Soft Systems presents Strange Mathematics, a group show featuring performance, sculpture, painting, and drawing. The event will take place on February 28th from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM at Studio M, 3134 W Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL. The performances, each no longer than six minutes, will be analog-based, emphasizing the fleeting nature of presence and the unpredictability of the moment. These brief acts will unfold throughout the building, with no digital components involved, and improvisation is welcomed—allowing the audience to become part of the art in a way that transcends traditional expectations. This collective presence, both as audience and participants, transforms the space, making the show an ever-shifting experience.

In an era where shows are often defined by names, institutions, and expectations, Strange Mathematics strips away the trappings of recognition. The artists behind the works remain unnamed, leaving the focus solely on the ephemeral nature of the art itself and the audience’s role in its creation and dissolution. It is an invitation to engage not with titles and reputations, but with the pure, unmediated experience of the work.

M. Martinez, curator and artist, describes Strange Mathematics as a personal reflection on the past year spent in their studio. Drawing inspiration from Sun Ra’s ideas on harmony and chaos, the show examines the balance between structure and disintegration. It’s an exploration of art’s fleeting nature—how it can exist and vanish in the same moment, emphasizing the transient and impermanent quality of the work.

Show Statement:
I’m at my studio in Humboldt Park, it’s quiet, drafty, and I’m staring out the window at the train tracks, watching the occasional blur of a passing Amtrak. The desk is covered in scattered sketches and notes, papers stacked in a way that only makes sense to me. I’m thinking about how much happened here these past twelve months or so. I’m leaving in a couple of weeks, heading to northeast Wisconsin—needing to be somewhere smaller, needing to make art differently.

This studio space had been everything: a print shop, a meeting place, a hideout, a battleground. I designed my first zines here. Planned four Soft Systems shows here. Friends came through—sometimes to make art, sometimes just to talk. Then there were the nights alone, fighting to feel something, fighting to make something, fighting my inner shadow.

I told myself I wasn’t going to do another show until spring. I’d wait, give it time, let life unfold. I wasn’t sure where the next one would be, wasn’t sure if I even had it in me to organize another. It feels right to end this chapter properly, to close with a celebration. I called the show Strange Mathematics. Sun Ra had been in my head, talking about harmony and chaos, equations unfolding into sound.

An event where past and present intertwine, transmitting truths the future might recognize—something of the avant-garde. A group show of performance, painting, sculpture, and drawing. Brief performances throughout the building, no longer than six minutes, analog—no digital. The invite was a rumor, where presence itself becomes the act of participation… or becoming. Collective presence, improvisation welcomed. The shape of things as they form and vanish, a show that lives for a couple of hours before dissolving.

Past shows lingered like myths, things you can only truly know by being there. Names pin things down, they freeze things, give them weight, credibility. But weight can be a burden. I wanted a show without that—the opposite of group shows propped up by names—artist names, curator names, institutional names. I wanted to create a show that has the aesthetic and practice antithetical to names stacked like monuments. There’s power in names, sure—but what if you strip them away? Let the work stand unnamed, unclaimed. Let it belong only to the moment, to the audience who witnessed it?

Event Details:
Strange Mathematics
Date: February 28th
Time: 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Location: Studio M, 3134 W Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL
Admission: Free

About Soft Systems:
Soft Systems is a decentralized gallery that hosts curated art salons and exhibitions in Chicago. The gallery explores the intersections between different forms of media and artistic practices, presenting a diverse range of work from visual and performance artists.

For press inquiries or more information, please contact:
Gallery Managed by M. Martinez
Email: info@softsystems.site
Instagram: @softsystems

Official Website

More events on this date

Tags: Humboldt Park, M. Martinez, Soft Systems, Strange Mathematics