Chicago symposium notes
Symposium links:Some confirmed participants for this symposium are:
Lauren Bon http://www.notacornfield.com/ http://www.laurenbon.com/
George Herms (for Lauren Bon)http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles2005/Articles0305/GHermsA.html
Tara Donovan
http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/46/ http://www.pacewildenstein.com/Exhibitions/ViewExhibition.aspx?guid=d047796a-b6bb-4b44-93f5-aad021f7b959
http://www.artcritical.com/gelber/EGDonovan.htm
http://mocoloco.com/art/archives/001293.php
Sarah Dunn
http://www.urbanlab.com/
Ann Hamilton
Maya Lin
Nils Norman:
http://www.dismalgarden.org/ - exploding school
http://artforum.com/index.php?pn=interview&id=2281 artforum interview
David Opdyke (unconfirmed)
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/33822
http://corcoran.org/exhibitions/previous_results.asp?Exhib_ID=96
Dan Peterman
Sergio Vega
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/17248
http://www.arts.ufl.edu/art/Personality/faculty/bio.asp?PID=44
http://www.bombsite.com/issues/74/articles/2352
Christine Wertheim http://www.calarts.edu/faculty_bios/criticalstudies/faculty/christinewertheim/christinewertheim
Margaret Wertheim http://www.theiff.org/
Paul Wittenbraker
Please be prepared to give a brief introduction of your work and it's relation to climate change.
Maya Lin
Ann Hamilton
Roni Horn
Dan Peterman
Sarah Dunn
James Rondeau
Nils Norman
Christine and Margaret Wertheim
Sergio Vega
Nils Norman:
http://www.dismalgarden.org/ - exploding school
http://artforum.com/index.php?pn=interview&id=2281 artforum interview
Below is an brief breakdown of the Artists' Symposium on Climate Change and the events surrounding it this Friday, October 26th.
(Some of you also received other versions of this note...sorry for the deluge of information!)
If I haven't heard from you this week please be so kind as to re-confirm your attendance.
Also, please let me know if you have any special needs.
12:30pm Arrive at Gallery 400 (the Humanities Festival has arranged transportation for those coming from the Seneca)
1:pm The Symposium begins
2pm Break, 15 min (snacks, coffee & water provided)
4pm The Symposium ends
5pm Visions of Concern, opening at David Weinberg Gallery (transportation from Gallery 400 to Weinberg Gallery provided) (food and drink provided)
8pm Reception at Experimental Station, hosted by Dan Peterman (transportation to ES provided by Weinberg Gallery) (food & drink provided)
Confirmed participants for this symposium are:
Ren Weschler (co-moderator)
Judith Kirshner (co-moderator)
Tara Donovan
Sarah Dunn
Ann Hamilton
George Herms (for Lauren Bon)
Maya Lin
David Opdyke (unconfirmed)
Dan Peterman
Sergio Vega
Christine Wertheim
Margaret Wertheim
Paul Wittenbraker
We look forward to seeing you!
Call or email me with any questions,
Julie
(312) 996-2006
Directions to Gallery 400:
http://www.uic.edu/aa/college/gallery400/05_info.htm
Dear Paul,
We are writing to invite you to participate in a very special Artists' Symposium on Friday, October 26, at the beginning of this year's Chicago Humanities Festival (October 27th to November 11th), three weeks during which hundreds of artists, scholars, poets, playwrights, historians, dancers, and musicians will converge to publicly confront this year's theme, The Climate of Concern—the questions and prospects raised, that is, by the gathering worldwide environmental crisis.
The symposium, a small gathering of about thirty invited guests and graduate students (not open to the public), will convene as a sidebar to
the Festival at the University of Illinios’ College of Architecture and the Arts, Gallery 400. Confirmed participants thus far include Maya Lin, Ann Hamilton, Roni Horn and more are currently being invited. (Among those we are inviting, in addition to you, are Dan Peterman, Sarah Dunn, James Rondeau, Nils Norman, Christine and Margaret Wertheim, Sergio Vega and others.)
Your first response to our invitation may be that you have not given that much concerted thought to this issue. The point of our symposium, in a way, is that none of us have thought as much or as deeply about the questions it provokes as we should. One of the purposes of the symposium will be to develop fresh ways of framing questions regarding the unprecedented extent of human manipulation of Earth's fundamental systems. We expect the discussion to be wide-ranging. Lawrence Weschler, Chicago Humanities Festival director has suggested that some questions spring immediately to mind.
“In all likelihood, the actual prospect facing humanity, even in the event of cascading ecological calamities, is less one of complete extinction than of a massive dying-off, ending in a radically diminished (though not entirely obliterated) natural provenance. What sorts of consolation, vision, perspective, continuity, might artistic practice hope to provide across such a transition? What could or ought be salvaged? For example, is there something special about continued human existence that makes the prospect of human extinction (or shall we say the prospect of the extinction of self-aware consciousness) worse than the extinction, say, of a species of plants or animals? What will become of our sense of history, identity, and our relations to the natural world? In addition to these questions, climate change of course also provokes deeps concerns about architecture and environmentalism, as well as epistemological questions about the nature of knowledge regarding highly complex systems to which much of our access is highly inferential and abstract. How ought cultural education today—both at the highest professional levels and in the context of broader humanistic dialogues and artistic practices—perhaps be altered in order to address these issues?”
In addition to an afternoon’s stimulating discussion, we can cover your travel expenses, a modest per diem, and one night's accommodation. May I remind you that on Thursday November 1st, there will be an important original lecture, glancing on some of these themes, by Peter Singer. Other presenters that weekend will include such prominent artists and scholars as Bill McKibben, Philip Pullman, W. S. Merwin, Diane Ackerman, Garry Wills, Ha Jin, Mark Hertsgaard, Terry Tempest Williams, Michael Lesy, Gretel Ehrlich, and E.L. Doctorow, among many others.
I would appreciate your letting me know at your earliest convenience whether you can accept our invitation. Please feel free to contact any of us for further information.
All best wishes,
Judith Russi Kirshner