We at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry are deeply saddened to share the news that our founding benefactor, Richard Gray, passed away on May 16.  He was a visionary and influential supporter of the arts—renowned as a collector, gallerist, and architectural landmark preservationist—at the University of Chicago, across the city, and nationwide.

 

In Memoriam dedicated to Richard Gray can be found here 

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The Richard and Mary L Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is a forum at the University of Chicago for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars.

Our Fellows

Augusta Read Thomas
Ted Brown
Anne Wagner
Margaret M Mitchell
Judith Zeitlin
Dieter Roelstraete
Alison Bechdel
Rebecca Zorach
Daniel Tucker
Hillary Chute
Daniel Zox
Bill Brown
Learn More

Events

31

May

Swagger: Screening + conversation with Jennifer Wild, Jacqueline Stewart and Global Girls

 May 31, 2018, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
 Harper Theatre

5238 S Harper
Chicago, IL

Programs

Cinema 53

SIDEBAR

Sankofa City Summer School

Fellowships

Mellon Fellowships for Arts Practice & Scholarship

VoiceGrooveSong

Professor Steven Rings (Department of Music) and composer / percussionist Glenn Kotche aim to rethink the three musical categories of voice, groove, and song, considering them at once as a fused, holistic group, and as parameters amenable to strategic separation and recombination.

Fellows

Glenn Kotche
Steven Rings

Ghost Village

University of Chicago historian and professor Judith Zeitlin (Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations), and Beijing based composer Yao Chen collaboratively undertake the creation of an opera, with Yao composing the music, and Zeitlin writing the libretto. Entitled Ghost Village, the opera will be based on a ghost story of the same name that features in Pu Songling’s (1640-1715) masterpiece, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

Fellows

Yao Chen
Judith Zeitlin

Give It or Leave It

Artist Cauleen Smith (California Institute of the Arts) and Film Scholar Robert Bird (UChicago Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of Cinema Media Studies) endeavor to unpack the revolutionary potential of filmic images. This project began with their work together on the Smart Museum's exhibition Revolution Every Day (September 17, 2017 - January 28, 2018), and will continue to develop through various forms, including their co-taught fall 2018 course.

Fellows

Robert Bird
Cauleen Smith

The Whispering Campaign

Curator Dieter Roelstraete and artist and professor Pope.L (University of Chicago) expand upon their collaboration at documenta 14 where Pope.L first presented his Whispering Campaign project (Roelstraete was a documenta 14 curator). Continuing to evolve as a Gray Center Mellon Collaborative Fellowship, Whispering Campaign has also included sponsored tours and conversations at documenta 14 with University of Chicago staff, students and faculty, the exhibtion Brown People are the Wrens of the Parking Lot at Logan Center Gallery, and a co-taught course for Winter Quarter 2018 entitled Art and Knowledge.

Fellows

Pope.L
Dieter Roelstraete

Studio R-A

Professors Bill Brown ( University  of Chicago, Department of English) and Ted Brown (Syracuse  Univeristy , School of Architecture) embark on a collaboration that seeks to explore theoretical, practical and formal dimensions of re-assemblage.

Fellows

Bill Brown
Ted Brown

Projects

Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot

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Poetry and Classics Workshop

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Chicago Studies: The Workshop

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The Imaginary Funeral: Image, Artifact, and the Work of Mourning

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