Propositions on Revolution (Slogans for a Future)

Exhibition on view: August 31-December 22, 2017

Opening reception: Thursday, August 31, 6pm

This exhibition takes the centennial of the Russian Revolution of 1917 as an occasion to think broadly about revolution. How do radical changes in power and perception come about? Who makes them, or how do they happen? It adopts a working method employed by early twentieth-century political organizers, who co-authored slogans as a device for developing consciousness of their contemporary situation and consensus about how to move forward. Functioning less as propagandistic directives than as propositions to be picked up and debated, these slogans were intended to be part of an ongoing process of collective self-production. The exhibition includes works by contemporary artists and collectives Chto Delat’, Tacita Dean, Coco Fusco, Jennifer Moon, Tameka Norris, and The Propeller Group. Each work has been selected for its potential as a starting point for a discussion about a “proposition on revolution." The exhibition is organized as part of a series of programs at Illinois looking at the global impact of the Russian Revolution over the past one hundred years, and is in dialogue with the historical exhibition Revoliutsiia! Demonstratsiia! Soviet Art Put to the Test at the Art Institute of Chicago (October 29, 2017–January 14, 2018).

Krannert Art Museum exhibitions are made possible in part by a generous grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Sponsored in part by the 1917: Ten Days that Shook the World / 2017: Ten Days that Shake the Campus Initiative; Center for Advanced Study; School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics; Center for Global Studies; and Krannert Art Museum. Paid for by the Student Cultural Programming Fee.

Curator: Kristin Romberg, Asst. Prof. of Art History, University of Illinois

Image: Coco Fusco, a/k/a Mrs. George Gilbert, 2004. Video. Courtesy of Video Data Bank, www.vdb.org, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. © Coco Fusco