CHICAGO DCASE 2018 EXHIBITION SCHEDULE
Highlights include Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush; Keith Haring: The Chicago Mural; Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle; and African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce and the Politics of Race.
Many of the exhibitions will highlight the Year of Creative Youth citywide
Admission to All Exhibitions and Performances is FREE.
CITYWIDE
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.
CHICAGO CULTURAL CENTER
Temporary Distortion: The Illusion & The Aftermath
January 19–28
Wednesdays–Saturdays, 1–7 p.m.; Sundays 10–4 p.m.
This performance by Temporary Distortion unfolds slowly over the course of six-hours for a meditating audience. Meditation cushions and headphones are provided for the audience to come and go as they wish, staying for only as long as they would like. For someone in the room without headphones, the performance is virtually silent.
Sidney R. Yates Gallery, 4th Floor North
Project Tool
January 25–February 8
Dancers, using handheld tools and legacy processes, explore the relationship between mind, body and tool. While sawing, hammering, sanding and nailing, the dancers collaborate with tools as if they are partners in a dance with the body while building a wood, spring dance floor upon which they dance. Artistic direction by Onye Ozuzu.
Chicago Cultural Center, Garland Gallery, 1st Floor
Thursday, January 25, 5:30pm: Opening Reception
Friday, February 2, 5:30pm & Saturday, February 3, 2pm: Performances
de-skinned: duk ju l kim recent work
February 3–April 15
Chicago-based artist Duk Ju L. Kim was born in Busan, South Korea and spent her formative years in Tehran, Iran. The historical, geopolitical, and current events that shaped her early life and her perception of the world are present in her paintings. Cities lie in ruins, layers of psychological, architectural history pile up and human figures take on the structure of buildings–appear amidst the rubble.
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor
February 9, 5–8 p.m.: Exhibition Open House
Xavier Toubes Vilarino: Descriptions Without a Place. PushMoon4
February 3–April 15
The exhibition of sculptural ceramics presents work with sensuous possibilities. The deft handling of material and skillful glaze technique is created by the palms but executed at the back of the mind. The “fluttering inventions” mingle experience with emotions, touching on the real, aware of the historical moment but un-consumed by it. The objects are fluid, electrical, absurd, theatrical and existential…with wild lone beauty.
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor
February 9, 5–8 p.m.: Exhibition Open House
Cleveland Dean: Recto/Verso – Duality of a Fragile Ego
February 3–April 15
The abstract and conceptual works by Cleveland Dean are presented through a wide range of prosaic materials executed in mixed-media on panels and sculptures. The charred and highly reflective surfaces, grids, wood, cement and resin create tension-filled objects that invite the viewer to reflect into their own psyche and remind them that they are greater than they may believe.
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor
February 9, 5–8 p.m.: Exhibition Open House
Rosy Simas, Skin(s)
February 8–10, 7 p.m.
Skin(s) shares the beauty and diversity of how Native people identify and examines the contradictions, pride, joy, pain and sorrow that arise out of our many dimensions of identity. The dance performance explores what we hold, reveal and receive through our skin.
Dance Studio, First Floor North
Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush
February 10–May 6
Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush is the first solo exhibition in a museum for the Chicago-born artist. The exhibition is a 10-year survey of approximately 30 of the artist’s paintings, watercolors and collages. Abney, born in 1982, is at the forefront of a generation of artists that is unapologetically revitalizing narrative figurative painting, and as a skillful storyteller, she visually articulates the complex social dynamics of contemporary urban life. The exhibition is organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
Exhibit Hall, 4th Floor North
February 9, 5–8 p.m.: Exhibition Open House
Scott Stack: Interior and Exterior
February 10 – May 6
This exhibition presents 12 recently completed, large-scale paintings that challenge our perceptual capabilities as well as defy conventional categories and operations of abstract and representational traditions in modern painting.
Chicago Rooms, 2nd Floor North
February 9, 5–8 p.m.: Exhibition Open House
Keith Haring: The Chicago Mural
March 3–September 23
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.
Sidney R. Yates Gallery, 4th Floor North
Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle
June 2–October 1
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.
Exhibit Hall, 4th Floor North
African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce and the Politics of Race
October 27, 2018–March 3, 2019
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.
Chicago Rooms, 2nd Floor North
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, 10 a.m.–7 p.m., Saturday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 5 p.m.; closed holidays. Admission is FREE. For information, visit
chicagoculturalcenter.org, like us on
Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram
@ChiCulturCenter.
EXPO 72
Chicago Public Schools All-School Exhibition
March 22–April 12
This annual, juried art exhibition focuses on works by Chicago Public School art students. Each year the students are able to take advantage of a professional platform in a gallery setting to showcase their talents. Mayor Emanuel declared 2018 as the “Year of Creative Youth” and we hope to highlight the many young artists and their talent to make this annual event special.
The exhibitions at Expo 72, 72 E. Randolph Street, are presented by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE). Gallery hours are Monday–Thursday, 9 a.m.–7 p.m., Friday–Saturday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; closed holidays. Admission is FREE. For information, visit
cityofchicago.org/dcase, like us on
Facebook and follow
@ChicagoDCASE on Twitter and Instagram.
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.