A Space to Appear, A Space to Tarry
- Tamir Williams
- School of Arts & Sciences
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Student Arts Innovation Grant
In the few years following his graduation from the Wharton School of Business in 1970, Michael Abramson decided to ambitiously study photography at the Illinois Institute of Design in Chicago. “Black Night Clubs on Chicago’s South Side” served as the material for his Master’s thesis. To create the series, Abramson documented, over the course of three consecutive years (1974-1977), the vibrant nightlife found at Pepper’s Hideout, a popular black disco nightclub on the South Side of Chicago. (Michael Abramson, Untitled, 1974-1977, gelatin silver print)
Tamir Williams will curate an exhibition titled A Space to Appear, A Space to Tarry, which will present works from the photographic series “Black Nightclubs on Chicago’s South Side” (1975-1977) by Penn alumnus Michael Abramson. The photographs in Abramson’s series reveal a radical relationality and plurality, and nocturnal visibility that the nightclub sought to foster among its constituents. Williams’s exhibition will, thus, prompt its audience to consider the unconventional spaces (e.g. a nightclub) that can allow for radical practices of being with, relating to, and appearing to each other. The exhibition programming will include a panel discussion between scholars and artists whose work investigates issues of black queer nightlife, black queer phenomenology, and photography; and a workshop, led by Penn MFA students and local artists, on the history, aesthetic, and socio-political implications of nocturnal documentary photography, particularly around scenes of urban nightlife.