Sunday, August 5, 2012, 8:00 pm, $6
Black Thorns in the Black Box is a touring screening of experimental film and video by eleven contemporary artists whose work resonates with the heavy, dark, and mystic obscurity of Black Metal music. Its screening in Chicago coincides with the gallery exhibition Black Thorns in the White Cube—on view March 16 through April 14 at Western Exhibitions.
(http://westernexhibitions.
Based throughout Northern America and Europe, the participating artists include Annie Feldmeier Adams for Locrian (Chicago), Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert (Brussels, Belgium), Una Hamilton Helle (London, England), Devin Horan (Brooklyn), Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (Brooklyn), Ruth Jarman & Joe Gerhardt of Semiconductor (Brighton, England), Chris Kennedy (Toronto, Canada), Marianna Milhorat (Chicago), Jimmy Joe Roche (Baltimore), Shazzula for Cultus Sabbati (Brussels, Belgium), and Michaël Sellam (Paris, France). This screening of Black Thorns in the Black Box is organized into three parts—the underground, the earth, and the heavens—according to the three branches of Medieval concepts of music—musica mundana, musica humana, and musica instrumentalis—to explore how Black Metal has permeated all known spheres of creation.
Curated by Amelia Ishmael & Bryan Wendorf
Amelia Ishmael is an artist whose practice includes critiquing, historicising, teaching, and curating other artists’ practices. Her current projects include the traveling art exhibition “Black Thorns in
the White Cube” (currently on view at Paragraph Gallery in Kansas City, MO) and co-editing and curating pages for the academic journal Helvete. She studied studio art and art history at the Kansas City Art Institute and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has published articles on contemporary art with The WIRE, Art21.com, ArtSlant Chicago, and Art Papers.
Bryan Wendorf co-founded the Chicago Underground Film Festival in 1994 and remains its Programmer and Artistic Director. He has served on the board of directors of IFP Chicago and has curated film programs including Conversations At The Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago), Transmediale (Berlin) and the Revelation Film Festival (Perth). He studied fine art at Columbia College Chicago, and has written articles about film, music, comics and popular culture for a variety of publications including New City, Indiewire, It’s Only A Move!, and Wormwood Chronicles.