Team grupa o.k. (Julian Myers and Joanna Szupinska)

Click here to see grupa o.k‘s publication “Group-Work”

Grupa o.k.

grupa o.k. is the collaborative endeavor of Julian Myers and Joanna Szupinska. Their
practice includes editing, curating, writing, and research, with a focus on contemporary
art, the history and future of exhibition making, and the forms and complexities of
collective organization. Their title is a mischievous borrowing from grupa a.r. (artyści
rewolucyjni), the Polish avant-garde group founded in 1929 by Władysław Strzemiński,
Katarzyna Kobro and Henry Stażewski. Together, Myers and Szupinska edited the
exhibition catalogue We have as much time as it takes (CCA Wattis Institute for
Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2010), which features interviews with Nina Beier
& Marie Lund, Red76, Tercerunquinto, Lawrence Weiner, and others. Myers and
Szupinska organized the public program Riot Show at the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art in December 2010, and are preparing the event Robert Morris is
Unavailable, to be presented in October 2011 as part of the exhibition The Language
of Less (Then and Now) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Their current
research addresses collectivist activities in Polish art after the fall of Communism.

Julian Myers is an art historian whose writing has appeared in Documents, October,
Afterall, Frieze, Fillip, Artforum and elsewhere. His interests are focused on sculpture
and spatial politics of the 20th century, the social and political dynamics of consumer
society, and the socio-historical frameworks for contemporary art and exhibition. Recent
publications include Hopelessness Freezes Time, a study of earthworks, drawing,
Detroit, urban warfare and guerrilla historiography, co-authored with artist Edgar
Arceneaux (Kunstmuseum Basel, 2011); Give Them The Picture, an edited volume
of writings on performance and television from the alternative space La Mamelle
(CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2011); and “The Desert
and the City,” an essay for the forthcoming catalogue The Ends of the Earth: Land
Art to 1974 (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2012). He is the author of
monographic essays on the practices of Tariq Alvi, Trisha Donnelly, Michael Heizer,
Sterling Ruby, Eric Wesley and the Independent Group, among others, and has written
on contemporary criticism, art education, the history of exhibitions, and riots at rock
concerts. He holds a doctorate in the history of art from the University of California,
Berkeley (2007). In 2009 he received an Arts Writers Grant from Creative Capital/
Warhol Foundation. He is an associate professor at California College of the Arts and is
on the editorial board of The Exhibitionist.

Joanna Szupinska is a curator and writer. She has contributed to projects at the Wattis
Institute for Contemporary Arts, SFMOMA, Santa Monica Museum of Art, and Susanne
Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Her essay “Grandfather: a history like ours” appeared
in the edited volume HSz: as is/ as if (ed. Julian Myers, CCA Graduate Program in
Curatorial Practice, 2009), and her extended review of the 2010 Łódź Biennale with a
focus on the work of Anna Molska will be published in the first issue of the new peer-
review publication Journal of Curatorial Studies in September 2012. In 2010–11 she
organized Polish Movie Nite, a series of lectures and screenings held at the Polish Club
in San Francisco. Szupinska holds an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College
of the Arts in San Francisco, and a BA in Art from UCLA. She is the 2011–12 Majorie
Susman Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where she is
curating the show MCA DNA: Gordon Matta-Clark (November 12, 2011–February 4,
2012), and co-curating with Michael Darling Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against
Gravity (June 30–September 23, 2012).

Curatorial Fellows

Ionit Behar

Ionit Behar is an MA candidate in Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She holds a BA in Art Theory with a concentration in Art History and Film Studies from Tel Aviv University and a degree in Art Administration and Cultural Management from the Bank Boston Foundation in Montevideo, Uruguay. Behar is involved in a variety of curatorial projects and contributes as an art critic to several Uruguayan publications (La República, La Pupila, Voces). This year Behar was honored to serve as a jury member for the Paul Cézanne Prize, organized by the French Embassy in Uruguay. In 2010 Behar worked at No Longer Empty (NLE) in New York City. NLE’s core mission is to widen the audience for contemporary art by presenting high-caliber, site-specific public art exhibitions in the heart of communities. Behar worked in the press and curatorial department, connecting artists with neighborhood leaders and residents at the grassroots level to enhance the social element of the art and to draw in audiences. In 2009 Behar worked at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, collaborating closely with the curator of the West Asia Antiquities department to modernize their digitization process.

Natalie Clark

Natalie is a curator and artist based in Chicago. She received her BFA in Painting and
Art History at Edgewood College, and will receive her Masters of Arts Administration
and Policy from the School of the Art Institute this May. Prior to entering the Graduate
program, Natalie was the Assistant Curator at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art-
Chicago. Last October she returned to curate Bauhaus Now: Contemporary Applications,
an international group show featuring artists whose practices were shaped at Bauhaus
foundational schools in Chicago and Germany. Natalie is currently completing her
thesis, which investigates sustainable methods of self-organizing through the arts in post-
Soviet Ukraine, and is based on field research with a Chernobyl Community Center, and
their peer civil society organizations in the Kiev Oblast of Ukraine.

Laura-Caroline Johnson

Laura-Caroline Johnson will be graduating in May from SAIC with dual Masters degrees in Modern Art History, Theory, & Criticism, and Arts Administration & Policy. She is currently completing her thesis, titled “From Place to Space: The Societal and Art Historical Contexts of Clyde Connell’s Sculptures, 1970-1989.” In addition to being a Graduate Curatorial Fellow for the MFA exhibition, she is also the Teaching Assistant and Curator for SAIC’s Community Arts Partnerships department, exhibiting student artwork in business locations throughout the Chicagoland area. Laura-Caroline was the Project Coordinator for a public art organization called UrbanArt Commission in Memphis, Tennessee for two years before moving to Chicago to become a student. From fall 2006 to spring 2007, she did a yearlong internship in the Curatorial and Registrar’s Offices at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Laura-Caroline received her BA in Art from Rhodes College in 2006 and is originally from Greenville, South Carolina.

Michaela Hansen

Michaela Hansen is a 2012 Master of Design candidate in the department of Fashion, Body and Garment and received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2009. Her research-based practice examines the interrelationship of art, dress, and identity, incorporating paradigms of the archival and curatorial process. In 2009, Hansen worked on the exhibition Medievalism: Fashion’s Romance with the Middle Ages as a Curatorial Intern in the Fashion Design Collection at the Phoenix Art Museum. From 2009-2010 she was Design Assistant for K8 Hardy’s fashion collection J’APPROVE, a collaboration with Travis Boyer’s curatorial project MFT (My Favorite Things) for New York City design house J.F. & Son. Since 2011 she has contributed research to the Department of Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago in support of the upcoming exhibition “Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity.” As a component of her thesis project, Hansen is currently researching The Labor Museum in the archives of the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. In May she will present a research exhibit, “Starch is the Man,” at the 2012 Costume Society of America National Symposium in Atlanta.

Artists

Chiara Galimberti
Lilly Hern-Fondation
Ramon Miranda Beltran
Winslow Smith
with Ionit Behar

Gregory Bae
Troy Briggs
Josh Dihle
Seth Hunter
Michaela Murphy
with Laura-Caroline Johnson

Craig Butterworth
Nicholas Ostoff
Sophia Rauch
Wiliam Sieruta
with Laura-Caroline Johnson

Anthony Favarula
Sean Lamoureux
Esteban Pulido
Nicole White
with Natalie Clark

Sarah Hasse
Erin Minckley Chlaghmo
Alfredo Martinez
with Natalie Clark

Hope Esser
Christalena Hughmanick
Sarah Elizabeth Jones
with Michaela Hansen

Justin Jacobson
Mario Romano
Leif Sandburg
Clare Torina
Rafael Vega
with Ionit Behar

Tags: grupa ok