Join us for art making, open studios, performances, and celebrations for our exhibitions, Language Between Worlds, Lola Ayisha Ogbara: Hues of Black & Blue, a solo exhibition by former Ceramics Apprentice, Lola Ogbara, our Teen exhibition, Lemme Know When You Make It and Toolbox @ Twenty: The Seldoms.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/center-days-tickets-389716571757

Exhibition Celebrations for Toolbox @ Twenty, Hues of Black & Blue, and The Language Between Worlds

1-4pm

Join us to celebrate our latest exhibitions! Meet some of the artists and curators to learn more about the work featured in our Fall shows. 

Toolbox @ Twenty
Experimental dance company, The Seldoms reinvigorates their program by partnering with visual artists to create unique multidisciplinary art installations activated by choreographed bodies. Titled Toolbox, the program pairs a dancer with an artist to collaborate on a new combined work and share their processes, techniques, and creative values with one another. This performative installation and exhibition marks the Seldoms’ twentieth year of performance in Chicago.

Hues of Black & Blue
Hues of Black & Blue presents new work by artist Lola Ayisha Ogbara made during her year-long Ceramics Apprenticeship at the Art Center in 2021. Using familiar and unfamiliar spatial aesthetics while pointing out the complexities of emotion, Ogbara resists the flattening of Black feminine identity and reinforces its intersectional dynamism by complicating gazes that reinforce systems of oppression.

The Language Between Worlds
The Language between Worlds addresses the hidden directives that have historically pervaded American culture to instruct and perpetuate discrimination.  Nyame Brown, Bethany Collins, Nicole Marroquin, Chris Pappan and Jessica Vaughn devise their own language of symbols, visual cues, and narrative structures that highlight the racial inequality consciously and unconsciously woven into American society.

Dance Performances by The Seldoms for Toolbox @ Twenty

1:30 & 3pm

In conjunction with Toolbox @ Twenty exhibition, experimental dance company, The Seldoms will present a series of dance performances from their Toolbox program that invites visual artists to create unique multidisciplinary art installations. 

Black and Blue Hues Artist Presentation with Lola Ayisha Ogbara

1 – 1:45pm 

Join exhibiting artist Lola Ayisha Ogbara in a short presentation about the inspiration behind her practice and the work featured in her solo exhibition “Hues of Black & Blue” currently on display in Gallery 2 and Cleve Carney Gallery. 

“My practice explores the multifaceted implications and ramifications of being in regards to the Black experience. I work with clay as a material in order to emphasize a necessary fragility which symbolizes an essential contradiction implicit in empowerment.”

Bio: Lola Ayisha Ogbara is a cultural worker and artist born and raised in Chicago who holds many talents under her belt, experienced in sculpture, sound, design, photography and installation art. Ogbara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Entertainment & Media Management from Columbia College Chicago and a MFA in Visual Arts from Washington University Sam Fox School of Art & Design. Ogbara has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Arts + Public Life and Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture Residency at the University of Chicago, Chicago Artists Coalition Coney Family Fund Award and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Esteemed Artist Award. Ogbara has exhibited in art spaces across the country and is currently based in Chicago.

Hues of Homeplace: Ceramics Workshop with Lola Ayisha Ogbara

2 – 3:30pm

Join our 2021 Ceramics Apprentice Lola Ayisha Ogbara, for a ceramic workshop that decorates homeplace. Create family picture frames, decorative trays, and trinkets that commemorate and set the tone for your altar, mantle, or domestic space. Registration is required for this workshop as space is limited. Register here. 

Creative Wing Open Studios with Resident Artists

1-4pm

Come and meet artists working in our Jackman Goldwasser Creative Wing! Radicle resident artists include Regina Agu, Joseph Lefthand, and Robert Earl Paige Exhibition Development resident Artist is Edra Soto, our Flex Resident is Bun Stout, and our International Visiting Resident Artist is Kelvin Haziel (from Accra, Ghana). 

Artful Aging Art Making Activity: Create your own Custom Stamp 

1-4pm 

Join Teaching Artist Lisa Tasner for a drop in intergenerational workshop on how to create your own custom stamps using recycled materials and paint.

Art Making Activity: Create your own Xerox Collage
1-4pm 

Join The Language Between Worlds, Exhibition Artist, Nicole Marroquin, for a drop in workshop and create your own xerox collage inspired by her work featured in the exhibition.

Bio: Nicole Marroquin is a teacher, educator, and artist whose work explores belonging and spatial justice. She has been researching student uprisings in Chicago Public Schools dating between 1967-74. In 2018 she participated in a Project Development Innovation Lab at the Magnum Foundation, and in 2017 she was in-residence at the Chicago Cultural Center where she worked with youth to create Future Community, which she exhibited at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum in 2019.