Mike Cloud: The Myth of Education

Mike Cloud: The Myth of Education presents a suite of new and existing works by the critically acclaimed Brooklyn-based artist Mike Cloud. Born in Chicago in 1974 and having earned his training as an arts educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master’s degree from Yale University School of Art, this marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in the city.

Evolving a unique painterly language over the last two decades, Cloud’s work often comprises a mash-up of thick paint and patchworks of collaged material and language culled from photo books, newspapers and other ephemera from daily life. For his exhibition at the Logan Center Gallery, Cloud has created a selection of multi-layered paintings on his signature shaped canvases, newspaper collages made up of clippings from various New York dailies and large-scale paper quilts composed of photographic fragments. These works represent the confluence of the artist’s expressive mark making with a myriad of recognizable forms including graphic symbols, text and pattern. In combining these elements, Cloud explores the creative possibilities of abstraction in contemporary painting alongside unravelling the multiple meanings and associations embedded in familiar signs and symbols of our time.  

Mike Cloud: The Myth of Education is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and curated by Yesomi Umolu, Exhibitions Curator. This exhibition is made possible by support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, The Harpo Foundation, and friends of the Logan Center.

Related programming

Opening reception and artist tour
January 26, 6pm (Logan Center Gallery)
The artist will give a tour of the exhibition at 6:30pm.

“Painting, Offense and Judgement” with Taylor Renee Aldridge (Assistant Curator, Detroit Insitute of Arts and co-founder ARTS.BLACK), Mike Cloud and Alexander Provan (Editor, Triple Canopy), moderated by Yesomi Umolu
Feburary 15, 6pm (Gray Center Lab, 929 E 60 St)

“Painter, Hero, Star” with Mike Cloud and Oscar Murillo, moderated by Yesomi Umolu
March 1, 6pm (Gray Center Lab, 929 E 60 St)

All events are free and open to the public.

About the artist
Mike Cloud is a New York-based painter whose work examines the conditions of painting in its contemporary life among countless reproductions, symbols and descriptions. Cloud earned his MFA from Yale University School of Art and a BFA from the University of Illinois-Chicago. A selection of exhibitions include: Special Project: Mike Cloud at P.S.1, NY; Agreement and Subjectivity at Max Protetch, NY; Jesse Chapman/ Mike Cloud at Marianne Boesky Gallery, NY and Bad Faith and Universal Technique at Thomas Erben Gallery, NY. His work has been included in group exhibitions such as Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; at Apexart, NY and Honor Fraser Gallery, CA. Cloud’s works and writing have been featured in The New York Times, Art in America, Art Review and in the painting survey Painting Abstraction by Bob Nickas, published by Phaidon Press. He has been awarded the inaugural Chiaro Award from the Headlands Center for the Arts, CA; a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and residencies at the Meulensteen Art Centre in the Netherlands as well as the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in New York. Cloud has lectured extensively on his work and issues of contemporary art theory at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, NJ; The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, MA; Yale University, CT; Cooper Union, NY; Bard College, NY and The University of Illinois- Chicago, IL, among others. He is currently an assistant professor at Brooklyn College/CUNY in New York.

Logan Center Exhibitions​
Logan Center Exhibitions presents international contemporary art programming at the Logan Center Gallery and throughout the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Reflecting the spirit of inquiry at the university, Logan Center Exhibitions focuses on open, collaborative, and process-based approaches to cultural production.