MODERN MONDAYS
Gallery talks every Monday 4:30-5:30 p.m.
September 14-December 14
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Sullivan Galleries, 33 S. State Street, 7th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603

This series of gallery talks and round-table conversations features artists, architects, designers, curators, and scholars discussing the artworks and salient themes echoed throughout the "Learning Modern" exhibition: perception, experience, and the place of pedagogy. This show is on view in SAIC Sullivan Galleries from September 26, 2009 to January 9, 2010.

Lecture podcasts will be available online at: www.saic.edu/modernpodcasts
Modern Mondays are free and open to the public. Espresso available courtesy of illy caffè North America, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 14
"Catherine Yass’s Suspensions"
Michael Newman, SAIC Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism

Newman considers the dramatic slowing of time as a way of revealing space and context in the film, video, and photography of British artist Catherine Yass.

SEPTEMBER 21
"Modern Muse: Claire McCardell, American fashion designer"
Sandra Michel Adams, SAIC Instructor, Art History, Theory, and Criticism
Gillion Carrara, SAIC Adjunct Professor, Art History, Theory, and Criticism and Director, Fashion Resource Center

Claire McCardell (1905 - 1958), ingenious in her efficient use of materials, ushered in a new era of functional garments to match the lifestyle of the new modern woman. This conversation will examine her foundational concepts that run parallel to modernist art and architecture.

SEPTEMBER 28
"Modernity Retired"
Staffan Schmidt, artist
Anders Nereim, SAIC Professor, Architecture

Swedish artist Staffan Schmidtasked five octogenarians--Chicago architects Alfonso Cararra, Natalie de Blois, Ken Isaacs, Gertrude Kerbis, and Peter Roesch--"What was modernity like when it was new?" This conversation considers their stories in the context of Chicago, a quintessential modern city.

OCTOBER 5
"Moholy and Mies as Inspiration"
Carole Frances Lung, a.k.a. Frau Fiber, artist
Carla Duarte, artist

Using tactility to experience history, textiles are the primary medium for recalling and re-imagining the work of László Moholy-Nagy, Mies van der Rohe, and Lilly Reich in the installations Manufacturing Moholy in Weimar and Key Notes.

OCTOBER 12
"In Light of Moholy-Nagy"
Helen Maria Nugent, SAIC Associate Professor and Director, Designed Objects
Jan Tichy, artist
Carol Ehlers, Adjunct Professor, Columbia College Chicago

Sharing reflections on the experimental light work of László Moholy-Nagy, Nugent and Tichy discuss their collaborative installation, Delineations. They are joined by Ehlers, guest curator for "Moholy: An Education of the Senses" (opening February 2010 at Loyola University Museum of Art).

OCTOBER 19
"View-master and the Art of Industrial Design"
Charles Harrison, designer and SAIC Instructor, Designed Objects
Martin Thaler, designer and Associate Professor, Institute of Design, IIT

Both speakers redesigned the View-Master: Harrison transforming earlier versions into the object we recognize today; Thaler reimagining it on its 50th anniversary. While sharing their experiences within the history of this iconic toy, they also provide insight into the design process under the governance of industry.

OCTOBER 26
"Always After (The Glass House)"
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, artist
Lisa Dorin Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, The Art Institute of Chicago

Manglano-Ovalle’s film, Always After (The Glass House), abstractly chronicles a recent jarring moment in Mies van der Rohe’s architecture. Dorin and the artist discuss the foundations of this work and its recent acquisition by the Art Institute.

NOVEMBER 2
"Mind-Mapping Modernity"
Mika Hannula, Professor in Artistic Research, University of Göteborg, Sweden

This presentation--as much performance as academic lecture--traces connections between theories of modernity and their evolution over time in a mind-mapping exercise.

NOVEMBER 9
"Bio-line"
Walter Hood, Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, UC Berkeley
Christy Matson, SAIC Assistant Professor, Fiber and Material Studies
Andrew Yang, SAIC Assistant Professor, Liberal Arts and Visual and Critical Studies

A landscape architect, a specialist in textile patterning, and a research biologist deploy their collective expertise to analyze the issues of fabrication, aesthetics, and symbiosis that are integral to the design and function of Bio-Line, an interior-systems prototype.

NOVEMBER 16
"Knowledge Box Re-created"
Ken Isaacs, architect and designer
Victor Margolin, Professor Emeritus, Design History, University of Illinois, Chicago
Susan Snodgrass, project curator, and SAIC Department of Sculpture and New Arts Journalism Program

This panel considers the history of Isaacs’s work and its current presentation: Knowledge Box, an immersive learning environment originally constructed in 1962; and populist-oriented design for "Living Structures," reinterpreted here by a student team from SAIC.

NOVEMBER 23
"Modern Technologies"
Mark Anderson, artist
John Manning, SAIC Associate Professor, Art and Technology
Douglas Pancoast, SAIC Associate Professor and Director, Architecture

New technologies that are revolutionizing the capabilities and intersections of architectural and artistic practice--hallmarks of the modern world--will be discussed in relationship to Infinite Sprawl, an installation allowing visitors to manipulate an ever-changing digital cityscape.

NOVEMBER 30
"EUREKA! What Was Going On In Mohol-Nagy’s Brain When He Changed Strategies and Designed the Bauhaus Curriculum?"
Ronald Jones, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Konstfack, University College of Art, Stockholm

Creative decision making nearly always produces an interdisciplinary mapping of ideas in the brain as you come to a "breakthrough and creative" decision. This talk looks at Moholy-Nagy’s pedagogical diagram as Jones considers how artists think creatively.

DECEMBER 7
"The Modern Art Institute"
James Cuno, President and Eloise W. Martin Director, The Art Institute of Chicago

What does it mean to be modern now? With the recent opening of the Renzo Piano Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, President and Director Cuno shares his views of modernism and the museum’s latest transformations.

DECEMBER 14
"Non-Miesian Modernity and Messy Modern"
Ben Nicholson, SAIC Associate Professor, Architecture
Jacquelynn Baas, independent scholar and Director Emeritus, Berkeley Art Museum

This conversation departs from the established canon to consider alternate "non-Miesian" and "messy" narratives of modernism, suggesting how shifts of historical perspective change our perception of key historic works and those on view in "Learning Modern."