NewCity Breakout Artist 2012
May 7, 2012
Kirsten Leenaars’ current video project is her largest, most ambitious production to date, which is fitting, considering that her topic—happiness—is no small matter. Leenaars was prompted last year by curator Tricia Van Eck to explore some specific questions: Who is responsible for happiness? What is the relationship between happiness and public policy? Acting as a neighborhood artist-in-residence, Leenaars opened a pop-up space in Edgewater to interview the ward’s alderman, community activists, students and anybody who felt like walking in and talking about what happiness means to them—in total, forty-eight people from the 48th ward. “What drives me to make work,” says Leenaars, “is the simple understanding that in one way or another we are all connected, all human, all in the business of being human with all our flaws, projections, desires, hopes and fears.” A police commander, decades on the job, came in and, somewhat surprisingly, opened a conversation about the inherent goodness of people.
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The community interviews became material for a script. A film set was built at the Senn High School auditorium, in Edgewater, with students acting as community members and community members acting as themselves. Potholes and bedbugs— major barriers to widespread happiness—became part of the drama’s chorus, although the script was open and loose. Actors were asked to improvise and perform the vignettes through bodily movements and actions. Like her soap opera video series, “On Our Way to Tomorrow” at the MCA and “Hairy Blob” at the Hyde Park Art Center, in which art administrators enact their daily, behind-the-scenes activities, the “Happiness” video will turn out like a piece of creative nonfiction where the issues are heightened, abstracted and edited. “I didn’t come up with any solutions,” says Leenaars about the happiness question, but she did find that the sense of belonging in a community is a powerful, perhaps universal, feeling. “I am a bit of an eternal optimist,” she says.
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http://art.newcity.com/2012/05/03/breakout-artists-2012-chicagos-next-generation-of-image-makers-2/
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The Hairy Blob at HPAC
April 25, 2012
Predictions for WO 3.20.12 with Kirsten Leenaars
and Zaine Smart.
Many thanks to all the artists involved! I hear the making was a real astro space party ♥.;)Living by Example
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@ Northeastern Illinois University Fine Arts Center 550 N St. Louise Chicago IL 60625
Opening Friday, February 17th, from 6PM – 9PM. On view through Friday, March 16th
Living By Example is an exhibition focusing on the continued rise and growing popularity of Chicago-based artist-run “apartment exhibitions.” For this exhibition Edra Soto and Dan Sullivan are creating a structure within the confines of a traditional gallery space. The Franklin, the name given to the structure, is being built in the form of a modern shed which, once the exhibition is complete, will reside in the backyard of Soto and Sullivan’s home and will act as their version of the common “apartment exhibition” space.
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The exhibition featured in The Franklin will consist of work from Soto and Sullivan’s private collection. Artists included in the exhibition are Jeroen Nelemans, Ryan Richey, Ryan Travis Christian, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Deborah Boardman, Dana Carter, Kirsten Leenaars, Zachary Cahill, Ann Toebbe, Melissa Oresky, Alberto Alguilar, Corinne Halbert, Meg Duguid, Heidi Norton, Paul Nudd, Maria Gaspar, Mindy Rose-Schwartz, Eric Brown, Catie Olsen, and Michael Rea. The exhibition will open on Tuesday February 14th and run through Friday March 16th.
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There will be a reception for the artists on Friday February 17th from 6-9pm. On Thursday February 23rd at 3pm Catie Olsen and Erik Brown will give a talk entitled Domestic Spaces and Alternative Venues followed by a discussion of artists as collectors by Edra Soto and Dan Sullivan. All events take place in the gallery and are free and open to the public.
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http://www.thevisualist.org/2012/02/living-by-example/
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Home Knowledge Spectacular
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Without You I Am Nothing
Kirsten Leenaars: On Our Way to Tomorrow
March 1-6: Tues noon-7 pm; Wed-Sun noon-4:30 pm
March 8-13: Tues noon-7 pm; Wed-Sun noon-4:30 pm
This performance is a soap opera based on real-life drama, to be filmed on location at the MCA, using MCA staff and visitors as the core actors and extras. The plotlines and characters in the soap opera unfold as determined by input from the visitors, since each day a new episode is filmed and a scenario for the next episode is developed.
