In Concert with Jen de los Reyes: Mid-career survey exhibition and publication

The first mid-career retrospective of influential social practice artist, organizer, and educator Jen de los Reyes* Canadian-born, Ithaca, NY-based Reyes has made a concerted effort to live and make work in accordance with her principles, including pragmatic organizing practices informed by her early years in punk music communities and recent anti-corporate and anti-racist direct action

Key projects of Reyes’ include flagship social practice conference Open Engagement (2007—2019) which showcased and launched a generation of socially engaged art; community urban garden Garbage Hill Farms in Chicago’s Southwest Side; The Disappearing Birds of North America: 389 Birds on the Verge of Extinction, a multi-faceted project with 389 artists and designers; and presentations including “Matching Minorities//Doubtful Doubles” (2020), an online workshop which called out racist practices in museums and educational institutions.

This retrospective exhibition, organized by Anthony Stepter, Astria Suparak and Nick Wylie, illuminates more than twenty years of artmaking, organizing, writing, and radical teaching by Jen de los Reyes. Through careful consideration of her life and career, patterns emerge that connect Reyes’s work to broader social contexts and art movements.
On the occasion of this exhibition, Co-Prosperity has produced a three book risograph publication series contextualizing the artist’s career and impact. The publication includes essays by Sampada Aranke; René De Guzman; Tom Finkelpearl; Eliza Gregory, Mark Menjivar, and Lexa Walsh; Zoë Heyn-Jones; Lee Painter-Kim; Stephanie Parrish; and Anthony Stepter, Astria Suparak, and Nick Wylie. Publication was designed by Josh Cook and Oscar Solis.

The opening reception for the exhibition will take place on Friday June 21 from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Public Programming
Class In Progress: LAND: Art, Ecology, and Environmental Activism

Wednesday, June 22, 2024, 3:00 p.m.

Free admission

As part of the Pedagogies section of this exhibition, Reyes will be sharing a glimpse into her own classroom. Class In Progress: LAND: Art, Ecology, and Environmental Activism outlines the syllabus, content, motivations, and assignments from her forthcoming class. In this moment of climate collapse the relationship of art to the land has an urgent new meaning. The course surveys artist’s engagement with land from a material, historical, spiritual and political perspective.
The talk will consist of twelve micro lectures that are a portrait of the weekly progression of the semester. Attendees will leave with an in progress reading list, and draft assignments and engagements.
Artist Talk Radio Broadcast

Wednesday, June 19, 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

lumpenradio.com + www.lumpen.tv

WLPN-LP 105.5FM

Broadcasting on Lumpen Radio, tune in for an artist talk by Reyes interspersed with song selections related to the artist’s practice. The live broadcast will be archived and available for listening at the exhibition.
Dance Party

Friday, July 26, 2024, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

As a nod to over a decade of Open Engagement dance parties that capped off each of the annual convenings, the exhibition will close with a dance party that will bring together some of the conference’s favorite DJs.
How to Make a Scene

Saturday, July 27, 2024 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. at Co-Prosperity and streaming live on lumpen.tv
www.lumpen.tv

Join Jen de los Reyes and a panel of artist organizers from Chicago past and present as they discuss their projects and practices as part of a series of talks in collaboration with Art + Design Chicago.

Artist’s Bio:

Jen de los Reyes, born in Winnipeg, Canada, is an artist, educator, writer, and radical community arts organizer. With roots in the Riot Grrrl and DIY music scene, her practice incorporates pedagogical, ecological and organizational methodologies. She founded and directed Open Engagement, an international conference on socially engaged art that was active from 2007–2019. She worked within Portland State University from 2008–2014 to create the Art and Social Practice MFA program with a curriculum focused on place, engagement, and dialogue. She is the author of several publications, most recently Defiantly Optimistic: Turning Up in a World on Fire. Reyes was the Associate Director of the School of Art & Art History of the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she taught in the departments of Art and Museum and Exhibition Studies. She is currently Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity and Equity at the Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. She splits her time between Chicago, where she founded Garbage Hill Farm, and Ithaca, NY. She describes herself as “defiantly optimistic, a friend to all birds, and proponent that our institutions can become tender and vulnerable.”

Official Website

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Tags: anthony stepter, Astria Suparak, Bridgeport, Chicago, Co-prosperity, Eliza Gregory, In Concert with Jen de los Reyes, Jen De Los Reyes, Josh Cook, Lee Painter-Kim, Lexa Walsh, Mark Menjivar, Nick Wylie, Oscar Solis, René De Guzman, Sampada Aranke, Stephanie Parrish, Tom Finkelpearl, Zoë Heyn-Jones