Three the Hard Way closing reception and catalog release
Featuring Ayana Contreras, James T. Green, and David Leggett
Sunday, August 23, 2015, 2–4pm
Presented in partnership with Black Artists Retreat [B.A.R]
Logan Center Exhibitions
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts
University of Chicago
915 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
T +1 773 702 6082
Celebrate the closing of Three the Hard Way, a group exhibition featuring the 2014/2015 Arts + Public Life/Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture artists-in-residence. Presented in collaboration with Black Artists Retreat [B.A.R], the event also showcases the exhibition’s newly-released catalog, which features an introduction by Arts + Public Life Director Theaster Gates and an essay by artist and Department of Visual Arts lecturer Zachary Cahill. The catalog is edited by Yesomi Umolu, Logan Center Exhibitions Curator.
Shuttles will start at 11:30am at Monique Meloche Gallery (2154 W. Division Street) and run continuously every 30 minutes between Richard Gray Gallery (John Hancock Center #3800 and 3860) and Monique Meloche Gallery until 2:30pm, when they head to the Logan Center. From 3:30pm, shuttles will transport guests between the Logan Center and a concurrent screening at the Black Cinema House (7200 S. Kimbark Avenue).
Three the Hard Way takes its title from a 1974 blaxploitation classic in which three action heroes—Fred Williamson, Jim Kelly, and Jim Brown—must save the race from a neo-Nazi organization bent on black genocide. The exhibition features works by Ayana Contreras, James T. Green, and David Leggett, all squarely post-Civil Rights children born after Williamson, Kelly, and Brown saved the world. Although we may breathe a collective sigh of relief, the work of these artists suggests there is much to account for since then culturally, politically, and socially. The exhibit begs us to consider how we square nostalgia for a Black Nationalist period with recent events.
Guest curated by Hamza Walker, Education Director and Associate Curator, The Renaissance Society, with Tempestt Hazel, Arts Program Manager and Curator, Arts + Public Life, and Camille Morgan, Exhibitions Curatorial Coordinator, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.
The exhibition closes Sunday, August 23, 2015.
Presented by Arts + Public Life, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture, and Logan Center Exhibitions.
