Smart Art Museum
5550 S. Greenwood Ave.
“NOTnot all realisms: photography, Africa and the long 1960s“, at the Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave.
The Smart Museum’s first exhibition to focus on art from Africa, Not all realism is visible until June 4th.
In 2014, a donation of 830 photographs from the estate of Lester and Betty Guttman brought early works by African photographers, including South African photographer Ernest Cole and Malian photographer Malick Sidib, into the Smarts collection.
Featuring photographs from the 1960s, particularly in Ghana, Mali and South Africa, a time of nationalist and transnational revolution, resistance and independence movements at the start of the struggle against apartheid, the exhibition covers a time considered a postcolonial turning point, but which belies a more complex chain. events and individual experiences.
The exhibition raises the question of the demarcation line, if there is one, between studio photography and street photography, which is expressed through the photography of Cole, Sidib, James Barnor, Peter Magubane, Paul Strance and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Through a diverse body of material ranging from studio portraits and magazine photo essays to book-length photographic studies and government pamphlets, the exhibition examines the ability of photographs to construct and translate what is passed through Africa in the 1960s, said guest curator Leslie. Mr. Wilson, associate director of academic engagement and research at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in a statement. In turn, this challenges us to consider our own relationship with photography and our hopes for what photographs can be and do.
Are also exhibited Calling on the past: excerpts from the collection, until February 4, which draws on the existing collection of museums without the limits of the usual chronological or geographical divisions. Partly inspired by art historian George Kublers’ 1962 text The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things, which posits that the art of the past is in constant conversation with the present, the exhibition places alongside antiques and contemporary paintings.
In addition to art from museum collections, including Luca Cambiasos Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Benedict and architectural fragments from Frank Lloyd Wrights Midway Gardens, the exhibition will also feature new acquisitions, exhibited for the first time, by Rasheed Araeen, Amir H. Fallah, Ivy Haldeman, Whitfield Lovell, Lauren Quin and Kishio Suga.
Metropol Drama, which examines objects that represent the exchange of capital, ideas and people is on display until July 9. These relationships are stained and complex, hybrid and tragic, reads the exhibition description, and are embodied in traditional, as well as legal works of art. documents and currencies. Organized by Geof Oppenheimer, Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Visual Arts, with Berit Ness, Associate Director and Curator of Academic Engagement at the Smart Museum.[saresmudgedandcomplexhybridandtragictheexhibitionsdescriptionreadsandareembodiedintraditionalartworksaswellaslegaldocumentsandcurrenciesCuratedbyGeofOppenheimerassociateprofessorofpracticeinthedepartmentofvisualartswithBeritNessassociatedirectorandcuratorofacademicengagementattheSmartMuseum[saresmudgedandcomplexhybridandtragictheexhibitionsdescriptionreadsandareembodiedintraditionalartworksaswellaslegaldocumentsandcurrenciesCuratedbyGeofOppenheimerassociateprofessorofpracticeinthedepartmentofvisualartswithBeritNessassociatedirectorandcuratorofacademicengagementattheSmartMuseum
Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell Avenue
“Surviving the Long Wars: Unlikely Entanglements” at the Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave.
Surviving the Long Wars: Unlikely Entanglements at the Hyde Park Art Center will remain open until July 9. The group exhibit reveals the marks left on Black, Indigenous and Colored (BIPOC) communities by two of the longest wars in US history, the Native American Wars and the Global War on Terror.
Part of the center’s second Veterans Art Triennial, which also includes exhibits at the Newberry Library and the Chicago Cultural Center, the HPAC exhibit features artwork by civilians, Native Americans, and military veterans. of BIPOC who use collage, embroidery, soft sculpture and installation to unravel these improbable entanglements of different histories, geographies and colonialism, while weaving their own stories of survival and resistance. Featured artists include Bassim Al-Shaker, June Carpenter (Osage/Shawnee), Mawish Chisty, and Yiran Zhang, among others.
Also coming April 22 and open until August 13 is Amulet, a collaborative exhibition split between The Franklin, Mayfield and HPAC. This exhibition explores the idea of ​​the amulet or amulet, wearable objects that are attributed with an emotional or sentimental magical value that dates back to antiquity. These talismans are often worn to aid or protect their wearer, or are given a spiritual meaning that varies from person to person.
The exhibition was imagined by Chicago artists Edra Soto, Madeleine Aguilar and Alberto Aguilar in connection with the power of objects within their own practices. It will run alongside Sotos’ solo exhibition Destination/El Destino: A Decade of Graft, which also opens April 22.
The Black History Museum and DuSable Education Center
740 E. 56th pl.
Diaspora Stories: CCH Pounder Collection features paintings from the collection of Emmy-nominated actress CCH Pounder and is open through July 16.
The collection contains 24 works of art by world renowned artists such as Kehine Wiley, Ebony G. Patterson and Mickalene Thomas; works by emerging talents like Harmonia Rosales and Patricia Renee Thomas; and pieces by artists Betye Saar and the late Geoffrey Holder, according to DuSables Director of Curatorial Services and Community Partnerships Danny Dunson.
In addition to her prolific acting career, Pounder is known for her breakout role in Baghdad Caf and has since been featured in numerous TV shows and movies including Avatar: Way of Water, she is also heavily involved in the arts as a patron, collector, gallery owner and museum founder.
Hailing from Georgetown, Guyana, Pounder’s 500-piece collection consists of Caribbean and African artists and designers from the African diaspora. It is mostly contemporary art, but also includes traditional African sculptures.
Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society
5701 S. Woodlawn Ave.
Demetrisu and Demorris Burrows read excerpts from the Geissler & Sanns score How Does the World End (for Others)? at the opening of the Cli-Fi Library on Wednesday, February 22, 2023.
The Chicago Cli-Fi Library is on display until June 11, an exhibit exploring climate change with photography, sculpture, and other mediums.
Hyde Parker Inigo Manlano-Ovalle whose work features Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers is part of a collection of Chicago-based artists whose work populates the gallery: Beate Geissler, Oliver Sann, Jenny Kendler and Dan Peterman. Although the exhibition does not contain a physical library, there is a selection of climate-related titles curated by artist Jenny Kendler, which includes authors like Bill McKibben and Namoi Klein.
As a curator with a long history of working in contemporary art, I have been struck for some time by the fact that this subject, in a way, is absent from the mainstream of global art culture, said the curator. Dieter Roelstraete, noting the fortuitous connections that the exhibition allows.
The Renaissance Society
5811 S. Ellis Ave.
“Slaughterhouse, USA” by Aria Dean at the Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave.
Aria Dean wraps up her show Slaughterhouse, USA!, which ends April 16. The exhibit recreates the real-time environment of the interior of an empty slaughterhouse, using a 3D computer graphics tool. It is accompanied by a score composed by Evan Zierk. Dean said the exhibit was inspired by philosophers Georges Bataille and Frank Wilderson, who each write about the slaughterhouse as a metaphor and paradigm for civil society.
The Museum of Science and Industry
5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Dr.
The 2023 “Black Creative Juried Art Exhibition” at the Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Dr., is open through April 23.
An annual showcase for 50 years, the Juried Art Exhibition on Black Creativity is the oldest exhibit of African-American art, according to the Museum of Science and Industry.
The exhibition features more than 100 works of paintings, drawings, fine art prints, sculptures, mixed media, ceramics and photography by professional and emerging black artists from across the country. A panel of jurors selects the pieces to be displayed from submissions from adult artists, as well as local high school students and other young artists. Selected and awarded artists include Houston artist Kaima Akarue and Chicago artists Adonte Clark and Candace Hunter, among others.
The exhibit is a mainstay of the Museums Black Creativity program, conceived and curated by a group of local artists and Chicago Defender staff in 1970, as part of an initiative called Black Esthetics. The program today showcases African-American achievement and provides educational programs for youth in the Chicago area. The exhibit is also part of EXPO Chicago, a three-day exhibition of contemporary and modern art held annually at Navy Pier, with exhibits and events across Chicago.
The achievements of black Americans are at the center of black creativity as we showcase artists, creators and leaders who are making real change in their professional fields and within their communities, said Angela Williams, director of design at the museum. .
To discover until April 23.
