Library Formation

For this installation Alberto Aguilar and Alex Bradley Cohen use the Flaxman Library as a site for improvisational play in the form of call and response. They began by making physical gestures throughout the library responding to both its architecture and to one another. These gestures are documented through a series of photographs that are placed in dollar store frames painted in a manner that responds to the books installed inside of the cases. These books within the cases were taken from the bound periodical stacks and are chosen strictly for the color of their covers. It is important to note that all of the spine titles are purposely hidden to obscure the identity of each book. The books were then installed through an intuitive color arrangement, Tetris style, to fit the cases. This play based, collaborative, site specific project speaks to the artists desire for democratic freedoms and liberties and to highlight the co-dependent relationship that human beings have with their environment. 

Alberto Aguilar is a Chicago based artist that teaches in Print Media and Contemporary Practices at SAIC. He has an upcoming group exhibition at Bridge Projects in Los Angeles and a solo show at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. His past exhibition include: The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; El Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba; Palo Alto Art Center; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Minneapolis Institute of Art: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Queens Museum, NY. He is the recipient of the 3 Arts Award and the Crossing Boundaries Prize from the Center for Study of Race, Politics and Culture at The University of Chicago. 

Alex Bradley Cohen lives and works in Chicago. He was recently included in Triple: Alex Bradley Cohen, Louis Fratino, and Tschabalala Self, at the University Art Museum at the University of Albany, New York. He has held solo and two-person exhibitions at The Luggage Store, San Francisco; Mana Contemporary, Chicago; and Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, among others. Cohen has shown in group exhibitions at The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, Illinois; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York; and The Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles. He is an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and was an artist-in-residence at the Ox-Bow School of Art.