How to Build a World That Won’t Fall Apart Exhibition Series

October 2012 – June 2013

 

The idea of emancipation implies…that there are always several spaces in a space, several ways of occupying it, and each time the trick is knowing what sort of capacities one is setting in motion, what sort of world one is constructing. – Jacques Ranciere

In 2012-2013, we will initiate our most ambitious exhibition season yet with a year-long exploration of the ways that artists and alternative spaces sustain their practice in times of social and economic uncertainty. Entitled How to Build a World That Won’t Fall Apart, the series is an exercise in defining one’s terms, in creating capacities, in initiating a form of bottom-up world-building. It follows an initial linear logic: moving from within the single institution to the many, from the hyper-local to the global in a widening gyre.

The opening exhibition, How to Build a World That Won’t Fall Apart, pt 1, will feature the work of The Luminary’s founders under their US English pseudonym, along with ancillary programming examining the role of labor in relation to institutions. How to Build… is an exhibition exploring labor as it relates to the idea of the institution, crafting out a creative function within the word “opera” in its several meanings and translations. Alternately defined as work, society, and institution, along with its more popular art and music connotations, opera offers an insight into how the artist-as-laborer exists in relation to institutions, society, and economic theory more broadly.

In parallel, we will present a group show at the MDW Fair in Chicago exploring these concepts through the work of The Luminary’s collaborators, past residents, employees, and curators. During this time, we will also host an alternate site of the Creative Time Summit, itself focused on the proliferation of economic disparity across the globe and the social upheavals that have erupted as a result over the past year.

In November 2012, The Luminary will collaborate with Isolation Room/Gallery Kit to present a constellation of ‘gallery kits’ individually curated by area alternative spaces that have shuttered or shifted form within the past year, including PSTL Gallery, Los Caminos, and Cosign Projects. The exhibition will explore the tenuous landscape these spaces inhabit and offer a glimpse into how the arts community is evolving in the present moment. By literally creating “several spaces in a space,” the show will present a condensed insight into each curator’s point-of-view, as well as examining how they interact and shape the viewer’s conception of one another.

Spring 2013 will focus exclusively on large-scale collaborations with organizations around the country, including threewallls (Chicago), NURTUREart (New York), and Works Progress (Minneapolis). Each exhibition will present these organizations’ innovative programming and create a fluid engagement between communities. Lastly, the exhibition season will culminate in a major group exhibition, eponymously titled How to Build a World That Won’t Fall Apart, pt. 2 that will present a wide-ranging survey of collectives, DIY spaces and alternative arts organizations that have emerged since the beginning of the current economic recession, offering an of-the-moment look at how artists are working today.

This series will take place in a transitional time as The Luminary prepares to move to a new location in the Cherokee Street arts district, further emphasizing the fluidity and uncertainty in which we live and work. The exhibitions will take place in a range of locations and are to be supplemented with ephemeral events that will punctuate the concepts being explored. The series is the product of an institution examining itself, an exploration of the role of alternative spaces within a broader ecosystem, and the collective identity that arises through collaboration. The trick is knowing what kind of world one is constructing; this one, among many.