Monique Meloche is pleased to announce Kalup Linzy’s first solo show in Chicago!
Kalup Linzy
Conversations wit de Churen
March 16 – April 21, 2007
video still from Conversations wit de Churen III: Da Young and Da Mess, 2005
opening reception for the artist Friday March 16th 6-9pm
www.moniquemeloche.com
“Kalup Linzy’s clever and unique voice lampoons and satirizes various forms of film & television such as Hollywood tearjerkers and soap operas. He deals with highly charged themes such as gender, sexuality, race, class, and popular culture. His takes on these issues are eloquently fused into his delightfully raunchy videos and performances like Conversations Wit De Churen and Diva in Distress. Multi-tasking as a writer, director, actor, and editor, his film approach recalls the early styles of John Waters, Andy Warhol, and George C. Wolfe. Using multi-layered characters and subplots that weave through the works, he constructs powerful critiques of the laws of romance and desire, family and trust, truth and hypocrisy. He manages to go for the jugular with uproarious humor, while at the same time his keen sense of truth is unwaveringly present. We the viewers are forced to confront the ways we deal with our own yearnings and acknowledge the dirty little secrets that everyone knows.” Whitfield Lovell, visual artist
For his exhibition at moniquemeloche Linzy will feature Conversations wit de Churen — a multi-part video project that began in 2003. Linzy, along with a cast of friends of various ethnic backgrounds, don over-the-top drag costumes and perform an “…endless parodic relay that disrupts conventional categories of gender, sexuality, and race.” Debra Singer Artforum Jan. 2007 The exhibition will open with the most recent installment As da art world might turn (2006) projected in the main space of the gallery alongside a series of drawings made by Linzy’s alter-ego Katonya. There will be a weekly rotation of the videos (changing each Saturday) so that the entire project can be seen in succession. The video schedule is as follows:
Mar 16-23 V: As da Art World Might Turn 2006
Mar 24-30 II: All my Churen 2003
Mar 31-Apr6 III: Da Young and da Mess 2005
Apr 7-13 IV: Play wit de Churen 2005
Apr 14-21 V: As da Art world Might Turn 2006
Kalup Linzy (b. 1977 Florida, lives NY) received both his MFA and BFA from the University of South Florida (2003/2000) and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2002). His first major solo show at Taxter & Spengemann Gallery in NY last fall received rave reviews, including a best of 2006 nod Artforum. His work will be included in the Moscow Biennial 2007 “Uncertain States of America – American Video Art in the 3rd Millennium.” In 2006 alone, his live performance were featured at Art Basel Miami, KunstFilm Biennial Art Cologne, PS1 Contemporary Art Center NY, Center for Contemporary Art Glasgow, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Linzy was the recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant in 2005 and was just awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2007-2008. Linzy will be speaking at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago as part of their Visiting Artist Program on Wednesday, March 28th www.saic.edu/vap.