ROMAN SUSAN
Rogers Park Art Space
1224 W. Loyola Avenue, Chicago 60626
romansusan.org | (773) 270-1224

Udita Upadhyaya: nevernotmusic
February 18 – March 11, 2018

Performances: Sundays 1-4
Hours: Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays 3-6

February 18: Lindsey Barlag Thornton, Regin Igloria, Ethan T. Parcell, SUCROSE
February 25: Lindsey Barlag Thornton, Tannaz Motevalli, Connie Noyes and Beth Bradfish, Corey Smith
March 4: Jerry Bleem and Nick Carbuto, Ethan T. Parcell, Will Quam and Kevin Sparrow, Falak Vasa
March 11: Jasmine Jordan, Aron Sharp, Tannaz Motevalli, SUCROSE

nevernotmusic addresses the quiet solitude of Chicago winter and the subsequent longing for solace (in metaphor, in language, in each other). Relying on accidental camaraderie and tenderness I create visual and textual scores that play with the wonder of being alive even as they contemplate grief and loss.

The work is built by asking piercing questions, deep listening, and the seeking of connections. The gallery walls are covered in scores such that each image and phrase fragment is a gift of tenderness, attention, permission. These are moments of generosity to the self, to friends, to collaborators, to the audience, and to the space itself.

nevernotmusic and I seek a multiplicity of responses to the scores: a tug of war between poetic and instructional, comprehensible and nonsensical and playful, accessible and secretive. To further layer the scores with the body of my personal history I lean deep into the room of my mouth calling into play my mother tongue, Hindi, thus making room for secrets, distance, confusion and empowerment.

In keeping with this need for multiplicity of experience and to address the cycles of reperformance and notation, I have invited 16 Chicago artists to activate the gallery with live performances. I have devised individual scores for each artist, such that each activation stems from a need, a query, or a budding intersection of our practices.

On Sunday afternoons, artists perform in proximity and response to nevernotmusic, creating scenarios for participatory and interactive activations at the gallery. These performances too are gifts of a kind, gifts that let us feel together in this feeling of being alive, alive in the winter, alive in a messy world, and somehow alive and less alone.

–Udita Upadhyaya

Bio
Udita Upadhyaya is an interdisciplinary artist who uses her body and the details of her medical, cultural, and social biography as her primary art material. Her work spans live art, devised theatre, performative photographs, sculpture, installation, video, writing, text, and fiber arts.

Upadhyaya’s interdisciplinary education and subsequent professional practice across filmmaking, international relations, and market research informs her research and community based approach to creative practice. She has an MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has since been invited to lecture at the School. She lives and works between Mumbai and Chicago. For more information, please visit uditaupadhyaya.com.

For further info: http://romansusan.org/nevernotmusic or contact [email protected]