Reader contributor Bert Stabler took his inspiration for “Program/Suffer/Abstain/Deprogram” from Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who proposed that we detach ourselves from “things that are not up to us.” Stabler notes that detachment isn’t a “neutral absence but a positive refusal,” and that to abstain from suffering, for instance, is to “refuse to live.” He’s filled a gallery at Harold Washington College with work by various artists that he says is about “erasing and overwriting onself, negatively and positively.” There’s more overwriting than erasing: P/A/S/D is filled with themes of repetition, doubling, and recursion, with things constantly in process.
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Through 8/3: Mon-Fri 10 AM-5 PM, Harold Washington College, President’s Gallery, 30 E. Lake, 312-553-5738, pedestrianproject.org, free.
