Carrier

Curated by John Neff and Bosco Bae
Saturday, Jan. 31 – Saturday, Mar 14, 2026

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 31st 6 - 10pm

Artists: Gregory Bae, Rashayla Marie Brown, Robert Chase Heishman, Kiku Hibino, Kellie Romany, olivier,
Maggie Wong

Carrier is a group exhibition centered on a sixty-foot paper-and-tape collage scroll by the late Chicago-based Korean American artist Gregory Bae. Created from non-alphabetical printed elements—punctuation marks, symbols, and technical graphics drawn from radio instruction manuals—the scroll functions as both material object and point of departure. The exhibition brings together a group of primarily Chicago-based artists, many of whom were friends or close collaborators of Bae, to respond to the scroll through interpretation, performance, reflection, and association.

The exhibition is structured around a “score” developed by the curators, which offers a loose framework rather than a directive. Artists were invited to engage with the scroll not as a fixed artifact but as a prompt: something to be read, misread, translated, withheld, or activated. The works presented consider how meaning is formed through fragments, omissions, and margins—elements that are often present but overlooked.

Bae’s scroll draws from three radio instruction manuals, sources designed to transmit information clearly and efficiently. By isolating punctuation, diagrams, and residual marks from these texts, Bae redirected attention away from instruction and toward what remains once language is stripped of its intended function. The resulting abstraction evokes multiple reference points at once: ancient scrolls, modern musical notation, and gestural mark-making associated with Abstract Expressionism. Bae described his interest in the “leftover margins, blank negative shapes, disassociated symbols and punctuation” that tend to disappear when systems prioritize clarity, order, and rule-following.

At the exhibition opening, Bae’s scroll will be presented fully unrolled for the first time. The opening will also include a performance lecture by co-curator John Neff, who has spent several years attempting to photograph and write about the scroll. This project began in conversation with Bae prior to his death and continued afterward, raising questions about authorship, access, and the limits of documentation. Neff’s lecture reflects on those attempts and on the challenges of translating an object that resists stable presentation.

Following the opening, the scroll will remain concealed for the duration of the exhibition. This decision emphasizes the tension between presence and absence that runs throughout the project. While the scroll remains physically hidden, its influence persists through the works, performances, and discussions it has set in motion.

The exhibition will conclude with a series of closing performances from Rashayla Marie Brown (March 7) and Kiku Hibino (Mar 13). These events will continue the exploration of the scroll as a score, particularly through sound and musical interpretation, and may include collaboration with Lumpen Radio.

An accompanying exhibition booklet will feature an essay by Dr. Bosco Bae along with Neff’s interpretation of a 2019 interview he conducted with Gregory Bae about the scroll. The publication will also include a collaborative syllabus extending the exhibition’s inquiry into pedagogical and collective forms of knowledge-sharing.

Rather than positioning Gregory Bae’s work as a singular legacy, Carrier treats the scroll as a living site of exchange. The exhibition foregrounds how shared histories, relationships, and informal systems of learning continue to shape artistic practice, often through what remains unspoken, unseen, or unresolved.

Performance by Rashayla Marie Brown on March 7, 2026; Saturday

Performance by Kiku Hibino on March 13, 2026; Friday