the rich details, all the specific qualities of each mark in relation to every other mark in a particular place.” The painting references methods and movements of art-making that students studied earlier in the course: pencil, crayon, thick globs of paint, linguistic text, numbers, scribbles, and nearly recognizable figures.

Together in their exhaustive entabulation, they seem to undermine the idea that art can ever truly be expressive, leading students to ponder the very function of art after World War II.

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Parnassus forces…students to compare “what they think art should be against what they see before their eyes.”

Raskin wants his students to understand that art is not necessarily about aesthetic enjoyment or self-expression, but that it is always part of a discussion about what art is and what art should be. He sees Parnassus as a deeply cynical work, something that forces him to question the possibility of authentic expression or transcendence through art, our own human desires. Wellnaturedly, he muses, “There’s value in having these illusions stripped from us. There’s no joy here. There’s only dismay and frustration with a tint of depression.”

David Raskin’s own search for the values of art fuels his curriculum in ways that he believes help his students—not only to become better art historians or better artists but to see the world more clearly. By testing their preconceptions against their own vision, young artists place their work into the most pressing conversations of the arts communities within SAIC and beyond.

Cy Twombly American, 1928–2011 The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus, 1961 © 1961, Edwin P. Twombly, Jr. Trust.

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Garland Martin Taylor on His Process BA 2005, MA 2007

To start, Taylor welded scrap into the form of a Harry Bertoia chair; that was the sketch. He then cut it up and remade it into a rocking chair. It still wasn’t quite right, so he cut it up again and refined it. “This chair had three manifestations before it became what it is now,” he says.

THE PROCESS

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One of those manifestations included his face, but after looking at it for two days, he removed it. “One can never make out a face in a dream.

You think it’s someone with you in a dream, but it’s really not, or you don’t know. As it is, it’s just enough likeness to spark your imagination,” explains Taylor. To him the phantom chair represents an ancestor thinking about or mourning a victim of gun violence.

B EFORE GARL AN D MAR TI N TAYLO R welds metal scrap together or clips the hair from his head, he thinks, researches, and finds—but does not purchase—materials. “I see the idea in my mind, and it goes back to the constraints of the materials I have.

The two have to come together. The idea and the research have to come along, and the materials also have to be there,” he says.

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At SAIC, Taylor earned a Bachelor and Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies. His politically charged sculptures are inspired by his research and scholarship on 19th-century black political cartoons, especially the work of Henry Jackson Lewis, a former slave who rose to fame as the first black political cartoonist. As part of his ongoing Black Death Project, Taylor recently exhibited a piece called Phantom.

Here is a look into the making of that piece.

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In the final installation, the metal rocking chair sits on a platform in the middle of the room. Suspended by guitar strings hanging from the ceiling, the winged bullets trace the trajectory of a stray bullet that enters through the window, flies over the

Next he cut his hair, dipped it in acrylic pigment, and filled empty bullet shells he collected from a shooting range with his hair and feathers from different

chair, and embeds in the wall. “The whole idea of Phantom is sharing in the metaphor of the phantom bullet. The bullet that comes through the window and kills someone— the stray bullet,� says Taylor.

birds. He says the wings add a layer of meaning to the bullets, giving them an almost angelic quality.

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Transform the World

Throughout its more than 150-year history, SAIC’s entire community—alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends, foundations, and corporations—has established a strong tradition of support and giving. This support helps students attend and thrive at SAIC. It expands SAIC’s academic reach and influence with new, innovative courses and collaborations. It provides SAIC faculty with opportunities for research and professional development as well as state-of-the-art teaching resources to enable them to stay ahead of the curve in the world of contemporary art and design.

Beautiful/Work: The Campaign for SAIC is a two-year, $50 million fundraising campaign that ensures SAIC attracts the most talented students and faculty, continues to offer innovative

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

and creative programming, and remains a world leader in art and design education throughout the 21st century and beyond. On May 6, 2016, the campaign was launched at SAIC’s 150th Anniversary Gala, where more than 400 attendees contributed toward the more than $1.2 million raised for the Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship Fund. Learn more about the campaign’s progress on page 47.

The following pages feature some of the people behind the campaign: new President Elissa Tenny, whose leadership will guide the School into the future; faculty, who teach, mentor, and inspire students; and students, who see the world as it could be and transform it through their Beautiful/Work.

WHY I GIVE

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Holly Hunt

Quintin E. Primo III

CEO of HOLLY HUNT and Co-Chair of Beautiful/Work

Chairman and CEO of Capri Investment Group and Co-Chair of Beautiful/Work

“If you’re going to make a difference, and if you’re going to change things, you have to think differently. And art students do,” says Holly Hunt, Co-Chair of SAIC’s Beautiful/Work campaign and founder of the eponymous design business. Together with Knoll, Inc., Hunt pledged $1 million to establish the permanently endowed HOLLY HUNT/Knoll Inc. Graduate Merit Fellowship Fund which will benefit generations of SAIC graduate students to come.

Hunt has spent much of her life raising the bar for interior design.

In 1983 she bought a struggling Merchandise Mart showroom and quickly turned the business around. She started by showcasing the best product in a beautiful showroom then expanded into designing and manufacturing furniture, textiles, and lighting.

When her company turned a profit, Hunt found ways to give back to her community, a value she learned from her family. Her grandfather was a Baptist preacher, and her parents were teachers who always helped other people. “I think it’s the responsibility of anyone who’s successful to give back. It’s just what you do,” she says.

Hunt joined SAIC’s Board of Governors in 1994 and has served the School for 22 years. She also contributes to a children’s charity that works with abused and neglected children. Hunt says the desire to help is not enough. “It’s one thing to want to give, it’s another thing to create something you can give from.” Today the company she built is thriving with showrooms across the United States and in London, providing Hunt the resources to continue acting on her generosity.

A large portrait of a young, African American male in a prison orange hoodie painted by New York-based artist Kehinde Wiley adorns the wall in the entry of Chicago-based Capri Investment Group. A colorful mixed-media piece by Ebony Patterson glitters on the conference room wall, revealing a headless, dead soldier upon closer inspection. “I like pieces that are edgy, that say something and provoke you to think,” says Quintin E. Primo III, Co-Chair of SAIC’s Beautiful/Work campaign and Chairman and CEO of Capri. The art collector and investor recently gave a significant leadership gift to support SAIC students and faculty through the Beautiful/Work campaign.

In high school in the south suburbs of Chicago, Primo first learned about the Chicago Imagists and their beginnings at SAIC; it was a transformative experience. Art was always a passion, but he studied first at Indiana University and then Harvard Business School, where he acquired the skills he needed to build a career as an investor and eventually found his own company.

Since establishing Capri in 1992, Primo has overseen the firm’s origination of more than $10 billion in real estate equity, debt, and structured finance transactions. “I am insistent and have built my company on diversity and freedom of expression because it allows us to be infinitely more creative when seeking opportunities for our discreet set of investors,” he says.

A few years ago, he reached out to SAIC for a seat on the Board of Governors. “SAIC’s board was really the only board that I asked to be on, and actively campaigned to join,” he says.

In addition to his support for SAIC, Primo serves as Chairman of the Primo Center for Women and Children, a transitional shelter and family institute serving the homeless, and is a board member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Looking back on his dedication to the Beautiful/Work campaign thus far, Primo remarks it has been “a tremendous joy to become involved in a school as prestigious and impactful as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.”

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FUNDING THE FUTURE MARIA LU I SA CO N LO N is on the move. She’s so busy creating art that she unapologetically goes off the grid for a week at a time—an unusual decision for a 19-yearold in this age of social media.

Between working and creating, the SAIC sophomore barely has a moment to sit down. In fact, she conducts this interview while riding her bike. There’s no time to waste.

While riding—between huffs and puffs—she explains her pragmatic approach to her performance art, which uses her body, blood, earth, and water.

“One of the many good things about performance is the cost,” says Conlon, who is one of 20 matriculating Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship Fund recipients.

“I couldn’t be a painter. I can’t afford the paint, so I use my body. It’s free.”

Conlon is an Irish and Mexican woman, and her art is about the ephemeral nature of the social and political truths we use to

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Scholarships put a world-class art and design education within reach for talented students.

By Adrienne Samuels Gibbs

define ourselves. Her professors have been challenging her to push this concept further— something that would not have been possible without the Massey Scholars program. She says the program helps students like her to realize their full potential.

Conlon’s story echoes that of many students who need scholarships in order to pay for college. And raising money for worthy students is a key component of Beautiful/Work: The Campaign for SAIC. The two-year, $50-million fundraising campaign kicked off at the 150th Anniversary Gala for SAIC last May, which also commemorated the legacy of outgoing President Walter E. Massey and Shirley Massey and toasted the new President Elissa Tenny.

“Our students and faculty challenge ways of thinking, collaborate across disciplines, and make work that pushes the world forward. This campaign ensures that future generations of students have

the opportunity to learn from faculty who are leading practitioners in their field in our cutting-edge facilities right in the heart of downtown Chicago,” says Cheryl Jessogne, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at SAIC. Rose Milkowski, Vice President of Enrollment Management, sees firsthand the difference a scholarship makes when added to a total financial aid package.

Her staff in both the Admissions and Student Financial Services offices work together to provide students with the right mix of financial solutions and support.

“The reality is that education can change a person’s direction in life,” says Milkowski. “The more scholarships we can get, the more people whose lives will totally be transformed.”

The Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship Fund is earmarked for students from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) who, though academically excellent, do not have the means to attend a private

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MARIA LUISA CONLON

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FU N DI N G THE F UTURE

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ABDULLAH QUICK

institution such as SAIC. These scholarships have been granted across all races and genders, and sides of the city.

The fund has resulted in an increase of applications from CPS graduates. In fact, SAIC has seen an 80 percent increase in applications from CPS students over the course of the last three years. For this past academic year, 87 CPS students were offered admission, yet only 33 enrolled.

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Milkowski ensures that money awarded a student for the freshman year—provided the student’s grades remain good— is available each year until graduation.

“I would never give a student financial support their freshman year, and in junior and senior year they can’t financially make it,” she says. “I want to make sure if we award a student $10,000 in their freshman year, that they get the $10,000 their sophomore, junior, and senior year.”

That attention to detail is what led ABDULL AH QUICK , 19, to select SAIC over other, competing schools. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School graduate was already working part time on his own business when he graduated. The scholarship made college a viable option. His high school photography teacher pushed him to consider SAIC and even set him up to take summer

classes the year before he graduated from high school.

Quick was immediately hooked.

“It’s unbelievably hard, but the experience is worth it,” says Quick. “The past few months have brought many changes to the way I view my art and the world around me. I’ve gotten to experience life outside of the country for the first time on a study trip. I have taken up multiple new media thanks to the interdisciplinary nature

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of this institution and the encouragement of instructors.”

He goes on.

“If they didn’t have the program like [the Massey Scholars] there would be very few Chicago students like me here.”

ABEL BERUMEN

Milkowski tracks the students who are accepted but ultimately don’t come to the School.

Where do they go? Some matriculate through other art and design schools, but those without means tend to fall through the cracks, she says.

“Thirty-six ACT score, 3.7 GPA, really bright, smart kids,” Milkowski says. “The hardest thing I ever had to swallow was when I looked up those 40 students [who didn’t attend SAIC] to see what schools they attend. A few of them had gone to college, but there was a good quarter of them that didn’t go anywhere. This is a super smart kid and an incredibly talented artist, and yet there’s only so much scholarship we can give.”

Beautiful/Work: The Campaign for SAIC has already brought in more than $40 million of its goal, with $1.2 million raised to support the Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship Fund at the spring gala alone.

Campaign donations also support graduate students.

Leadership gifts such as the Mencoff Family Fellowship in Historic Preservation, HOLLY

HUNT/Knoll Inc. Graduate Merit Fellowship, Ellen Sandor Scholarships, and the Pritzker Graduate Fellowship Fund help the School maintain its topfour ranking with U.S. News and World Report for graduate programs by attracting some of the most talented students.

AB E L B E RUME N , 50, just completed his Master of Fine Arts, focusing in painting after working for 20 years in New York as a successful fashion photographer. The $4,000

LeRoy Neiman Scholarship was initially created by alumni LeRoy and Janet Neiman in 2005.

saw that. I got a letter saying ‘congratulations,’ and I was surprised.”

“It’s a two-year program, so it’s pretty much full time,” says Berumen, who grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. “You would figure that it would be so much easier for us, especially lowincome students. And it’s the opposite. I needed the money, so I would be taking five classes and [assistant teaching] three classes. I guess someone

Berumen is now moving into painting, and plans to continue to take clients as a photographer once the summer is over.

And when he makes it big, he definitely plans to give back.

“Oh yeah,” says Berumen, noting that Neiman is an alum and former faculty member who gave back. “I mean, once I get money. For sure.”

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An endowed professorship is more than just an impressive title. It is an acknowledgement of intellectual leadership and an endorsement for future impact. SAIC’s endowed professors are inspirational forces whose influence radiates outward—through the classroom and studio and across the city and world. With or without the title, they are continually shaping the current dialogue on art and design—but their endowment provides an extra bit of prestige and enables them to advance their teaching, thinking, and making.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE A LO OK AT SA I C ’ S E N DOWED P RO FE SS O RS H IP S AND THE B EN EFACTOR S B EHI N D THEI R EXCELLEN CE OF CHICAGO

BY J ER EMY OHMES

DAVID RASKIN

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M OH N FA M I LY P R O F E SS O R O F CO N T E M P O R A RY ART H I STO RY

Katrina Mohn (MA 2014) was mentored by art historian and Professor David Raskin in SAIC’s Art History, Theory, and Criticism program. Her father, Jarl Mohn, was so impressed by her academic experience that he endowed a professorship and a graduate fellowship. Mohn, who is the President and CEO of National Public Radio, says, “SAIC and Professor Raskin were instrumental in shaping my daughter’s understanding of the art world…and they offered our family a sense of community that extends much further than the city of Chicago.”

“The Mohn Family gift is particularly special for my department because it also supports the continuing education of our master’s students,” says Raskin, whose scholarship focuses on modern and contemporary art in relation to earlier contemporary practices (see page 22). “The graduate fellowship helps SAIC recruit the most impressive students, and brings them into a formal mentoring relationship as part of their studies. The Mohn Family Fellows are directly involved in my research and teaching, and carry the honor of this award with them throughout their careers.”

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ANKE LOH

THE EXEMPL A RS

SAGE F OUN DAT I ON CHA I R OF FASHI ON DESI GN

Melissa Sage Fadim has a strong affinity for SAIC’s Fashion Design program. Through her Sage Foundation, she has supported the department’s students and faculty in a number of ways: the annual Sage Foundation Scholarship, the Sage Studios for Fashion Design, which display student work in a professional setting, and the Sage Foundation Chair of Fashion Design.

SAIC Associate Professor and fashion designer Anke Loh has served as the Sage Foundation Chair for four years. She says the Sage Foundation gifts support the department’s mission to redefine fashion and what a fashion designer can be—dovetailing with her own interest in merging fashion, art, and technology.

“The niche of wearable technology is especially rare, so as a result, funding can pose challenges,” notes Loh. “Without the Sage support, my research into integrating wearable computing into fashion and accessories with interactive mobile technology would not have been possible.”

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MICHELLE GRABNER

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C R OW N FA M I LY PROF ESS O R I N PA I N TING AN D D R AW I N G

In 2016 Paula and James Crown, Nancy and A. Steven Crown, and the Crown Family Philanthropies endowed a full professorship in the Painting and Drawing department. Michelle Grabner, a faculty member since 1996, was appointed the inaugural Crown Family Professor. A former student of Grabner’s, Paula Crown (MFA 2012) referred to her mentor as “a contemporary multihyphenate: artist, teacher, and scholar.”

Grabner, who was cocurator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial, addresses the ideas of orderliness, routine, and the domestic environment in her work. She notes the award has offered her “the freedom to test conventions and to advance contemporary art and discourse both inside and outside the classroom.”

Ironically, Grabner once applied to SAIC’s MFA program and was not accepted.

To this, the renowned artist often tells her students: “Perseverance and hard work are not clichés but in fact yield success.”

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ANNE T. SULLIVAN, FAIA

THE EXEMPL A RS

J OHN H. B RYA N CHA I R OF HI STORI C PRESERVAT I ON

SAIC Board of Governor Emeritus John H. Bryan has supported historic preservation throughout Chicago for more than 20 years. He has worked to protect threatened places like the Lyric Opera House and Orchestra Hall and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House while supporting stewardship of historic sites through his named chair position in SAIC’s Historic Preservation program.

As the second John H. Bryan Chair of the Master of Science degree program, Anne Sullivan teaches courses in historic building materials, building pathology, and sustainable preservation practices (see page 18).

But more importantly she collaborates with SAIC students and alumni on professional restoration projects, including the historic Chicago Bascule Bridges and the Glessner House Museum in Chicago’s Prairie Avenue historic district. The endowed chair provides Sullivan the funds to attend international conferences and expand her knowledge of building materials, construction typology, and conservation practice, which benefits her students. She says, “All my professional experiences are funneled into the classroom.”

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SUSANNA COFFEY

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F.H . S E L L E R S P R O F E SS O R I N PA IN T I N G

It is fitting that when Mary Morely Sellers established the F.H. Sellers Professorship in Painting at SAIC in 1939 in honor of her late husband, she also bequeathed a portrait of his great-grandmother to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Today, as the oil painting of Olivia Simes Morris (1790–1838) by James Peale hangs in the museum, Professor Susanna Coffey, an acclaimed painter whose unflinching self-portraits explore gender, appearance, and personhood, occupies the professorship named for Morris’ great-grandson.

In 1998 Coffey was awarded the professorship following the influential painter and collagist Ray Yoshida (BFA 1953), who taught at the School for nearly four decades. The Sellers Professorship provided Coffey with more resources with which to pursue her art and academic careers. “An endowed professorship confers an enhanced status; it opens doors both nationally and internationally.” says Coffey, who brings her experience and connections back to SAIC each year to share with students and colleagues.

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OLIVIA GUDE

THE EXEMPL A RS

A N G EL A GREGORY PAT ERA KI S PROF ESSOR I N A RT EDUCAT I ON

SAIC alum and Professor Emerita Angela Paterakis (BFA 1954) taught at SAIC for almost 50 years, including serving as chair of the Division of Education from 1963–71. Paterakis was an ardent supporter of art education. She established a network of arts educators to serve school children and worked for more than 60 years to ensure all Illinois schools had access to the arts.

As the first Angela Gregory Paterakis Professor in Art Education, Olivia Gude is an artist who has created many public mosaics, murals, and events in collaboration with various intergenerational communities and an educator whose articles and presentations have shifted possibilities of curriculum in K-12 school art education.

She is determined to live up to the standards Paterakis set for teaching, scholarship, and service. She says, “I’ve always been a researcher whose work is stimulated by ‘thinking together’ with students. As I support SAIC students in manifesting their visions of a renewed culture of visual art education, together we develop insights into how 21st-century art education might evolve.”

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JIM ELKINS

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E M ILY C R A N E C H A DB O U R N E P R O F E SS O R O F A RT H I STO RY, THE ORY, A N D C R I T I C IS M

From 1918 to 1957, art collector Emily Crane Chadbourne was a major donor to the Art Institute of Chicago, gifting 2,225 works of art to the museum that range from Byzantine art and Persian ceramics to Egyptian mummy portraits and drawings by Henri Matisse. The diversity of Chadbourne’s collection parallels the diversity of her namesake professor’s research and work.

A prolific writer, critic, historian, and Professor in SAIC’s Art History, Theory, and Criticism and Visual and Critical Studies programs, Jim Elkins was awarded the named professorship in 2004. Over his career, he has written about photography, Renaissance painting, the relationships between science and art, and analyses of modern and contemporary piano music. “With four endowed professors, we’ve been able to make some very innovative hires in the last several years,” says Elkins.

“We offer more than 200 courses each semester, and we now have a department that is comparable in diversity of subjects to any art history department worldwide.”

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JAMES LUTES

THE EXEMPL A RS

F REDERI CK L AT I MER WEL L S PROF ESSOR OF PA I N T I N G A N D DRAWI N G

Frederick Latimer Wells had bravery in his blood.

A governing member of the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1900s, he never served in the military, but he was a descendant of a commander in the American Revolution, a soldier in the War of 1812, and an officer in the Civil War. As the one and only Frederick Latimer Wells Professor of Painting and Drawing, Jim Lutes (MFA 1982) might have internalized his benefactor’s kinship with courage.

Lutes, who has been a member of the School’s faculty since 1983, creates work that expresses a tension between opposing forces, namely figuration and abstraction. He has exhibited in two Whitney Biennials (1987, 2010) and Documenta IX, as well as numerous solo exhibitions.

He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in addition to a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Unlike many painters, Lutes makes all his own paints, media, and supports from scratch, and shares his knowledge of the craft with students, alumni, and colleagues alike.

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NORA TAYLOR

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AL S D O R F P R O F E SS O R O F S OUTH A N D SO U T H E AST AS IAN A R T H I STO RY

The collection of James and Marilynn Alsdorf contains hundreds of works representing the cultures of India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia. Marilynn, an Art Institute of Chicago Life Trustee, and her late husband James, a former chairman of the Board of Trustees, played a significant role in building and shaping the museum’s holdings.

The Alsdorf Galleries of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan, and Islamic Art are an essential teaching resource for Nora Taylor, the recipient of the art patrons’ endowed professorship.

“My area of expertise is a very specialized field.

There are not that many of us Southeast Asian art historians in the US,” notes Taylor. “This professorship has enabled me to carry out that specialization without having to conform to a more conventional art historical category. I am able to teach my specialty and more importantly, I am able to learn from young artists from Southeast Asia who have come to study at SAIC.”

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DAVID GETSY

THE EXEMPL A RS

G OL DA B EL L E MCCOMB F I N N DI ST I N G UI SHED PROF ESSOR OF A RT HI STORY

Goldabelle McComb Finn seems like she was destined to bestow her unique name to someone. Finn attended SAIC in the early 1920s where she studied painting and drawing, and took art history classes with the esteemed Professor Helen Gardner. Finn endowed her professorship in 1994, and the first to hold the position was another influential art history professor, Robert Loescher (see page 55).

After Loescher passed away in 2007, art historian David Getsy was named to the professorship— which has enabled him to further his research on queer theory, transgender studies, and histories of sculpture and performance, as well as contribute to the growth of the School’s art history department and its offerings. He says, “I felt an obligation to continue Loescher’s commitment to building a world-class art history department that benefited from being both in a major art school and connected to a major encyclopedic museum.

He started the path to embracing non-Western and global art histories, and we can now proudly say we are one of the most global art history programs in the world.”

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GAYLEN GERBER

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PATRICK J. A N D DA N IA L . L E E M P U T T E FAMILY P R O F E SS O R

Patrick Leemputte, founder of MindSet Health and Wellness, took Saturday classes with Adjunct Professor Karl Wirsum (BFA 1962, HON 2016), member of the notorious Hairy Who artists who set the stage for Chicago’s art scene in the 1970s.

Wirsum’s classes inspired Leemputte and his wife, Dania, to establish a family professorship in the Department of Painting and Drawing. The Leemputte Family Professorship was awarded to another influential painter, educator, and SAIC alum Gaylen Gerber (MFA 1980).

Gerber explores the presence (or absence) of the artist within his work as a way to focus the viewer’s attention on the situation of an artwork. He titles his paintings “backdrops” and “supports” depending on their size. With backdrops, he often literally layers the work of other artists over his own, introducing difference to his otherwise monochromatic supports.

In contrast, Gerber sometimes uses supports to impose monochromes over the work of others artists. Gerber joined SAIC’s faculty in 1987 and teaches multilevel classes in the Department of Painting and Drawing. Throughout his career, he has exhibited at and been seen in a number of esteemed institutions and exhibitions, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial.

Gaylen Gerber with Rémy Zuag, Backdrop/LÀ, 1992–2016, latex paint on ohne Titel

by Heimo Zobernig, 2015, Eisengerüst, 3-Schichtholzplatten, schwarz bemalt, Karl-Tizian-Platz, Theaterfassade dimensions variable.

Photo courtesy of Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria FA L L 2 01 6

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SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

ELISSA TENNY TAKES THE HELM AS PRESIDENT.

WHAT COMES NEXT

I N TH E L E A D - U P TO JULY 1, her first day as President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Elissa Tenny was enthusiastic about SAIC’s future.

“I’m exhilarated by the idea of leading the School. It’s such a vibrant institution,” Tenny says of being the first woman selected as the School’s President.

Tenny is an advocate for what she calls the “graduate citizen” and thinks SAIC is ideally positioned to develop artists, designers, and scholars who can make a positive impact on the world. “Our students see things from very different angles and perspectives,” she says. “Every day they seek larger meaning and synergies and learn to use their creativity as they’re figuring out their meaning and making. These are important life skills that help them make sense of the world.”

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This optimism is the result of more than 35 years in higher education, including six at SAIC working with students, faculty, staff, and former President Walter E. Massey. Tenny came to SAIC as its first Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs in 2010. The School had recently established the office to oversee its strategic priorities and to strengthen its administration, and Tenny was the perfect fit for the job. She had a doctorate in education and eight years’ experience as Provost and Dean of Bennington College in Vermont, and she previously held leadership positions at The New School in New York City.

Together Tenny and Massey strengthened the School’s financial position, increased transparency and participation in the budgeting process, and stewarded the strategic priorities. The partnership was FA L L 2 01 6

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so strong that Massey agreed to stay at SAIC as Chancellor when Tenny became President. She says she’s thrilled to “continue to take advantage of Walter’s extraordinary knowledge and experience and his great humanity.”

The foundation for Tenny’s success at SAIC was laid in 2010 when she organized action groups of faculty, staff, and students around the School’s first strategic plan, each devoted to implementing and addressing one of SAIC’s seven strategic initiatives: improving organizational effectiveness; developing a campus master plan; increasing diversity; identifying exceptional prospective students; providing structure and support for students; strengthening research and collaboration efforts; and solidifying additional funding sources beyond tuition. The work of these groups, guided by Tenny, has transformed the School.

“We have been able to achieve some of our goals outright.

Other undertakings have been woven into the [ongoing] work we all share in making

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SAIC the vibrant hub of many communities,” Tenny writes in the Final Report on the Strategic Plan, published in September 2013. Building diversity on campus and deeper engagement with partners across the city are initiatives whose work has been woven into life at SAIC. For example, through the work of the Diversity Advisory Group, a direct outcropping of the Strategic Plan, grants and workshops are infusing the curriculum and classrooms with inclusive conversations and diverse guest speakers, images, and assignments, and two new permanent positions now support diversity initiatives at the School. At the same time efforts to build a student body more reflective of Chicago’s own diversity have begun to pay off.

Applications from Chicago Public Schools graduates have increased significantly in recent years thanks to the College Arts Access Program (CAAP), a bridge program that prepares high school students for college, and the Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship Fund, a needbased, full-tuition scholarship fund that supports Chicago Public Schools graduates. More than $1.2 million was raised for the scholarship fund at the School’s 150th Anniversary

“AS SAIC GRADUATES BRING THEIR CREATIVE SKILLS TO DIFFERENT FIELDS, THEY CAN GO OUT AND MAKE THE WORLD BETTER. THEY CAN MAKE IT MORE WHOLE.” Gala in May 2016 when Tenny and Massey announced the public launch of a $50 million fundraising campaign called Beautiful/Work: The Campaign for SAIC. Especially gratifying for Tenny is that $23.2 million— nearly half of the campaign goal—has already been raised to provide students with scholarship support.

As the School draws in students from all corners of the city to its campus, it has also expanded its campus out into the city.

The Earl and Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration, part of the newly formed Office of Engagement, opened SAIC’s first classroom space outside of downtown in the newly renovated Nichols Tower in the city’s North Lawndale neighborhood. After years of decline and middle-

class flight, the neighborhood is being revitalized with new housing and opportunities.

SAIC offers art and design classes to residents, an artistin-residency program, and classrooms for SAIC degree courses. “We’ve become a very valued neighbor over the past three years,” Tenny says.

Elissa Tenny and Walter Massey also stewarded a restructure of the Career and Professional Experience office and the launch of SAIC’s Low-Residency (Low-Res) Master of Fine Arts program. This summer SAIC celebrated the graduation of its first class of Low-Res students, 35 interdisciplinary artists whose work radiates outward as they return to their homes and studios around the globe.

In reflecting on SAIC’s unique educational model, Tenny recalls a quote from the artist Anish Kapoor, who spoke of living “in a fractured world,” and believing it was his “role as an artist to attempt to make wholeness.”

“That’s where the idea of the ‘graduate citizen’ comes in,” she says. “As SAIC graduates bring their creative skills to different fields, they can go out and make the world better. They can make it more whole.”

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TH E CAMPAIG N FOR SAI C UPDATE The generosity of alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends, foundations, and corporations supports the artists, designers, and scholars who transform the world with their Beautiful/Work.

TOTAL RAISED $40.4 MILLION

GOAL $50 MILLION

TOTAL DONORS 1,599

W HO G AV E ?

ALUMNI $7.9 MILLION

BOARD MEMBERS FRIENDS $19.7 MILLION $9.3 MILLION

PARENTS $3.4 MILLION

FACULTY PROFESSORSHIPS AND AWARDS $6.8 MILLION

PROGRAMS AND DEPARTMENTS $6.9 MILLION

ANNUAL FUND $3.4 MILLION

ANNUAL GIVING

PLANNED GIVING 1866 FOUNDER’S CIRCLE

THE CA MPA I GN F OR SA I C UPDATE

BY TH E N U M B E R S

G IV I N G BY C A M PA I G N P RIO RITY

STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS $23.2 MILLION WAYS TO G I V E

CASH AND SECURITIES

Outright gifts of cash and appreciated securities (stocks, bonds, and mutual funds) can easily be donated to fund student scholarships and fellowships, faculty professorships, departments, and programs, all of which support the campaign.

Learn more at campaign.saic.edu.

SAIC’s Annual Fund provides students with financial aid, academic programming, facility enhancements, technology acquisitions and upgrades, and many other initiatives crucial to their education.

Planned gifts today will sustain SAIC well into the future. From gifts of real estate to proceeds from bequests and trusts, there are many giving options that allow you to give during your lifetime and beyond.

The 1866 Founder’s Circle honors SAIC friends and alumni who have generously included the School in their estate plans.

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MY OB SESSI ON S

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Cheryl Pope on Her Obsessions BFA 2003, MDes 2010

Fred Hampton Papaya juice CHERYL P OPE (BFA 2003, MDes 2010) had a knockout year. The artist, SAIC alum, and Assistant Professor in Fashion Design was an Artistin-Residence at the Chicago Cultural Center; she installed and exhibited work at the Poetry Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, and in spaces in Germany, Italy, Argentina, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic; and she presented a program on juvenile justice at the White House.

Born and raised in Chicago, Pope focuses on issues of power, inequality, race,

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gender, and segregation. Her ongoing project JUST YELL / POETRY as SELF DEFENSE is a collaboration with Chicago youth that uses a boxing ring as a performance space to work out conflict in nonviolent ways.

Pope is also a boxer; she won the Chicago Golden Gloves in 2014 and she teaches boxing at Franklin Street Boxing Club and Soho House Chicago.

This fall she will work as an Artist-in-Residence at SAIC’s space in Nichols Tower in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. We asked her what she is looking at, listening to, and thinking

Law Order

&

Kunlé Adeyemi about as she prepares to defend the title of “Best Year Ever.”

T V S H OWS JUST YELL poet Shaquita Reed has me watching lots of episodes of Law & Order. The show is definitely teaching me more of the language, codes, process, and order of our legal system.

DESIGN AND ARCHITEC T U RE I’m continuing to explore adaptive design, universal design, and accessible design, specifically as it pertains to people with cognitive and physical disabilities. I’ve also been researching urban planning, and I’ve been very inspired by

Nigerian architect [and 2015 SAIC visiting artist] Kunlé Adeyemi, whose work focuses on the challenges of urbanism and environmental change.

I D E A S I’m interested in the work of Fred Hampton of Black Panthers. He had ideas, answers, and systems to empower unheard voices and to position listening as a political act—ideas that need to be installed and used today.

F O O D A ND DRINK I just had fresh papaya juice for the first time in the Dominican Republic, and now I want some every day!

Class Notes

Robert Indiana’s (BFA 1954) Year of Meteors was featured in an article in the Wall Street Journal published on January 15.

Joe Sedelmaier (BFA 1955) was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame on April 11.

1970s

Diane Simpson (BFA 1971, MFA 1978) returned to SAIC on April 5 to give a lecture as part of the Visiting Artists Program’s Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series.

Laurie Fendrich (MFA 1978) was named a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow.

Robert Storr (MFA 1978) was named a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow.

1980s

Morgan Puett (BFA 1981, MFA 1984) was named a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow.

Henry O’Toole (MFA 1989) was named a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow.

Dread Scott (BFA 1989) returned to SAIC on February 15 to give a lecture discussing “issues of race, incarceration, war, government, repression, and revolution.”

1990s

Michael Ashkin (MFA 1993) exhibited his photography series Dismal Dreaming at Cathouse Proper in New York on April 22.

Kori Newkirk (BFA 1993) was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times in an article printed on January 11.

Isaac Leung (BFA 2002) was featured in a Q&A with Time Out Hong Kong published March 25.

James Marshall (BFA 1995), who paints under the name “Dalek,” was the subject of a Crave profile published June 6.

Margaret Overton (MFA 2002) and her second memoir Hope for a Cool Pillow were profiled in the Chicago Tribune on March 3.

Charles Irvin (MFA 1997) was the subject of an article published May 5 from the special series “City of the Seekers” on The Creators Project.

Amanda Ross-Ho (BFA 1998) was featured in ARTnews on April 22, where her work was described as “deconstruction and a careful examination of myriad complexities.”

2000s

Paul Catanese’s (MFA 2000) residency and exhibition, Visible From Space (2009–present), opened at the Chicago Cultural Center on July 8 and runs through September 27.

Athanasia Kyriakakos (MFA 2000) was named Baltimore City Schools 2016 Teacher of the Year.

Tania Bruguera (MFA 2001, HON 2016) spoke to Public Radio International in March about President Obama’s visit to Cuba, her detainment by the Cuban government in 2015, and her most recent project—the Institute of Activism—which she is currently funding through a Kickstarter campaign. This May, Bruguera talked about her recent work between arts and activism as SAIC’s 2016 Commencement Speaker.

Sheree Hovsepian (MFA 2002) was featured in the Creators Project on June 6.

Karen Tam (MFA 2002) was one of five finalists nominated on March 22 for the prestigious Contemporary Art Award offered by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.

Jaye Rhee’s (MFA 2003) exhibition Making is Thinking is Making: la Corea a Milano ran at Triennale di Milano from April through September.

Ben Skinner (MFA 2003) was profiled in Crave, an online publication for men, on June 27.

Julia Rhoads (MFA 2004) is the founder and Artistic Director of Lucky Plush Productions. Lucky Plush won the 2016 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, a $200,000 grant that positions organizations for long-term growth.

Wu Tsang (BFA 2004) was named a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow.

Saya Woolfalk (MFA 2004) sat down with the Huffington Post for a Q&A interview published on June 10.

Héctor Arce-Espasas (BFA 2005) ran his solo exhibition Bread and Circuses at Taymour Grahne Gallery in New York.

Garland Martin Taylor’s (BA 2005, MA 2007) Conversation Piece was displayed in the Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in February.

Scheherazade Tillet (MA 2005) was named as SAIC’s first Artist-in-Residence at Homan Square. As part of her residency, she produced the traveling exhibition Black Girlhood, which began at Columbia University in New York City in April and will end in Chicago in 2017.

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The Guardian profiled SAIC alum Maura Brewer (BFA 2006) on June 2. The article featured Brewer’s artist collective, the Rational Dress Society, which includes Fashion, Body and Garment faculty member Abigail Glaum-Lathbury (BFA 2006), and their current project JUMPSUIT. Leigh Cox’s (BFA 2006) hip-hop illustrations were used throughout comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s film Keanu, which premiered on March 13.

Jason Foumberg (MFA 2006) published a piece in Chicago Magazine on April 6 about SAIC’s Institute of Failure course. Foumberg also highlights the ways that SAIC alumni reimagine this coursework in their own teaching practices.

Chelsea Culprit (BFA 2007) and Ben Foch (SAIC 1995–99) received a grant from the Graham Foundation to curate the exhibition Cross-Sections: Four Views of Emerging Artists and Architects in collaboration with other artists.

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CL ASS N OTES

Clockwise from left: Tania Bruguera, Julia Rhoads, Scheherazade Tillet

Ilan Gutin (MFA 2014) participated in the three-person show There Was No Joy in the Brilliance of Sunshine at Efrain Lopen Gallery on May 27.

Tina Tahir (MA 2015) was selected for the New Materiality artist-in-residence program at the Banff Centre (BAiR) in Canada.

Michal Lynn Shumate’s (MA 2016) article “Color as Concept: from International Klein Blue to Viktor & Rolf’s ‘Bluescreen’” is forthcoming in the book Colors in Fashion (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).

Martine Syms’s (BFA 2007) video piece She Mad: Laughing Gas was a part of the Hammer Museum’s third biennial titled Made in L.A. Syms was also featured in Interview Magazine’s “the 16 Faces of 2016.”

Sebastian Alvarez (BFA 2009; MFA 2011), Yoni Goldstein (MFA 2009), and Meredith Zielke (MFA 2010) were the recipients of a Graham Foundation grant to create their documentary film A Machine to Live In. Joseph Belknap (MFA 2009) and Sarah Belknap (MFA 2010) this spring opened their exhibition, Slow Stretch, along with Eileen Rae Walsh at the Pilsen-based Mana Contemporary Chicago. The show was organized by Third Object, a curatorial collective consisting of Raven Falquez Munsell (Dual MA 2014) and Gan Uyeda (Dual MA 2014).

Alicia Chester (BFA 2003, MA 2010) was awarded a Mellon Digital Humanities Fellowship for 2016–18 at the University of Rochester, where she is a PhD student in Visual and Cultural Studies.

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Abigail Satinsky (MA 2009) received the 2016 Art Journal Award for her text Movement Building for Beginners published in Art Journal last fall.

Sebastian Vallejo (MFA 2009) had his first solo museum exhibition Paramnesia at the Museo del Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

2010s

David Harper’s (MFA 2011) solo exhibition My Own Personal Ghost was on view at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan this summer.

Anthony Romero (MFA 2011) was awarded a MAP Fund grant in collaboration with Mexico City-based dance company Teatro Línea de Sombra (TLS).

Ben Thorp Brown (MFA 2012) received one of Creative Capital’s $50,000 direct funding awards for Performing Arts.

Paula Crown’s (MFA 2012) April exhibition at the GossMichael Foundation was the subject of an article in the April 7 Dallas Morning News.

Josh Reames (MFA 2012) collaborated with SAIC Associate Professor José Lerma on He Hath Founded It Upon the Seas,

an exhibition of two large-scale paintings at Los Angeles’ Luis De Jesus Gallery on January 30.

David Alekhuogie (BFA 2013) discussed his BOLT artist residency at the Chicago Artist Coalition and his solo exhibition A Thin Blue Line in an interview with Time Out magazine, published February 9.

Rashayla Marie Brown (BFA 2013) and South Side Community Art Center’s (SSCAC) Executive Director Masequa Myers cocurated Shared History, an exhibition celebrating the shared past and collaborations between SSCAC and SAIC. The exhibition, which was open to the public from April 22 through June 19, displayed work by SAIC alumni and students at the historic center.

Anastasia Douka (MFA 2013) was selected by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès for its residency program this summer at the John Lobb workshop in Northampton, England. This prestigious program supports artists through direct funding for the production of new works.

Norman Teague (MFA 2016) was included in the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s (CAF) exhibition 50 Designers, 50 Ideas, 50 Wards.

If you would like to be included in Class Notes, send your professional or personal accomplishments such as exhibitions, publications, lectures, new additions to your family, or marriages to alumni@saic.edu. Use the hashtag #SAICalumni on public posts in your own social media channels to be featured on saic.edu/alumni.

A LU MNI EVE NTS Alumni Weekend 2016 September 23–25 Planned to coincide with EXPO CHICAGO, Alumni Weekend welcomes you back to campus to reconnect and celebrate the many achievements of our talented and diverse alumni community.

SAIC Reception Saturday, September 24 7:00– 9:00 p.m.

Brass Monkey at Morgan Manufacturing, 401 N. Morgan St. Visit saic.edu/alumni for a full schedule of events and to register.

SAIC in Miami During Art Basel Miami Beach 2016 Friday, December 2 7:00–9:00 p.m.

Sagamore Hotel, Miami Beach SAIC invites you to celebrate alumni and faculty participating in the Miami art fairs.

Exhibitions at SAIC are a significant resource for the School community and the city at large. The Sullivan Galleries, Student Union Galleries, and other temporary locations on and off campus are engaged as sites of interaction, experimentation, and dialogue among students, faculty, and alumni, as well as places for collaboration with Chicago’s artists and other cultural institutions. Exhibitions are free.

S ULLIVAN GALLERI E S 33 S. State St., 7th floor saic.edu/exhibitions 312.629.6635

Gallery Hours Tuesday–Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.

Closed November 24–28 and December 23–January 1 Painting in Time: Part Two Through December 3 Reception: Friday, September 23, 6:00–9:00 p.m.

Hélio Labs Through December 17 Reception: Friday, September 23, 6:00–9:00 p.m.

Micromodern Memories Tokyo and Chicago Through October 1

Faculty Projects September 19–October 15 Reception: Friday, September 23, 6:00–9:00 p.m.

Fall BFA Show November 19–December 9 Reception: Saturday, November 19, 12:00–6:00 p.m.

Sunday, September 25, 2016 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Publication as Exhibition 1:00–2:00 p.m. Pablo León de la Barra, In Conversation

SA I C BO OTH AT E XP O Curated by Edra Soto (MFA 2000) September 22–25 Navy Pier

Nataliya Kotlova, Yesenia Bello, 2016. Installation view from 2016 BFA Show

/ D IALO G U E S AT E X P O CHI CAG O Presented in partnership with EXPO CHICAGO, /Dialogues offers panel discussions, conversations and provocative artistic discourse with leading artists, curators, designers and arts professionals on the current issues that engage them. /Dialogues takes place at EXPO CHICAGO on Navy Pier. For more information, visit expochicago.com/_dialogues.

Friday, September 23 11:30 a.m. The New Global Economy: Contemporary Art from Africa and its Diaspora in the Marketplace 1:00–2:00 p.m. Documenta 14, Looking South 2:30–3:00 p.m. A History of Performance in 20 Minutes 3:30 p.m. Conceptual Paradise

5:30 p.m. ART & LANGUAGE: Conceptualism and Rock & Roll Saturday, September 24, 2016 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. EXPO VIDEO, Ghost in Screen 1:00–2:00 p.m. Hans Ulrich Obrist, In Conversation with Joseph Grigely

New Work September 19–October 15 Reception: Friday, September 23, 6:00–9:00 p.m.

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2:30–3:30 p.m. Curating in Place

4:30 p.m. Keynote: ART & LANGUAGE

Jiangshen Huang and Yi-wen Wang, rubbing from course workshop, 2016

5:30–6:30 p.m. Aperture Live: On the Direct Gaze

2:30 p.m. MCA Presents: Kerry James Marshall In Conversation with Sarah Thornton 4:00–5:00 p.m. Picturing Punk: The Legacy of Mark Morrisroe

S T U D E NT U N I O N GA LLE RIE S ( S U GS ) SAIC’s student-run Student Union Galleries (SUGs) provide the public with experimental exhibitions of student work in two locations on campus: the LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery and Gallery X.

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Exhibitions

Learn more at saic.edu/sugs.

The LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery 37 S. Wabash Ave., suite 106 Gallery X 280 S. Columbus Dr., room 113 Gallery Hours Monday–Friday, 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.

Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

Alternate hours by appointment.

De Nue Through September 25 Reception: Friday, September 2, 4:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery 37 S. Wabash Ave. Talking Points October 13–November 2 Reception: Thursday, October 13, 4:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery 37 S. Wabash Ave. Sensory Garden November 3–22 Reception: Thursday, November 3, 4:00 p.m.

Gallery X, 280 S. Columbus Dr., room 113 Of Roses and Jessamine November 17–December 11 Reception: Thursday, November 17, 4:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery 37 S. Wabash Ave.

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Q&A with Jenny Perlin

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Jenny Perlin (MFA 1998) is an artist and filmmaker who incorporates innovative stylistic techniques to emphasize truth, misunderstanding, and personal history in her films, videos, installations, and drawings.

Perlin has exhibited her work internationally, including at MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Guangzhou Triennial.

On October 6, she returns to SAIC as part of the Conversations at the Edge series for a screening of The Perlin Papers: a Series of Eight Films.

What was SAIC’s Film, Video, New Media, and Animation (FVNMA) department like in the late ‘90s?

I chose 16mm as a medium because I was interested in conversations between analog film and visual art. At that time there wasn’t much space in the art world for film or video, and I wanted to try and bridge that in my work. SAIC had a strong film culture because of its history and the founding of the department. Of course everyone knew things were moving toward the digital, but the craft of learning 16mm is such a good education for every manner of working digitally that it seemed extremely useful to workOF that way.

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THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

What was most influential about your time at SAIC? What transformed my practice was an atmosphere that combined rigor and experimentation, an emphasis on detail, and an immersion in how to hear and respond to challenging questions.

I learned in darkrooms, screening rooms, and the Steenbeck editing rooms. I got to be a TA and observe teaching methods. I’d pore over artists’ books in the library’s collection, and I could wander in the museum to my heart’s content and spend time with artworks I’d only seen in reproduction.

How has your practice evolved?

When I was in college, I had an old Nikon camera. I went for walks and took lots of pictures. One day, an old guy started talking to me, and I asked him if I could take some pictures. I kept snapping as he talked, and when I printed the contact sheets, I saw it right there: not one picture of an iconic moment, but a whole series of stills—a film.

I remember thinking: “I have to do this.” Same feeling when handling that strange unwieldy film camera, the Bolex. Same feeling when seeing great films, knowing there were people out there who could bring it all together: words, photography, music, sound, history, feeling, and contemporary life.

Over time, I’ve become more flexible in my art-making and increasingly tolerant of the uncertainty that comes throughout the process. I used to think that everything had to fit into one piece. Now I know that the current project is going to feed many works over time.

Lectures

VI S I T I N G A R T I S TS P RO G R A M Formalized in 1951 with the establishment of an endowed fund by Flora Mayer Witkowsky, the Visiting Artists Program (VAP) hosts public presentations by some of today’s most compelling practitioners and thinkers to foster a greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and culture. All events are free, non-ticketed, and open to the public. Learn more at saic.edu/vap or 312.899.5185.

Cao Fei Thursday, September 1, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Museum Education

Cao Fei (SL avatar: China Tracy), RMB City: A Second Life City Planning, 2007-2011, video, 6 feet. Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space

Fischerspooner: Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series Wednesday, September 21, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Office of Alumni Relations

CO N VE RSATI O N S ON A R T A N D SC I E NC E Under the leadership of former SAIC President and current Chancellor Walter Massey, the Conversations on Art and Science series launched in 2011 as a forum for exploring interdisciplinary and critical perspectives on art, science, design, and technology. Lectures and panel discussions bring noted artists, designers, and scholars to campus to discuss myriad perspectives on art, science, design, and technology and sustain the diverse conversations within the work of SAIC students and faculty. All events are free, non-ticketed, and open to the public. Learn more at saic.edu/artandscience.

Tal R Tuesday, October 4, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Department of Painting and Drawing Juliana Huxtable Tuesday, October 11, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr.

Caroline Bergvall, DRIFT, 2012 – 14. Live work for solo voice, percussion and digital text work. Ingar Zach (sound composition), Thomas Köppel (Datawork), duration: 90 minutes. Photo: The Forge, London, Josh Redmon

TH E G R AYC E S LOVE T A N D WI LLIA M BRO N SO N M ITCH E L L LEC T U RE S E RI E S

Juliana Huxtable, There Are Certain Facts That Cannot Be Disputed, 2015, performance documentation.

Courtesy of Julieta Cervantes/MoMA

Josh Kline Monday, October 17, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Ann Cvetkovich Wednesday, November 2, 6:00 p.m The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Caroline Bergvall Tuesday, November 15, 6:00 p.m The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr.

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO) The Mitchell Lecture Series brings leaders and emerging voices in architecture, design, and other disciplines from around the world to SAIC for lectures, workshops, and studio visits. For more info, visit saic.edu/aiado.

Mitch McEwen Thursday, October 6, 4:15 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave.

Universal Inquiry: Methods of Encounter with the Natural World Roundtable with Joey Orr, Andy Yang, and Lucianne Walkowicz Wednesday, October 5, 4:30–5:45 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave. Cosponsored by the Department of Liberal Arts

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Claudia Rankine: President’s Inaugural Distinguished Lecturer Tuesday, September 27, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Office of the President and Diversity Advisory Group

Drawing in the Nonhuman George Gessert in conversation with Eduardo Kac Thursday, October 27, 4:30–5:45 p.m.

MacLean Ballroom 112 S. Michigan Ave. Through the Quantum Looking Glass Scientist-in-Residence Gabriela Lemos in conversation with Kathryn Schaffer Wednesday, November 30, 4:30–5:45 p.m.

MacLean Ballroom 112 S. Michigan Ave.

Gaetano Pesce Thursday, October 27, 6:00 p.m.

Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Cosponsored by Luminaire Assemble Jane Hall and Alex McLean Thursday, November 10, 4:15–5:45 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave.

SAIC Scientist-in-Residence Gabriela Lemos

Pinar Yoldas Thursday, December 1, 4:15 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave. Cosponsored by the Department of Liberal Arts FA L L 2 01 6

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Screenings

CONVERSATIONS AT THE EDGE Organized by the Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Video Data Bank, Conversations at the Edge is a dynamic weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.

For more information, visit saic.edu/cate.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. 312.846.2800 siskelfilmcenter.org

Admission $11 general public $7 students $6 members $5 SAIC faculty, staff, and the Art Institute of Chicago staff Free for SAIC students Sally Cruikshank’s Cabaret Thursday, September 29, 6:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

Temporary Highs Thursday, October 13, 6:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Sara Magenheimner: Slow Zoom Long Pause Thursday, October 20, 6:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Presented in collaboration with Video Data Bank

Sara Magenheimer, still from Slow Zoom Long Pause, 2015. Image courtesy of the Video Data Bank

Nicolás Pereda: Minotaur and The Palace Thursday, October 27, 6:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Presented in collaboration with the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art Paul Kos: Sympathetic Vibrations November 3, 6:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Presented in collaboration with Video Data Bank

Brett Story: The Prison in Twelve Landscapes Thursday, November 17, 6:00 p.m.

Jenny Perlin: The Perlin Papers Thursday, October 6, 6:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

SAIC at Homan Square Open House Thursday, September 15, 4:00 p.m.

Nichols Tower 906 S. Homan Ave. Art History, Theory, and Criticism Lecture Friedrich von Borries: Design is Political Friday, September 30, 4:30 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave. Cosponsored by the Goethe Institut

Jacolby Satterwhite Thursday, November 10, 6:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

Sally Cruikshank, still from Make Me Psychic, 1978.

Image courtesy of the artist

Other Events

Text of Light and films by László Moholy-Nagy Thursday, December 1, 6:00 p.m.

Rubloff Auditorium 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago in conjuction with Moholy-Nagy: Future Perfect

New Blood X: Student Performance Festival Saturday, November 19 Links Hall 3111 N. Western Ave. linkshall.org Arts Administration and Policy Thesis Critiques December 5, 7, and 9 Sharp Building 37 S. Wabash Ave., suite 327 CPS All City Senior Exhibition 2016 Chicago Public School All-City Senior Portfolio Exhibition January 9–14, 2017 Reception: Wednesday, January 11, 5:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery 37 S. Wabash Ave.

From the Archives

ROBERT LOESCHER (1937–2007) was a well–known art historian, beloved educator, and lively lecturer who taught at SAIC from 1972–2006.

During his tenure, Loescher renamed the department, formerly Art History and Aesthetics, to Art History, Theory, and Criticism to widen the field of study and recruit students who favored theory over studio practice. He also developed social issue–based classes that addressed the importance of culture and gender in art.

Loescher was known and loved for his Survey of Art History lectures, which he taught to more than 9,000 students over his 30-year career.

According to an F Newsmagazine article, “Lecturing, for Loescher, was a whirlwind event of images, associations, stories, quotes, and anecdotes, the experience of which was recounted by almost every speaker of the day.”

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Robert Loescher teaching an Art History class at Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery

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37 South Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60603

On campaign.saic.edu Maryiah Winding (BFA 2017), a recipient of the Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship, discusses SAIC’s impact on her artistic growth, exploring different media, and her dream of developing a rap therapy program to help youth deal with trauma. Watch the video to learn more about Winding’s story and the Beautiful/Work campaign, which ensures that students like her have access to an SAIC education.

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