on the wall: Cheryl Pope

For the next installment of our “on the wall” series, moniquemeloche is pleased to announce the project A Silent I by Chicago-based artist Cheryl Pope this Fall/Winter 2011.  As an artist-in-residence at Chicago Public School Lindblom Math and Science Academy in 2010, Pope asked the high school students to anonymously submit one truth and one lie about themselves, without designating which was which, as part of a collaborative art project.  Of the 125 submitted statements, Pope selected 20 to reproduce in the style of athletic championship banners and installed them in the Lindblom gymnasium for their initial presentation.   Addressing complex issues of identity, self-worth, and inter-personal relationships, this celebratory series speaks to all ages, so we invited Pope to make a more public installation “on the wall.”  During the run of the exhibition, Pope will switch out the banners three times, grouping the unlabeled truths and lies in various combinations.  Banners installed for Part 1 of the installation will deal with issues of internal identity while banners installed for Part 2 will reference physical identities. For Part 3 of this project, Pope will work with local teenagers from the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Creative Agency to curate the final iteration of this project.