Thursday, January 21, 2021
6:30 – 7:30 pm
Virtual Program

In this YouTube Video Premiere, Shira Backer, Leon Levy Assistant Curator moderates a conversation with artists Eric J. Garcia and Kay Rosen in conjunction with We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz. This conversation is the second in a two-part series with artists who created protest posters for the exhibition, inspired by Ben Shahn’s 1942 artwork We Fight for a Free World. The artists will speak about how this work fits into their artistic practice, and the larger social and cultural issues that have occurred since creating the artwork.

About the Speakers:

Eric J. Garcia blends history, contemporary themes and a graphic style to create politically charged art that reaches beyond aesthetics. Using sculpture, mixed media installations, murals, printmaking and his controversial political cartoons, he aims to challenge his viewers to question sources of power and the whitewashing of history. After receiving his BFA with a minor in Chicano studies from the University of New Mexico, Garcia went on to complete his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a core member of the printmaking collective, Instituto Gráfico de Chicago, one of the newest members of the Just Seeds Print Co-Opertive, and is a dedicated teaching artist. Garcia has exhibited nationally, and his work can be found in the collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Kay Rosen’s investigation into the visual possibilities of language has been her primary focus since 1968 when she traded in the academic study of languages for the study of language-based art. Rosen’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions nationally and internationally and featured in numerous books, articles, and reviews. Among the honors she has been awarded are a Guggenheim Fellowship and three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. She taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago for twenty-four years. In addition to We Fight To Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz, her work can be seen through May 2021 in the exhibition “Energy In All Directions” at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College; in upcoming shows at Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York, Krakow Witkin Gallery, Boston; and a 2021 site-specific installation in Washington, DC.

Free—watch here starting Jan 21 at 6:30 pm.