The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce the publication of the third issue of Portable Gray which draws on the work of the Gray Center, a research center for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars.
Published twice annually (fall/spring) by the University of Chicago Press, Portable Gray is a forum for experimenting with two genres of publication, the scholarly journal and the art magazine. Each edition constellates around a theme, which it treats elastically and through myriad forms: artworks, essays, interviews, reflections, photography, poetry among others.
About our third issue:
Documents, plans, schemes, and dreams is the set of interlocking themes and methods that guides the organization of this issue of Portable Gray. When we started out working with this material, we had a sense that these points would form something like a constellation. But as the material came together, it became apparent that the linkages were stronger than we anticipated—so strong that they began to nest in one another, each node of this thematic quartet finding its hidden kernel or element in one or more of the other terms. Documents have a plan for their arrangement, plans are detailed in documents, schemes are pegged to a dream, dreams find expression in all of the above—whether in journal entries from the previous night’s sleep or a vision of a possible future. –Zachary Cahill, from the Editor’s Plaisance
Artist Theaster Gates and art historian Romi Crawford have produced a special project for this issue of Portable Gray, “Black Image Production: Moving Toward Art and Art Histories,” a complex of nested authorship, whereby Crawford has curated a selection of photographs by Karega Kofi Moyo that appear on three different covers of our print edition and within a portfolio inside. Theaster Gates’s Black Madonna Press has produced a limited edition print of one of Moyo’s images as a supplemental insert.
With the following contributions:
–A Historian’s Tarot by Carla Nappi
–Doc Talk: From the Point of View of a Filmmaker by Judy Hoffman
–What is Sight if not an Awakening?: The Work of Art in the Disinformation Age by Abigail Winograd
–Rehearsing the Witness: The Bhawal Court Case [Testimony and Evidence] by Zuleikha Chaudhari
–HEAVN HERE and the South Side Home Movie Project by Jacqueline Stewart and Jamila Woods
–Our Land by Mike Schuh
–SK L 402–429, 432–439 by Adam Szymczyk and David Schutter
–The Distribution of Contemporary Art by Canice Prendergast
–Black Image Production: Moving Toward Art and Art Histories by Romi Crawford
–Special Edition Insert (Print only) by Theaster Gates
–Everyday Scheming at the National Public Housing Museum by Lisa Yun Lee
–Kicking a Leg by Wills Glasspiegel
–Re-Citing Re-Assemblage by Studio R-A, Ted Brown, and Bill Brown
–Underworlds All The Way Down: A Poem Removed from Skins of Columbus by Edgar Garcia
–Utopia (Excerpt) by Omar Khouri
For the online issue and subscription information click here.
Executive editor: Seth Brodsky
Editor-in-chief: Zachary Cahill
Senior editor: Mike Schuh
Managing editor: Naomi Blumberg
Design: David Khan-Giordano
ISSN 2637-8361
About the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry
The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is a forum at the University of Chicago for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars. Gray Center activities take place all over campus (encompassing various divisions, departments, and programs), across the community, throughout the city, and beyond. Through its various programs—including the Mellon Residential Fellowships for Arts Practice and Scholarship, exploratory research initiatives, the monthly Sidebar conversation series, Gray Sound, an experimental music and sound performance series, international conferences, and institutional collaborations—the Gray Center seeks to foster a culture of innovation and experimentation at the intersection of arts practice and scholarship.
Press contact
Ronia Holmes, Director of Communications for UChicago Arts and the Logan Center, roniamh [at] uchicago.edu / T 773 834 0481
