Curator Talk: Pierre Bismuth's Love Bless America

Join us for a special behind-the-scenes look at the University of Chicago Neubauer Collegium’s fall exhibition Love Bless America, featuring new work by Brussels-based French conceptual artist and filmmaker Pierre Bismuth.

Guests will enjoy an excerpt from the film, and curator Dieter Roelstraete will speak about the process behind the exhibition’s centerpiece: a long-form meditative film documenting a creative collaboration between Joshua Abrams and Sharon Udoh, two leading figures from Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scene.

Roelstraete will be joined in conversation by Abrams, and guests will have the chance to continue the discussion with both speakers over a complimentary glass of French wine during a post-program reception.

Doors at 6:00 pm. Event at 6:30. Please enter via 54 W Chicago Ave. Non-alcoholic options will be available.

About the Exhibition

Pierre Bismuth, Love Bless America Chine (detail), 2026. Courtesy of the artist.

Brussels-based French conceptual artist and filmmaker Pierre Bismuth has tasked Chicago jazz and improv musicians Joshua Abrams and Sharon Udoh with composing a 21st-century spiritual based on a lyrical hymn he wrote for the project. The long-form meditative film documenting their collaboration traces the magic and workaday practice of “inspiration,” taking the traditions of religious music as a point of departure for a multi-layered reflection on love, music, and the divine. In addition to this new film, Bismuth will present a series of digital images resembling American flags emblazoned with lyrics from the hymn.

About the Speakers

Dieter Roelstraete oversees all aspects of the Neubauer Collegium Exhibitions Gallery, working with the University arts community as well as with arts organizations in Chicago and around the world. He previously served on the curatorial team that organized documenta 14, the international art exhibition that ran in the spring and summer of 2017 in Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece. Prior to that, he served as the Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago from 2012 to 2015. From 2003 to 2011 Roelstraete was a curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, where he organized group exhibitions as well as monographic shows. Recent projects include exhibitions at the Fondazione Prada in Milan and Venice, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and the Garage Museum for Contemporary Art in Moscow. Roelstraete, who was trained as a philosopher at the University of Ghent, has published extensively on contemporary art and related philosophical issues.

By Hreinn Gudlaugsson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68380647

Joshua Abrams is a composer, bassist, and improviser. His early formative musical experiences include performing in a chamber group conducted by Earle Brown, and busking on the streets of Philadelphia as an original member of The Roots. Since the mid-1990s, Abrams has been a key figure in Chicago’s creative music communities and an international touring musician with artists across genres. In 2010, Abrams formed the project Natural Information Society (NIS), a group that creates long-form psychedelic environments that join the hypnotic qualities of the guimbri, a Gnawan lute, to a wide range of contemporary musics and methodologies including jazz, minimalism, and experimental rock.

Joshua has toured internationally with Natural Information Society, scored numerous feature films, collaborated with visual artists on sound projects and exhibitions, and appeared on over 100 recordings. He has been an artist in residence here in Chicago at Fred Anderson Park and The Hideout, and he was awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award in 2018.

About the Neubauer Collegium

The Neubauer Collegium cultivates new communities of inquiry at the University of Chicago. Their faculty-led research projects convene interdisciplinary teams of scholars and practitioners whose collaboration is required to address complex questions. Their Visiting Fellows program brings creative thinkers from around the world for collaboration, animating the intellectual environment on campus. Their gallery presents art exhibitions in the context of research, and their public events invite broad engagement with scholarly inquiries. The aim of these activities is to deepen knowledge about the world and our place in it—and to share that knowledge with others expansively.

Getting Here

The Alliance Française de Chicago is one block from the CTA Red line stop at Chicago Ave. Best bus routes are the 22 on Clark St and the 66 on Chicago Ave. A Divvy station is located in front of the 54 W Chicago Ave entrance.

Parking Information

$10 for 12 hours at 100 W Chestnut St. Validation is available at reception.

Please be advised that students, members, and attendees at cultural events or programs may be photographed, and these images may be used for marketing purposes.