Description: Catalog accompanying retrospective exhibition of Chicago-based social practice artist Jim Duignan.
Stockyard Institute: 25 Years of Art and Radical Pedagogy presents the first comprehensive survey of the pioneering socially engaged practice of Chicago-based artist Jim Duignan and his ongoing Stockyard Institute project. Beginning in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in 1995, Duignan founded a shape-shifting arts education platform that calls for the active participation of local youth and community members to address the social and civic problems faced by Chicago's most vulnerable and underserved populations. Produced to accompany the retrospective exhibition of Stockyard Institute at DePaul Art Museum in 2021, this fully illustrated catalog provides important documentation and historical context for one of the most significant social practice projects in the world of contemporary art. With an introduction by curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm, this publication includes contributions by Jennifer Gray, Rachel L.S. Harper, Jorge Lucero, Allison Peters Quinn, David Maruzzella, and Nato Thompson.Brief description: Julie Rodrigues Widholm is the director of UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Prior to BAMPFA, Rodrigues Widholm was director and chief curator at DePaul Art Museum and a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.