Museum Of Contemporary Art

Programs: Exhibitions: 1) diana thater: the sympathetic imagination (october 29, 2016-january 8, 2017). Diana thater (american, b. 1962) pioneered the physical, optical, and conceptual to push the boundaries of how moving images are experienced. This exhibition, the most comprehensive survey of the artist's work to date, included early as well as recent works. It presented a series of immersive film and video installments that pushed the limits of her media to imagine animal experience in natural habitats. The works in the exhibition-which fell somewhere between sculpture and architecture-broke out of the video rectangle to imagine fluid worlds within the animal kingdom. 2) merce cunningham: common time (february 11-april 30, 2017). The walker art center organized this major retrospective exhibition of the work of merce cunningham (american, 1919-2009), a seminal figure in modern dance who revolutionized performance through his choreography and world-renowned dance company and through partnerships with leading artists. The exhibition featured a variety of performance backdrops, documentary video and video installations, sets, costumes, artworks, photographs, and ephemera. Many of these works involved artists such as john cage, jasper johns, robert rauschenberg, and andy warhol. The exhibition also featured a series of new commissions by former members of the merce cunningham dance company and the ballet de lorraine. 3) ascendant artist: the propeller group (mary 28-october 23, 2016). An artist collective based in ho chi minh city, vietnam, the propeller group's three members delved into the material culture of vietnam while adapting the visual forms of international popular culture. Their work reflected the developing commercial market in vietnam and, at the same time, was highly attuned to the politics of images and the exchange of culture across geography and time. 4) ascendant artist: basim magdy: the stars were aligned for a century of new beginnings (december 10, 2016-march 19, 2017). Artist basim magdy (egyptian, b. 1977) began experimenting with colorful works on paper and canvas before moving into the realm of photography and cinema. In a process he dubbed "pickling," the artist applied household chemicals to analog film and photographic material. His works evoked a pop sensibility that contrasted with grim titles and spoke to our collective ambition for a utopian future and the inherent failure of this human aspiration. 5) ascendant artist: tania perez cordova: smoke, neaby (april 15-august 20, 2017). In tania perez cordova's (mexican, b. 1979) first solo museum show in the us, her interest in quotidian events underlined how remarkable situations can be compelling acts associated with a complex infrastructure of social or economic relationships. Inscribed in her seemingly static pieces were hints of an active contemporary life: a borrowed gold earring was suspended from a bronze cast, an active credit card was inserted in a clay platter. These objects made visible the artist's negotiations with third parties. The sculptures were all of us, our relationship to digital communication. 6) bmo harris bank chicago works: andrew yang (july 26-december 31, 2016). In andrew yang's first solo museum exhibition, the artist and trained biologist contemplated our relationship to the milky way, to which the majority of people had no basic visual access. Yang attempted to close this distance in a scale model of the galaxy, in which one grain of sand represented a star; the estimated 100 billion stars were represented by more than seven tons of sand. The installation brought viewers to the shore of the cosmic ocean, providing an immersive and contemplative experience. 7) bmo harris bank chicago works: chris bradley (january 17-july 2, 2017). Sculptor chris bradley (american, b. 1982) was interested in the real, everyday things around us that become so commonplace we stop noticing them. Like warhol, he was attracted to ordinary objects, such as potato chips and pizza boxes, but he examined their multiple associations to transform the objects themselves. What appeared to be throwaway materials, like cardboard boxes and junk food, were actually painted steel or cast bronze. But since bradley's objects were so finely crafted, it was often difficult to tell if you were looking at a commonplace thing or its representation. For bradley, the crafting of objects gave rise to the game of looking. 8) the making of a fugitive (july 16, 2016-december 4. 2016). This exhibit, which took its name from the iconic life magazine cover in 1970 featuring recently arrested scholar and activist angela davis, presented works that not only reflected on the fugitive figure in american popular culture, but also interrogated how narratives constructed by the media influence our understandings of lawlessness, otherness and safety. The works, which included mixed media, prints, photographs and sculptures, prompted viewers to question their assumptions about criminality and contemplate how the circulation of images influences their ideas. 9) mca dna: riot grrrls (december 17, 2016-june 18, 2017). Made up of works from the mca's collection, riot grrrls was a celebration of female artists who were making bold and adventurous abstract paintings. In a challenge to the boy's club sensibility that has historically shaped abstract painting, riot grrrls-named after the feminist hardcore punk movement that began in the 1990s-presented the work of eight female painters who achieved mastery, innovation, and chutzpah in their brash and exciting paintings. 10) mca screen: camille henrot, grosse fatique (september 3, 2016-april 9, 2017). Camille henrot's (france, b. 1978) 13-minute video raised questions about the burdensome task of accumulating encyclopedic knowledge, and the dizzying wealth of the smithsonian institution's holdings was the video's apparent subject. The work's real concern, however, was the frenetic anxiety induced by the way knowledge was ceaselessly accessed. The interminable collapsing and popping-up of video screens set against a desktop depicting the milky way determined the cadence of henrot's visual romp. A spoken word piece within the work mixed narratives and stories of origin from sciences, religions, and oral traditions. Grosse fatigue pressured a dream as old as man itself: to know it all, to see it all, to understand it all-only to better appreciate the exasperating folly of the encyclopedist's vision. 11) witness (july 2, 2016-february 12, 2017). With photographs drawn largely from the mca's collection that spanned from 1940-2010, witness examined the photographer's role as self-appointed observer-a role that has been reinforced by traditions of photojournalism, documentary photography, and anthropology. By presenting different kinds of encounters between photographer and subject, the artists in this exhibition led us to think about the various people who play a part in a given photography-including the viewer-and how they contribute to, or sometimes confound, what it seems to convey. 12) eternal youth (march 11, 2017-july 23, 2017). This exhibit, which contained works drawn mostly from the mca's collection, explored the concept of coming-of-age as a crossroads in art history: how have artists represented youth since the twentieth century? The exhibition featured artists working from the 1990s to the present, including larry clark, dawoud bey, monda hatoum, jack pierson, wolfgang tillmans, and francesca woodman. Their works, which spanned from analog culture into the utopic digital age, examined the concept of youth and presented the adolescent body as a sit of desire, memory, and ambition. Accompany programming included talks and an online debate about art, youth, and society at large. 13) above, before & after (march 19, 2016-june 18, 2017). The artists featured in this exhibition manipulated form and space to explore the relationship between art and viewer. Selected from the mca's collection, the works-rarely exhibited together-were created over the span of more than 60 years in response to diverse historical and social contexts. Collectively, however, this mix of two-and-three-dimensional pieces prompted a larger conversation that asked viewers to consider that art objects often achieve their fullest value when viewers approached them from multiple angles.

4(b) education: the mca is chicago's only museum dedicated to the art of our times. As an integral component of the museum's mission, the mca offered a full range of educational programs during the 2016-2017 program year for its various audiences including students, families, adults, teachers, and teens. Education programs continued to serve a diverse pool of chicago public schools students and teachers, and are provided to all illinois school audiences on a complimentary basis to facilitate access and encourage broad participation. A) the mca continued its successful school tour programs for students in grades 1 -12. These tours, all led by practicing artists, continued to be the cornerstone of our education programs and provided the broadest exposure to contemporary art for students in grades 1-12. This year, we reached 8,765 students from 127 schools; 76 of these schools served student bodies that were at least 80 percent low income. B) the mca's program for 15-19 year olds, teen creative agency (tca), completed its sixth year during the summer 2017, and the first 4 groups of teens have now segued into program alumni. Guided by two local artists who facilitated the weekly sessions, tca members led in-gallery activities, took monthly trips to cultural organizations, chicago neighborhoods and artist studios, and worked alongside mca staff and artists on projects. C) from its origins as a week-long summer experience, the mca teacher institute has evolved into a year-long immersive and intensive professional development program for teachers. During this year's institute, teachers used contemporary art and mca resources to explore their teaching practice, experiment with curriculum, and collaborate with other teachers. D) our popular family day programming continued in october and november of 2016, with 698 people participating. The family day program was paused december-june due to building construction, but will return in fall 2017. Families with children under the age of 12 still received complimentary admission on the second saturday of each month, october - may. E) as part of our wide-ranging education programs, the mca presented a diverse range of public programs including conversations, lectures, and panels that explored the visual and intellectual complexities of contemporary art and design and their connection to culture and history.

(4c) performances: the mca stage presented cutting-edge dance, theater, and music from chicago and abroad in order to push the boundaries of modern performance. In its 2016-2017 season, the mca stage featured 14 artists/groups in 46 performances. Mca stage performances saw 8,734 attendees in the fiscal year 2017. 1) the revisionist burnt sugar and the arkestra chamber made their mca debut playing the soundtrack to sweet sweetback's baadasssss song (september 17, 2016), the film odyssey by actor/director/composer melvin van peebles. Shot on a shoestring budget over the period of 19 days in 1971, the renegade film got scorching reviews but grew to be one of the top-grossing releases of the year, kick starting the 1970s genre known as blaxploitation. The do-it-yourself spirit extended to the soundtrack, recorded by then-unknown big band powerhouse earth, wind & fire-and composed by van peebles-which alternated hymn-based vocals and jazz rhythms, creating a sound that prefigured sampling in hip-hop. Chicago soul singer jamila woods opened the concert. Burnt sugar's performance was convergent with the museum's visual exhibition kerry james marshall: mastry (april 23-september 25, 2016), and included an opening performance by jamila woods. 2) co-presented with the chicago humanities festival and the chicago human rhythm project, dorrance dance's etm: double down (november 4-6, 2016) brought three musicians, one b-girl (ephrat "bounce" asherie), and eight ace tap dancers onstage to deliver an absorbing performance that twitched with invention on an electronic tap floor. Choreographer michelle dorrance's let-it-all-hang-out style and locomotive foot speed had a contemporary physicality like nothing known before in tap. Meanwhile, the polymath of sound from the electronic tap floor, created by collaborator nicholas young, transformed the whole stage into one instrument of immediate pleasure. Etm ("electronic tap music"): double down, was a nod to electronic dance music in its energy and melody, and matched dorrance's and young's kindred idiosyncrasies with the other dancers. The acoustic music trio included vocalist aaron marcellus and bassist greg richardson. Donovan dorrance, a sibling and ensemble member, contributed original music and played piano. 3) in a story hour for adults, burlesque star julie atlas muz and disability arts maverick mat fraser (partners in life and theater) honored and subverted the social undercurrents of the eighteenth-century fairy tale, beauty and the beast (december 1-11, 2016). This performance led the audience on a magical journey into real and fabled romance, using love and humor plus a healthy dose of nudity to throw open the doors to acceptance. The artists reached maximum enchantment by employing song, dance, puppetry, and shadow play. Fraser, who plays the beast, was born with phocomelia and has spent his life entertaining with and through this embodied reality, just as muz has famously celebrated the power of women's sexuality through her own body. This explicit, adult-themed work repositioned the beast as a natural-born freak to the beauty queen who loves him. Two charming and extravagantly costumed puppeteers interacted with mat for his incarnation from the beast to prince for this happily-ever-after story. Muz and fraser's sweet, raunchy, and unself-conscious coupling was directed by phelim mcdermott, who staged philip glass's satayagraha. The december 9 showing of beauty and the beast was particularly notable for being the country's first relaxed performance for adult audiences. The show was open to everyone, but additionally accommodated people, with or without disabilities, who preferred some flexibility in regards to noise and movement in the theater. Stage lighting, sound, and theater re-entry procedures were adjusted for the performance, and sensory rest areas were added outside the theater for patrons who wished to take a break before returning to the show. Mca partnered with chicago-based disability arts and culture organization bodies of work to facilitate the relaxed performance. 4) silencio blanco's stirring chiflón, el silencio del carbon (january 19-22, 2017) told the story of a young miner with no choice but to work at chiflón del diablo, one of the most dangerous mines in chile. Using white marionettes constructed of newspaper, this stunning north american debut ominously built the violence of the global economy and affected a montage of sensations that were indisputably human. It was performed without words to an original sound score. Based in part on the story of el chiflón del diablo by distinguished chilean author baldomero lillo, and devised during trips to the mining town of lota, chiflón, el silencio del carbón reflected a deep creative process. By not using text or dialogue, chiflón connected with a broad public, with no cultural, social, or age limit. 5) tesseract (march 23-25, 2017), presented in conjunction with mca exhibition merce cunningham: common time (february 11-april 30, 2017), saw 3d film reach contemporary dance in this voyage into queer space, time, and bodies. Choreographers rashaun mitchell and silas riener, both dancers who performed with the merce cunningham dance company, collaborated with radical video artist charles atlas on this project that used technology to shape new ways of seeing. Part film, part live performance, this event began as a 3d viewing experience of dances composed for camera and unfolded into live dance with real-time video mixed and projected live by atlas, allowing for multiple perspectives of bodies in motion. Other dance programs presented alongside common time include mca cunningham event (february 11-12, 2017), a series of dances performed in the fourth-floor atrium that marked the exhibition's opening. The pieces drew from key works spanning six decades of cunningham's original choreography. Two unique events were performed each day during gallery hours and each lasted about 30 minutes. The next week the stage presented ccn-ballet de lorraine's works by merce cunningham & others (february 18-19, 2017). One of the most important companies working in europe, ccn-ballet de lorraine performed their own untitled partner #3, cunningham's 1987 work fabrications, and 1975's sounddance, one of cunningham's most beloved pieces. 6) ranging from ethereal to epic, whisper(s) (april 23, 2017), an experiential concert by eighth blackbird's matthew duvall, was an exploration of sound and volume. In the spirit of merce cunningham and his collaborating partner, composer john cage, duvall crafted a program that found form and meaning in dynamic extremes-from a focused scream to the expansive edge of silence. The program began in the theater with solo percussion works by erik satie, morton feldman, john luther adams, matthew burtner, and yu-hui chang; it then moved to the upper floors of the museum, where duvall was joined by over 80 percussionists for the us premiere of voice of the winds, a new ambient work by composer/percussionist marta ptaszynska. Influenced by john cage's fascination with the presence of silence, this work made an indelible soundscape by using 100 of the loudest instruments at their most ethereal. Whisper(s) was one of the many musical pieces presented as convergent programming with merce cunningham: common time. Others included music for merce (february 25-26, 2017), which gathered together ten musicians to pay tribute to the legendary choreographer. The all-star cast of former cunningham collaborators was convened by guest curator john king and included vocalist joan la barbara, computer music pioneer david behrman, multi-instrumentalist and inventor fast forward, electronics/trombonist george lewis, drummer ikue mori, harpist/multi-instrumentalist zeena parkins, singer/songwriter and radiohead drummer phil selway, multi-instrumentalist quinta, and pianist christian wolff. Spektral quartet's morton feldman: string quartet no. 2 (march 11, 2017) was also presented alongside merce cunningham: common time. This monumental project explored the limits of music and marked the chicago debut of morton feldman's six-hour-long work. Recognized for works he composed for merce cunningham, feldman wrote his quartet no. 2 as a durational piece to explore the limits of physical and non-narrative music. The mca invited listeners to fully experience the quiet nature of quartet no. 2 on the fourth floor. The galleries stayed open for the evening concert, and on select days during regular museum hours, the musicians held open rehearsals.