Chicago Artists Group Portrait
About
OPEN INVITE TO ALL CHICAGO ARTISTS FROM JASON LAZARUS
Dear Chicago Artists,
You are warmly invited to stand in a group portrait, rain or shine, on the front steps of the MCA on Saturday, June 20\. Mark your calendars! Given the unique light/shadow situation that changes all day on front steps, it is likely that the photograph will need to be taken at 12:30 pm, but please join me on the plaza to socialize and primp starting at 11:30 am.
Let me know if you're coming here.
See you soon,
Jason Lazarus
P.S. The group portrait will be owned by everyone and become part of the public domain! It is my intention to not "own" this photograph but to put it online for anyone to print, alter, distribute as they see fit (as this seems to happen anyways in our image culture). In other words, I want to have it in the public domain where I think it belongs and watch it move around, mutate, and engage a greater audience. I will not monetize the image. If anything, I may hang the image in a future exhibition, or publish it in a book, and any other artist is welcome to do the same. The MCA will be given the same open permission to use the image as they see fit, for museum publicity, publications, archives . . . and this seems fine as they have dedicated resources to sponsoring and supporting the photoshoot with their property and the labor hours of their staff.
For any minors who wish to join in the moment, please bring your guardian to the event to sign a waiver.
If you have questions about this, email jasonlazarus.photo@gmail.com.
About the Artist
Jason Lazarus is an artist, curator, educator, and writer. Major exhibitions include Black Is, Black Ain’t at the Renaissance Society, Love to Love You at MASS MoCA, On the Scene at the Art Institute of Chicago, Not the Way You Remembered at the Queens Museum of Art, Image Search at PPOW Gallery, New York, and Michael Jackson Doesn’t Quit, Part 3 at the Future Gallery, Berlin. His recent solo exhibitions include BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works: Jason Lazarus at the MCA, Live Archive at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, and THTK (Toronto) at Gallery TPW in Toronto. He is currently preparing a commission for SFMOMA's spring 2016 reopening. Lazarus received his MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago and he is an adjunct assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.