NOW/NEXT
BEFORE
ABOUT
At Elastic, the visual arts combine with the performing arts to make our space a welcoming and vital home for the broadest possible field of creative activity, adding depth and richness to our performance programming, and inviting work that straddles the line between performance and visual experience. The Visual Gallery program presents exhibitions in our 2,500 sq ft multi-arts space on a quarterly basis. Each exhibition runs for roughly eight to ten weeks, leaving a two-week window for other, shorter event programs that include visual components. Elastic’s Visual Gallery, like its performance events, focuses on unusually innovative, experimental, and adventurous work, and on that which challenges the boundaries among mediums, disciplines, perspectives, and traditions. Elastic’s Visual Gallery is an opportunity for artists to show work in a non-traditional space, where a great number of people who might not otherwise visit a gallery show will experience their work as they attend performances. The Visual Gallery was conceived in 2006 and then reenvisioned in 2014 by Jordan Martins, who curated it for the next five years. In 2019 the Visual Gallery program adopted a new model, incorporating a curatorial residency that rotates each year in order to provide new energy and fresh vision on an ongoing basis.
Visual Gallery
Curatorial Residency
The Visual Gallery Curator at Elastic Arts is responsible for planning, programming, and coordinating visual art for the gallery area at Elastic Arts. Beyond selecting the artists, the Visual Gallery Curator ensures that artists are familiar with the space and its idiosyncrasies, installs and de-installs shows, creates/gathers support materials for promoting events, produces opening receptions, and performs various other tasks as needed to fulfill the mission of the the Visual Gallery. Visual Arts Curator also writes a critical essay/review/interview for each of the exhibitions that is included in the quarterly Graphic Notes publication produced by Elastic Arts.
Harlem West 2026/2027 Visual Arts Curator
Harlem Masimba West is a sonic griot and archival artist from Out South Chicago. Anchored in analog mediums, their practice is tethered to the portals that find black folks; centered at the crossroads of the post colonial taboo, collective memory, and ancestral veneration. Through soundscapes, tintype capture, archival printmaking, and analog film media, Harlem weaves storytelling into a tapestry of sound design and black portraiture. They're an Earthseed Family Archive alumni and Brooklyn Poets Fellow. They presently hold residencies at Kimball Arts Center and Spudnik Press. At their center, Harlem is an eldest sibling doing their best to honor the name they momma gave 'em. Connect with them at HarlemMasimba.com