Cauleen Smith is an interdisciplinary artist whose work reflects upon the everyday possibilities of the imagination. Operating in multiple materials and arenas, Smith roots her work firmly within the discourse of mid-twentieth-century experimental film. Drawing from structuralism, third world cinema, and science fiction, she makes things that deploy the tactics of these disciplines while offering a phenomenological experience for spectators and participants. Her films, objects, and installations have been featured in group exhibitions including the 2017 Whitney Biennial; the Studio Museum of Harlem; Houston Contemporary Art Museum; Yerba Buena Center for Art; New Museum, New York; D21 Kunstraum Leipzig; and Decad, Berlin. She has had solo shows for her films and installations at The Kitchen, New York; MCA Chicago; and Threewalls, Chicago. She shows her drawings and 2D work with Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Smith is the recipient of several grants and awards including the Rockefeller Media Arts Award, Creative Capital Film /Video, Chicago 3Arts Grant, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, EXPO Chicago Artadia Award, and Rauschenberg Residency. Smith was born in Riverside, California and grew up in Sacramento. She earned a BA in Creative Arts from San Francisco Sate University and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television. Cauleen Smith is a participating artist in Revolution Every Day opening in September at the Smart Museum of Art.
Art in America reviews the Smart Museum exhibition Revolution Every Day which features work by Gray Center Fellows Robert Bird and Cauleen. Smith
https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazines/revolution-under-review/
Sidebar is back!!! The Gray Center will be hosting a conversation with artist, Cauleen Smith and Robert Bird (University of Chicago, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, The Department of Cinema Media & Studies ) to discuss manifestos, utopian visions, cinema of/for the future, and their work on the upcoming exhibition Revolution Every Day at the Smart Museum of Art.
As part of the closing of the Smart Museum exhibition Revolution Every Day, Russian poet Kirill Medvedev will perform selections of his work, followed by a discussion with exhibiting artist Cauleen Smith and exhibition curators Robert Bird, Zachary Cahill, and Christina Kiaer.
In its "Unfurlings" series, Never The Same activates the archive. Collaborators Daniel Tucker and Rebecca Zorach invite a series of fascinating individuals to dig into NTS archives looking for items of interest to share. Cauleen Smith, filmmaker and artist in residence at the Washington Park Arts Incubator, will lead a discussion of materials she has selected.
On the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Cinema 53 presents revolutionary films and films about revolution, co-curated by artist Cauleen Smith and UChicago film scholar Robert Bird. This evening’s screenings feature Finally Got the News (Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman & Peter Gessner with League of Revolutionary Black Workers, 1970, 55m), Congo Oye: We have come back (Bill Stephens, Paul and Carole Roussopoulas with Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, 1971, 45m) and will be followed by conversation with Bird, Smith, Jonathan Flatley and Matt Peterson.
On the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Cinema 53 presents revolutionary films and films about revolution, co-curated by artist Cauleen Smith and UChicago film scholar Robert Bird. This evening’s screening features Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983, 90m), and will be followed by a conversation with Bird, Smith and UChicago film scholar Kara Keeling.
On the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Cinema 53 presents revolutionary films and films about revolution, co-curated by artist Cauleen Smith and UChicago film scholar Robert Bird. This evening’s screening features Putney Swope (Robert Downey Sr., 1969, 85m), a scathing, hugely energetic and scattershot satire, and will be followed by a conversation with Bird, Smith and Northwestern University film scholar Aymar Jean Christian.
Cauleen Smith created Three Songs about Liberation as part of the exhibition “Revolution Every Day” (September 2017 - January 2018, Smart Museum of Art). Filmed in Chicago, the film features three Black women performing historical monologues drawn from the 1973 book “Black Women in White America: A Documentary History,” edited by Gerda Lerner.
