Assaf Evron: Collage for the Arts Club of Chicago

Collage for the Arts Club is the fourth chapter in the Collages for Mies van der Rohe project in which the artist has been installing monumental photographs on the famed architect’s buildings. Following the McCormick House, The Esplanade Apartment, and S.R. Crown Hall, this is the first interior installation in the series. Evron’s photographic installation will intervene on the glass-boxed historic staircase of the Arts Club of Chicago. The steel and travertine marble staircase was designed by Mies in 1949-1951 for the Arts Club’s Rush St. location and was repositioned in 1998 by Architect John Vinci to its current location at 210 E. Ontario St. The image of the semi-transparent conch shell installed on the glass windows corresponds to the form of the enclosed staircase and echos the ancient past and geological history of its stone cladding. This project is based on speculative paper collages made by Mies van der Rohe in his American period, from the late 1930s and on. In these collages, Mies was experimenting and negotiating the relationships between landscape, artworks, and materials interacting on his minimalist architectural stage.

Assaf Evron is an artist and a photographer based in Chicago. His work investigates the nature of vision and the ways in which it reflects in socially constructed structures, where he applies photographic thinking in various two and three-dimensional media. Looking at moments along the histories of modernism Evron questions the construction of individual and collective identities, immigration (of people, ideas, images) and the representations of democracy.

His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally as The Museum for Contemporary Art in Chicago, Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem among others. Evron holds an MA from The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel-Aviv University as well as an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he currently teaches.

Percussionist Ian Antonio’s breadth of experience – concertizing across four continents with a wide variety of chamber ensembles, orchestras, experimental rock bands, avant-garde theatre companies, and as a soloist, conductor, and educator – has led him to develop a unique sound and approach to both performing and teaching.

Ian is a director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, a collective of composers and performers. Named 2018’s “Best Ensemble” by the New York Times, Wet Ink most frequently performs as a mixed-instrumentation octet of composer-performers that collaborate in a band-like fashion, writing, improvising, preparing, and touring pieces together over long stretches of time. This approach, honed over 20 years, has led to an incomparable body of work marked by a keenly developed performance practice, played in concert with ferocity, commitment, and expressivity. In demand at both domestic and international venues, Wet Ink’s performances “combine striking stylistic and aesthetic assurance with technical perfection.” (Dissonanz Switzerland)

Ian is also a member of the percussion ensemble Talujon. The group’s septet configuration allows Talujon to produce large-scale and oft-neglected percussive masterworks as well as new pieces written for the ensemble. Described by the New York Times as possessing an “edgy, unflagging energy”, the ensemble has been championing percussive music for well over two decades. Ian has performed with Talujon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bang on a Can

Marathon, BAM Next Wave Festival, and elsewhere across the country. Ian is Assistant Professor of Percussion at the University of Michigan‘s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He previously served on faculties of Purchase College, Stony Brook University, 92nd Street Y, Henry Street Settlement, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Ben LaMar Gay is a composer and cornetist who moves sound, color, and space through folkloric filters to produce electro-acoustic collages. His unification of various styles is always in service of the narrative and never solely a display of technique. A Chicago native, Ben’s true technique is giving life to an idea while exploring and expanding on the term “Americana.”

By being active in Chicago’s experimental music scene and having spent a three-year residency in Brazil, Ben has collaborated with several influential figures in the world of music, including Joshua Abrams, the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Bixiga 70, Black Monks of Mississippi, Celso Fonseca, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Theo Parrish, Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, and Itibere Zwarg.

Ben received his Bachelor of Arts in Music Education from Northeastern Illinois University. He has served as a music instructor in Chicago Public Schools, a guest lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a facilitator with the Chicago Park District’s Inferno Mobile Recording Studio for six years. The latter helped set the tone for a core philosophy that fuels his musicianship, a fundamental component of which explores the lineage of an idea passed from one generation to another. He aims for his work to have the same functionality as most folktales, which is to create variations on timeless themes to help people make sense of their existence and place in the world.

Since 1916, The Arts Club of Chicago has been a preeminent exhibitor of international art, a forum for established and emerging artists, and a celebrated venue for performers from around the world. For over 100 years, The Arts Club has opened its membership to artists and patrons of the arts, and its exhibitions to the public. At its inaugural meeting, the mission of the Club was defined as: “to encourage higher standards of art, maintain galleries for that purpose, and to promote the mutual acquaintance of art lovers and art workers.”

Please direct press inquiries and requests for images to David Merz at press@artsclubchicago.org or call 312-787-3997.