Finding Fanon Screening + Artist Talk

Finding Fanon Film Screening and Artist Talk Friday September 16, 2016, 7pm Stony Island Arts Bank 6760 S. Stony Island Ave | Chicago, IL 60649 Join us at the Stony Island Arts Bank for a screening of two films in the Finding Fanon (2015–present) trilogy followed by a conversation with artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, moderated by Yesomi Umolu, Logan Center Exhibitions Curator. Finding Fanon is inspired by the lost plays of the radical philosopher, writer, and humanist Franz Fanon (1925–1961). Throughout the trilogy, Achiampong and Blandy negotiate Fanon’s commentary on race and decolonization in the early 20th century, including its intersection with migration, industrialization, and socio-economic disparities in our globalized and technologically driven society. Finding Fanon 1 uses still and moving images drawn from personal archives, news media, music videos, and Google searches to reveal how the artists’s familial histories intertwine with British colonialism. Set within the simulated environment of the in-game video editor of Grand Theft Auto 5, Finding Fanon 2 combines art-house cinema with digital culture’s Machinima to explore the postcolonial condition. This screening is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON, on view September 16 through October 30, 2016 at the Logan Center Gallery. Presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and Black Cinema House, and co-sponsored by the Nicholson Center for British Studies. Additional support provided by Arts Council England and the British Council. About David Blandy David Blandy (b. 1976) has established his terrain through a series of investigations into the cultural forces that inform and influence him, ranging from his love of hip hop and soul, to computer games and manga. His works slip between performance and video, reality and construct, using references sampled from the wide, disparate sources that provide his (and our own) individualist sense of self. He has exhibited at venues nationally and worldwide such as Bloomberg Space, London, UK; The Exchange, Newlyn Art Gallery, UK; Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland; The Baltic, Gateshead; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Spike Island, Bristol; Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany; MoMA PS1, New York, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China. He is represented by Seventeen Gallery, London. (Image: Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, Finding Fanon 1, 2015. Courtesy of the artist)