FREE PERFORMANCE: Saturday, January 31, 2009, 4:00pm
CHICAGO: Corbett vs. Dempsey is proud to launch Sleeping Beauty: A One-Artist Dictionary, a new collaborative book by artist John Sparagana and writer Mieke Bal, published by University of Chicago Press. Sparagana will be on hand to sign copies of the book, and an example of his most recent work will be on display. John Sparagana’s work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions in New York, Houston, and Chicago. Excorporating pages from popular magazines, he subjects them to a process of “fatiguing” by means of excessive handling; in his latest body of work Sparagana then uses various manual processes (and the introduction of reflective materials) to meticulously cut up, interdigitate, expand, and in some cases further distort the underlying image. The results are evocative, subversive, mysterious, provocative, powerful, and remarkably beautiful.
As a special part of the afternoon event, Glenn Kotche, percussionist extraordinaire and drummer with Wilco, will present a program including two solo pieces by composer Steve Reich. Like Sparagana’s process-intensive work, Reich’s pieces revolve around pattern, repetition, symmetry, asymmetry, phase shifting, and misregistration. An incredibly rare performance by one of creative music’s most vibrant forces.
