UPDATE EVENT RESCHEDULED 06/01/2024 BIG RAMP presents Jason Lazarus Virtual Artist Talk 06/01/2024 2:30EST

For Immediate Release:  

How to watch a Solar Eclipse

Jason Lazarus Artist Talk 

UPDATE SCHEDULE CHANGE: Virtual talk 06.01.2024 2:30pm EST

BIG RAMP is pleased to present a virtual artist talk Saturday, June first entitled HOW TO WATCH A SOLAR ECLIPSE, by exhibiting artist Jason Lazarus. This talk comes as a part of Jason’s project, April 8,2024 which is currently on view as a part of BIG RAMP’s exhibition, The Magic of the Sun Playing with the Moon. 06.01.2024/2:30pm EST via zoom link  https://us04web.zoom.us/j/72189986942?pwd=5buHmZPbaNzLnBa01TMzWGa89laZRF.1

After Lazarus’s artist talk there will be a brief Q&A session moderated by BIG RAMP member and exhibition curator Michelle Anne Harris. Please see suggested pdf reading, Total Eclipse, an essay by Annie Dillard.

HOW TO WATCH A SOLAR ECLIPSE will particularly speak to artists and art students, interdisciplinary thinkers, and dreamers as well–everyone is invited. The lecture concludes with an invitation to participate in a public art project that endeavors to become the world’s largest archive of used handmade solar eclipse viewers–each one named by the name, age, and location of each project participant. The collection, titled April 8, 2024, is designed to become a safety net for those who might otherwise toss their viewers in the trash. 

APRIL 8, 2024 is a growing archive of used, handmade solar eclipse viewers made by both the general public and the artist for the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse. This collection is actively seeking submissions of used solar eclipse viewers throughout 2024. Each used handmade viewer will be permanently named after each participant in the archive. Submissions for the archive are accepted at BIG RAMP through June 22, 2024.

Jason Lazarus is an artist exploring vision and visibility.  His work includes a range of fluid methodologies: original, found and appropriated images, text-as-image, photo-derived sculptures made collaboratively with the public, live archives, LED light images, and public submission repositories among others. This expanded photographic practice seeks new approaches of inquiry, embodiment, and bearing witness through both individual and collective research. His work has been covered in outlets including Artforum, The New York Times, Frieze, The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Los Angeles Times, NPR, The Washington Post, CNN, and Vice Magazine, and written about by a range of artists and scholars including Martha Rosler, Hamza Walker, Michelle Grabner, Abigail Solomon Godeau, Seph Rodney, Tina Kukielski, Darby English, Christopher Knight, Carmen Winant, Seph Rodney, Ariana Reines, and Lori Waxman among others. Selected exhibition venues include SF MOMA, Art Institute of Chicago, MASS MoCA, MCA Chicago, George Eastman Museum, Queens Museum of Art, High Museum of Art, Renaissance Society, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Ryan Lee Gallery NYC, Exgirlfriend Gallery Berlin, Contemporary Jewish Museum SF, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Columbia University, Stadtgalerie Kiel 9,  Kunstlerhaus Behanien Berlin, Gallery 400, bitforms Gallery NYC, Blaffer Art Museum Houston, Biennial of Photography and Visual Arts Belgium, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Selected public lectures include Yale University, International Center of Photography, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; George Eastman Museum NY, the Art Institute of Chicago, University of California Berkeley, and Artists/Designs/Citizen (US Pavilion, 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale) among others. Selected permanent collections include the Whitney Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, SFMOMA, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, High Museum of Art, Milwaukee Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, and the Ringling Museum of Art among others. Lazarus is also Co-director of Coco Hunday, an artist-run exhibition space in Tampa, FL anchored by solo exhibitions, artist-lectures, and new scholarship on emerging and mid-career artists; Director, PDF-OBJECTS, a nomadic sculpture library featuring over 100 international artists’ chosen readings sculpturally paired with everyday objects; Co-founder of #firstdayfirstimage, a national campaign that asks artist-educators to center voices long underrepresented in curricula starting with the first image shown to students on the first day of class; and Co-founder of Chicago Artist Writers, a platform that invites artists and art workers to write traditional and experimental criticism. Currently, Lazarus is an Associate Professor of Art and Art History at the University of South Florida.

Michelle Anne Harris is a member of BIG RAMP. She is developing a calendar of public workshops and events in an attempt to activate the artist run space’s shared courtyard to create communal relationships. Harris is multimedia artist and educator whose work repurposes found materials such as fabric, paper, lost clothing, discarded tin cans, etc. into sculpted paintings, installations, and artist books. She received her Master’s of Fine Arts Degree in Printmaking from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts Degree in Photography and Early Childhood Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Past exhibitions include, Fjord/Philadelphia PA, Dayspace/Philadelphia PA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, and Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. MichelleAnneHarris.org