Museum Campus South Passport: Logan Center
The third visit I made on my Museum Passport Journey was to the Logan Center, where Retrogarde is currently on display.
“To speak a language is to take on a world”
Retrogarde is a self-described “series of recognizable avant-garde forms…fusing language, space, and matter… to address the politics of everyday life.” It is a collaboration between six different artists:
- Writer and performer Caroline Bergvall, whose art exposes difficult historical and political truths,
- Dancer Brendan Fernandes, who draws on his Canadian/Indian/Kenyan background to explore themes relating to identity,
- Ethnomusicologist and author Samson Kambalu, whose autobiographical artwork shines light on warped ideas of space, time, and experience,
- UChicago alumni Matthew Metzger, who believes that “paintings are never finished,”
- Los Angeles based Catherine Sullivan, who uses live performances to critique what is considered “acceptable” behavior in modern society, and
- Composer and philosopher Samson Young, who sees art as a platform to discuss problems within the art world.
The artists’ goal with Retrogarde is to to demonstrate why the avant-garde perspective is constantly relevant. It associates playful objects with incredulous behavior, such as Kambalu’s wrapping soccer balls with pages of the Bible. Bergvall, Fernandes, Kambalu, Metzger, Sullivan, and Young do not want us to simply observe their art. They want us to grapple with it, too.
Images via
