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Join exhibiting artist Samuel Levi Jones and Chicago-based critic Camille Bacon for a conversation on the various facets of Jones’ practice that include the deconstruction of medical texts and athletic materials like football skins and tackling pads to create abstract works.

Jones challenges the ethics and authority of medical and sports industries by stripping those chosen materials of their capacity to sustain harm. Broader topics in the discussion will include his photographic background, pop cultural influences, and the political strategies Jones employs in his aesthetic practice and everyday life.

Samuel Levi Jones was born and raised in Marion, Indiana. Trained as a photographer and multidisciplinary artist, he earned a BA in Communication Studies from Taylor University and a BFA from Herron School of Art and Design in 2009. He received his MFA in Studio Art from Mills College in 2012. His work is informed by historical source material and early modes of representation in documentary practice. He explores the framing of power structures and struggles between exclusion and equality by desecrating historical material, then re-imagining new works. Jones investigates issues of manipulation and the rejection of control in a broad sense.

Jones is the recipient of the 2014 Joyce Alexander Wein artist prize from the Studio Museum Harlem. He has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions including Galerie Lelong (Paris), Indianapolis Museum of Art, Studio Museum Harlem, PATRON Gallery (Chicago), Galerie Lelong (New York City), Susanne Vielmetter Gallery (Los Angeles), the Arts Club (London), and the Mistake Room (Los Angeles). His work is in prominent private and public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Rubell Family Collection (Miami), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, de Young Museum (San Francisco), Dallas Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Camille Bacon is a Chicago-based writer and critic who is crafting a “sweet Black writing life,” as inspired by the words of poet Nikky Finney.

Suggested Reading:

Michael Wilson. “Samuel Levi Jones” Artforum, December 2019.

Leah Ollman. “Keep Looking: Samuel Levi Jones Speaks with Leah Ollman.” Art in Print, October 4, 2018.

“Deconstructing History with Herron alumnus Samuel Levi Jones” Herron School of Art + Design, August 9, 2017.

Camille Bacon. “Caroline Kent’s Aesthetic of Encryption.” Sixty Inches From Center, October 18, 2021.

It’s in the Game: Samuel Levi Jones in Conversation with Camille Bacon