Rebuild Foundation Announces Free Events Every Sunday At Stony Island Arts Bank

Rebuild Foundation, the artist-led, community-based platform for art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation founded by Theaster Gates, today announced its dynamic line-up of spring programming.

Activating the Foundation's Stony Island Arts Bank during its centennial with music, readings, and discussions, the free events invite the public inside the radically restored historic landmark building on the South Side every Sunday, 2-7 PM, to learn from researchers, scholars, and artists who are engaging with the Rebuild Foundation's unique and vital archival collections.

Currently undergoing an extensive conservation effort, the archival collections encompass more than 60,000 glass lantern slides acquired from the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago; 15,000 books and periodicals donated by Johnson Publishing Company, the publisher of Jet and Ebony; 5,000 records from the personal vinyl collection of "the godfather of house music" Frankie Knuckles, courtesy of the Frankie Knuckles Foundation; and the Edward J. Williams Collection, which began in the early 1970s when Williams encountered a racist caricature for sale in an antique shop and made it his personal mission to remove thousands of offensive and stereotypical images of Black people from public circulation.

During the conservation, works by Gates and selections from his personal art collection are on view on the ground floor of the Stony Island Arts Bank. Designed by William Gibbons Uffendell and built in 1923, the Stony Island Arts Bank was formerly home to a Black-owned financial institution that issued loans to residents of the South Side during an era when most lenders abided by discriminatory redlining policies. However, the building was shuttered in 1979 and remained vacant until 2012. The architectural gem, constructed in a monumental Classical Revival style, was slated for demolition when Theaster Gates purchased it from the city for $1 and, within a week, raised the necessary capital to spearhead a massive renovation of the 17,000-square-foot space.

Reopened in 2015 under the auspices of Rebuild Foundation, the Stony Island Arts Bank is now registered with the National Register of Historic Places Program and is a vital space for advancing the Foundation's mission of supporting artists and strengthening the community. It has provided a venue for contemporary art exhibitions featuring Derrick Adams, Rob Pruitt, artists that work with Anthony Gallery-Rebuild's inaugural gallery-in-residence-including Tom Sachs, Nina Chanel Abney, KAWS, and others. In the Arts Bank North Lawn, an outdoor oasis for visitors to the Stony Island Arts Bank, resides the Tamir Rice Memorial Gazebo, the structure in which twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was murdered by a member of the Cleveland Police, which the Rebuild Foundation is preserving and transforming into a site for care, public interaction, and engagement.

"As we celebrate the centennial of the Stony Island Arts Bank, we are reminded of the places, objects and sites that hold storied histories and critical cultural information about our communities," stated Theaster Gates, artist and founder of Rebuild Foundation. "As we reopen the Arts Bank with new hours and new ambitions under our Mellon Archives Innovation Program, we are reminded of the generative artistic possibilities when artists and scholars partner to use Black archives and collections as the springboard for new creative production and research. It is an honor to work with our academic and artistic partners to preserve the legacies, histories and futures of the objects and artifacts housed within this institution of Black cultural wealth, past and present."

Free Events at Rebuild Foundation's Stony Island Arts Bank (6760 S Stony Is Ave)

• Sonic Sundays: Frankie Knuckles Listening Hour (Every Sunday, March-May, 2-3 PM)

  The Stony Island Arts Bank's first-floor lounge opens to guests, who are invited to listen to records from the Frankie Knuckles Collection as they are digitized and sip collection-inspired cocktails and coffee available to purchase from Ctrl Z, an entrepreneurial business in residence at Retreat at Currency Exchange Café, Rebuild Foundation's platform for creatives in food, music, art, and more.
• Collections Connections (March 12, 3-4 PM)

  Scholars and academics are invited to engage with Rebuild Foundation's archival holdings and reflect on the cultural legacies embedded in the collections through a series of intimate public discussions. This season features programs co-curated by Theaster Gates and Rebuild Foundation's Director of Mellon Archive Programs Dr. Sampada Aranke, including upcoming special guests such as Professor of Black Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago Dr. Jane Rhodes (March 12).

• Johnson Publishing Library Readings (Feb. 26, March 5, March 19, April 2, 3-4 PM)

  Drawing from a massive collection of books and periodicals donated to Rebuild Foundation by the publisher of Jet and Ebony magazine, this series features public readings and discussions led by scholars, artists, and cultural workers. This season's guests are art historian and professor Dr. Amy M. Mooney (March 5); artist, educator, and independent curator Zakkiyyah Najeebah Dumas O'Neal (March 19); and writer and visual artist Krista Franklin (April 2).
• Mellon Fellows Public Programs (March 26 and April 23, 3-4 PM)

  In conjunction with the Mellon Archives Innovation Program-a partnership between Rebuild Foundation and the Mellon Foundation that supports the creation of new research, scholarship, and artistic production through an engagement with Rebuild Foundation's archival collections-the Stony Island Arts Bank invites the public to lively presentations from the Program's inaugural cohort of fellows. Upcoming events feature Assistant Professor of English and Dramatic Literature at New York University Dr. Honey Crawford (March 26) and composer and cornetist Ben LaMar Gay (April 23).

• Sunday Service (1st and 3rd Sunday of each month, March-May, 4-7 PM)

  Curating a sonic landscape with Chicago's liberatory house music sound, DJ Duane Powell will spin vinyl inspired by the personal collection of "the Godfather of house music" Frankie Knuckles (1955 -2014), who was one of the first DJs to perfect the art of mixing records and renowned for overlaying electronic drum machine rhythms onto disco tracks. Rebuild Foundation is the proud steward of the Frankie Knuckles Collection, housed at the Stony Island Arts Bank, in partnership with the Frankie Knuckles Foundation.
• DJ Sets and Live Music Performances (2nd, 4th, and 5th Sunday of each month, March-May, 4-7 PM)

  Special guest DJS and musicians from Chicago and beyond draw inspiration from Rebuild Foundation's archival collections and interpret them through their distinctive genres and styles.

In addition to these regular offerings, the Rebuild Foundation will continue to announce special events on its social media channels and website.

Rebuild is an artist-led, community-based platform for art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation. Founded by artist and social innovator Theaster Gates, Rebuild supports artists and strengthens communities by providing free arts programming and creating new cultural amenities on the South Side of Chicago. The Foundation's mission is to demonstrate the impact of innovative, ambitious and entrepreneurial cultural initiatives and is enriched by three core values: Black people matter, Black spaces matter, and Black objects matter. Learn more at rebuild-foundation.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.