Program of events:
Ricardo Basbaum’s would you like to participate in an artistic experience?
Logan Center Exhibtions
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts
University of Chicago
915 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL, 60637 USA
Logan Center Exhibitions in collaboration with the Open Practice Committee are delighted to host Ricardo Basbaum on the occasion of the first exhibition devoted solely to his signature project, “Would you like to participate in an artistic experience?” which continues through 25 November 2012.
The public is welcome to attend:
Nov 5, 2012, 6pm, Logan Center Performance Penthouse
Ricardo Basbaum artist’s talk, sponsored by the Open Practice Committee.
Nov 5, 5pm, Logan Center Gallery
Introduction to Collective Conversation, a workshop towards a performance to be held Nov 6, 7, 8, 2012
Nov 9, 2012, 6pm, Logan Center Gallery
Reception with artist in attendance and first performance of Collective Conversation
Ricardo Basbaum (b. São Paulo, Brazil, 1961) is an artist and writer based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil whose most recent exhibitions include the 30th São Paulo Biennial 2012; Busan Biennial 2012; A Rua: Rio de Janeiro and the Spirit of the Street at the Museum of Contemporaray Art in Antwerp, MuHKA, 2011; and the 7th Shanghai Biennial 2008. In 2007, “Would you like to participate in an artistic experience?” was featured in documenta 12. Basbaum completed a PhD in Arts at the University of São Paulo in 2008, and currently teaches at the Instituto de Artes, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. In the Fall of 2013, he will be the Tinker Visiting Professor, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Chicago.
At the heart of Basbaum’s complex and evolving work, “Would you like to…” is the question of contemporary subjectivity—what it means to participate and to experience art in an era of advanced global capitalism, wherein terms such as ‘the experience economy’ and ‘creative industries’ point to the fantasy of an autonomous singular subject, often embodied by the figure of the artist. If the current idea of the subject clearly divides ‘me’ from ‘you,’ Basbaum has suggested super-pronouns such as youme or meyou that signal a desire to involve the other and align more closely with the inter-subjective workings of networks.
Eschewing the rhetoric of dematerialization, his approach is performative and physical—it involves the circulation of a simple, painted metal object that derives its shape from a sign that Basbaum designed to invoke what he aptly terms “New Bases for Personality” or NBP.
As participants realize new artistic experiences using the NBP object throughout Chicago (to date, they include Tucker Rae Grant, Jinn Bronwen Lee, Danny Volk, The Arts Club of Chicago, IT Services at the University of Chicago, Sandbox Studio, Chicago and the Society of Smallness), the Logan Center Gallery becomes an interface with the broad scope of Basbaum’s evolving project, which spans 18 years and over 40 cities on four continents. On display are videos showing past use of the NBP object, a set of wall-sized diagrams that have evolved with its circulation, as well a metal structure designed specifically for the Logan Center Gallery that manifests a porrous notion of space. In keeping with the artist’s tendency to involve the other and extend one work into another, the critical consideration of “Would you like to participate in an artistic experience?” at the Logan Center proceeds in the form of a Collective Conversation, a new iteration in Basbaum’s latest series of performative workshops.
To inquire about the workshop or the use of the NBP object in Chicago, contact Monika Szewczyk, Visual Arts Program Curator at monikas [at] uchicago.edu.
Also on view throughout the Logan Center until 30 November 2012:
WALL TEXTfeaturing works by Stephanie Brooks, Tania Bruguera, Anthony Elms, David Giordano, Jenny Holzer, Robert Peters, William Pope.L, Karen Reimer, Mike Schuh, and Buzz Spector. Curated by Zachary Cahill and Monika Szewczyk.
