Saturday, September 4th to Friday, October 15th, 2010
Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project is pleased to present Things to be Next To, an exhibition collaboration with threewalls, Chicago. Featuring recent and new work by Alberto Aguilar (Chicago), Peter Fagundo (Chicago), James Woodfill (Kansas City), and Warren Rosser (Kansas City), the exhibition will open Saturday, September 4, 6-9pm at CSF’s la Esquina (an Urban Culture Project venue), 1000 West 25th Street in Kansas City, running through October 15, and will then travel to threewalls in Chicago, November 5-December 11, 2010. Also on Saturday, September 4, la Esquina will host a roundtable discussion with the artists and curators at 3:30 pm.
Co-curated by Kate Hackman (CSF) and Shannon Stratton (threewalls), this exhibition developed through extensive artist reviews and studio visits by each curator in the partner city. One interest that emerged was in the nature of the cities themselves, and how the conditions of each place, including the characteristics and contexts of the artists’ studios, inform their practices.
Alberto Aguilar and Peter Fagundo both work in their own homes, creating artworks that are intimate in scale and substance. Their work derives from, responds to, comments upon, and participates in the domestic realm, often involving collaborations with family members and knitted into a spectrum of daily life activities. In contrast, James Woodfill and Warren Rosser work in expansive, high-ceilinged studios in the kind of industrial building characteristic of downtown Kansas City. A sense of freedom—to make things, step back and sit with them awhile, make other things, then circle back around again—is palpable in their works, which convey a sense of flux and sustained potential. Both artists’ works for this exhibition reference the domestic as well, with Rosser employing fabrics and rugs in cut shapes that recall dressmaking patterns, and Woodfill creating structures that suggest—and can readily function as—benches, desks, and screens.
Read The Kansas City Star review
For photos of the event, check out our flickr.
About the Artists
Alberto Aguilar
Alberto Aguilar was born in Chicago, IL in 1974 and raised in Cicero, IL. In 1997, he received his BFA in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was married. Alberto had his first child in 1998 during a two-year hiatus in Phoenix, AZ, then returned to Chicago to receive his MFA in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and purchased his first home in Cicero, IL in 2001. For five years Alberto taught part-time at various colleges throughout the Chicago area. With the assistance of students, he painted several murals in and around Chicago. In 2004 Alberto had his last child, bringing the total to four. Also in 2004, Alberto got his first full-time job at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, IL, where he was appointed as Professor of Art History. In 2005 he took part in Blue Sky Project, a summer arts community and residency program, which opened him up to a more direct mode of collaboration with other artists and youth. Around the same time Alberto started documenting everyday occurrences, family life and household chores and designating them as his artwork. In 2006 he was appointed as a full-time Professor of Art at Harold Washington College in downtown Chicago where he teaches painting, drawing and art appreciation. In 2007 Alberto started Pedestrian Project, an art initiative dedicated to making art accessible and available to people from all walks of life. Alberto currently lives on the southwest side of Chicago, on the path of airplanes, near Midway airport. In his current work, every aspect of his daily life and exchanges with others are treated as creative acts. http://albertoaguilar.carbonmade.com
Peter Fagundo
Peter Fagundo was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota in 1971 and lives and works in Evanston, Illinois. He received his BS in Psychology and Fine Art from Regis University, Denver, Colorado in 1997, and his MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. His work has been exhibited at venues including Devening Projects and Editions, Chicago (where he is represented), boom, Oak Park, IL; Hudson Franklin, NY; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Acuna Hanson Gallery, Los Angeles, among many others. He is an instructor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago and curator of ETF (Essential Transmutation Frequency), his home, studio and a space where he curates work from artists whose work interests me and which is presented in direct relationship to a domestic space. He is former co-curator of The Pond, which organized group exhibitions in a storefront gallery in Chicago’s Westtown area, championing issues of artist’s intentionality, art objects’ discretion and the conversation between makers and viewers. http://peterfagundo.com
Warren Rosser
Warren Rosser is the William T. Kemper Distinguished Professor of Painting and Chair of the Painting Department at the Kansas City Art Institute. Born in Wales, he moved to the United States in 1972. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at the University of Leeds, England; Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Overland Park, Kansas; Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St Joseph, Missouri; South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Nebraska; and Review Studios Exhibition Space. His work has also been presented in group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Rosser is currently an artist in residence at Review Studios. http://warrenrosser.com
James Woodfill
James Woodfill is a 1980 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, who has lived and worked as an artist in Kansas City since his graduation. For the majority of his career he has concentrated on installation art, with numerous solo shows in galleries and museums throughout the region, most recently at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Nebraska. His work has been included in a number of exhibits both nationally and internationally. His installation work has been reviewed extensively, including reviews in Art in America, Art Papers, The New Art Examiner, and Sculpture Magazine. Woodfill has also worked extensively in the Public Art realm along with privately commissioned sculptural installations in public spaces. His public work has been widely recognized with numerous awards from the American Institute of Architects, and it has been included twice in the Americans for the Arts/Public Art Network annual “Year in Review.” Woodfill is currently an artist in residence at Review Studios. http://www.jameswoodfill.com/
