Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot

November 10, 2017 - January 7, 2018

Opening Reception & Town Hall: Friday, November 10, 6-8pm

Who are "The Brown People"? What does a "Wren" connote? Where is the "Parking Lot"? Why would someone ask these questions?

Initiated by artist and University of Chicago Department of Visual Arts faculty member William Pope.L, Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot is a DIY media campaign and exhibition facilitated by faculty, students, staff and community members of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts to reflect on issues of connectedness, home and immigration. The campaign took place in the halls of the Logan Building over the course of six weeks and was composed of posters, whispers, video interviews and a library containing over 1,200 books on the subject of immigration.

On view from November 10, 2017 through January 7, 2018 in the Logan Center Gallery, the exhibition Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot gathers various ephemera from the campaign as well as serves as a space for open conversation, relaxation and reflection.

This campaign and exhibition are happening at a significant moment in our country’s history. Nationally and globally, we are witnessing heightened debates over immigration, race, and the fight of the 99%. On a local level, race relations and class distinctions affect daily experiences in Chicago as in many other American cities. Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot provides an opportunity for us to collectively address questions and create actions concerning difference and possibility in our society. Using the Logan Center as the locus of its activities, the Wrens campaign and exhibition highlight how immigration is a part of our lives in so many ways.

For more information, visit wrens.uchicago.edu

Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions. Generous support provided by the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago

ABOUT POPE.L

Pope.L (1955, Newark, NJ) is a visual artist and educator whose multidisciplinary practice uses binaries, contraries and preconceived notions embedded within contemporary culture to create art works in various formats, for example, writing, painting, performance, installation, video and sculpture. Building upon his long history of enacting arduous, provocative, absurdist performances and interventions in public spaces, Pope.L applies some of the same social, formal and performative strategies to his interests in language, system, gender, race and community. Pope.L received his BA from Montclair State College in 1978 and his MFA from Rutgers University in 1981. Major performances include Baile (2016); The Problem (2016); Pull (2013); The Black Factory national tour (2002–2009); The Great White Way (2001–2002); Community Crawls (2000–2005); Eating the Wall Street Journal (2000); Black Domestic aka Roach Motel Black (1994); How Much is that Nigger in the Window (1990-1992); Times Square Crawl (1978); and Thunderbird Immolation (1978). Recent exhibitions, performances, and projects include documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel Germany (2017); the Whitney Biennial (2017); "PLAMA" (“The Spot”), a commercial commissioned for On the Tip of the Tongue at Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2016); the 32nd Biennial de São Paulo (2016); The Freedom Principle at ICA Philadelphia (2016) and MCA Chicago (2015); and Trinket at The Geffen Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2015); Pope.L is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Joyce Foundation Award, the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship, Andy Warhol Foundation grant, Creative Capital Foundation grant, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and Artists Space grant. He lives and works in Chicago, IL.

RELATED PROGRAMMING

The Logan Center Gallery is open for program proposals, based on availability and event type. If you would like to propose an event to be held in the space, please email logancenterexhibitions [at] uchicago.edu

Opening Reception and Town Hall Meeting

November 10, 2017 | Logan Center Gallery

6pm

Join artist Pope.L and curator Yesomi Umolu, as well as some of the Wrens interventionists, during the opening of Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot to participate in a town hall meeting where attendees will eat, drink, and converse about the project, and reflect on issues of immigration, home and not-knowing.

Community Hours

Tuesdays-Sundays | Logan Center Gallery

11am-9pm

Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot is a communal space, free and open to the public. Stop by to browse through our library of books on immigration, have a coffee at our coffee bar, relax in the lounge, and post a story, poem, drawing or comment on our walls; or if you need to rest, want a place to do homework, or hold a meeting, you are welcome.

Sitting Ovation Sessions

November 14 & December 15 | Logan Center Gallery

2pm

Chicago-based artist Brit Barton leads a two-part choreographic workshop that uses movement to explore questions of collective migration, instability, and improvisation. The workshops include studies of focused breathing, stillness, and repetitive gesture. No prior movement experience is necessary and any attire can be worn.

Dialogue

November 17 | Logan Center Gallery

4:30pm

Join alumnus and current Department of Visual Arts MFA students for a conversation with the students of Professor Sharon Hicks-Bartlett's Race in Contemporary America at the University of Chicago. The students will share their work and discuss how themes of home, immigration and migration interact with their production.

An Evening of Music

December 1 | Logan Center Gallery

6pm

Join Dieter Roelstraete in the gallery for an evening of music and conversation on the issues related to immigration.

Micro-Performances

December 4 & December 5 | Logan Center Gallery

12pm

Curator Dieter Roelstraete recites from memory a text written by Pope.L.

Reading: The Migration Stories Project

December 7 | Logan Center Gallery

4pm

Join us for a public reading on the theme of changing as we move through space. Student and faculty readers will read from work featured in the newly-issued community anthology of The Migration Stories Project. Presented in partnership with the Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.

What's next? A five-hour marathon conversation and more on immigration, migration and home

January 4 | Logan Center Gallery

6pm

Join artist Pope.L and curator Dieter Roelstraete and a diverse group of artists, writers, scholars, activists, organizers and musicians for a five-hour marathon discussion delving deeper into the themes of immigration, migration and home platformed in the current exhibition Brown People are the Wrens in the Parking Lot at the Logan Center Gallery. Pope.L and Roelstraete will kick off the evening by discussing their recent work together at documenta 14 and how it relates to the art and issues animating the exhibition. The marathon conversation will be punctuated by food, music, performances as well as moments of exhilaration and silence. We welcome you to come, eat, drink, converse and share with us as we collectively dig into the great global immigration debate affecting our lives today. What's Next? is an endurance event. Visitors are encouraged to come and go as they please. Participants include: Yesomi Umolu, Zachary Cahill, BR Nicholson, Interim CEO and Brand Champion at Mr. Boare Industries, Alek Binion, Vidura Jang Bahadur, Amber Ginsburg, Ernest Dawkins, Ben Ndugga-Kabuye and more. Co-sponsored by the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago and the Open Practice Committee in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

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