Mana Contemporary is leading a Nationwide Protest Against the Trump Administration’s Threat to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Mana Contemporary Chicago and its partnering locations in New Jersey and Miami intends to generate support among private and public arts sectors, and raise awareness of the NEA’s critical role in providing the nation’s most underfunded communities with access to the arts. Our organization is joining forces with the Bass Museum of Art, Brooklyn Rail, Clocktower, Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation (ESKFF), Gary Lichtenstein Editions (GLE), International Center of Photography (ICP), International Sculpture Center (ISC), Walter De Maria Archives, and the National Academy Museum to collect signatures for a mass petition to present to Congress.

In addition to signing our petition, we invite you to explore the open studios available at Mana Chicago. Artists at Mana, On The Real Film, will be showcasing a screening of TRANSITION TO POWER, in collaboration with Sixty Inches From Center. We will also unveil some of the selected films in a preview for Mana Chicago’s inaugural Body + Camera Festival. In addition to our exhibitions on view, experience temporary installations from Five Works artist Alex Bradley Cohen and The Floating Museum, featuring Artists at Mana Faheem Majeed and Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford. Prompted by current works in our video exhibition Odes To Transience I Create, an Interactive Photo Studio inspired by Portraits of Craigslist Strangers by Jamie Diamond, will also be available for participation by the general public. Visit the ChiArts Visual Arts Department Senior Showcase Exhibition 2017 on view on the 6th Floor Flex Space.

Body + Camera Festival Preview
6th Floor Flex Space

Mana Contemporary Chicago, in Partnership with Chicago Dancemakers Forum and Montom Arts, will showcase a preview screening of artists selected for the first annual Body + Camera Festival, taking place May 20—21, 2017. The festival will feature over 40+ short films by emerging and established artists from around the world, that explore the intersection between the body and the moving image.

Film Screening: Transition to Power
High Concept Labs, 4th Floor
Artist Talk with On The Real Film and Tempestt Hazel: 2PM

On The Real Film, in collaboration with Sixty Inches From Center, presents TRANSITION TO POWER – a documentary web-series created as a response to the 2016 United States Presidential Election. TRANSITION TO POWER dives into the aftermath of the election through the eyes of artists and creatives. Each episode is a discussion with an artist about their plans going forward in this explosive, yet fragile political climate.

Five Works: Alex Bradley Cohen
Mana Office

Five Works is a bi-monthly project series organized by La Keisha Leek, Exhibitions & Community Programs Manager, that features 5 new and/or recent works from emerging Chicago artists in the Mana Chicago office space. April’s segment of Five Works will showcase Alex Bradley Cohen, a painter who addresses the collective human experience in relation to ideas of class, race, gender, and sexual orientation. Cohen is an alumnus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has exhibited at The Craft and Folk Art Museum, The Elmhurst Art Museum, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Jamie Diamond Interactive Photo Studio
5th Floor

Inspired by Jamie Diamond’s Portraits of Craigslists Strangers, Mana Chicago will host an interactive Photo Studio. With prompts given directly from the artist, get up-close and personal with a friend — or a stranger — and create photographs reminiscent of a formal portrait studio.

Floating Museum Installation
5th Floor Project Space

Floating Museum is a collaborative art project that creates temporary, site-responsive museum spaces to activate sites of cultural potential throughout Chicago’s neighborhoods. Our interactive spaces engage local artists, historians, and organizations in events that challenge traditional museum thinking and generate community engagement and conversation.

From March through April Floating Museum will curate a series of works and installations from previous and current iterations of the project.

ChiArts Visual Arts Department Senior Showcase Exhibition 2017
6th Floor Flex Space

The Senior Showcase is the culminating exhibition of a ChiArts visual art student’s high school career. The works on view will include selections from students’ year-long thesis investigations as part of their Major AP Studio Art Course. ChiArts’ Visual Arts Department offers the following majors: Drawing/Painting, Photography, Sculpture, and Visual Communications. Students will also exhibit works made in their elective courses, including Digital Media, Wearable Sculpture, Sequential Art and Contemporary Practices: Performance and Installation.

IImage: Cam Collins, Taekwondo, 2017

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Tags: Alex Bradley Cohen, Chicago, Jamie Diamond, La Keisha Leek, Lower West Side, Mana Contemporary, Spring 2017 Open House, Tempestt Hazel.