Since opening in Louisville in 2006, 21c Museum Hotels has presented a range of exhibitions and arts programming in collaboration with artists, art organizations, and museums across the country, including the Speed Art Museum (Louisville, KY), North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC), Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati, OH), Creative Capital Foundation, Creative Time, and Artadia, among others.
First organized in 1977 by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), International Museum Day is a worldwide event held every May 18th and aims to increase public awareness of the role of museums in developing and fostering society. To celebrate International Museum Day, Tuesday, May 18th, 21c Museum will celebrate with a week of virtual events.
On Thursday, May 20th at 5:30pm CST, 21c Museum Hotel Kansas City and Studios Inc will present a conversation with Erin Dziedzic, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Kemper Museum of Art, as part of the ongoing Visiting Curator Series in which regional and national curators are invited to share information about their practices, goals, and vision in regards to establishing community and destination through a focus of fine art. Studios Inc provides studio space, professional development, networking and exhibitions for mid-career artists in Greater Kansas City via their Artist Residency Program. In addition to the lecture, each visiting curator will have a virtual studio visit with two artist residents from Studios Inc as part of this program. The event is free, but registration is required. You can sign up through this Eventbite link.
Also on Thursday, May 20th at 6pm EST, 21c Museum Hotel Louisville, Spalding’s School of Writing and The Louisville Review will present their monthly literary series, Voice & Vision. This seasonal forum, held on the third Thursday of each month, May-August, provides an opportunity for writers to share samples of their work with each other and the public. Each month the event features a variety of readings by poets and writers with ties to Kentucky, along with a look at highlights from the current contemporary art exhibitions at 21c Louisville. Alice Gray Stites, Chief Curator and Museum Director of 21c Museum Hotels, will highlight 21c Louisville’s newest exhibition, What Lies Beneath, which is presented in conjunction with the 2021 Louisville Photo Biennial. To register, please sign up through the link here. The event link will be sent out via email the day before the event.
On Tuesday, May 25th at 6pm CST, 21c Museum Hotel Chicago will present another episode of our ongoing virtual series, Curator Conversations. Curator Conversations is a monthly conversation between a local art curator and an artist of their choice with ties to the Chicago arts community. This week Ionit Behar, Assistant Curator at the DePaul Art Museum and curator of the exhibition LatinXAmerican, will be in conversation with Rodrigo Lara Zendejas who has work on view in the exhibition. LatinXAmerican features 38 Latinx artists from the Chicagoland area and beyond. The event is free, but registration is required. Here is the Eventbrite link.
More about our Guests:
Curator Conversations: 21c Museum Hotel Chicago
Ionit Behar is Assistant Curator at DePaul Art Museum (DPAM), Chicago and teaches art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to joining DPAM, she was the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, a Research Assistant for the exhibition “Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium” at the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Graduate Curatorial Assistant at Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago. Her writing has appeared in exhibition catalogues and art journals such FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, The Chicago Reader, THE SEEN, and The Exhibitionist. Born in Israel and raised in Uruguay, Behar is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her dissertation is titled “Intimate Space and the Public Sphere: Margarita Paksa in Argentina’s Military Dictatorship.”
Born in Mexico in 1981, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas is a Chicago-based artist who received an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2013 and his BFA, Summa Cum Laude, from the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico in 2003. Lara has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art, Kruger Gallery in Marfa, Texas, and Test Site Projects in Las Vegas, among others. He has been in such residencies as the Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Ragdale, Mana Miami, Rogers Art Loft, and Cross Currents: Cultural Exchange. Lara has received many awards including an Emerging Artist Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. To learn more about Rodrigo Lara Zendejas’s work, check out the website https://www.rodrigo-lara.com/ or follow the artist on Instagram @rodrigo_lara_81
L: Untitled 2, from the Paradiddle series, 2019, Ceramic, animal stole, drum sticks, cowbell, and drum, 26 x 27 x 14 in.
R: Saint No. 1, from the Ephemeral Memorial series, 2019, Porcelain, Astroturf, marble, metal, and wood, 11 x 5 x 7 in.
Courtesy of the artist. On view at DePaul Art Museum.
Visiting Curator Series: 21c Museum Hotel Kansas City
Erin Dziedzic is director of curatorial affairs at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Dziedzic has curated numerous exhibitions at Kemper Museum including Adam Cvijanovic: American Montage (2015), Siah Armajani: Bridge Builder (2016), Rashid Johnson: Hail We Now Sing Joy (2017), was co-curator of Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today (2017), Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene (2018), and Summer Wheat: Blood, Sweat, and Tears (2019) among many others. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Pulse Topology is forthcoming 2021. Dziedzic also originated Kemper Museum’s Atrium Project featuring commissioned projects by emerging and mid-career Hispanic and Latinx artists including José Lerma: La Venida Cansa Sin Ti (2016), Firelei Báez: To See Beyond Its Walls (and access the places that lie beyond) (2017), Paul Henry Ramirez: Sweet On (2018), Angel Otero: Diario (2019), Joiri Minaya: Divergences (2020) (organized by Jade Powers), and a forthcoming project with Aliza Nisenbaum (2021). She was previously curator at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, where she curated Liza Lou: Let the Light In (2011), Damián Ortega: Belo Horizonte Project (2012), Rehearsals: The Practice and Influence of Sound and Movement (2013), Regina Silveira’s Track Series (Octopus) (2013), and Jean-Michel Othoniel’s OTHONIEL (2013).
Voice & Vision: Presented by Spalding’s School of Writing, The Louisville Review, & 21c Museum Hotel Louisville
This week’s readers include Skylar Bensheimer (Berea College), Maria Tori (Bellarmine University), Jacob Harris (Centre College), Emra Mehmedovic (WKU), Skylar Switzer (IU Southeast), Aiden Taelor (U of L), Stuart Gerard Walker (Spalding University). The evening is hosted by Spalding University School of Writing’s Katy Yocom.
Vinhay Keo, Self-Purgation (detail), 2017. ChromaLuxe Aluminum Print.
Installation view of Albano Afonso: Self-Portrait as Light at 21c Cincinnati, 2015. The exhibition spanned the Cincinnati Art Center (CAC) and 21c Cincinnati.
Installation views of Wim Botha: Still Life with Discontent at 21c Durham, 2019. The exhibition spanned 21c Durham and the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA).
Installation views of Yinka Shonibare CBE: The American Library at the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, 2019. The exhibition was co-presented by the Speed Art Museum and 21c Museum Hotel.
Vic Muniz, Diaspora Cloud, 2017. Installation view at 21c Durham originally displayed as part of Creative Time’s Pledges of Allegiance.
