This quarter, I’m taking an Art History class called Care, Community, and Collaboration, where we’ve been exploring the questions: How can we make community through care and collaboration? When does collective action become art?
Using art’s “social turn” to start, we’ve been examining how public performance, community organizing, and mutual aid constitute creative interventions. If the course title seems optimistic and perhaps less than critical (perhaps because of how easily community has been co-opted into the corporate buzzword of late), our readings on precarity, working in, (parasitically) within, and outside institutions (like the museum), and on space-making have given me significant reflection on the futures that these words can help reimagine.
And as all of the best courses do, the structure of the course mirrors its aims, with our final project being to develop a research-based or creative project of our choice. As such, I decided to write an exhibition review of Duane Linklater: mymothersside at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) from the Frye Art Museum. Informed by our in-class discussions and also my exposure to museum work, I am particularly interested in how different artists engage with exhibiting in museum spaces, while simultaneously interrogating the museum’s history of in/exclusion, knowledge, and power. I will share my review once it’s complete!
So, with no classes on Thursday, I took a trip down to the MCA! Here’s how I’d spend a perfect half-day there.
Late brunch at Doma
Start your day off with a late brunch and matcha (or seasonal drink) at Doma, a casual Croatian cafe near North Side. Come with a friend so you can share a mix of savory and sweet (Yogurt + granola, rotating pastries) plates. I opted for the ćevapi, wrapped in chewy flatbread and served with salty clotted cream, red pepper eggplant spread, and raw onions to cut through the richness. Also, good tunes!
Pit stop at the Newberry Library
After eating brunch at Doma, enjoy a brisk 20 minute walk to the MCA. But first, make a quick stop at the Newberry Library. Founded in 1887, the Newberry is one of Chicago’s most historic cultural institutions and has free exhibitions, reading rooms, and a bookshop.
Spend the day at the MCA
Spend the rest of the day at the MCA. I always start at the top floor and work my way down (with caution) the spiral staircase. In terms of the current exhibitions: Mona Hatoum: Early Works (on until November 26th) contains several visceral early video works from the artist’s practice. While I couldn’t watch all of the videos in full, I enjoyed Measures of Distance (1988), where letters written by Hatoum's mother in Beirut to her daughter in London appear as Arabic text and are read aloud in English by the artist. The resulting video is an intergenerational elegy, confession, and mediation on sexuality, the maternal body, intimacy, and displacement.
Curated by Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow Nolan Jimbo, Endless (on until April 14th) brings together artworks that address the concept of infinity. I was so glad to see Untitled (1988) by Etel Adnan (1925-2021), especially after spending time with Adnan’s Autumn in Yosemite Valley (1964) in Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s – 1980s at the Block Museum of Art. This painting is so stunning to me.
I was especially looking forward to see Lotus Laurie Kang’s commissioned work Molt (New York-Lethbridge-Los Angeles-Toronto-Chicago- ) (2018–2023). The MCA Atrium project invites artists to create a work responding to the museum’s atrium above the entrance. In Molt (New York-Lethbridge-Los Angeles-Toronto-Chicago- ), sheets of light-sensitive photographic film, previously exposed to natural light in different environments, unfurl from the ceiling to interact with the new light patterns in the atrium itself. Interspersed between the sheets, delicate bronze and aluminum ornaments in the shapes of anchovies and lotus roots sway. The cast foods and sensitive film made me think about a preservation of time against decay, and I loved the material play and juxtaposition between soft/hard, fixed/fluid, transparent/opaque, flat/dimensional forms all in service of the same idea. Change and movement is inevitable.
Finally, I saw Enter the Mirror (on until July 23rd) and Duane Linklater: mymothersside (on until September 3rd). I love the MCA!
Ice cream at Marisol
Finally, before 2 PM, make sure you head to Marisol Restaurant & Bar housed in the MCA basement. My favorite Chicago restaurant is Lula Cafe in Logan Square, and Marisol’s menu is created by Jason Hammel, the Executive Chef and owner of Lula! This feels like a ‘hack,’ but I’ll go to Marisol, and enjoy a scoop (or two) of their seasonal ice creams at $3 a scoop. This Thursday, the options were a grapefruit sorbet and an earl grey peach ice cream. I opted for a scoop of the earl grey peach—it was a perfect end to my day at the MCA.
Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear how you’d spend a day at the MCA. Part 2/2 of life lessons is still in the works and will be out soon :)
Until next time!