Dialogo: Virginio Ferrari and Chicago
Fall 2018 Public Programs
University of Chicago / Terra—Foundation for American Art
https://www.artdesignchicago.org/programs/dialogo-virginio-ferrari-and-chicago
https://arts.uchicago.edu/public-art/special-projects/virginioferrari
Opening Reception for Interlocking: Models and Proposals by Virginio Ferrari
https://www.artdesignchicago.org/events/opening-reception-for-interlocking-models-and-proposals-by-virginio-ferrari
https://arts.uchicago.edu/public-art/special-projects/virginioferrari
Date: October 4, 2018
Time: 4-6 pm opening
Location: Corvus Gallery, Gordon Parks Arts Hall, University of Chicago Laboratory School, 5815 South Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637
Program description: Celebrate the opening of the exhibition Interlocking: Models and Proposals by Virginio Ferrari at a public reception in the Corvus Gallery in the Gordon Parks Arts Hall.
A survey of Ferrari’s models, proposals, and drawings, the exhibition serves as a case study for the stages of planning required of an artist to produce work for the public sphere and illustrates the relationship between the initial proposal and the final public artwork. Outside the Corvus Gallery, a series of objects and elements invite viewers to engage with the exhibition more deeply by interrogating how Ferrari’s work might be received by the public. The reception will take place from 4-6 pm at the gallery, with Virginio Ferrari to give remarks at the site of the sculpture Interlocking at 4:30 pm. This event is free and open to the public.
Interlocking: Models and Proposals by Virginio Ferrari considers the artistic processes behind creating large scale works of public art and serves as a case study for the stages of planning required of an artist to produce work for the public sphere. The title of the exhibition, Interlocking, refers to Italian sculptor Virginio Ferrari’s beloved sculpture by the same name, sited at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. The term “interlocking” evokes the interplay between media that forms the basis for realizing public sculpture as a whole. A survey of Ferrari’s models, proposals, and drawings, this exhibition provides a focused narrative of the translation from two-dimensional plans to small-scale physical models, and more broadly illustrates the relationship between the initial proposal and the final public artwork.
Ferrari’s sculptures often arise out of simple geometric forms; his nuanced consideration of the antagonism between three-dimensional shapes produce both provocative and precarious situations in which forms fit together through contrasts and oppositions. The juxtaposition of models and drawings serve to elucidate the early stages of Ferrari’s artistic process.
Virginio Ferrari is an internationally acclaimed contemporary sculptor, who has exhibited his work in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and throughout the United States. Ferrari’s monumental sculptures can be found on street corners and public parks, at universities and libraries, corporations and in private collections in Chicago, and all over the world.
This event is free and open to the public.
Exhibition of Interlocking: Models and Proposals by Virginio Ferrari
https://www.artdesignchicago.org/events/interlocking-models-and-proposals-by-virginio-ferrari
https://arts.uchicago.edu/public-art/special-projects/virginioferrari
Date: October 4, 2018 – December 14, 2018
Time: Public access to the gallery is available Monday-Friday 8am-6pm, as long as visitors enter at 5815 S. Kimbark and give a photo ID at the security desk to get a visitor’s badge. The gallery will also be open from 10am-6pm on Saturday, October 20 (Humanities Day).
Location: Corvus Gallery, Gordon Parks Arts Hall, University of Chicago Laboratory School, 5815 South Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637
Program description:
Interlocking: Models and Proposals by Virginio Ferrari considers the artistic processes and stages of planning required to create large scale works of public art through the lens of Italian-born, Chicago-based sculptor Virginio Ferrari. The title of the exhibition, Interlocking, not only refers to Ferrari’s sculpture of the same name sited at the University of Chicago Laboratory School, but the term itself evokes the interplay between the media that form public sculpture as a whole.
By displaying Ferrari’s models, proposals, and drawings, this exhibition details how the sculptor translates two-dimensional plans to small-scale models to the final public artwork. Outside the gallery, a series of objects encourage viewers to interrogate how Ferrari’s work is perceived by the public.
Smart Museum/Logan Center Family Festival
https://www.artdesignchicago.org/events/smart-museum-logan-center-family-festival
https://arts.uchicago.edu/public-art/special-projects/virginioferrari
Date: October 6, 2018
Time: 1-4:30 pm
Location: Smart Museum of Art, Logan Center for the Arts
Program description:
The Logan Center for the Arts and the Smart Museum team up to celebrate Italian-born, Chicago-based sculptor Virginio Ferrari in conjunction with the second annual Logan Center Bluesfest.
Ferrari’s sweeping bronze sculptures, playful concrete spheres, and stainless steel works have adorned the Chicago landscape, and especially Hyde Park, for many years. Visitors are invited to an afternoon program including hands-on design activities, walking tours of Ferrari’s sculptures across the UChicago campus, and an artist activation featuring choreographer Irene Hsiao performing an original dance inspired by Ferrari’s sculpture Dialogo. This event is free and open to the public.
Dialogo Dialogo
https://www.artdesignchicago.org/events/dialogo-dialogo
https://arts.uchicago.edu/public-art/special-projects/virginioferrari
Date: October 6, 2018,
Time: 2–3 p.m.
Location: University of Chicago, Albert Pick Hall for International Studies, 5828 South University Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60637
Program description: UChicago Arts presents a live performance responding to the work of Italian-born, Chicago-based sculptor Virginio Ferrari. Dancer Irene Hsiao and musician Joey Brink team up to perform an improvisatory installation on the site of Dialogo, a sculpture by Ferrari sited on the University of Chicago campus. Hsiao’s choreography explores the relationship between the bronze sculpture Dialogo and bronze carillon bells, played by Bring. Just as the bells are stationary and clappers move to strike them, Hsiao becomes the moving element within the statue and a visual reminder of how the aleatory and the living affect and respond to an ever-changing environment of sound and motion.
Irene Hsiao is a dancer, writer, and enthusiast interested in improvising on the edge of the ordinary in public spaces. Joey Brink is the sixth University Carillonneur at the University of Chicago, where he performs on the 72-bell Rockefeller Memorial Carillon and directs a carillon studio of twenty students.
This event is free and open to the public. The University of Chicago campus is wheelchair accessible.
The Lifespan of Public Art: A Humanities Day Conversation with Virginio Ferrari and Andrei Pop (Featuring: Virginio Ferrari, Andrei Pop, John Kuhns)
https://www.artdesignchicago.org/events/the-lifespan-of-public-art-in-conversation-with-virginio-ferrari-and-andrei-pop
https://arts.uchicago.edu/public-art/special-projects/virginioferrari
Date: October 20, 2018
Time: 3:30-4:30pm
Location: University of Chicago Laboratory School, Drama Studio, 5815 S Kimbark Ave, Chicago, IL 60637
Program description:
Join UChicago Arts for a conversation between Virginio Ferrari and Andrei Pop on the lifespan of public art, from conception to fruition to evolution. Together, they will discuss the following questions: How does the artist create a sculpture to respond to a specific architectural or geographical context? How does the work survive changes in its surroundings (architectural, geographical, political) after it has been installed? How does the context of the piece evolve through those changes? The conversation will be introduced and moderated by artist and entrepreneur John Kuhns (MFA ’75).
Virginio Ferrari is an internationally acclaimed contemporary sculptor, who has exhibited his work in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and throughout the United States. Ferrari’s monumental sculptures can be found on street corners and public parks, at universities and libraries, corporations and in private collections in Chicago, and all over the world.
Andrei Pop is an art historian interested in the relation of art and science, in dramatic and narrative art (what is usually called classicism), and in how modernity deals with the past. He has published a book on the Anglo-Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), and a translation of Karl Rosenkranz’s 1853 Aesthetics of Ugliness. Pop is an Associate Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago.
John D. Kuhns is an author, artist, businessman, venture capitalist and investment banker. His third and most recent novel, South of the Clouds, was released in July 2018. He has founded and taken five companies public. A sculptor, Kuhns graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1975.
The event will be held in the Drama Studio in the Gordon Parks Arts Hall. This event is free and open to the public.
Taking Flight: Chicago Public Art and Virginio Ferrari
https://www.artdesignchicago.org/events/taking-flight-chicago-public-art-and-virginio-ferrari
https://arts.uchicago.edu/public-art/special-projects/virginioferrari
Date: November 8, 2018
Time: 5:00 pm
Location: Cochrane Woods Art Center, 5540 South Greenwood Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60637
Program description:
UChicago Arts and the Department of Art History present a two-part afternoon lecture series investigating public art in Chicago and the works of Italian-born, Chicago-based sculptor Virginio Ferrari.
Erika Doss, professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame, presents her talk titled “Ferrari in Chicago: Public Art and Public Response,” exploring the public response to public art in Chicago. The talk contextualizes Ferrari’s sculptures and those by his contemporaries in light of American ambivalence towards the removal and/or relocation of public art.
Alex J. Taylor, Assistant Professor and Academic Curator at the University of Pittsburgh, presents “Taking Flight: Virginio Ferrari and the Jet Age” using Ferrari’s Volo Tragico series (1963-4) as a departure point to investigate the transatlantic contexts for Ferrari’s early work and its position within a post-war sculptural idiom preoccupied by the experience of flight. This event is free and open to the public.
