I'm running out of places to put them, but I can't quite quit collecting cool-looking posters for obscure arts events. I got one in the mail today (the actual, physical mail) that is inspiring this public service announcement.
If you also like to collect cool posters for obscure arts events, then by all means you should get on the mailing list for The Renaissance Society, located up in Barack and Michelle Obama's neighborhood of Hyde Park. As the Obamas once were, this tasteful gallery is affiliated with The University of Chicago.
Curator Hamza Walker and company produce big, beautiful exhibition announcements, with an essay and schedule all printed on the back of the poster. The image above is not quite what adorns The Renaissance Society exhibition announcement of its new show, Francis Alys: Bolero (Shoe Shine Blues) and Politics of Rehearsal, but it's close. It's from the same shoe shine series, as presented at the 2007 Venice Art Biennial and posted up by Design Boom.
Hamza Walker is very smart and rather modest, if the tiny size and obscure placement of his byline for the essay printed on the back of the poster is any indication. He was in St. Louis, recently, for a one-day conference on "blackness" at the Sam Fox School. Thomas Sleet and I chatted him up on the outskirts of the olive tray. He seemed like a nice man. After reading his brief essay on the back of this new poster, I know a lot more about shoeshining and Mexico City than I did before.
Closer to home (if home, for you, is St. Louis), Mathew Strauss and White Flag Projects have also blazed new trails in the art of promoting art by producing collectible exhibition announcements. If you're not on their mailing list, then you're missing out.
Or, maybe, running out - of places to put all this cool stuff.
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