IIT Lecture Series Celebrates 50 Years of Minimalism

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s masterpiece, and National Historic Landmark, S. R. Crown Hall turns 50 years old in April 2006. To commemorate this historic event, the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Mies van der Rohe Society are presenting a lecture series, “Looking Back, Looking Ahead,” which celebrates this modernist icon and pays tribute to other art forms influenced by the minimalism exemplified by S. R. Crown Hall. Esteemed guest lecturers include Robert Wilson, Dave Hickey and Robert Irwin.

All lectures are free and open to the public, and take place in S. R. Crown Hall, 3360 South State Street, Chicago. Check-in will begin one hour prior to each event. (Reservations cannot be accepted.)

“Looking Back, Looking Ahead” will feature prominent scholars and artists discussing the influence of minimalism in their work, as well as the minimalist sensibility that has evolved across culture. Fashion, the visual arts, film, opera, theatre, the culinary arts, and architecture will be among the art forms discussed.

“Looking Back, Looking Ahead” schedule:

Fashion
Wednesday, March 8, 6 p.m.
“A New Beauty + Functionality: American Fashion Designers”
Gillion Carrara

Director of the Fashion Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Carrara oversees a collection that includes some 1,400 fashion publications, scholarly texts, and videos, plus nearly 300 designer garments and accessories. This unique position informs her work as a metalsmith, which involves rendering organic materials like bone and wood into functional objects and jewelry. Adjunct professor, lecturer, transcontinental traveler, she has studios in Chicago and Tuscany.

Culture
Wednesday, March 29, 6 p.m.
“Minimalism: Empire and Democracy”
Dave Hickey

Dave Hickey writes fiction and cultural criticism. He has served as an art gallery owner, contributing editor, and his critical essays on art have been collected in two volumes published by Art Issues Press and Artspace Press. He has two forthcoming books from University of Chicago Press: Connoisseur of Waves: More Essays on Art and Democracy (2006) and Feint of Heart: Essays on Individual Artists (two volumes) (2008) as well as a new edition of The Invisible Dragon. Hickey is Schaeffer Professor of Modern Letters at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. He has been featured in many national newspapers and magazines, as well as on PBS television and National Public Radio programs.

Visual Arts
Wednesday, April 5, 6 p.m.
“Less is More Only When Less Is the Sum Total of More”
Robert Irwin

Robert Irwin has been called “one of the most influential California artists of the past several decades who has altered the course of contemporary art.” He was a seminal figure in what is widely considered to be the first truly original art movement to come out of Southern California, the light and space movement, which has exerted a profound international influence in the last thirty years. His work is in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, among others. Since the 1980's Irwin's continued questioning for the "pure subject of art" has resulted in "real-world, site-generated " projects in public places such as the Old Post Office Atrium, Washington, D.C.; Stuart Collection, University of California, San Diego; Miami International Airport; and the Central Gardens of the new J. Paul Getty Center, Los Angeles.

Film
Wednesday, April 19, 6 p.m.
“Minimalism in Film”
Milos Stehlik

Milos Stehlik, the director of Facets Multimedia in Chicago, will show clips and discuss the various ways that minimalism has played out in film—script, cinematography, acting style, direction, production, etc. Since 1975, Stehlik has been responsible for Facets’ public programs, which include screenings of foreign and independent films and videos on a daily basis, as well as national distribution of films and videos. Stehlik has taught at Columbia College/Chicago, and lectured at Wayne State University, DePaul University, the University of Illinois and the Arts Club of Chicago. He has served on the juries of several film festivals and has served on review panels for the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a board member of the Illinois Arts Alliance, the program committee of the Chicago Humanities Festival and Chicago Latino Cultural Center. For his regular film commentaries on WBEZ-FM, Chicago Public Radio, he received the Associated Press Broadcasters Award. In 1997, he was also awarded the Telluride Film Festival Silver Medallion for “creating a virtual Cinematheque on video.” In 2005, he was awarded the Chevalier dans l’Ordre National des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Communication.

Culinary Arts
Monday, April 24, 6 p.m.
“The Plate as a Frame: Minimalism in Food Presentation”
Elaine Sikorski

Chef Sikorski is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, and former chef at the five star restaurant, Le Perroquet. She is a member of the American Culinary Federation and is a certified executive chef and culinary educator. She is currently teaching Advanced Sauces and Fish Cookery at the nationally acclaimed School of Culinary Arts at Kendall College in Chicago, which has been cultivating excellent culinary professionals since 1985.

Opera/Theater
Friday, April 28, 5:30 p.m.
1. “Have you been here before.” 2. “No this is the first time.”
Robert Wilson

Renowned creator of opera, experimental theater, and art, the New York Times described Robert Wilson as "a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space onstage. Transcending theatrical convention, he draws in other performance and graphic arts, which coalesce into an integrated tapestry of images and sounds." Susan Sontag said of Wilson's work, "it has the signature of a major artistic creation. I can't think of any body of work as large or as influential."
In 1976, Wilson joined with composer Philip Glass in writing the landmark work Einstein on the Beach, which was presented at the Festival d'Avignon and at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, and has since been revived in two world tours in 1984 and 1992. Over the last two decades Wilson has designed and directed operas at houses such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Zürich Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, and the Houston Grand Opera.
Wilson has collaborated with internationally acclaimed artists, writers, and musicians, including Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, David Byrne, Allen Ginsberg, Laurie Anderson, Susan Sontag, Jessye Norman, and Lou Reed.

While known for creating highly acclaimed theatrical pieces, Wilson's work is firmly rooted in the fine arts. His drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group showings and are held in private collections and museums throughout the world.

Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.