Report I

Crown Family Professorship in Painting and Drawing A REPORT FOR PAULA AND JAMES CROWN December 2022

Michelle Grabner, detail of Untitled, 2022, oil on burlap on panel

WITH GRATITUDE Paula and James, your philanthropy has opened up meaningful opportunities for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)’s innovative network of creatives. We are grateful that in 2016, you chose to champion SAIC’s world-renowned art and design educators by establishing the Crown Family Professorship as part of the School’s Beautiful/Work Campaign. Today, your investment continues to make a lasting impact on our teaching and learning community by supporting a full-time professorship in the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). By investing in SAIC’s educators you encourage a network of talented artists and designers to engage fully in their commitment to inspiring the next generation of citizen artists. Michelle Grabner, the inaugural Crown Family Professor and Senior Chair of the Department of Painting and Drawing, has had a tremendous year of accomplishments as a critical leader in the contemporary art landscape. She shares, “The support of the Crown Family Professorship allows me to continue my leadership in the Department of Painting and Drawing during a time of transitions while being able to continue exhibiting new work.” Thanks in part to the support of the Crown family, Michelle stands firm as a prominent voice in the art world. In 2022 alone, Michelle exhibited in five solo exhibitions including at Efremidis gallery in Berlin and the Alice Austen House Museum in Staten Island, where she was able to invite graduate students to learn from the exhibition during a week-long study trip. The pages that follow share Michelle’s reflections on recent achievements and updates on latest projects that the Crown Family Professorship makes possible. Thank you for your continued partnership. 2

AN UPDATE FROM MICHELLE GRABNER Crown Family Professor and Senior Chair, Department of Painting and Drawing. Support from the Crown family allows me to stitch everything I do into teaching. With direct funding through the endowed professorship, I am able to spend time annually at a brass pouring foundry in Milwaukee where I experiment with new forms and develop ideas that bridge together my experience as an artist and educator. Pieces made at the foundry, such as the grid form seen in the MICKEY gallery exhibition, would not be realized without the institutional support of the Crown Professorship and for that I am truly grateful. Chicago welcomed me with open arms as I exhibited a portion of these new works made in the foundry through my first solo exhibition in the city in over ten years. Through these pieces, Chicago is reminded of my longstanding teaching role. My show at MICKEY was doubly important as I used the gallery as an educational tool, inviting graduate students to visit and talk about scale through first-hand experience and engage in the opportunity to learn about professional experience outside of the classroom. Having the support of the Crown Family Professorship allows me to continue my leadership in the Department of Painting and Drawing during a time of transitions while being able to continue exhibiting new work. Knowing that I can still continue my leadership, but also continue my influence and participation in the contemporary art world is rare. What I am able to accomplish with the help of the professorship is remarkable. Thank you for opening up space for me to engage fully in all of the activities that I take back to my teaching career. 3

Current Exhibitions: Off the Grid Galerie Gisela Clement Bonn, Germany October 20–December 02 2022 Michelle Grabner: Pattern Gana Art Bogwang Seoul, South Korea November 25–December 18 2022 Michelle Grabner: A Minor Survey Chicago, Illinois, USA November 04–December 18 2022 Michelle Grabner, Untitled, 2022, Bronze 4

Michelle Grabner, Untitled, 2021 5 Michelle Grabner, Untitled, 2022, silver on steel

Michelle Grabner, Untitled, 2022, silver on steel, silver on ceramic, found jam jar lids and bronze on walnut Michelle Grabner, Untitled, 2022, oil on panel, silver on steel, found jam jar lid and bronze on walnut 6

WOVEN ROVING Curated by Michelle Grabner at Galerie Installation view of group exhibition Woven Roving, 2022 In the summer of 2022, Michelle Grabner was invited to curate a group show simultaneous with her mounted exhibition at Galerie Gisela Clement in Bonn, Germany. Woven Roving paired the works of prominent fiber artists like Polly Apfelbaum and Stephen Westfall with those of recent SAIC graduates and alums such as Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Rose Dickson, and Noelle Africh. Each exhibited artwork asked the viewer to pay close attention to the voids and free space inherent to materials composed of textiles and paper fiber—nodding to the histories of labor, touch and empathy, firmly embedded in textile discourse. Inclusion of SAIC’s emerging artists is a conscious choice that is essential to Michelle’s teaching ethos. She reflects, “Every time I get an invitation for curating, as I did this year, I’m really folding in extraordinary people coming out of our School.” Through experiential learning, our SAIC community is made all the stronger by educators like Michelle who open doors for our students to gain real-world experience and entry into the art world. 7

VERANDA MAGAZINE FEATURES VERO BEACH HOME Tile commission for the home of [xx] Featured on Veranda Magazine, we see Michelle Grabner’s colorful tilework with patterns of red and blue recently commissioned and installed in the home of [Stephanie and Tim Gracia]. Their Veranda Beach house holds a collection of contemporary art pieces with a large focus on abstract works by women and artists of color. Alongside creations by artists such as Whitney Bedford and Bharti Kher, Michelle Grabner’s monumental tile wall joins in creating a bold and inviting home. Michelle considers projects such as these as pivotal entry points to learning, ones that ultimately make her a better teacher—compiling examples and trends that she then takes back to the classroom. View of Michelle Grabner tile commission 8

LOOKING AHEAD Never before have I seen more graduate and undergraduate students applying to our Painting and Drawing department, uniquely positioning us to mentor and train an exceptional incoming generation of future artists. While other departments throughout the school may lean into their state-of-the-art resources, our department is distinctly rooted in tradition and has a deep history within SAIC. Our greatest resource is our extraordinary faculty who bring the name of the School with them wherever they go. Painting and Drawing by far is carried by the reputation of its faculty, and the present faculty is absolutely dependent on the support that we get from the investment of donors like the Crown family. In the year ahead, I look forward to curating an extensive painting exhibition that will feature the works of 50 artists at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Again, this is an opportunity to connect back to our students and partner with Visiting Artist Program Director, Andrea Green, to create programming in tandem with the show. To have the support of the Crown family means that I can take on activities in curation, artmaking, and writing while at the same time guiding the Department of Painting and Drawing— Thank you. 9



Established in 2015 by Paula and James Crown, the Crown Family Professorship in Painting and Drawing supports a full-time professorship in the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). COURTNEY ROWE, VP FOR ADVANCEMENT 116 S. Michigan Ave., 5th Floor Chicago, IL 60603 [email protected] O: 312.499.4186 C: 303.335.6255