May 26, 2024 at 12:30pm
Experimental Sound Studio (ESS)
5925 N. Ravenswood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60660
What's the Difference? is a video by artist Sandra Binion made in LaJolla, California in 1979 and recently rediscovered in her archive. Staring into the camera, she states her simple premise: to smoke a cigarette, then smoke a joint, and compare the two. All the while, in a single unedited and improvised take, she carefully narrates, dissects, and ruminates on this everyday activity and its autobiographical and social dimensions. This early work prefigures Binion's developing interest in real-time action performances, duration and endurance, and the ambiguous relationship of the camera's mediating gaze and performer's fleeting bodily presence.
18 minutes, black and white video with sound
Screenings: Sunday May 26, 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30
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.