Camille Norment Opens 11/15 At Logan Center Exhibitions

Logan Center Exhibitions is pleased to present Untitled (red flame), a newly commissioned, immersive sound-based installation by the acclaimed multimedia artist Camille Norment, which will be on view November 15, 2019 - January 5, 2020.

Developed in a series of workshops in which the artist engaged members of Chicago's South Side communities, Norment's work will connect the history of sonic agency in Chicago (a city long renowned for its music scene) with political agency, manifesting, through abstraction and amplification, an immersive soundscape reminiscent of fire.

For Untitled (red flame), the darkened gallery will be draped in fabric, creating an intimate and immersive space for the experience of Norment's sonic landscape. In the room will also be several megaphones, acting not only as speakers but the pivot point on which the metaphor Norment has constructed rests.

Using recordings derived from the sounds of bodies, of skin and flesh and voice, Norment's composition crackles and roars, sometimes evoking the gentle warmth of a candle flame, sometimes the ferocity of a wildfire. That potential for explosivity, resonating in Chicago's history with the Great Fire of 1871 on the one hand and the riots of 1968 on the other, is a reflection of the power inherent in the people Norment has recorded: like the flame of a candle, the strength of an idea, or the outrage against an injustice, once given voice, can spread into a roaring conflagration.

Weaving together fire and speech in this way, the megaphone and the match, the body and the body politic, Untitled (red flame) captures on an elemental level the ability of the human voice to engender solidarity, agency, and resistance.

"Camille's ability to construct a unified voice from the most intimate and personal sounds is an incredible testament to both her power as an artist, and the depth of her work's engagement with collective action, history, and solidarity," says Logan Center Exhibitions Director and Curator Yesomi Umolu.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a performance at the Renaissance Society, on December 14, 2019. Staging for the performance will be open to the public during the preceding week.

Norment's practice has long utilized both harmony and dissonance as a lens to investigate social and political histories. The U.S.-born, Oslo-based artist has coined the term "cultural psychoacoustics" to describe the way in which she activates and explores various soundscapes in relationship to their cultural contexts and dimensions of public life. Her work at the Logan Center Gallery comprises a portion of an ongoing, larger project, Untitled (Flame), of which the Renaissance Society performance, Untitled (blue heat), is also a part. Camille Norment: Untitled (red flame) is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and curated by Yesomi Umolu, Director and Curator; with Katja Rivera, Assistant Curator; and Alyssa Brubaker, Exhibitions Manager. This exhibition is made possible by support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Office of Contemporary Art in Norway, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and friends of the Logan Center. Untitled (Flame) is co-presented with The Renaissance Society.

For more information and details about related programming, visit arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery or follow Logan Center Exhibitions on Facebook and Instagram @logancenterexhibitions.

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