space is the place

From the moment he discovered the material, Corbett wanted to keep it together as a singular archive of Sun Ra’s Chicago years, and he hopes eventually to find an institutional home for it. “It only articulates a story if it’s together,” he says. “Little bits and pieces of it are collectorfetish ephemera, but when it’s all together you start to see this interesting phenomenon . . . which is the way that Ra sort of fit into a southside Afro-futurist community of thinkers, designers, and musicians who were all pondering the future, independent businesses, and separatism.”

John Corbett in « Ra Materials » by Peter Margasak in this week's The Chicago Reader

You're either going to care about this a whole lot, or be completely indifferent. I'm posting this for someone dear to me who I expect will trend toward ape-shit.

The show, "a treasure trove of Sun Ra ephemera: album art, recordings, writings, ledgers, and scraps of paper like ticket stubs and gig flyers," opens on Sunday in Chicago's Hyde Park Art Center.

Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn & Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-68
Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell
773-324-5520
Reception 10/15, 3-5 PM
Show runs from Oct 1st through January 14th
Admission is Free