I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts presents I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality, a group exhibition exploring corporeal hospitality, from December 9, 2021 through March 20, 2022. Hospitality is usually considered a philosophical concept with juridical implications, an ethical concern, or a social/political practice. This exhibition shifts the focus to consider the stealth work of hospitality on our material and political understanding of bodies. 

I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality invites visitors to consider how hospitality has simultaneously circumscribed what we think bodies are, what we imagine they can do, how we feel they relate, whom we believe they can encounter, and ultimately, how they engage with each other and in the world. The exhibition explores these questions in space by weaving together open-ended experiential connections between works in a range of media, from painting, sculpture, textile, installation, and performance to lens- and time-based practices. These works explore several questions, including pregnancy and surrogacy; transplantation, implantation, and transfusion; neural adaptation and the phantom limb; bacteria and the microbiome; viruses, parasites, symbionts, and holobionts; stem cells; mechanical and chemical prosthetics; architectures and protocols of corporeal hospitality; dreams and dreamwork; and the “miraculous” work of relics, spirits, and energies. In the process, the exhibition reveals a storied genealogy that points to the extractive intersection of race, gender, class, religion, and value. I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality critically excavates this legacy, imagines other more-than-human hospitable modalities, and offers up an expanded theater of operations.

I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality features unexpected and productive juxtapositions of new and recent works by Ingrid Bachmann, Crystal Z Campbell, Jean-Charles de Quillacq, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Stephanie Dinkins, Celina Eceiza, Adham Faramawy, Mounir Fatmi, Flis Holland, Oliver Husain & Kerstin Schroedinger, Rodney McMillian, Bridget Moser, Pedro Neves Marques, Berenice Olmedo, Jenna Sutela, Ana Torfs, and Francis Upritchard. This exhibition includes artists showing together for the first time and introduces the work of several of them to US audiences. I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality is organized by Sylvie Fortin, Bemis Center 2019-2021 Curator-in-Residence, as part of her ongoing, broader research into the currencies of hospitality.

Dynamic public programs accompany and amplify the exhibition. They include artist talks, panel discussions, performances, and Flesh It Out: The Body, Hospitality, and their Material Entanglements, an international lecture series created and presented in collaboration with UNO Medical Humanities/Ted Kooser Center for Health Humanities. 

Public programs
Opening reception: December 9, 6–8pm CT
Artist panel + performance: December 11, 2–4:30pm CT, Ingrid Bachman, Jean-Charles de Quillacq, and Bridget Moser followed by Talk by de Quillacq
Artist talk: January 25, 12–1pm CT, Celina Eceiza and Klaire Lockheart
Curator’s talk: February 8, 12–1pm CT, Manuela Moscoso, Curator of The Stomach and the Port, 2021 Liverpool Biennial 
Curator-led tour: February 12, 2–3:30pm CT, Sylvie Fortin
Artist talk: February 15, 12–1pm CT, Oliver Husain & Kerstin Schroedinger and Crystal Z Campbell
Artist talk: February 22, 10–11am CT, Jenna Sutela and Heather Dewey-Hagborg
Artist talk: February 25, 7–8:30pm CT, Stephanie Dinkins
Performance: March 5, 4–5:30pm CT, Bridget Moser, When I’m Through With You There Won’t Be Anything Left followed by conversation with Sylvie Fortin
Performance: March 19, 4–5pm CT, Jean-Charles de Quillacq, Talk

Bemis Center Gallery hours: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 11am–5pm; Thursday 11am–9pm

Exhibition and public program admission: Free

A Visitor Code of Conduct and safety protocols have been implemented to keep staff and visitors as safe as possible and to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Gallery materials are available in English and Spanish. Access details can be found at bemiscenter.org/accessibility. For more information visit bemiscenter.org.

I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality and related public programs are generously supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Humanities Nebraska, Institut français—Paris, Nebraska Arts Council/Nebraska Cultural Endowment, Omaha Steaks, and the University of Nebraska Omaha Medical Humanities/Ted Kooser Center for Health Humanities.