Bio & CV

Jeff Abell is an interdisciplinary artist, whose work encompasses music, sound art, performance, critical and creative writing, and photography.  He holds B.A. and M.M. degrees in music composition from Northern Illinois University, and he was the Assistant Director of Randolph Street Gallery from 1987 to 1990.   He was a contributing editor to the New Art Examiner for 11 years, and was a writer and editor for Dialogue, Chicago Artists’ News, and Mouth to Mouth, and contributed writing to numerous other publications.  He has created over 30 original performance art works since 1980, including some that are full evenings.  These include Love Songs: A Record (82/83), Vegetable Love (85/86), Music for the Tooth-Filing Ceremony (90/93), Road Improvements (95) (a work originally created for National Public Radio) and the lip-synch opera Confusion (2001/07). His work was included in the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition Art in Chicago, 1945 - 1995, and he contributed two essays to and edited the Time Arts section of the book that accompanied the exhibition, published by Thames and Hudson.  He has been a recipient of grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Department of Cultural Affairs as well as a Faculty Development Grant from Columbia College Chicago, and two Artist Residencies at the Experimental Sound Studio, a project supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.  Abell is also well-known as a teacher in the Chicago area, having taught for 9 years in the First Year Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and since 1981 in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department at Columbia College Chicago, where he is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the MA Program.

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