The Search is an artist-curated sculpture/stage/architecture designed to create singular private and public experience. The project is available to travel, and its programming becomes the curatorial responsibility of the host institution in future iterations. They are invited to activate local artists and communities to fulfill the possibilities of the architecture.

The outside of the structure is a symbolic and literal stage for public performances. The inside of the structure is a space for curated, private, unrecorded two-person conversations. Conversation participants are given limited instructions and are left unconstrained save for a time limit. The length of their conversation, its substance and its terms are all up to them. A series of artist books builds with each exhibition that records the name and dates of project participants.

above:

20 Drumsticks on The Search

2011

conceived by Tim Kinsella, part of a larger program of public programming and private, unrecorded, and curated two-person conversations (which happen inside the steps) as part of The Search, Jason Lazarus at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Sept 10-Oct 15, 2011.

Thank you Tim Kinsella, Alex Inglizian, Seth She,r Adam Vida, Angel Ledezma, Theo Katsaounis, Bobby Burg, Matt Clark, Todd Mattei, Areif Sless-Kitain, and Jonathan Van Herik.

above:

Carson Fisk-Vittori’s

Object Exchange

Guests are invited to bring objects to contribute and take other objects from the space. These discarded/refound/chance objects will be arranged on The Search, converting the space into a store display, chance arrangement, and object exchange for two hours. The flux of arranged objects will be photographed as a series of chance still life arrangements.

September 17, 1-3pm
Andrew Rafacz Gallery
2011

Above:

Industry of the Ordinary investigate the state of being internal, protected and private, while simultaneously external, vulnerable, and public.

above:

Threewalls presents The Waldorf Panels at The Search by Jason Lazarus
Andrew Rafacz Gallery
Friday October 7, 6-7:30 PM
In collaboration with Soberscove Press

In the Spring of 1965, dozens of New York artists met for the two-part, invitation-only Waldorf Panels on Sculpture. The transcripts, reprinted for the first time since their 1965 original publication by Soberscove Press, a project by Chicago-based sculptor Julia Klein, convey a strong sense of a genre–and an artworld–in transition. In the dialogic spirit of Jason Lazarus’ The Search, Threewalls presents a reinterpretation of Isamu Noguchi, Claes Oldenburg, Phillip Pavia, George Segal, George Sugarman, and James Wines’ historic art conversation from this occasion performed by Chicago female sculptors including Jesse Harrod, Heather Mekkelson, Meg Duguid, Martine Syms, and Sara Schnadt more on the steps of the ziggurat.

When we were thinking about programming the “outside” of the structure where the main conversations of the project happened inside, somewhat secretly, we figured there might be space for a historic intervention. If the main actions taking in the place were these conversations, it seemed like a ripe situation for re-staging a dialogue on sculpture. Because if we’re going to figure out what we’re doing on this giant structure, maybe it might be helpful to think about all the giants who have talked about it before. So we took this little quiet beautiful book that Soberscove Press put out, and we made it even more beautiful by asking female Chicago sculptors to interpret this situation where not enough women were given a voice, and then we all had a moment together and thought about history.