Inaction is co-organized with the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut; Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; the Richmond Art Gallery in Richmond, BC, Canada; and the Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. 

About the Artists: 

Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Fernandes’ projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest, and other forms of collective movement. These projects take on hybrid forms: part ballet, part queer dance hall, part political protest. As a queer Kenyan-Indian Canadian artist, Fernandes incorporates his identity in his work to investigate ideas of transnationalism and queerness. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency, these projects foster a sense of solidarity and are always rooted in collaboration. Fernandes is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and he is the recipient of a 2017 Canada Council New Chapter grant. His projects have been shown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NY), the Museum of Modern Art (NY), The Getty Museum (LA), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), and the MAC (Montreal), among a great many others. Projects in 2019 include performances and solo presentations at the Solomon R. Guggenheim (NY), the Whitney Biennial (New York), the Smithsonian Museum of American Art (WA), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and the Noguchi Museum (NY). He is currently artist-in-residence and faculty at Northwestern University and represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago. 

Norman Kelley is an architecture and design firm founded by Carrie Norman and Thomas Kelley. The practice was established in 2012 and is operated jointly between New Orleans and Chicago. Their work re-examines architecture and design’s relationship to vision and prompts its observers to look closely. Clients and affiliates of the practice include Aesop, American Academy in Rome, Architectural League of New York, Chicago Architecture Foundation, Chicago Art Department, Early Learning Foundation, Volume Gallery, University of Illinois at Chicago, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, among others. The practice has been published in Log, Avery Review, MAS Context, Architect Magazine, Cultured, Domus, Dezeen, Wallpaper, Frame, and Design Milk, among others. The practice has contributed work to the 14th Venice Architecture Biennial (2014) and the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015). The practice was a recipient of the Architecture League of New York Young Architect’s Prize (2014). Their design work, which includes a collection of American Windsor chairs, is currently represented by Volume Gallery in Chicago. 

Brendan Fernandes, Tumbler Assembly Drawings (detail), 2019.