In honor of their 50th anniversary, alongside To the Racy Brink, the Museum of Contemporary Art is staging We Are Here, an exhibition program consisting of three semi-concurrent exhibits drawing on the […]
Curation Obscures Art in the MCA’s I Am You
ArtSea: Shedd Aquarium Unveils Sculpture Ahead of New Exhibit
It’s a seahorse of a different color at the Shedd Aquarium. Visitors to the Waters of the World exhibit, which showcases the vast variety of sea life from all different regions of […]
Slack Curation Belies History at the MCA’s To the Racy Brink
In 1967, a small group of curators, art historians, artists, critics, and architects set up shop in the former Playboy headquarters at 237 E. Ontario Street. They shared in a singular conviction: […]
Bill Graham and the Rock and Roll Revolution Comes to Chicago
“The streets were never full of flowers.” -Bill Graham, Fillmore: The Last Days Visual and auditory introduction to Bill Graham and the Rock and Roll Revolution The 1960s promoted revolution, rebellion, and […]
Photo Shows on Poverty, Joan of Arc, and Commercialized Beauty Now on Display @ LUMA
The Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) offers a plethora of photographs on display this summer, featuring three exhibitions: Jeffrey Wolin’s Pigeon Hill: Then and Now; Michelle Murphy’s Responsive Beauty; and Susan Aurinko’s Searching for Jehanne, The Joan […]
Book Review: The Peregrine Returns Is a Joy to Read
I can’t be the only one who has forgotten how to look up. Whether your heart is heavy with worries or your mind occupied with office bullshit, any cloud of frustration can […]
Classicisms Offers Articulate, If Incomplete, View of Classical Influences
The University of Chicago Smart Museum of Art’s recently mounted exhibition, Classicisms, presents itself ambitiously. The accompanying text authored by co-curators Larry F. Norman and Anne Leonard states that the exhibition is […]
MCA Exhibit Features Takashi Murakami in All His Chromatic Glory and Flamboyance
Be prepared for your visit to The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg, the new exhibit of work by artist Takashi Murakami at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Your head may explode with […]
Presidential Library Project Imagines Black Presidency Through Obama’s Legacy
The Presidential Library Project: Black Presidential Imaginary, currently on view at Hyde Park Art Center, offers a conceptual framework through which to imagine The Obama Presidential Center, which will be built on […]
#AiWeiwei at MoCP: The Power of the Phone
Ai Weiwei’s photo selfie, Illumination (2009), which signaled the start of the artist-activist’s notoriety, is a defining image in the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s new exhibition, #AiWeiWei, covering a whole wall in the main […]
The Arts Club of Chicago: The Balance of Private Space and Public Engagement
The Arts Club of Chicago, tucked unassumingly on the corner of Ontario and St. Clair in Streeterville, may be one of the most overlooked and under-appreciated exhibition spaces in the city. Despite […]
The Surreal World of ‘Vonnegut’s Odyssey’
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., author of fourteen novels and numerous short stories, was also a prolific visual artist during his lifetime. On display at the National Veterans Art Museum is Vonnegut’s Odyssey, showcasing over […]