Talk

Catherine Sullivan’s installations combine theater, dance, film, music, and visual art. Through these disciplines she scrutinizes notions of nostalgia, sensations of history, and cultural acquiescence.

The performers in her pieces often explore written texts, stylistic economies, gestural regimes, reenactments of history, and conceptual orthodoxies. Her work is usually shot or performed within locations that are richly layered with social functions, and the elements of character, action, and setting play off of one another to produce an anxious and unresolved political sensibility. Sullivan lives and works in Chicago. She has had solo exhibitions at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2007); Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (2007-08); Tate Modern, London (2005); and Succession, Vienna (2004); among others. Her work has also been included in group shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2007-08); Prague Biennial (2005); and the Whitney Biennial (2004).

Now in its 14th year, the “Public Art Fund Talks” is an ongoing series of discussions and presentations by some of today’s most influential artists, critics, and curators. This event is presented by the Public Art Fund in association with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.