From November 11, 2016 until January 1, 2017, Logan Center Exhibitions will showcase Retrogarde, an international group exhibition that explores contemporary artists’ recuperation and appropriation of avant-garde strategies, histories, and archives in their work.

Conceptually and formally, the works in this exhibition adopt a series of recognizable avant-garde forms—fusing play with the profane; detourning language, space, and matter; and working through performative actions and interventions—to address the politics of everyday life. Taken together these works highlight the continued relevance of avant-garde perspectives today. Yet the artists’ attitude towards this lineage is not one of blind veneration but rather pervasive disobedience, mirroring the transgressive actions of their predecessors. Consequently, Retrogarde infuses other viewpoints, narratives, and contexts to open up our collective reading of avant-garde traditions.

Artists in the exhibition include Caroline Bergvall, Samson Kambalu, Matthew Metzger, Catherine Sullivan and Samson Young, among others.

The opening reception for Retrogarde will take place on Friday, November 11, 2016, from 6–8pm at the Logan Center Gallery.

This exhibition is part of Concrete Happenings, a yearlong celebration of exhibitions, screenings, symposia, and happenings that mark the return of Wolf Vostell’s landmark sculpture Concrete Traffic (1970) to public view on University of Chicago campus following a major conservation effort.

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