Documentation of Sandra Binion performing “Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored” with bassist Tatsu Aoki, at Chicago Cultural Center, 1999. Photo credit Steven Blutter.
Documentation of Sandra Binion's "Duras Piece” with performer Eponine Cuervo Moll and guitarist Spencer Barefield,at Georg Vihos Studio (D-Hamtramak, Michigan), 1998. Courtesy of the Artist.
April 28, 2024 at 5:00pm
Asian Improv Arts Midwest (AIRMW)
4875 N. Elston Avenue
Chicago, IL 60630
Tickets $20 available at the door.
Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored Variation was first performed in 1983 at the University of California at San Diego and in 1984 at Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago. It is a 20-minute piece performed by six bassists under the direction of bass choirmaster Tatsu Aoki, joined by six ironers with a projected video backdrop. The bassists and ironers follow a score that structures several improvised movements linked to specific colors. For the 2024 re-enactment of the piece, Binion will perform with invited ironers and Chicago bassists Sam Wagster, Anton Hatwich, Nick Macri, Zoe Markle, and Andrew Scott Young. After the performance, the six bassists will also present a collective improvised set.
Performance for reader, sleeper, musician, and projected video.
Duras Piece is an adaptation for stage and video from two related novels by the French novelist Marguerite Duras: The Malady of Death and Black Hair, Blue Eyes. Both novels involve the same characters and include suggestions for adapting them to stage or screen. In Binion's version, text, sound, and image coalesce into a live cinematic space in which performance has multiple manifestations as declamation, dramatization, role-playing, objectification.
“Repressed passion, sultry torment, and the constant rhythm of the sea are the ingredients of this tale.”
- Sandra Binion
Re-enactment with Sandra Binion and Jeb Bishop on trombone. Double bill with Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored Variation.
Sandra Binion: Autobiography of Looking is a retrospective survey of five decades of the artist's interdisciplinary work taking place from April 12 through June 9, 2024 throughout Chicago. Curated by Mariana Mejía, the program includes an exhibition at Audible Gallery, a series of performances at auxiliary venues, and guided sessions of the artist's archives at Hyde Park Art Center.
Sandra Binion is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. The works on display convey the trajectory of her career, from her early stages as a solo performance artist in the mid-1970s through her expansions into installation, video, sound, photography, painting, scent, and literature. The exhibition Sandra Binion: Autobiography of Looking contains visual artworks, artist's journals, and drawings; performance props, scripts, scores, and documentation; as well as promotional materials and reviews from her archives. It also reflects her many collaborations with artists, such as musicians Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Tatsu Aoki, Leroy Jenkins, and Harrison Bankhead; performer Eponine Cuervo Moll; filmmaker Amos Poe; photographer Dirk Bakker; and architect Marc Dilet. An installation of Searching for Emma (2021), a photographic series accompanied by a sound composition by Lou Mallozzi, is also included in this exhibition.
Performances include Sandra Binion's "Duras Piece" (1998) and "Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored Variation" (1983) at Asian Improv Arts Midwest on April 28; "Figure, Painting" (1983) at Roman Susan on May 18; "Yellow at Noon" (1979) at Experimental Sound Studio on June 2; and “Homage à Odilon Redon" (1979) at Galerie Fledermaus on June 6.
On the occasion of this retrospective survey, the artist is self-publishing a 260-page monograph that includes descriptive annotations of over 50 performances, installations, exhibitions from her career; with an introduction written by curator Mariana Mejía and essays by musicologist Ryan Dohoney, performer and scholar Tara Aisha Willis, and art historian Chris Reeves.
Public collections that hold works by Sandra Binion include The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Musée Flaubert (Rouen, France), Monasterio de San Lazzaro degli Armeni (Venice, Italy), and University Art Museum of Kyoto City University of Arts (Japan). Her multimedia project Distillé (based on Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary) has been shown in various iterations since 2014 in the US, France, and Japan. She is currently under commission to create a transhistorical video in dialogue with the Norwegian painter Harriet Backer (1845–1932), which will premiere at the Musée d’Orsay (Paris) in September 2024.