Heartland

Esche Charles, Niemann Kerstin, Smith Stephanie

Throughout the vast interior of the United States, contemporary artists are responding to the world around them and reshaping it in unexpected ways. Published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name that first appeared last year in the Netherlands and will open in fall 2009 at the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art, "Heartland" offers an idiosyncratic look at innovative forms of cultural production taking place across the region.

This engaging book is part critical reader, part catalogue. Contributors – including novelist Dave Eggers, scholar Hasan Kwame Jeffries, and journalist Rebecca Solnit – explore the region through topics ranging from art to music to urban farming to political history. An illustrated section introduces over twenty artists featured in "Heartland", including both established figures like Kerry James Marshall and exuberant newcomers like the group Whoop Dee Doo. An appendix surveys the lively state of independent and artist-run cultural initiatives from New Orleans to Detroit.

Produced by the Van Abbemuseum and the Smart Museum of Art, "Heartland" challenges expectations of place and illuminates a diverse assembly of artists who are redefining the cultural terrain of the American heartland.

Contents:

Foreword: Charles Esche and Anthony Hirschel
Introduction: Charles Esche, Kerstin Neimann, Stephanie Smith
Research Travels
Kerstin Neimann: Encounters in the Heartland: Notes from the Road Trip with blog entries, travel notes, and photographs from the curatorial team
Project Map
Essays
John Corbett and Frank Veenstra: Deep in the Heart of American Music
Joshua Decter: Art, Urban Rebuilding, Social Justice, and Sustainability: Toward a Case Study of New Orleans
Dave Eggers: Illinois
Charles Esche: A Grounded America
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: From the Black Panthers to Barack Obama: Democratic Politics in the Heartland of America
Andria Lisle: Heart of Darkness
Hesse McGraw: Mega-Life in the Midwest
Stephanie Smith: Making the World You Want to Live In
Rebecca Solnit: Detroit Arcadia: Exploring the Post-Industrial American Landscape
Matthew Strauss: Your TASTE is our PROBLEM, our TASTE is your PROBLEM: Seventeen Days in the Provincial Gallery Simulator
Dan Wang: Translocal Movement Energy from the Upper Midwest: Michigan and Minnesota
Matt Weiland: The Great Body of the Republic

Artists
Independent Cultural Infrastructure
Checklist of the Exhibition

About the Author

Charles Esche is director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Kerstin Neimann works as a guest researcher at the Van Abbemuseum.

Stephanie Smith is the director of collections and exhibitions and the curator of contemporary art at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.

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