For immediate release
February 3, 2003
Contacts: Paige Sarlin 773-235-3187, psarli@artic.edu;
Steve Balkin 312-341-3696, mar@topicbox.com;
Brian Flood - School of the Art Institute 312-899-5159
Art
Exhibition and Panel Discussions on Artist/Bluesman Frank Scott Jr. and the
Struggle To Preserve Maxwell Street
An
art exhibition on the work of Folk Artist and Chicago Bluesman, Frank 'Little
Sonny' Scott Jr. and its relation to the Struggle to Preserve
Maxwell Street will be held from Wednesday, February 19 through to Sunday, February 23
at the 1926 Exhibition Studies Space, an exhibition space of the School of the
Art Institute. This is located at 1926
North Halsted Street on the Near North side of Chicago.
75
year old Frank Scott Jr. is a blues musicians and self-taught artist whose
career and life was spent in and around the Maxwell Street Market and
neighborhood. This exhibition will feature his collage work which depicts the
music and market history as well as the un-successful fight to preserve Maxwell
Street from destruction and development. Up until now, Scott has shown his work
alongside the recently re-located Maxwell Street Hot Dog Stands on Union
Street near Roosevelt Rd.. This exhibition will be his first gallery
show, especially apropos given that the 1926 Exhibition Space is also home to
the Roger Brown Study Collection, which contains many objects that were found
at Maxwell Street.
Gallery
hours will be Wednesday through Friday, from 3:00
to 7:00pm; and Saturday and Sunday
from 1:00 - 6:00pm. An opening
Blues celebration will occur on Friday, February 21, from 6pm to 9pm. Frank Scott Jr. will
perform at the opening with The Motavations Blues Band, and Maxwell Street
Polish Sausages will be served. For more
information call 773-665-4802.
In
addition to the art exhibition, there will be two panels, one prior to the
exhibition on Thursday, February 13 and the other on closing day, Sunday,
February 23. These panels are intended
to tell the story of Maxwell Street
and the fight to preserve it as well as its influence on the work of Chicago
artists (self-taught and otherwise). All
events are free and open to the public.
Panel One: Thursday, February 13 starting at
6pm, at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Auditorium, 280
South Columbus Drive
The
title of this first panel is "The Struggle to Preserve Maxwell
Street:
Historic Preservation's Role in the Process of Urban History and
Development".
The
moderator will be Jim Peters of Landmarks Preservation Council of
Illinois. Panelists will include authors
of two recent books about Maxwell Street: Lori Grove
and Laura Kamedulksi (co-authors of "Maxwell Street Chicago"), and Carolyn
Eastwood (author of "Near West Side Stories: Struggles
for Community in Chicago’s Maxwell Street Neighborhood"), William Adelman,
Emeritius Professor, University of Illinois's Institute for Labor and
Industrial Relations, and John Betancur, Professor of Urban Planning and Policy
at University of Illinois of Chicago.
This
panel will attempt to answer the questions:
What was Maxwell Street?
What forces and conditions made it possible for Maxwell
Street to be destroyed? What were the preservation and activist strategies
used in the fight to save Maxwell Street? Why did they fail? What role does Historic Preservation play in
urban development? Can landmarking and
historic preservation of architecture and built environments be used to save
neighborhoods and communities? Are there
any strategies that have worked to "preserve" places/spaces that are
as defined by activity and community as by the architecture and built
environment?
Panel Two: Sunday, February 23 starting at 2pm, at Intuit Gallery, Gallery 756 North
Milwaukee, Chicago
The
title of this panel is "Preserving Space, Place, and Culture: Maxwell
Street and Chicago Artists."
The
moderator will be Paige Sarlin, the curator of
this exhibition and graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Panelists will include Lisa Stone of the Roger Brown Study Collection,
Photographers Ron Gordon and Lee Landry,
Artist Karl Wirsum, and filmmaker Tom Palazzolo.
This
panel will explore the relationship of artistic practice, self-taught and
otherwise, to Maxwell Street
and fights to preserve urban space. In
an attempt to draw the lines of connection between currents of artistic
practice in Chicago - namely that of so-called "Outsider Art" and the
Chicago Imagists - to the history of Maxwell Street, this panel will feature
artists who will discuss their experience of Maxwell Street and its influence
on their work and their practices. In
addition, the panel will seek to answer the questions:
What
kind of model of preservation does the history of the Chicago Imagist artists,
who collected the work of self-taught artists, provide? What are some other
models of artistic and cultural production which treat the subject of the
struggles to preserve space and place in Chicago? What role can and do artists play in the
process of gentrification and "urban renewal"? What is the relationship of artistic practice
to the creation of urban history?
Paige
Sarlin, 773-235-3187; Email: psarli@artic.edu, and Frank
Scott Jr. 773-264-4746 are both available for interviews.
For more information about Maxwell Street see <http://www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html> and <http://www.maxwellstreet.org>.
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