Jun 22nd 2013

Cheryl Pope: Just Yell

@ moniquemeloche

2154 W. Division, Chicago IL 60622

Opening Saturday, June 22nd, from 4PM - 7PM

On view through Saturday, August 3rd

In 1880, a student at Princeton University stood before the crowd and began to yell — the crowd answered and thus began the Yellers (later to become cheerleaders).

Just Yell, the title of Cheryl Pope’s first solo exhibition in Chicago at moniquemeloche uses the framework of American High School: yellers (cheerleaders), yearbooks, Varsity patches, and car culture to contain reactions to the current gun violence that is plaguing our city and our nation.

Through a collaboration with over 400 teens city-wide from Farragut Career Academy, Lindblom Math and Science Academy, William Taft Academic Center, Walter Payton College Prep, Alfred Nobel Elementary, and Phoenix Military Academy, Pope does not seek to offer solutions but rather to make the invisible visible in a less temporal space and format than the morning news. These yells ask each of us to confront a reality that is both present and absent simultaneously.

On opening night Saturday, June 22nd, Phoenix Military Academy will perform along with a selection of young poets performing their spoken word to viewers as they ride in classic muscle cars, through Wicker Park and Humboldt Park, in a piece titled Drive by in 5 Acts. A series of public events will continue each Saturday during the run of the exhibition starting with the Teen Creative Agency (TCA) from the Museum of Contemporary Art, who will be installing their “Living Room” program at the gallery on Saturday, June 29th; additional events to be announced. Please note the gallery will be closed July 4-6.

Cheryl Pope (American b. 1980, lives Chicago) received a Masters in Design in from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010, which was supported by a Full Tuition Merit Scholarship, and Bachelors of Fine Arts from the same institute in 2003. Pope was the studio manager for artist Nick Cave from 2003-2012 and she credits him and his work as a great influence on her practice.

Pope’s work has been included in many group contexts, such as Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Moving Image NYC, Künstlerhaus Speckstrasse Hamburg, No Longer Empty NYC, and LaReta Projects Milan. Recently, Pope’s work was acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and University of California Riverside Art Museum. Pope teaches at the School of the Art Institute Chicago and will be an artist in residence at Fountainhead in Miami later this summer. In 2011, Pope presented A Silent I at moniquemeloche as a part of the on the wall series, which currently features Sanford Biggers (American b. 1970, lives NY) Ago, which has been extended through August 3rd.”on the wall” is generously funded in part by the Commission of Wicker Park / Bucktown (SSA #33).

Special thanks to Phoenix Military Academy, DJ Raj Mahal and Your Way Automotive

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