Fall Highlights include African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce and the Politics of Race; Tuned Mass: Jeff Carter, Faheem Majeed and Susan Giles and exhibitions highlighting the Year of Creative Youth at the Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago, IL, 2018-Aug-27 — /Travel PR News/ —
Year of Creative Youth
January–December 2018
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events have designated 2018 as the “Year of Creative Youth.” The $2 million investment by the City of Chicago will include a Creative Youth Festival across the Millennium Park Campus, performance opportunities for teens at city festivals and partner events, cultural grants and convenings for youth arts organizations and a marketing campaign among other events.
Year of Creative Youth Exhibitions
August 25, 2018–January 6, 2019
September 8, 1–3pm: Exhibition Opening
September 20, 12:15pm: Gallery Talk on CCC Exhibitions by Greg Lunceford
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor South
As part of the Year of Creative Youth, the Chicago Cultural Center worked in collaboration with four local community organizations to feature the work of young artists.
- Peacemakers and Community Connections Project
In collaboration with Changing Worlds
Gallery Talks on October 18 & January 3, 5:30–6:30pm
During the 2017-2018 academic year, Changing Worlds collaborated with Chicago Public Schools educators and 11- to 13-year-old students from Pilsen, Back of the Yards and the Near West Side. During this project, 250 youth created visual and poetic imagery examining their local challenges and celebrating community leaders working for positive change. After exploring these networks of support for peace and non-violence, youth had ample inspiration for their poems, original drawings and posters and handcrafted lightboxes that signify peace, hope and community. Changing Worlds invites you to experience how youth are responding to Chicago violence and offering their own understanding of the culture of care and concern that exists for their communities.
- Fern Room Goes East
In collaboration with Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance
Gallery Talks on November 1 & 29, 5:30–6:30pm
The Garfield Park Conservatory’s iconic Fern Room is recreated at the Cultural Center, bringing a multi-sensory experience of the beauty, history and nature to downtown. Through a series of art and science-based activities, thousands of “ferns” were created by visitors to the Conservatory’s free weekly drop-in family programming held throughout the summer. The Conservatory’s Urban Roots teen interns provide interpretation of the exhibit, detailing each featured fern species and the room’s history.
- PR Colonial Identity, Inc.
In collaboration with Studio Arts & Exhibition Program (SAEP), Puerto Rican Arts Alliance
Gallery Talks on September 20 & November 15, 5:30–6:30pm
SAEP’s teens made a selection of historical portraits marking important moments in Puerto Rican art history. The exhibit is an experimental painting installation taking visitors through the chronological colonial turmoil that shaped the face and identity of Puerto Ricans past and present. The Studio Arts & Exhibition Program (SAEP) enrolls 105 teens in after-school and summer Studio Arts programs in residency at two locations, Humboldt Park Field House and the Roberto Clemente Community Academy.
- Odes and Tattoos
In collaboration with Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education
Gallery Talks on October 4 & December 13, 5:30–6:30pm
How are voices and stories from overlooked, liminal social spaces elevated? How are marginalized cultural perspectives depicted to convey new ideas of self and community that are often sidelined by a larger historical narrative? Students from North-Grand High School attempt to tackle these questions through the creation of multidisciplinary artworks that examine how history and culture are manifested through art and and how they themselves can find agency by re-presenting the social and cultural. Teaching Artists Marc Fischer and Jose Luis Benavides have collaborated with teachers Karen Furlong and Lisa Welsh to create this exhibition.
Tuned Mass: Jeff Carter, Faheem Majeed and Susan Giles
September 8, 2018–January 6, 2019
September 28, 7pm: A Vessel for Carriage: A Site-Responsive Performance by Matty Davis and Ben Gould
Chicago Rooms, 2nd Floor North
Exploring architecture through themes of barricade, convening and gesture come together in this sculptural exhibition presented in three suites.
Jeff Carter works from images of conflict zones sourced online to develop a series of sculptures that explore the “architecture of the barricade.” His interpretations rely on forms that express aggressive dynamics and raw utility, yet are carefully integrated and intentionally crafted.
“Board-up” and “Lean-to” are the latest evolution of Faheem Majeed’s “Shacks and Shanties” installation series. The works speak to the visual signs of devaluing neighborhoods – the board-up initially serving to protect the investment of the house while serving as a clear notice of abandonment. The lean-to is the stripped-down form of the shack, the simplest form used for shelter and survival.
Susan Giles explores the role of hand gestures in to remembering monuments. The lines and shapes made by our gestures build an abstracted, mediated form that represents a single monument – a desire to make memory physically tangible.
African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce and the Politics of Race
October 27, 2018–March 3, 2019
Exhibit Hall, 4th Floor North
Featuring work from a wide range of practices including cartooning, sign painting, architectural signage, illustration, graphic design, exhibit design and product design, this exhibition is the first to demonstrate how African American designers remade the image of the black consumer and the work of the black artist in this major hub of American advertising/consumer culture. African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce and the Politics of Race is funded in part by the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, as part of Art Design Chicago, an exploration of Chicago’s art and design legacy.
- Exhibition Symposium: The Designs of African American Life
Friday, November 2, 5–6pm
Keynote by Jacqueline Goldsby, Yale University
Saturday, November 3, 9am–4:30pm
Closing Keynote by Adam Green, University of Chicago
Claudia Cassidy Theater, 2nd Floor North
Keep Moving: Designing Chicago’s Bicycle Culture
October 27, 2018–March 3, 2019
Expo 72, 72 E. Randolph St. (across the street from the Chicago Cultural Center)
Just before the turn of the century, the popularity of the bicycle in America was at an apex, and the majority of American-made bicycles were being produced by Chicago-based manufacturers. Through designed items such as advertisements, brands, objects and spaces, this exhibition looks at how design has shaped how Americans think about bicycles – something familiar to us all.
Learning Lab Activations
- September 7, 12–2pm: Out of Sight
- Saturdays, September 8–November 10, 1–3pm: Blok by Blok & Lumpen Radio Youth Podcast
- September 21, 12–2pm, and September 22, 1–3pm: Indira Johnson
- October 5, 12–2pm: Catherine Schwable
- October 19, 12–2pm: Scribble Monsters
- November 2 & 15, 12–2pm: Tricia Van Eck
- December 1, 1–3pm: Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education
- December 8, 1–3pm: Puerto Rican Arts Alliance
- December 15, 1–3pm: Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance
1st Floor South
The Learning Lab is a place to engage and experiment with all aspects of DCASE cultural programming. Meet and engage with artists! Watch archival footage of guests at past DCASE events on a vintage TV set. Hear the sounds of upcoming DCASE music festivals. Try your hand at mural making like Keith Haring on our chalk wall. Feel the artifacts and sumptuous materials used to create this golden age building and more!
Bronzeville Echoes: Faces and Places of Chicago’s African American Music
Ongoing
Garland Gallery, 1st Floor South
Explore Chicago’s music legacy through ragtime, jazz and blues in an exhibition that highlights the contributions of important places and people that shaped the music scene. Seldom-seen original artifacts will be on display including sheet-music, rare 1920s records with quirky period graphics–and even the original 1932 telephone booth from the old Sunset/Grand Terrace Café from which the actual music can be heard. The scope is broad and surprising–Ragtime morphs into jazz, Blues transforms into modern gospel, and it all echoes throughout the contemporary genres of House and Hip Hop.
Chicago Cultural Center Exhibitions Closing in the Fall of 2018
Keith Haring: The Chicago Mural
Through September 23
September 20, 12:15pm: Gallery Talk on CCC Exhibitions by Greg Lunceford
Sidney R. Yates Gallery, 4th Floor North
Having rocketed to worldwide fame in the 1980s, graffiti artist Keith Haring worked with 500 Chicago Public School students to paint a monumental mural in Chicago’s Grant Park in 1989. This exhibition includes a large selection of the mural reflecting the artist’s incisive draftsmanship and unsettling cast of symbolic characters (atomic baby, barking dog). Soon after the Chicago project, Haring died tragically of HIV-AIDS in 1990.
Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle
Through October 1
September 6, 12:15pm: Gallery Talk on Alexis Rockman with Daniel Schulman
September 9, 2–3:30pm: Panel Discussion “Looking Closely, Leaping In: Alexis Rockman’s Great Lakes Cycle”
September 20, 12:15pm: Gallery Talk on CCC Exhibitions by Greg Lunceford
Exhibit Hall, 4th Floor North
This multi-faceted project explores the past, present and future of North America’s Great Lakes – one of the world’s most emblematic and ecologically significant ecosytems. Painted in Rockman’s signature, meticulous but visionary hyper-realist style, the works in the exhibition are anchored by five mural-sized (72” x 144”) oil paintings, each exploring a theme that emerged during Rockman’s field research and engagement with lake experts. Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle is organized by the Grand Rapids Art Museum.
All exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington Street, are presented by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE). Building hours are Monday–Friday, 10am–7pm, Saturday–Sunday, 10am– 5pm; closed holidays. Admission is FREE. For information, visit chicagoculturalcenter.org, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @ChiCulturCenter.
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) is dedicated to enriching Chicago’s artistic vitality and cultural vibrancy. This includes fostering the development of Chicago’s non-profit arts sector, independent working artists and for-profit arts businesses; providing a framework to guide the City’s future cultural and economic growth, via the 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan; marketing the City’s cultural assets to a worldwide audience; and presenting high-quality, free and affordable cultural programs for residents and visitors. For more information, visit cityofchicago.org/dcase.
Contact:
Mary May
mmay@cityofchicago.org
312.744.0576
Christine Carrino
christine.carrino@cityofchicago.org
312.744.0573
Source: City of Chicago