I Love America and America Loves Me
I Love America and America Loves Me
Slemmons Gallery
March 17, 2023 to April 29, 2023
The title I Love America and America Loves Me is borrowed from German Artist Joseph Beuys’ famous 1974 performance in New York, but decisively altered. It’s the change from the word “like” to “love” which carries the sociopolitical differences between the two countries, their mentalities and Beuys’ German sensibility.
On January 9, 1974, Joseph Beuys, together with Klaus Staeck and Gerhard Steidl, traveled for the first time to America. This trip was a carefully planned performance that took place in airplanes, taxis, hotels, universities, and galleries, and was comprehensively documented in photographs and video. The tour began with a lecture at New York’s New School, visited by artists including Claes Oldenburg, Lil Picard, and Al Hansen; the next stop was Chicago, the site of an unexpected performance reenacting the death of John Dillinger.
On July 22, 1934, local and federal law-enforcement officers closed in on the Biograph Theater. When Bureau of Investigation agents moved to arrest Dillinger as he exited the theater, he tried to flee. He was shot in the back; the deadly shot was ruled justifiable homicide.
Beuys’ “Actions” are the quintessence of his teachings, having an almost ritual character. Extended time and constant repetition lend them the character of existential Passion plays grounded in his conviction that negative energy can be transformed into positive energy, at any point in time. This work in this exhibition is inspired by these actions, revisiting the site of John Dillinger’s death and Bueys’ performance.
I Love America and America Loves Me is part of an ongoing series of photography exhibitions in Slemmons Gallery in which contemporary photographers use antique cameras from the Rod Slemmons Camera Archive to create new bodies of work. This series is offered in partnership with The Chicago Cluster Project.
Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann are artist researchers and educators. In their work they are interested in exploring entanglements and interdependencies in the world, and how human actions transform the planet and alter our existence. Their work concentrates on inner alliances of knowledge and power, their deep links in western culture and the escalation in and transformation of human beings through technology. The themes of their work are drawn from observations about climate change and its most significant contributor, the human being. They are also interested in the shapes of collectivity, and in the collective structures of individuality.
Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, galleries, and alternative spaces, including: the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Fotomuseum Antwerp; the NGBK in Berlin; the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, and many more. They have been the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including: the Videonale Award from the Museum of Art, Bonn, Germany; the Herman-Claasen-Award; production grants from the Graham Foundation, Chicago and a Humanities Without Walls Grant, among others. They published four monographs: Return to Veste Rosenberg (2006), Personal Kill (2010), Volatile Smile (2013) and the bio-adapter (Oswald Wiener) / you won’t fool the children of the revolution (2019). They are founding members of Deep Time Chicago, an art/research/activism initiative formed in the wake of the Anthropocene Curriculum program at HKW in Berlin, Germany.
Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann are artist researchers and educators. In their work they are interested in exploring entanglements and interdependencies in the world, and how human actions transform the planet and alter our existence. Their work concentrates on inner alliances of knowledge and power, their deep links in western culture and the escalation in and transformation of human beings through technology. The themes of their work are drawn from observations about climate change and its most significant contributor, the human being. They are also interested in the shapes of collectivity, and in the collective structures of individuality.
Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, galleries, and alternative spaces, including: the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Fotomuseum Antwerp; the NGBK in Berlin; the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, and many more. They have been the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including: the Videonale Award from the Museum of Art, Bonn, Germany; the Herman-Claasen-Award; production grants from the Graham Foundation, Chicago and a Humanities Without Walls Grant, among others. They published four monographs: Return to Veste Rosenberg (2006), Personal Kill (2010), Volatile Smile (2013) and the bio-adapter (Oswald Wiener) / you won’t fool the children of the revolution (2019). They are founding members of Deep Time Chicago, an art/research/activism initiative formed in the wake of the Anthropocene Curriculum program at HKW in Berlin, Germany.
