Don’t You Stop, We Won’t Stop

EC Brown
Lise Baggesen
Rodrigo Lara Zendejas
Sarah Beth Woods
Felicia Holman

Opening reception:
Saturday, February 15 from 7-10pm

From February 15 to April 18, 2020

“Hot topic is the way that we rhyme
Hot topic is the way that we rhyme
One step behind the drum style
One step behind the drum style
Carol Rama and Eleanor Antin
Yoko Ono and Carolee Schneeman
You’re getting old, that’s what they’ll say, but
Don’t give a damn I’m listening anyway
Stop, don’t you stop
I can’t live if you stop
Don’t you stop
Gretchen Phillips and Cibo Matto
Leslie Feinberg and Faith Ringgold
Mr. Lady, Laura Cottingham
Mab Segrest and The Butchies, man
Don’t stop
Don’t you stop
We won’t stop
Don’t you stop
So many roads and so much opinion
So much shit to give in, give in to
So many rules and so much opinion
So much bullshit but we won’t give in
Stop, we won’t stop
Don’t you stop
I can’t live if you stop
Tammy Rae Carland and Sleater-Kinney
Vivienne Dick…”

– Lyrics from Hot Topic by Le Tigre, 1999

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EC Brown ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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My wife Catie’s annual Krampusnacht event last December included a holiday market, and I presented a bin of paintings on chipboard that were folded like heavy 45 sleeves—with mulch+foliage+ploymer record shapes that became too encrusted to fit inside. The images invented an old psychedelic Krampus underground—militant and Luciferian. Dolly appeared as a surprise digression in the wee hours before the deadline.

For the past seven years of Krampusnacht, I have sidestepped the European relics in favor of thoughts about American undercurrents—rowdy, sexual, heretical, and perilously savage. But I like to imagine that the deeper magma is something propulsive and generative, rather than malignantly atavistic. An inevitable rebellion against civilized living.

With Edra’s prodding, I’m pursuing the Dolly tangent: imagining a history in which the liftoff of her solo career was profoundly controversial—to the point that an enclave of armed male consorts developed around her. Perhaps her audience had detected a Luciferian bent in her, that would need time to transition to a more acceptable yet radical Christianity.

EC Brown: I prefer a collision of illustrative image-making that begs attention to narratives, and physical formats that shift these works into roles as implements or tactical objects addressing spaces and situations. Images have been a tempered fever-dream drawing from 1960s–70s aesthetics, pop occultism, science fiction, Modernist architecture, biomimetics, industrial photography and observational cinema. Often they are absurdist historical revisions.

Since 2005, I have mostly operated in Chicago’s domestic artspaces. I co-organized Floor Length and Tux (2009–2014, with Catie Olson) and COMA (2006–2008, with Annika Seitz). I periodically organize a roving series entitled ASCII (2011–present). Since 2015, I have been conducting a discreet series out of my home entitled Tascam.

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Lise Haller Baggesen /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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Interpersonal relationships, intergenerational and intersectional eco- and cyber- and xeno- feminism, reproductive justice, therapeutic aesthetics, color field painting, sci-fi tie-dye, hippie modernism, bio-punk, grunge, glam, and disco, are some of the vernaculars that inform my body of work. Since graduating in 2013 from SAIC’s department of Visual and Critical Studies, this organic body has manifested itself in a hybrid and polydisciplinamorous practice, including writing, audio-visual installations, textile-, and sartorial works.

Mother is a noun and a verb; I regard my practice as a sourdough, a gestation of material, out of which individual works, texts, and shows are wrought, while the mother remains, active.

Lise Haller Baggesen is a Danish born, Amsterdam raised, Chicago based, interdisciplinary artist. Her hybrid practice includes writing, installation, performative, sartorial and textile-based work. She is the author of Mothernism, and exhibits internationally, most recently with the multimedia show HATORADE RETROGRADE: THE MUSICAL, which premiered at SoEx in San Francisco in 2019 and will travel to G400 in Chicago in 2020

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Rodrigo Lara Zendejas ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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I create memorials—fragmented, mischievous, and imperfect realities that reflect both a formal
break from traditional shape, while presenting an assemblage version of our collective social and political thoughts, concerns, and hopes. Although I was trained in the traditions of classical art, my pieces now are not always clean. Or finished. Or beautiful. My work holds the memory of an intimate process of becoming. In some bodies of work, I present obvious nooks and gashes, broad, quick strokes, and secretive, featherlike fingerprints, all of which aided in the modeling of the clay during the process of bringing the subject to life. It is this visceral and intimate approach to materials and form that drive my subjects of memory and memorialization through all of my works.

When considering the human form and its relationship to memorialization, immediate thoughts of bronze statues at historical sites come to mind. My fascination, however, is in the way that memory—with its inherent, ever-changing fluidity—disrupts our ability to fully or truthfully freeze, or memorialize people, moments, or perspectives in history. Instead, it is our momentary glimpses of memory and hindsight that drive how we understand the present.

As a Mexican immigrant to the United States, my works often rely on my own fragmented memories and stories of home, my direct experiences with fervent Catholicism, and other’s heroic (yet common) anecdotes of border crossing and acclimating to living in America. However, while my memories and relationships to patriotism, politics, my background, and my longing for the familiar certainly influence my work, it is my interest in the process, the poetics of the materials, and the action of sculpting that motivate my continued practice.

Born in Mexico in 1981, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas received a MFA from School of the Art Institute
of Chicago (SAIC) in 2013. And his BFA from the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico in
2003. He has received several awards including: Proyectos Especiales FONCA (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes) Mexico City; Emerging Artist Grant, Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York City; Jóvenes Creadores, FONCA, Mexico City; Extraordinary Abilities Visa, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Artist’s Grant, Vermont Studio Art Center; James Nelson Raymond Fellowship, 2013 SAIC Fellowship Competition; PECDA Estudios en el extranjero,Instituto Queretano de la Cultura y las Artes; the International Graduate Scholarship, SAIC; and the John W. Kurtich Travel Scholarship, SAIC Berlin/Kassel, Germany; among others. He won the first price in sculpture at the National Award for Visual Arts in Mexico in 2010. Lara held solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in the state of Mexico, Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, Kruger Gallery in Marfa, Texas, among others. He has been in such residencies as the Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Ragdale, Cross Currents: Cultural Exchange, Mana Miami, and Rogers Art Loft. Currently, Lara lives and works in Chicago.

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Sarah Beth Woods/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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Hear the Glow of Electric Lights is a multifaceted project that centers around a black and white, 16mm reversal film, which investigates the choreographed performances of 1960s American pop music groups featuring girls and young women. During the summer of 2017, Sarah Beth Woods formed The Rhinettes, a conceptual girl group based out of Prosser High School on the West side of Chicago. Referencing the Supreme’s first nationally televised appearance and Cholly Atkins’ choreography, the work reveals the inscription of sound on the body and other material surfaces.

Girl group: (L-R) Alexis Strowder, Yahkirah Beard, Anya Jenkins
Cinematography: Brian VandenBos
Choreography: Courtney Bradshaw
Costumes: Ann Heggans, Sarah Beth Woods

Sarah Beth Woods is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist. Woods’ background as a painter and critical cultural worker has led to an interest in the aesthetics and political implications of modern surfaces and the body, specifically skin and hair, saturated color and shine. Cultural influences derived from formative years spent on the Southwest side of Chicago continue to manifest in the content and aesthetics of Woods’ work, specifically black material culture and women’s conceptual spaces as sites of possibility and transformation.

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Felicia Holman \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
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“Originally created as a commissioned response to
Edra Soto’s 2018 exhibition ‘Open 24 Hours’, interdisciplinary artist Felicia Holman presents a reprise of her solo performance—Wassup w/that ‘YAC?! (WWTY). As both a cognac enthusiast and a native of Chicago’s South Side, Holman unpacks experiential / anecdotal support of the formative research cited in ‘Open24 Hours’. WWTY centers the perspective of a Black Gen X’er cis-female cognac consumer. How do historic/ (pop) cultural/ social/ economic factors impact and influence her consumption of “that smooth brown spirit”? Guided audience participation optional but warmly encouraged (21+ only). Total running time: 45-60 minutes, no intermission.”

Felicia Holman “Lifelong”: Chicagoan/ artist and Prince “fam” Felicia Holman is an independent cultural producer/programmer, as well as a co-founding member of Chicago-based Afrodiasporic feminist creative collective, Honey Pot Performance. Felicia creates, presents, and supports innovative interdisciplinary performance that engages audience and inspires community. Felicia’s artistic & professional practices are both are grounded in critical thought, intersectionality, community building & embodied storytelling. Some of her recent projects and career highlights include:

*Featured
artist in Jenn Freeman’s “The People’s Church of The G.H.E.T.T.O” and the 10th edition of Erin Kilmurray’s “The Fly Honey Show”.

*Selected
as City Bureau’s Fall 2019 Public Newsroom Series Curator.

*Featured
presenter at Arts Administrators of Color Network-DMV’s 2019 Annual Convening (DC).
*Featured
artist / facilitator at Flux Factory’s “Must They Also Be Gods” group exhibition (NYC).

*Facilitating
career development programming for emerging artists.

THE FRANKLIN
Address: 3522 W. Franklin Blvd, Chicago IL 60624
Cell to text: (312)823-3632
Hours: By appointment till 2020
Online: http://thefranklinoutdoor.tumblr.com/Instagram: @thefranklinoutdoor

Official Website

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Tags: Chicago, Don't You Stop We Won't Stop, East Garfield Park, EC Brown, Felicia Holman, Lise Baggesen, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas, Sarah Beth Woods, The Franklin