Piotr Szyhalski / Labor Camp &#8211; COVID-19: Labor Camp Report


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          Piotr Szyhalski / Labor Camp &#8211; COVID-19:
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             Labor Camp Report
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<p>On March 24, 2020, Minneapolis-based artist Piotr Szyhalski embarked on a daily drawing practice, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded in real time. What began as a way for the artist to share observations of life in lockdown and the pain caused by the pandemic, soon became an exercise in chronicling his thoughts and feelings, reconciling them with the changes being wrought in the world.</p>
<p><em>COVID-19: Labor Camp Report</em> consists of 225 drawings created over eight months, with new drawings posted daily on Instagram, a witness to the unfolding crisis and a record of time both labored and lost.</p>
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<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-94195" src="https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12100952/210310_mia327_0780_small-1200x696.jpg" alt="" width="1015" height="589" srcset="https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12100952/210310_mia327_0780_small.jpg 1200w, https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12100952/210310_mia327_0780_small.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1015px) 100vw, 1015px" /></p>
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<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-94196" src="https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12101021/210310_mia327_0776_small-1200x678.jpg" alt="" width="1014" height="573" srcset="https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12101021/210310_mia327_0776_small.jpg 1200w, https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12101021/210310_mia327_0776_small.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1014px) 100vw, 1014px" /></p>
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<div id="attachment_94194" style="width: 1027px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-94194" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-94194" src="https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12100854/210310_mia327_0774_small-1200x733.jpg" alt="" width="1017" height="621" srcset="https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12100854/210310_mia327_0774_small.jpg 1200w, https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12100854/210310_mia327_0774_small.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1017px) 100vw, 1017px" /><p id="caption-attachment-94194" class="wp-caption-text">Views of Gallery 370 with objects installed for the exhibition &#8220;Piotr Szyhalski / Labor Camp – COVID-19: Labor Camp Report&#8221; at Minneapolis Institute of Art.</p></div>
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<p><span style="font-size:large;">In support of the Piotr Szyhalski/Labor Camp&#8217;s COVID-19: Labor Camp Report exhibition currently on view at Mia, join professor and artist Piotr Szyhalski, professor, artist and writer Colette Gaiter, and Mia curator Gabriel Ritter in a conversation moderated by Courtenay Finn, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa) and one half of publisher Frank. Stay after the conversation to meet the artist; a limited number of books and Labor Camp prints available for purchase at the Store at Mia.</span></p>
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<h2 class="border-top-3">Watch the Conversation</h2>
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<h2 class="border-top-3 padding-top">About the book</h2>
<p>In collaboration with <a href="https://frankfrank.org/" class="link-fade-in-brdr">Frank</a> —a new publishing platform— artist Piotr Szyhalski’s daily COVID-19: Labor Camp Report has been transformed into a book. By taking the form of a printed publication, Szyhalski&#8217;s timely and important drawings offer us a way to remember and reflect on not just the past year, one marked by the coronavirus pandemic and an incredible reckoning happening across the globe. Organized chronologically,  the COVID-19: Labor Camp Report book features lushly printed, large-scale images of each drawing, including never-before-seen sketches, newly commissioned essays and reflections on the work, as well as all the artist’s texts written as part of his daily Instagram posts. The book embodies Szyhalski’s ceaseless and diligent practice, one that continues to provoke, confront, comfort, and inspire its audience. His ongoing Instagram posts continue to gain hundreds of likes, comments, and followers, sparking interest from around the country and the globe, asking for more. Deeply inspiring, Szyhalski’s work offers a space to confront the complexity, uncertainty, and absurdity of our current moment, all the while reminding us of the importance of compassion, criticality, and change.</p>
<h2 class="border-top-3 padding-top">About the speakers</h2>
<p>Gabriel Ritter assumed the role of Curator of Contemporary Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) in May 2016. Since that time, he has overseen major touring exhibitions including When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Art &#038; Migration (2020) and Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters (2017) and organized ambitious reinstallations of the permanent collection galleries including Now Where Were We? (2016-17) and the co-curated Mapping Black Identities (2019). Recent projects at Mia include Rituals of Resilience (2020, co-curated w/ Chaka Mkali) and Piotr Szyhalski: COVID-19 Labor Camp Report (2020). In addition to the exhibition program, Ritter is responsible for growing and diversifying Mia’s Contemporary Art collection, with increased focus on female artists, artists of color, and those who openly identify at LGBTQ+. Ritter holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also earned his M.A. in art history.</p>
<p>Piotr Szyhalski is a Polish-born, U.S.-based multimedia artist who established Labor Camp—an ongoing art project that includes interactive components (digital and physical), original music, performances, videos, printed ephemera, texts, a blog, and an archive of online resources. Moving between fine arts (painting, photography, drawing, installation), sound, media art, and design, Szyhalski’s multilayered works often explore communication/exchange, extreme historical phenomena, and relationships between the individual and society/history/time. His work has been exhibited worldwide at such venues as the International Center of Photography, the New York Expo Film Festival, Siggraph, ISEA Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the San Jose Museum of Art, and Experimenta Design in Lisbon, Portugal, and featured in a variety of catalogues and publications. Pieces are in the collections of the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and others.</p>
<p>Colette Gaiter is a professor in the departments of Africana Studies and Art &#038; Design at the University of Delaware. She previously taught at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the University of Minnesota, and Columbia College Chicago. After working as a graphic designer in New York City, she became an educator, artist, and writer. Her visual work, which has been exhibited internationally, ranges from digital prints and artist books to websites and interactive installations. Since 2004, Gaiter has written about former Black Panther artist Emory Douglas’s work, including his current international human rights artist activism. Her essays on his work appear in the books Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas and West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965–1977 as well as journals and other publications. The 2019 book Art, Global Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Manchester University Press) includes her essay on Douglas’s work and its relationship to international Maoism in art. Gaiter’s writing and visual work always investigate creative activism.</p>
<p>Courtenay Finn is a curator and writer based in Cleveland. She is currently the Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa) and one half of Frank, a small publishing imprint for artist projects. Prior to her time in Cleveland, she was Senior Curator at the Aspen Art Museum (AAM), where she organized thematic exhibitions such as Lost Without Your Rhythm, Gravity &#038; Grace, The Revolution Will Not Be Gray, and The Blue of Distance as well as solo shows of works by Margaret Kilgallen, Yto Barrada, Haris Epaminonda, Mickalene Thomas, Anna Sew Hoy, and Alice Channer.
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Book Launch: Piotr Szyhalski / Labor Camp&#8217;s COVID-19: Labor Camp Report

<p class="large-text">The McKnight Visual Artist Fellowships are awarded annually to established Minnesota-based artists. In 2017, eight McKnight Visual Artist Fellows were selected to receive $25,000 each along with an opportunity to meet with arts professionals from across the country.</p>
<p>This discussion series pairs a nationally recognized art critic or curator with two McKnight Visual Artist Fellows. It offers attendees an opportunity to learn more about the fellowship recipients as well as how their work intersects with broader contemporary art ideas and concerns.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/321795602?color=ffffff&#038;byline=0" width="864" height="492" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><strong>ABOUT THE SPEAKERS</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://massmoca.org/">Susan Cross</a> is the curator of visual arts at MASS MoCA, where she has organized exhibitions and new commissions by artists including Alex Da Corte, Liz Deschenes, Spencer Finch, Liz Glynn, Katharina Grosse, Steffani Jemison, Guillaume Leblon, Richard Nonas, and Simon Starling. Cross is also the editor and author of the first monographs on the work of Da Corte, Finch, and Glynn and co-editor of <em>Sol LeWitt: 100 Views, </em>published by MASS MoCA and Yale University Press. Formerly, she was a curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY. She received an MA from Williams College graduate program in art history. Cross lives with her husband and daughter in Williamstown, Mass.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tamsie.com/">Tamsie Ringler</a>’s artistic practice focuses on landscape sculpture and public art installations that engage environmental awareness. A resident of St. Paul, Ringler studied at the University of Wisconsin and received her MFA in sculpture from the University of Texas, Austin. She teaches foundry and sculpture at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. Recent projects include the <em>River Lee Project,</em> a durational iron pour of the River Lee watershed held at the National Sculpture Factory in Cork, Ireland, and the MAEP exhibition &#8220;Still Life&#8221; at Mia, on view through February 24. Ringler is a recipient of the 2017 McKnight Fellowship and is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors.</p>
<p><a href="http://laborcamp.mcad.edu/">Piotr Szyhalski</a> is a Polish-born, U.S.-based multimedia artist whose works move across installation, performance, moving image, painting, photography, drawing, sound, and design to explore issues related to human ecology and extreme historical phenomena. His work has been exhibited at museums, festivals, and other events worldwide. Szyhalski’s ongoing Labor Camp project (1998–) celebrates the beauty and dignity of labor through visual art, music, posters, printed ephemera, performance, and public actions. Commissioned works include projects for Wim Mertens Quartet in Brussels, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, VocalEssence, Ingenuity Cleveland, Zero One San Jose, IN Light Indianapolis, Northern Spark Festival, and Eastern State Penitentiary (2017). Szyhalski is a previous recipient of the McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists (2009).</p>
<p class="little-text"><em>This series is co-presented by MCAD &amp; Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia). Fellowships are funded by the McKnight Foundation and administered by MCAD.</em></p>
<p>Free, tickets required</p>


Piotr Szyhalski / Labor Camp – COVID-19: Labor Camp Report

Piotr Szyhalski / Labor Camp – COVID-19: Labor Camp Report

March 17, 2021 - September 19, 2021G370 Free Exhibition

March 17, 2021 - September 19, 2021
G370
Free Exhibition