Fear of Property

Artists: Isshaq Albarbary, Joi T. Arcand, Kevin Beasley, Marissa Lee Benedict, Cassandra Press, Daniel de Paula, Niloufar Emamifar, Matias Faldbakken, Karrabing Film Collective, Ghislaine Leung, Christopher Meerdo, Yukultji Napangati, Pedro Neves Marques, David Rueter, Rose Salane, Christopher Williams, Andrew Norman Wilson

Property: something protected or shared or forcefully taken, something gained or lost or desired or enjoyed. Private property plays a role in well-being, some philosophers have argued, but it’s also been the basis for all kinds of exploitation, as history has shown. Either way, so much has come to rest on this concept. It’s an abstract idea that shapes concrete reality in profound ways, shadowed by questions of who owns what, and why, and the friction of public and private interests. As time goes by, property also comes in many different forms: some are physical, others increasingly intangible, some deeply familiar and others leading toward unknown horizons.

Fear of Property develops out of ongoing conversations with artists around these ideas, various related histories and emerging futures, and a range of lived experiences in between. The exhibition also gradually builds on the intuition that property organizes not only social and economic relations, but dimensions of emotional life today as well. In doing so, the show takes seriously more ambiguous or noncathartic emotions. The works on view have their own unique contours of feeling as such, even as they draw out concerns around ownership and agency, land or technology, caretaking and loss, cultural erasure and acts of reclamation, financial speculation, and more. And some of them might hint at ways of being in the world that aren’t framed in terms of “property” at all.

The exhibition is presented concurrently in two settings: works by thirteen artists or groups are installed in the gallery and six video works by Karrabing Film Collective, Pedro Neves Marques, and Andrew Norman Wilson are presented online at Renaissance TV, where they can be viewed throughout the run of the show.

Curated by Karsten Lund.

Opening celebration on September 10.
Gallery hours: 12–6pm
Outdoor reception: 3–5pm. 

On opening day, Fear of Property will be open to the public from 12–6pm, with celebratory drinks and music from 3–5pm on the quadrangle, just outside Cobb Hall. During the opening day only, video works in the exhibition presented on Renaissance TV will also be screened in a viewing room down the hall from the gallery. This event is free and open to the public.

Fear of Property is made possible through the generous support of the Van Wart/Keable Family.

Major annual support for the Renaissance Society is provided by 247 and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support is provided by The MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at Prince and The Provost’s Discretionary Fund at the University of Chicago. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. All Renaissance Society publications are made possible by The Mansueto Foundation Publications Program. The Study at University of Chicago is the Renaissance Society’s Exclusive Hotel Sponsor.