Visual Art and Performance
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
“Museum Performance: Staging A City So Real”
Presented by D. Soyini Madison
The presentation will explore the process of staging Alex Kotlowitz’s book Never A City So Real that was the One Book/One Northwestern selection for 2012-2013.
The performance was entitled A City So Real and portrayed the divergent stories of Chicago neighborhoods and the people who are inspired by them while these people simultaneously enliven these locations with their wisdom, labor, and ingenuity. A collage of scenes staged throughout the galleries of the Block Museum captured the dialogue, imagery, movement, soundscape, and the rich poetic description of Kotlowitz’s prose. In the presentation, D. Soyini Madison, will discuss how audiences traversed through the museum and how they were guided through stylized enactments representing stories of Chicago all under the surroundings and backdrop of the museum galleries and display. The performance became a reflection and counterpoint to the museum art.
Speakers

Michael Rakowitz
- Iraqi-American conceptual artist
- Professor, Art Theory & Practice, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

D. Soyini Madison
- Professor, Performance Studies, School of Communication
- Affiliate Faculty, African American Studies and Department of Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences
Resources
Suggested Readings
- Article - Object to Be Restored (Artforum International Magazine)
- Article - Iraqi-Jewish cuisine revived in Dubai (Mashallah News)
- Article - Could palates, rather than politics, be the key to peace in the Middle East? (The Guardian)
- Video - Dar Al Sulh (YouTube: The Moving Museum)
- Video - The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one's own (YouTube: Tate Modern)
- Video - Enemy Kitchen: Food Truck (YouTube: University of Chicago)
- Article - Looted Dishes Used in Art Project Returned to Iraq (NY Times)
- Paper - Performance Studies Interventions and Radical Research (Dwight Conquergood, Project MUSE, MIT Press)
- Book - Critical Ethnography (Chapter 7: Performance Ethnography & Chapter 9: The Case Studies)