If there’s one thing I’ve learned about viewing visual art in Chicago — whether at museums, commercial galleries, or cutting-edge spaces — it’s this: you can make a list, check it twice, and still never see all that you want. There’s just too much art and never enough time. Yet each year brings its crop of not-to-be-missed exhibits at major venues — although, with some 30 museums and 200 galleries (including bars and other establishments), what I think shouldn’t be missed is a relative proposition. A lot of good shows always slip through the cracks. Herewith, then, is a highly selective, if slightly subjective, rundown.
The Museum of Contemporary Art rarely mounts high-profile traveling exhibits, but one co-organized by chief curator Elizabeth Smith promises to be a genuine art-world event. “Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective” (Feb. 14-May 30) is the first major exhibition to survey the sculptures and assemblages of an artist who was considered one of the leading figures of the 1960s and ’70s, and is among the foremost women artists of the contemporary era. Also, viewers have until Jan. 25 to catch the provocative “One True Thing: Meditations on Black Aesthetics,” by internationally recognized Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall. (220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660. $10 suggested admission. Free Tuesdays 5 p.m.-8 p.m.)
The Art Institute of Chicago won’t stage its latest Impressionist or post-Impressionist blockbuster until 2005 when it spotlights the work of Toulouse-Lautrec. In the meantime, we’ll have “Seurat and the Making of La Grande Jatte” to tide us over (June 16–Sept. 19.) The show will feature all known studies and drawings related to George Seurat’s 1886 pointillist masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jette,” which is one of the Art Institute’s most popular paintings — and one of the most frequently reproduced works in the world. (111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600. $10 suggested admission. Tuesdays free.)
The Chicago Cultural Center is a treasure. Citizens can walk in almost anytime and be enlightened by a constantly changing panoply of exhibits by local, regional, national, and international artists on four floors. One exhibit I’m looking forward to is “Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations, 1979-2000” (July 24-Sept. 19.) It’s the first retrospective of work by an internationally renowned artist and political activist who represented the U.S. at the 2003 Venice Biennale and who explores the complex relationship between the art object and the museum. (78 E. Washington, 312-346-3278. Free.)
The Terra Museum of American Art will be history by the end of 2004. After a protracted, much-publicized legal battle, the board recently voted to close its doors and to place much of its vast holdings of American Impressionism on long-term loan to the Art Institute. Its final, long-awaited exhibit, “Chicago Modern, 1893-1945: Pursuit of the New” (July 17-Oct. 31) will examine the contributions that Chicago artists made to the development of modernism. (664 N. Michigan, 312-664-3939. Free.)
But perhaps the biggest art event in Chicago in 2004 will be the summer installation
of a monolithic public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor,
his first in the U.S. The $3 million polished stainless-steel “jellybean” —
60 feet long and 30 feet tall — will be the focal point of Millennium Park,
and bodes to join the Picasso, the Chagall, and the Calder as a new Chicago
public-art icon. But expect some controversy. What’s a year in art without it?
This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2003.
