Juan Angel Chavez, proposal for Gramophone sculpture, 2016

For the first time, the Hyde Park Art Center and Hyde Park Jazz Festival will collaborate to activate the Midway Plaisance, which serves as a hub for the Festival’s expansive programming, with three visual art installations during the Festival, September 24-25, 2016. Three main projects have been selected for this inaugural year: Juan Angel Chavez’s, “Gramaphone”; Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford and Faheem Majeed’s “Floating Museum”; and Sabina Ott’s “Mountain Variation.” These projects will be grouped together halfway down the Midway.

“This new collaborative programming initiative is reflective of the creativity and community the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and Hyde Park Art Center aim to serve,” said Executive and Artistic Director at Hyde Park Jazz Festival Kate Dumbleton. “It is our hope that the integration of engaging art installations along the Midway will continue to grow in the future, adding another element to the generative spirit of the Festival.”

Each of the artists will create work that responds to ideas and concepts present in jazz and the South Side. Juan Angel Chavez’s installation, entitled “Gramophone” will be a tent like structure using wood and fabric in the shape of a gramophone at the north entrance of the Festival. “The Floating Museum,” a collaborative work by artists Faheem Majeed and Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford and architect Andrew Schachman, will ask Hyde Park Jazz Festival visitors to help them construct an exhibition space, using lumber, connectors and other materials, that will change over the course of the Festival. Finally, Sabina Ott will build “Mountain Variation,” a sculptural group of natural forms carved from polystyrene. Visitors can lounge directly on the sculpture while listening to the music of the Festival.

“This exciting new programming initiative allows the Hyde Park Art Center to expand its reach beyond the center walls and add to Midway Plaisance’s long history of bringing Chicago engaging and boundary pushing works of art,” said Director of Exhibitions and Residency Programs Allison Peters Quinn. “As a fellow south-side institution it is imperative that we continue to work together in order to bring thought provoking work to the community.”