About this Event
Join us as Maria Gaspar presents her artistic practice as well as a live sound performance with invited guests, as an accompaniment to Gaspar’s presentation, Force of Things, a commission for Something Beautiful: Reframing La Colección. As part of Gaspar’s ongoing investigations of carcerality, presence, and penal matter, the sonic improvisation attempts to transfigure materials that confine into materials that liberate. The audience is invited to witness how J*il debris (bars collected from the Cook County of Corrections in Chicago) can be released through the act of touch and vibrations.
Something Beautiful: Reframing La Colección will be on view prior to the artist talk from 4-6pm on this day.
ABOUT THE COMMISSION
The demolition of a detention facility is the central component of Maria Gaspar’s presentation in Room 110, commissioned to respond to the multiple urban narratives found throughout Something Beautiful. The extended passage of time in this large-scale projection reflects on how the city is perceived from inside and outside the Pr*son, while the ultimate destruction of the building suggests the need for realized abolition. The accompanying sculptural and photographic installations were created from debris salvaged from the site. Their open-ended configurations transform these charged materials into both mementos and poetic construction elements to build a more just future.
ABOUT MARIA GASPAR
Maria Gaspar is a Chicago-born interdisciplinary artist whose practice addresses issues of spatial justice to amplify, mediate, or divert structures of power through individual and collective gestures. Gaspar is the recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship for the Creative Arts, Latinx Artist Fellowship, United States Artists Fellowship, Frieze Impact Prize, Art Matters Award, Imagining Justice Art Grant, Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant, and Creative Capital Award. Gaspar has exhibited at venues including MoMA PS1, New York, NY; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and the Abroms-Engle Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL. She is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, holds an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
El Museo del Barrio, 1230 5th Avenue, New York, United States
USD 0.00