Cosmo Whyte: The Mother’s Tongue, Pressed to the Grinding Stone

In his first solo exhibition in Chicago, Los Angeles-based and Jamaican-born artist Cosmo Whyte situates the architectural archives of his late father as the structural ground for an intervention and interrogation into the spaces and forms of diasporic protest, spectacle, and witnessing. Presented by The Arts Club of Chicago, in The Mother’s Tongue, Pressed to the Grinding Stone the artist reformulates photojournalistic images onto materials ranging from drawings to hand-painted beaded curtains and steel framings of unrealized structures. In so doing, Whyte poetically asks “what makes a witness? And what does it mean to have become one?”

The Arts Club of Chicago presents Whyte’s exhibition as part of PANAFRICA ACROSS CHICAGO. This exhibition is curated by Janine Mileaf, Executive Director and Chief Curator. Catalogues from the exhibition can be purchased in the online shop.

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMMING:
Artist Cosmo Whyte with Jeremiah M. Davis: March 8, 1–2:30pm

Coinciding with the citywide celebration of Panafrica Weekend, artist Cosmo Whyte (whose work is currently on view in The Arts Club’s galleries) will be in conversation with longtime colleague and director emeritus of Oklahoma Contemporary Jeremiah Matthew Davis. The two will explore the three distinct bodies of work present in The Mother’s Tongue, Pressed to the Grinding Stone: drawings, the artist’s distinct beaded curtain works, and a new architectonic installation in the context of both his biography and his deep theoretical engagement with postcolonialism, belonging, and the poetics of space. From his roots in painting to his experiments in sound art and performance, to his ongoing posthumous collaboration with his father’s unrealized architectural designs, the conversation will trace the arc of his artistic practice from Bennington College to The Arts Club of Chicago.

Free and open to all. In-person registration / virtual registration.

Musician Angel Bat Dawid Performs in the Gallery
Join Angel Bat Dawid, acclaimed Chicago performer and former “Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz,” in a celebration of Cosmo Whyte’s exhibition in the Arts Club galleries. She and musical collaborator 9magicforever1 will incorporate voice, movement and multi-instrumental performance into a newly composed, artistically responsive work in the gallery. Whyte and Bat Dawid share a conceptual connection to ancestry and history, which makes for an apt pairing in this compelling and meditative evening.

Free and open to all. Register here.