Art & Art History
An Atlas
Artists: An Architektur, The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), Ashley Hunt, Institute for Applied Autonomy with Site-R, Invisible-5, Pedro Lasch, Lize Mogel, Trevor Paglen and John Emerson, Brooke Singer, The Speculators of AREA Chicago, Jane Tsong, and Unnayan
Organized by Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat, An Atlas, as a part of a cultural movement that links art, geography, and activism, explores the use of maps and mapping to promote social change. The participating artists, architects, and collectives play with cartographic conventions—geographic shapes, wayfinding symbols, and aerial views—in order to take on issues ranging from globalization to garbage.
While mapping in art practice has expanded into technological and performative realms, An Atlas focuses on a traditional aspect of the map as a work-on-paper, and, importantly, its function as a political agent. The latter is underscored by the mapmakers themselves, who are committed to social justice within their own diverse practices.
Works include Ashley Hunt’s intricate diagram of the social effects of the global prison-industrial complex; the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s mapping of the people who make and manage the “garbage machine” in New York City; Jane Tsong’s drawing of how nature and culture clash in the Los Angeles watershed; and Trevor Paglen and John Emerson’s route map of CIA rendition flights.
An Atlas is a companion exhibition to the publication, “An Atlas of Radical Cartography,” published by the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, Los Angeles. It is presented in conjunction with the city-wide Festival of Maps, a celebration of humanity’s greatest discoveries and the maps that record our boldest explorations.
An Atlas is presented concurrently with The Inauguration of the Consulate General for the Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland.
Related:
- Alexis Bhagat and Lize Mogel discuss “An Atlas of Radical Cartography” video
- Alexis Bhagat website
- “An Atlas of Radical Cartography” website
- Festival of Maps blog
- Lize Mogel website
EXHIBITION SUPPORT
An Atlas is supported by a grant from the LEF Foundation; the New York Foundation for the Arts; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the College of Architecture and the Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago; and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
PRESS RELEASE
Curated by Lize Mogel and Lex Bhagat
An Atlas
Gallery 400
Chicago, IL
November 27, 2007–January 19, 2008
Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 28, 5–8 pm
An Atlas is a traveling exhibition of artists working with “radical cartography”—a practice that uses maps and mapping to promote social change, and that is part of a cultural movement that links art, geography, and activism. The participating artists, architects, and collectives in the exhibition play with cartographic convention— geographic shapes, wayfinding symbols, and aerial views—in order to take on issues from globalization to garbage.
While mapping in art practice has expanded into technological and performative realms, An Atlas focuses on a traditional aspect of the map as a work-on-paper, and, importantly, its function as a political agent. The latter is underscored by the mapmakers themselves who are committed to social justice within their own diverse practices.
Works include Ashley Hunt ’s intricate diagram of the social effects of the global prison-industrial complex; the Center for Urban Pedagogy ’s mapping of the people who make and manage the “garbage machine” in New York City; Jane Tsong ’s drawing of how nature and culture clash in Los Angeles ’s watershed; and Trevor Paglen and John Emerson ’s route map of CIA rendition flights. Participating artists are:
An Architektur
The Center for Urban Pedagogy
Ashley Hunt
Institute for Applied Autonomy with Site-R
Invisible-5
Pedro Lasch
Lize Mogel
Trevor Paglen & John Emerson
Brooke Singer
Jane Tsong
Daniel Tucker
Unayyan
An Atlas is organized by artists Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat. It is a companion exhibition to the publication, “An Atlas of Radical Cartography,” (Fall 2007, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press, Los Angeles.)
For more information, please visit www.an-atlas.com
An Atlas is made possible in part by a grant from the LEF Foundation, and is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Lopez, Ruth. “Charting New Territory.” TimeOut Chicago, Dec. 13, 2007.
Mullen, William. “Map Festival to Show How Far We ’ve Come.” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 19, 2007.
PRINT COLLATERAL
Postcard: An Atlas, The Inauguration of the Consulate General of the Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland – Opening Reception
CURATORS BIOGRAPHIES
Alexis Bhagat is a writer, sound artist, and activist. He is the co-editor (with curator Gregory Gangemi) of Sound Generation, a collection of interviews with contemporary sound artists and composers (Autonomedia, 2007), and has organized concerts, discussions, and “listening lounges” of sound art and phonographic work in New York (Aspects of Jupiter, 2004), Japan (Sound Art and the Street, 2002), Vermont (The Voice of Authority and the Soundscape of Unfettered Being, 2005) and Delhi, India (Sound Art in New York, 2006). Since 2002, he has been a director of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, a grant-giving body supporting radical writers, and regularly writes a column “On Words and Revolution” for their journal Perspectives.
Lize Mogel is an interdisciplinary artist and independent curator who works with the interstices between art and cultural geography. She inserts and distributes cartographic projects into public space, including in Los Angeles (Public Green, 2001) and San Francisco (Panama-Pacific, 2003). In collaboration with geographer Chris Kahle, she co-organized Genius Loci, an exhibition of conceptual mappings of Los Angeles that was on view at Sci-Arc and the California Museum of Photography (titled Alternate Routes). She has worked with the Center for Land Use Interpretation and the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest. Her work has been shown at the Gwangju Biennial (South Korea), PS122, and Eyebeam in New York City, Mess Hall in Chicago, and Art Center in Los Angeles.
EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
An Architektur with a42.org
Geography of the Fürth Departure Center, 2004
AREA Chicago
Notes for a People’s Atlas of Chicago, 2007
The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), participants: Justyna Judycka and Damon Rich
New York City Garbage Machine (small version), 2002
Ashley Hunt
A World Map: in which we see…, 2005
Institute for Applied Autonomy with Site-R
Routes of Least Surveillance, 2001–07
Invisible-5
Map, 2007
Pedro Lasch
Vicencio Marquez-Guías de Ruta/Route Guides (#1 NewYork), 2003–06
LATINO/A AMERICA series
Lize Mogel
From North to South, 2006
Trevor Paglen and John Emerson
CIA Rendition Flights 2001–2006, 2006
Brooke Singer
The U.S. Oil Fix, 2006–07
Jane Tsong
the los angeles water cycle: the way it is, not the way it should and one day will be…, 2006–07
Unnayan
Chetla Lock Gate, Marginal Land Settlement in Calcutta (now Kolkata), 1984