NOTE: This event event has been canceled and will be rescheduled for a later date this spring. For questions, contact rsvp@grahamfoundation.org.

Join us for the book launch of A Hypothesis of Resistance (Mousse, 2024) with Cally Spooner.

A Hypothesis of Resistance contains five essays on Asynchronicity, Rehearsal, Undetectability, The Present Tense, and Duration. Each attempts to resist the doctrine of “performance,” the symptom of a society, stratified by how we perform​—​economically, socially, digitally. As we become ripe for consumption, caught in an economy of perpetual readiness, basic needs remain unmet and it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between what is alive and what is dead.

Published by Mousse, 2024
Edited and designed by Will Holder
120 pages / Softcover, open-binding, with dust-jacket

The publication is made possible in part through Spooner's 2024 Graham Foundation Fellowship. This program synthesizes the Foundation's grantmaking and exhibition programs and provides support for the development and production of original and challenging works and the opportunity to present these projects in an exhibition at the Graham’s galleries in Chicago. The Fellowship program extends the legacy of the Foundation’s first awards, made in 1957, and continues the tradition of support to individuals to explore innovative perspectives on spatial practices in design culture.

Cally Spooner is an artist who exhibits performances that unfold across media—through sound, on film, in text, as objects, and as illustrated in drawings or scores. Institutional solo exhibitions include: Graham Foundation, Chicago; O— Overgaden, Copenhagen; Cukrarna, Ljubljana; Kunstraum Leuphana, Lüneburg; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint- Martens-Latem; Parrhesiades, London; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Swiss Institute, New York; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin; Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva; Whitechapel Gallery, London; New Museum, New York and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.  Her live performances been staged at, amongst others,Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London; Performa 13, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum M, Leuven; and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London. Her work has appeared in recent group exhibitions including at Museion, Bolzano; Palais de Tokyo, Paris and CAPC, Bordeaux (all 2024). Spooner is the author of recent monographs in the form of novellas, scripts, scores, essays: Collapsing in Parts (Mousse Publishing, 2012); Scripts (Slimvolume, 2016); False Tears (Hatje Cantz and Madre Museum, 2020); SWEAT SHAME ETC. (Lenz Press, 2024) and, A Hypothesis of Resistance (Mousse Publishing, 2024). Spooner is British Italian, and lives and works in Turin.

James Wines discusses the transformative influence of Frederick Kiesler. This presentation is followed by a conversation on Kiesler’s impact and legacy with Wines and Graham Foundation director Sarah Herda.

This discussion builds on Wines’ essay, “Frederick Kiesler: Environmental Visionary,” as published in Frederick Kiesler: Face to Face with the Avant-Garde: Essays on Network and Impact (edited by Peter Bogner and Gerd Zillner, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Birkhäuser, 2019).

This event is hosted via Zoom and presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Frederick Kiesler: Vision Machines, on view at the Graham Foundation through March 15, 2025. 

James Wines, winner of the 2013 National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement, is the founder of SITE, an environmental arts organization in New York. His visual art, architecture, landscape, and public projects are based on a response to surrounding contexts. He has lectured in fifty-nine countries and contributed essays to publications around the world. Books about Wines include De-Architecture (Rizzoli International, 1987) and Green Architecture (Taschen, 2000). There are 22 monographs and museum catalogues about Wines’ work with SITE which includes 150 projects in eleven countries. Wines has won 25 art and design awards, including the 1995 Chrysler Award for Design Innovation, and is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kress Foundation, American Academy in Rome, Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Graham Foundation, and Ford Foundation.

Note: This event is virtual (Zoom) and does not include an in-person component.

Image: BEST Notch Building, Retail Store, Sacramento, CA, 1979. Designed by SITE for BEST Products Company, Inc. Copyright James Wines, courtesy SITE

For more information on the exhibition, Frederick Kiesler: Vision Machines, click here.

Cellist Lester St. Louis and trumpeter Chris Williams are the electroacoustic duo HxH (pronounced “H by H”). Together, they blend acoustic sound, grainy electronics, breaks, cuts, and beats into a kind of expansive, post-techno experimentalism that unfolds with a sense of limitless possibility. For Lampo, St. Louis and Williams premiere loop.max.infinite, a concert-length performance featuring strings, horn, and sample-based electronics, presented in quad sound.

HxH has performed at Pioneer Works, Roulette Intermedium, The Kitchen, Musik Installationen Nürnberg, ‘T’ Space Rhinebeck, The Lot Radio, and Abasement. The duo has collaborated with artists and organizations including Torkwase Dyson, fields harrington, Black Science Fiction, Found Sound Nation, TAK Ensemble, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

HxH has performed at Pioneer Works, Roulette Intermedium, The Kitchen, Musik Installationen Nürnberg, ‘T’ Space Rhinebeck, The Lot Radio, and Abasement. The duo has collaborated with artists and organizations including Torkwase Dyson, fields harrington, Black Science Fiction, Found Sound Nation, TAK Ensemble, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Lester St. Louis (b.1993, Queens, NY) is a New York-based composer, improviser, cellist, sound designer, and curator. He did not begin playing the cello until he was 16 years old and quickly learned that he has perfect pitch. Upon graduating high school, he audited classes all over New York City, studying cello, theory, musicianship and composition, all without the aid of an institution. Since then, he has performed through the United States, Europe, South America, and China. In addition to his duo HxH with Chris Williams, he has collaborated with Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die, Ben Lamar Gay, Yaeji, Tortoise, Yo La Tengo, Miho Hatori, Dré A. Hočevar, Charmaine Lee, Otim Alpha, Nate Wooley, Isabel Crespo Pardo, TAK Ensemble, Random International, Irreversible Entanglements, Pheroan Aklaff, Terence Nance, Wet Ink Ensemble, and many more. The JACK Quartet, RAGE Thormbones, Jennifer Koh, String Noise, and Ghost Ensemble have commissioned his compositions. St. Louis also cocurates a monthly series in Brooklyn with bassist Luke Stewart called Assembly.

Chris Williams (b.1990, Sacramento, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Brooklyn. His work explores the dyad of ancestral trauma and power existing in all Black Americans. Williams has toured extensively throughout the UnitedStates and Europe. He has been commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble and WasteLAnd, the Los Angeles concert series. He was 2023 American Composers Forum Fellow and a 2024 Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow, and he has been in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Collaborators include Eyvind Kang, Joanna Mattrey, Lester St. Louis, Patrick Shiroishi, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Fay Victor, Wendy Eisenberg, Yaeji, Luke Stewart, Pink Siifu, and Marjani Forte-Saunders.

Lampo, established in 1997, supports artists working in new music, experimental sound, and other interdisciplinary practices. The Chicago-based organization's core activity has been and remains its performance series. Rather than making programming decisions around tour schedules, Lampo invites selected artists to create and perform new work, and then the organization provides the space, resources, and curatorial support to help them fulfill their vision. Lampo also organizes artist talks, lectures, screenings, and workshops, and publishes written and recorded documents related to its series.

Please note that registration for Lampo programs is required, but does not guarantee entry.  Capacity for this performance is limited. Doors open 30 minutes prior to the performance and seats are available on a first-come, first-serve basis for those registered in advance. Due to the popularity of the Lampo programs, performances quickly reach capacity. No late seating will be permitted. This performance series includes high-volume sounds in close proximity to the audience, ear protection is available upon request.

Ka Baird premieres Yomp, a performance piece featuring live-processed flutes, samples, electronics, voice, broken rhythms, and movement. Yomp plays with the idea of a march that repeatedly falls apart, taking various sonic detours throughout the performance.

“The general time pressures destroy all that has the character of a detour, all that is indirect, and thus makes the world poor in forms. Every form, every figure, is a detour. If walking lacks all hesitation, all pausing, then it freezes into a march.”—Byung-Chul Han

Ka Baird (b.1976, Decatur, IL) is a performer, sound artist, musician and composer based in New York City. They are known for their live performances that include extended voice and microphone techniques, which are combined with electronics and psychoacoustic interplay of flutes and other woodwinds.

In March 2024, Baird released their most recent record, Bearings: Soundtracks for the Bardos (RVNG Intl.), which was built on a Lampo commission. Other releases include Sapropelic Pycnic (Drag City 2017), Respires (RVNG Intl. 2019), Brooding Exercises (Longform Editions 2021), and Vivification Exercises (RVNG Intl. 2021).

Performances include the Unsound Festival, Krakow; Lampo, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MoMA PS1, Queens; Issue Project Room, Brooklyn; The Kitchen, New York City; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; TUSK Festival, Newcastle; Incubate, Tilburg; KRAAK, Brussels; Le Guess Who, Utrecht; and the Festival Of Endless Gratitude, Copenhagen. They have been artist-in-residence at We Jazz Festival, Helsinki; Sonoscopia, Porto; Inkonst, Malmo; ESS, Chicago; and Pioneer Works, Brooklyn. Baird has received the Foundation of Contemporary Art’s Emergency Grant, a Jerome Foundation Artist-In-Residence at Roulette Intermedium, and is currently a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow 2023–25. They are one of the core members of Spires That In The Sunset Rise, founded in Chicago in 2001.

Ka Baird last appeared at Lampo in March 2022, when they performed Bearings, which was commissioned for small audiences in the Lampo office. Ka explored the concept of “bearings” through a series of intimate performances, where they shifted guises between magician, shaman, clown, and athlete. This piece, in tandem with the heaviness of caring for a dying parent during the subsequent year, laid the groundwork for their 2024 album Bearings.

Lampo, established in 1997, supports artists working in new music, experimental sound, and other interdisciplinary practices. The Chicago-based organization's core activity has been and remains its performance series. Rather than making programming decisions around tour schedules, Lampo invites selected artists to create and perform new work, and then the organization provides the space, resources, and curatorial support to help them fulfill their vision. Lampo also organizes artist talks, lectures, screenings, and workshops, and publishes written and recorded documents related to its series.

Note: This event will be held in the ballroom on the third floor of the Madlener House, which is only accessible by stairs. The first-floor galleries and bookshop are accessible via outdoor lift. Please contact us at 312.787.4071 or info@grahamfoundation.org to make arrangements.


Photo: Michal Murawski

Join us for the presentation and book launch of Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago: Rise and Fall of Experimentations in Concrete (Actar, 2024). While Félix Candela’s captivating structures in Mexico and across the globe made him one of the most important and iconic architects of the twentieth century, we know very little about his work in the United States and his life in Chicago during the 1970s. Understanding this transitional period, however, enables us to see his innovations in a new light and to reevaluate the contexts of his work. The book links analyses of his celebrated structures with the specific societal, economic, urban, and material conditions that first facilitated his work in Mexico, then prompted his departure, and eventually complicated his practice in the US. Therefore, it also adds to our understanding of architecture’s transnational exchanges, while further exposing its complicated and often troubled relationship with labor, capital, and politics.

During this presentation, Alexander Eisenschmidt, editor, along with contributors Robert Bruegmann, Geoff Goldberg, Jonathan Miller, and Kathryn E. O'Rourke, discuss the publication and their contributions.

The book includes texts by Alexander Eisenschmidt, Juan Ignacio del Cueto, Nader Tehrani, Elisa María Teresa Drago Quaglia, Kathryn O’Rourke, Jonathan Miller, George F. Flaherty, Stanley Tigerman, Geoff Goldberg, William Baker, Bob Bruegmann, Stuart Cohen, Ero Aggelopoulou-Amiridis, and Kenneth Schroeder, in addition to translations, interviews, and republications by Félix Candela, Reyner Banham, Ester McCoy, Alvin Boyarsky, and Carl W. Condit.

The manuscript for the book was awarded a Graham Foundation publication grant, a Creative Activity Award from the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research, and the Faculty Scholarship Support Grant at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The initial research for this project was sponsored by UIC’s Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research.

A reception and book signing follows the event. A limited number of copies of Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago are available for purchase at the Graham Foundation Bookshop.

This program is presented in partnership with the School of Architecture at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and MAS Context.

Robert Bruegmann is a historian and critic of the built environment. After his 1976 PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1979, where he is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus of art history, architecture and urban planning. Among his books are The Architects and the City: Holabird & Roche of Chicago 1880–1918 (1996), Sprawl: A Compact History (2005), The Architecture of Harry Weese (2010), and the edited volume Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America (2018). His main areas of research are the history of architecture, urban planning, landscape, and historic preservation.

Alexander Eisenschmidt is a theorist, designer, and associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture. He directs the Visionary Cities Project and leads Studio Offshore. Eisenschmidt is author of The Good Metropolis (2019), guest-editor of City Catalyst (2012), and the co-editor of Chicagoisms (2013) and The Project(s) of Modern Architecture (2017). His research and design works have been published and exhibited at a range of international venues such as the Venice Biennale (2012), the Art Institute of Chicago (2014), the Biennale on Urbanism in Shenzhen, China (2015), and the Lisbon Architecture Triennale in Portugal (2016).

Geoffrey Goldberg has practiced architecture and urban design in Chicago for more than 30 years. Projects done under his direction include planning for an urban airport, building a new city college, and design management of large public transportation initiatives. He has taught architectural design at the University of Illinois at Chicago, urban design at Harvard University, and the history of form at the University of Chicago. Goldberg has published architectural and engineering histories, and has been awarded for his work in design, urban planning, and historical research.

Jonathan Miller is an educator, critic, and artist. He is a studio associate professor in the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he teaches classes on film, architecture, cities, and landscape. For many years, he reviewed films and interviewed filmmakers on Chicago Public Radio. He has presented numerous public film series and served on film festival juries. His artwork has been exhibited in the United States and Europe.

Kathryn E. O’Rourke is an architectural historian and professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, where she teaches courses on modern architecture and Latin American art. O’Rourke is the author of Modern Architecture in Mexico City: History, Representation, and the Shaping of a Capital (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016), which received the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award from the Society of Architectural Historians. She is the editor of O’Neil Ford on Architecture (University of Texas Press, 2019), and is at work on two book projects: Home, Heat, Money, God: Texas and Modern Architecture (2024) and Archaism and Liberalism in Modern Architecture.

Image: Félix Candela and UICC Students posing below an experimental dome, south wall Art and Architecture Laboratories, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, c. 1972. Félix Candela Papers, Library and Special Collections, Princeton University

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