Australian First Nations artist Richard Bell is the subject of a new documentary, You Can Go Now, which will be screened at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center (15 April at 7pm). The film examines Bell’s life and work, positioning him, as he puts it, as an “activist masquerading as an artist” engaged in a decades-long protest of Indigenous erasure and colonialism. The film tracks Bell’s trajectory from rural Queensland to an artist renowned for making politically charged work that spans painting, performance, installation and social practice.
After the 15 April screening, Bell will participate in a conversation with Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, the director of OSMOS, the New York-based gallery that is showing his work in Expo Chicago’s sector for large-scale and site-specific works. The presentation may give a taste of what is in store for Bell’s pop-up at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London next month.
