J. Gibran Villalobos
Past Work / Past Exhibitions
Public Dialogue
Archive Project Assistant
July 12 - August 12, 2013
Public Dialogue is designed as a response to decades of community planning in Washington Park, driven by expressly local desires to enact change or a broader set of circumstances and priorities that only tangentially touch the neighborhood. The disparity between the aforementioned approaches inevitably leads to a disparity in the way that a community is engaged. How can a bridge between the two strategies be constructed? Where do the models for this new form of engagement currently exist? What role can cultural producers, artists, arts organizations, designers, and architects play in the planning and shaping of communities?
The project archive, developed my J. Gibran Villalobos and Christina Beatty collected oral history ephemera as one the critical components of the exhibition, curated by Allison Glenn and Dara Epison.
www.apublicdialogue.com
Fernweh
April 27 - May 5, 2013
Fernweh was a travelling-curator project that aimed to investigate notions of travel and hospitality within community and socially engaged art. Its objectives were to consider the notions of art in community (rural-urban) through a hosting, visiting and travelling programme in collaboration with a series of communities and institutions across Scotland.
New Work
December 8 - February 1, 2013
New Work showcased projects by past MFA students and recent alumni as selected through portfolio reviews by the SAIC Exhibitions/Exhibition Studies Committee. By favoring experience over interpretation, the exhibition is investigated exploratory and collaborative modes of making and viewing.
Opening the Black Box: The Charge is Torture
November 3 - February 14, 2013
This exhibition of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Project (CTJM) presented a selection from more than 70 submitted proposals on how to memorialize reported cases of torture by Chicago Police. CTJM held workshops, discussions, and exhibitions to share knowledge about this history, and to consider the forms memorialization might take. Responses to CTJM’s open call included proposals by artists, architects, writers, educators, and justice-seekers all over the world. By exhibiting and distributing these speculative monuments and art works, CTJM sought to honor the survivors, family members, and affected communities, while amplifying the voices calling for justice.
Tamms Year Ten Campaign Office
October 4 - December 21, 2012
This exhibition served as the office for Tamms Year Ten, the campaign launched in 2008 to persuade legislators and the Illinois governor to reform or close the notorious supermax prison in Tamms, Illinois. This prison was designed to hold men in solitary confinement under conditions of sensory deprivation. As a result of the courageous decision by Governor Pat Quinn, Tamms was scheduled to be closed on August 31, 2012. The campaign office—on view and in action in the Sullivan Galleries—consists of a desk, table, chairs, computers, binders, files, lobbying materials, letters, posters, banners, props, photographs, and art ephemera. One wall will display snapshots of every man in Tamms Closed Maximum Security prison in 2008, with updates about their current fate. After the exhibition, on January 4, 2013 the prison officially closed.