Visual Arts

In the February 2013 issue of Interview, William Pope.L, Associate Professor in Visual Arts, discussed his upcoming exhibition at the Renaissance Society and his "crawl" pieces. The most famous of these "crawl" works consisted of crawling on his hands and knees from the beginning to the end of Broadway street in Manhattan, a 22-mile journey that took him nine years to complete, "with each installment lasting as long as Pope.L could endure the knee and elbow pain (often about six blocks)." He also considered questions surrounding whether he defines his work as activism, his upcoming Pull! project (in which he and a group of local participants will pull an eight-ton truck through the streets of Cleveland by hand), and his thoughts on authorship in community-based art.

The community is, in fact, one of the most important parts of Pope.L's work. When asked whether he enjoys making the work he does, he responded:

No, I did not enjoy crawling. Overall, I enjoy making work with others. I enjoy the small moments of revelation that are only possible in the company of others. I enjoy making a clear puzzle. I realize more and more that making is unmaking. To make something is to undo it. To make something is to make it less mysterious, that is, in the process of removing a veil, one of many. You gain more intimacy, but it may not be very pleasant.

Pope.L's show at the Renaissance Society, titled Forlesen, will run from April 28 to June 23. It will be his first solo exhibition in Chicago since joining the University faculty.

Anthony Elms, associate curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, has been selected to curate one floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art for its 2014 Biennial. The Biennial acts as a platform to present shows that illustrate the state of contemporary art in the country. He joins two additional curators who will also have creative control over their own floors. Elms, a 1995 MFA graduate, was selected by the museum's director and staff members to participate in what Donna DeSalvo, the Whitney's chief curator, calls an experiment: "By slicing the museum up like a layer cake and seeing how it will look collectively, it gives the curators the opportunity to express their own points of view, each on a different floor.” The 2014 Biennial will be a historic one for the museum, as it is the last time the event will take place in the Whitney's Marcel Breuer building before the museum moves to its new location in the meatpacking district.

Elms recently contributed to "Wall Text", an exhibit that was on display throughout the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.