Bridging the historic roots of American modernism with the critical practices of contemporary artists and architects, the Learning Modern lecture series focuses on the presence of the Modern today and its vital role in education in the mid-20th century.  Presented in conjunction with the Learning Modern exhibition at SAIC's Sullivan Galleries, these timely reappraisals of the Modern coincide with Chicago's Burnham Plan Centennial, the opening of the Art Institute's Renzo Piano Modern Wing, and the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus in Germany—with its dream of artists, architects, designers, working together to make a better world. This series also springs from recognition of artist-educator László Moholy-Nagy's emigration to Chicago in 1937, followed by architect Mies van der Rohe one year later, transplanting Bauhaus ideologies expunged from wartime Germany. Learning Modern speakers will bring this living legacy into our own time.

This series is part of the Living Modern Chicago program, a collaboration of SAIC and the Mies van der Rohe Society/Illinois Institute of Technology, in partnership with other cultural institutions in Chicago and is sponsored in part by the SAIC Department of Exhibitions, the Mies van der Rohe Society at IIT, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, Getty Images, Alicia Rosauer and Robert Segal, and the Illinois Art Council, a state agency.

The Learning Modern exhibition will be on view at SAIC's Sullivan Galleries, 33 S. State, 7th Floor from September 26, 2009 — January 9, 2010. For more information and details on related programming, please visit www.livingmodernchicago.org.
– Narelle Jubelin - Wednesday, September 16, 6pm

Narelle Jubelin, Key Notes, 2009, floor plan of installation. Courtesy of the artist.
Wednesday, September 16, 6:00pm
SAIC Columbus Auditorium, 280 S. Columbus Drive

Narelle Jubelin, an Australian artist based in Madrid, revisits aspects of modernist perception for the twenty-first century. Known for works that weave through legacies of education, art, architecture, memory, and cultural heritage, Jubelin will reflect on her latest project, Key Notes, on view in the Learning Modern exhibition. In this work, transcriptions of critical modernist texts are embedded into sumptuously colored fabrics, creating a site-specific environment of narrative, geometric planes in homage to Mies van der Rohe and his collaborator Lilly Reich.

[listen to the podcast]

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– Kathleen James-Chakraborty - Thursday, September 24, 6pm

Kathleen James-Chakraborty, exterior view of Carson Pirie Scott department store in Chicago, Illinois, 1956-62. Photograph: Hedrich-Blessing. Courtesy of the Chicago History Museum.
Thursday, September 24, 6:00pm
SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Avenue


In her lecture "From Chicago to Berlin and Back Again," Kathleen James-Chakraborty will analyze the creative misunderstandings that have characterized the interchange between Chicago and Berlin since the 1880s, from Frank Lloyd Wright to German émigrés to the U.S. Probing the myths that have long clouded our understanding, this lecture will cast new light on familiar landmarks, including the Carson Pirie Scott department store, the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, and the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park. Professor and head of the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College in Dublin since 2007, James-Chakraborty has authored German Architecture for a Mass Audience (2000) and Bauhaus Culture from Weimar to the Cold War (2006), and is currently writing a book on Louis Kahn.

[listen to the podcast]

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– Andrea Deplazes - Thursday, October 8, 6pm

Andrea Deplazes, New Monte Rosa Cabin, a co-production with ETH Zurich and SAC Switzerland, under construction, 2009. Image: Visualization by ETH Zurich
Thursday, October 8, 6:00pm
Morton Auditorium, The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Free Admission


Andrea Deplazes's work stems from innovative research to develop sustainable practices througout a broad spectrum of public and institutional projects. In "A Personal View on Architecture," he will reflect on Swiss methodologies that integrate disciplines including sociology, engineering, construction, and urban planning. Deplazes is a professor of architecture and construction at the ETH, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, and the co-owner of the architectural firm Bearth + Deplazes in Chur, Switzerland. The William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Lecture Series presented by the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects in collaboration with the Consulate General of Switzerland, Think Swiss, and the Goethe-Institut Chicago.

[listen to the podcast]

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– Distinguished Alumni Lecture: Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba - Tuesday, October 13, 6pm

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Breathing is Free: 12,756.3, Luang Prabang, Laos, 2007, 89.6 km, on-going performance project. Courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo and the artist
Tuesday, October 13, 6:00pm
SAIC Columbus Auditorium, 280 S. Columbus Drive


SAIC alumnus Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (BFA 1992) examines globalization, spirituality, memory, and the plight of refugees in his multi-media works. In conversation with Nora A. Taylor, SAIC Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art, Nguyen-Hatsushiba will discuss his various projects around the globe, including Breathing is Free: 12,756.3, for which he made a new work occasioned by his exhibition on view at the Rymer Gallery in Spring 2010. Presented in collaboration with SAIC Alumni Affairs and the Department of Exhibitions.

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– Christian Veddeler - Monday, October 19, 6pm

Christian Veddeler, UNStudio, Star Place Department Store (2008), Kaohsing, Taiwan (Facade detail).
Monday, October 19, 6:00pm
Fullerton Auditorium, The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Free Admission


Christian Veddeler will take a critical look at established and allegedly eternal "truths" in architecture, such as tenets linked to the priority of function above form, and norm above difference. Presenting strategies based on research and the conditions that influence the design process, he emphasizes the importance of consistent design and construction methods. Veddeler is Senior Architect at UNStudio and head of UNid, UNStudio's Integral Design Research Group. Presented in collaboration with ACADIA, the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Chicago, and the Goethe-Institut Chicago.

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– Liisa Roberts - Wednesday, October 28, 6pm

Liisa Roberts, What's the Time in Vyborg?, 2001-2004, 35mm, super 16mm, Digital Beta, MiniDV, SVHS transferred to BetaSPB. English, Finnish, and Russian with subtitles, 1 hour 27 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Silva Mysterium Oy, Helsinki
Wednesday, October 28, 6:00pm
Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State Street
$10 General Admission, $7 Students (with valid I.D.)
$5 Film Center members, $4 SAIC Students, Staff, Faculty (with valid I.D.)
Advance tickets available at GSFC box office or via Ticketmaster.


Helsinki-based artist Liisa Roberts employs a range of media and approaches including film, performance, texts, publications, and photographs. Roberts will screen her film What's the Time in Vyborg? (2001-2004), which synthesizes a range of historical and contemporary views of this former Finnish capital now located within the Russian Federation. This film was developed in a series of workshops with local teenagers between 2001-2003 held in the Alvar Aalto-designed municipal library and reflects on the restoration of this monument of modern Finnish architecture within its new geopolitical context. Since the early 1990's, Roberts has exhibited widely including exhibitions at Artists Space, P.S.1, Documenta X, and The Biennale of Sydney in 2006. Presented in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center.

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– Jorge Pardo - Tuesday, November 10, 6pm

Jorge Pardo, photograph by Jody Asano.
Tuesday, November 10, 6:00pm
Fullerton Auditorium, The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Free Admission


Born in 1963 in Havana, Cuba, Jorge Pardo emigrated to the United States in July 1969. He studied at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has exhibited widely since his first solo show in 1988. Besides participating in numerous international group exhibitions, his permanent projects include Reading Room at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam in 1996; Pier in the 1997 Skulptur. Projekte in Münster; 4166 Sea View Lane (with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles) in 1998, and Untitled (Cafe-Restaurant), K21, Düsseldorf, in 2002. Pardo lives and works in Los Angeles and Long Island, NY.

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Admission:
$5 per person for the general public; $3 per person for SAIC alumni, non-SAIC students, and seniors; and FREE for students, faculty, and staff of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Any person with a disability who would like to request an accommodation for this program should contact the Disability and Learning Resource Center at dlrc@saic.edu or 312-499-4278 as soon as possible to allow adequate time to make proper arrangements.

Location:
Visiting Artists Program
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
37 S. Wabash Avenue, Suite 1220
Chicago, IL 60603

Telephone: 312.899-5187
Fax: 312.899-5186
Email: events@saic.edu

Unless otherwise noted lectures begin at 6:00 p.m. at the SAIC auditorium, 280 South Columbus Drive. Admission is $5 for the general public, $3 for SAIC alumni, students and seniors, and free for students, faculty, and staff of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For more information call 312.899-5187 or email events@saic.edu.

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