Intermissions: Devin T. Mays

Whether conjuring sculptures from found fragments of concrete or working with images or sound, Devin T. Mays embraces impermanence and in-between states, while connecting city landscapes, empty lots, and exhibition spaces. In both Chicago and Houston, the two cities where he lives, Mays has been developing improvisatory performances that are, in his own words, “part poem, part sculpture, part song.” These moments when he gathers an audience around him, however, are continuous with the other aspects of his practice, in all its material and immaterial forms. Mays has called his work an “an exercise in wandering”; at the Ren it finds a fleeting destination as he activates the voluminous, resonant gallery space for two days.

Curated by Karsten Lund.

DEVIN T. MAYS (b. 1985 in Detroit) uses sculpture, installation, sound, performance, and photography to create poetic gestures of observation and ritual. He has exhibited or performed at SculptureCenter, New York; Moody Center of the Arts, Houston; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Malmö Konstmuseum; The Driehaus Museum, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Lowe Art Museum, University of Florida; Nahmad Projects, London; The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; Regards Chicago; and The Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry, among other venues. Mays holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University and a Master of Fine Arts from The University of Chicago. He is currently a fellow with the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) and the Visual and Dramatic Art Department at Rice University in Houston, TX.

Launched in 2017, Intermissions is an ongoing programming series devoted to performance and other inventive time-based works, staged in the Renaissance Society’s empty gallery in between exhibitions. This recurring platform features two artists every year, supporting a wide variety of live projects.