Randall Szott

with InCUBATE (2009-2011)

"The Public Culture Lecture Series, co-organized by Randall Szott and InCUBATE, seeks to highlight examinations and enactments of public culture. Rather than following a preformed idea of what public culture actually is, the series treats it as an open question and invites attendees to explore the question with us. A variety of people and practices are drawn on to present the ways that the notion of "the public"emerges in their work and/or informs it. Past iterations of the series have included: a lecture on lyceums in nineteenth century America, a guided eating tour of the Maxwell Street Market, a group workshop on storytelling as an everyday art, and an artist-led tour of the Loop’s Pedway system."

"Doing it Together: Artist-Run Support Networks" at Converge at NEXT Art Fair with InCUBATE, Tracy Candido, and Robin Hewlett (2009) .

with InCUBATE at threewalls (2009)

"In Search of the Mundane, organized by Randall Szott and the Institute for Community Understanding Between Art and The Everyday (InCUBATE) will feature extended conversation and programming about the arts of living. This exhibition’s activities focus on mundane life, drawing upon the spirit of Allan Kaprow, Michel de Certeau, Jane Addams, John Dewey, and others. These artists, activists, and thinkers will serve as a jumping off point to consider what constitutes “the good life.” In addition toconsidering the perceived divide between art and everyday life, we hope to highlight how ordinary creative strategies in day to day life might enhance one’s living conditions.  What might mark the difference between thinking of art as a career and living life creatively?Associated programming will bring together a range of people engaged with this question to share their own strategies for artful living."

Critiques and talk at the University of Houston (2009).

The Skydive - co-organized by Nancy Zastudil, Randall Szott, and InCUBATE (2009).

Included in an exhibition curated by Joseph Del Pesco and reviewed in Artforum (2009).

Interview included in an anthology by Christopher Kennedy (2009).

"Latent Learning Curriculums is a collection of texts, excerpts and statements found while conducting research on a project called Artiscycle. The selections here explore the changing meanings of learning and community, providing a critical discourse on the hidden learning processes embedded within interdisciplinary art and social practices."

Guest host on Bad at Sports interviewing InCUBATE (2009).

Online conference organized with Stephen Wright on n.e.w.s (2009). Participants included: Andy Abbott, Sal Randolph, Katherine Carl, Tom Lutz, Chris Carlsson, and Sean Dockray.

"Cutting Slack: paradoxes of slackerdom"

Invited guest for the Potluck Chat series with basekamp (2009) .

A conversation with Ted Purves at California College of the Arts (2009) .

I talked about The Amateur vs. The Professional on a panel with Ted Purves and Jen Delos Reyes at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009) .

Exhibition at Visual Arts Gallery - Rice University Media Center curated by Erin Rouse and John Sparagana (2009).

Interviewed on Bad at Sports with Pamela Fraser (2008).

Exhibition curated with Marc Fischer at Mess Hall (2008).

"Among the many subjects of these collections, archives and projects: video store identification labels on old used VHS tapes, concert set lists, artists' stamps that have made it through the mail, documentation of empty Chicago storefronts that are available for lease, a massive trove of KISS concert and TV appearances on VHS, examples of "The End" title screens from a large array of old films, documentation of crushed "Crush" cans, African-American G.I. Joe toys, collected regrets by numerous mail respondents, and dozens of representations of Geishas."

An exhibition and event series with Pamela Fraser (2008-11). Selected as "Best Apartment Gallery" by Chicago Magazine in 2010.

The series:

she said: Sheila Pepe: Common Sense: Chicago, April 9, 2011

she said: Kevin Everson: The World According to KJE: Featuring Mechanics, a Visitor, Skin Pad Operators, and Horsemen, November 17, 2010

she said: 350.org Global Work Party/ Silkscreen Party, October 10, 2010

he said: Katie Hargrave: Transmissions to Change the Way We Think About Us, April 17, 2010

she said: Nina Bovasso: Kijkshop, March 13, 2010

she said: Nikhil Chopra, February 7, 2010

she said: Bob Linder, January 16, 2010

she said: Carroll Dunham, October 13, 2009

he said: Leif Hedendal, September 19, 2009

she said: Guy Richards Smit, May 10, 2009

she said: Michael Stickrod, March 13, 2009

he said: The Leisure Bowl, February 21, 2009

he said: Bill Keaggy, November 17- December 5, 2008

she said: Meg Cranston, October 29, 2008

he said: Robert Gardner, July 20, 2008

she said: Cheryl Donegan, May 17-June 7, 2008

she said: Tamara Zahaykevich, April 19- May 10, 2008

he said: Jessica Hagy, March 14, 2008

A seven year record of reading/writing/thinking on ideas around aesthetics, leisure, professionalization, social practice, and philosophy (2008-2015).

Interviewed by Sal Randolph for INTHECONVERSATION (2008).

Art Leisure Instead of Art Work: A Conversation with Randall Szott

Ongoing collection.

Panel discussion on collecting at OPENSOURCE, Champaign, IL (2007).

Essay for the inaugural publication of the Social Practice Area at the California College of the Arts (2007).
 

"Gambling in Reno, Some Notes on a Social Practices Field Trip"

"Work in Progress: Four Readings" collaboration with Nancy Zastudil (2007).

Studiolo54 was a collaborative exercise in internet curation with Nancy Zastudil (2007).

“is the new” was originally published in Diagram 6.3 (full resolution). It had many online lives and commentaries, then was reworked as “The new, new things of 2007″ for the Sunday Ideas section of the Boston Globe. It eventually evolved into  “x is the new black”  for The Visual Miscellaneum.

diagrammatic was a short lived blog described as follows:

diagrammatic: the elegant and the abject mess, the profound and the banal, the conventional and the inventive – diagrams for your consideration (2006).

Talk for Other Options at Alogon Gallery (2006).

Talk for an interdisciplinary certificate program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2006).

Randall Szott: Speculative Cartography and the Praxis of MySpace

Participated as "LeisureArts" in an exhibition at University of St. Francis curated by Chester Costello (2006).

placekraft was a blog I wrote anonymously and I described this way (2006-07):

"placekraft is an interdisciplinary research module devoted to generating and studying: tactical urbanism, speculative cartography, ephemeral/vernacular architecture, and itinerant practices."

Concept Trucking was the first exhibition venue on MySpace (2006). Featured work by: Mark Cooley, Dario Solman, Guthrie Lonergan, John Michael Boling, Angie Waller, and Cab Broskoski

LeisureArts was a blog I wrote anonymously and described this way (2006-08):

"LeisureArts: an infra-institutional practice engaged with various forms of ephemeral, convivial, and quotidian cultural production"

Survey of visual representations of non-places (malls, airports, stores, etc.) Full collection contains hundreds of maps. Parts of the collection are hosted on radical cartography (2005).

Collection acquired over five years and displayed in a rented display case at an antique store in Springfield, OH (2003).