Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Encyclopedia
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art
museum
near Water Tower Place
in downtown Chicago
in Cook County
, Illinois
, United States
. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues. The museum's collection is composed of thousands of objects of Post-World War II
visual art.
The museum has hosted several notable debut exhibitions including Frida Kahlo
's first U.S. exhibition and Jeff Koons
' first solo museum exhibition. Koons later presented an exhibit at the Museum that established the museum's current attendance record for an exhibition. Its collection, which includes Jasper Johns
, Andy Warhol
, Cindy Sherman
, Kara Walker
, and Alexander Calder
, contains historical samples of 1940s–1970s late surrealism
, pop art
, minimalism
, and conceptual art
; notable holdings 1980s postmodernism
; as well as contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and related media. The museum also presents dance, theater, music, and multidisciplinary arts.
The current location at 220 East Chicago Avenue is in the Streeterville
neighborhood of the Near North Side
community area
. Josef Paul Kleihues
designed the current building after the museum conducted a 12-month search, reviewing more than 200 nominations. The museum opened at its new location June 21–22, 1996, with a 24-hour event that drew more than 25,000 visitors. The museum was originally located at 237 East Ontario Street, which was originally designed as a bakery. The building is known for its signature staircase leading to an elevated ground floor, which has an atrium
, the full glass-walled east and west façades giving a direct view of the city and Lake Michigan
.
to complement the city's Art Institute of Chicago
, according to a grand opening
story in Time
. It opened in fall 1967 in a small space at 237 East Ontario Street that had for a time served as the corporate offices of Playboy Enterprises
. Its first director was Jan van der Marck.
Initially, the museum was conceived primarily as a space for temporary exhibitions, in the German
kunsthalle
model. However, in 1974, the museum began acquiring a permanent collection of contemporary art objects created after 1945. The MCA expanded into adjacent buildings to increase gallery space; and in 1977, following a fundraising drive for its 10th anniversary, a three-story neighboring townhouse
was purchased, renovated, and connected to the museum. In 1978, Gordon Matta-Clark
executed his final major project in the townhouse. In his work Circus Or The Caribbean Orange (1978), Matta-Clark made circle cuts in the walls and floors of the townhouse next-door to the first museum.
In 1991, the museum's Board of Trustees contributed $37 million ($ million today) of the expected $55 million ($ million) construction costs for Chicago's first new museum building in 65 years. Six of the board members were central to the fundraising as major donors: Jerome Stone (chairman emeritus of Stone Container Corporation), Beatrice C. Mayer (daughter of Sara Lee Corporation founder Nathan Cummings
) and family, Mrs. Edwin Lindy Bergman, the Neison Harris (president of Pittway Corporation) and Irving Harris families, and Thomas and Frances Dittmer (commodities). The Board of Trustees then weighed architectural proposals from six finalists: Emilio Ambasz of New York; Tadao Ando
of Osaka, Japan; Josef Paul Kleihues
of Berlin; Fumihiko Maki
of Tokyo; Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif.; and Christian de Portzamparc
of Paris. According to Chicago Tribune
Pulitzer Prize
-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin
, the list of contenders was controversial because no Chicago-based architects were included as finalists despite the fact that prominent Chicago architects such as Helmut Jahn
and Stanley Tigerman
were among the 23 semi-finalists. In fact, none of the finalists had made any prior structures in Chicago. The selection process, which started with 209 contenders, was based on professional qualifications, recent projects, and the ability to work closely with the staff of the aspiring museum.
In 1996, the MCA opened its current museum at 220 East Chicago Avenue, which was the site of a former National Guard
Armory between Lake Michigan
and Michigan Avenue
from 1907 until it was demolished in 1993 to make way for the MCA. The four-story 220000 square feet (20,438.7 m²) building designed by Josef Paul Kleihues
, which was five times larger than its predecessor, made the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago the largest institution devoted to contemporary art in the world. The physical structure is said to reference the modernism
of Mies van der Rohe as well as the tradition of Chicago architecture
.
, and its exhibitions, programming, and operations are member-supported and privately funded. It has a board of trustees consisting of four officers, 18 life trustees, and more than 40 trustees. The current board chair is Mary Ittelson, who was elected in 2008. The museum also has a director, who oversees the MCA's staff of about 100. Madeleine Grynsztejn
replaced 10-year director Robert Fitzpatrick during the 2008 fiscal year in this capacity, and she is the MCA's first female director.
The museum operates with three programming departments: curatorial, performance, and education. Peter Taub
is the director of performance programs, Erika Hanner is the Beatrice C. Mayer Director of Education, and Janet Alberti is the Chief Financial Officer
and Deputy Director for Operations. The curatorial staff consists of Chief Curator Michael Darling
, Curator Naomi Beckwith
, Curator Lynne Warren, and Associate Curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm. In 2009, the museum reported $17.5 million in both operating income, 50% of which came from contributions, and operating expense
s. Contributions were received from individuals, corporations, foundations, government entities, and fundraising.
The museum is closed Mondays. While the museum has no mandatory admission charge and operates with a suggested admission ($12 general, $7 students and seniors, free for MCA members, members of the military, and children 12 and under), it currently provides free admission every Tuesday, when it has extended hours of operation from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. During the summers, the museum provides free outdoor Tuesday Jazz
concerts. On the first Friday of most months, the museum hosts First Fridays, which is an event featuring local DJs, artists, and other activities. In addition to art exhibits, the museum offers dance, theater, music, and multidisciplinary arts. The programming includes primary projects and festivals of a broad spectrum of artists presented in performance, discussion, and workshop formats.
: Projects for Monuments, and Dan Flavin: Pink and Gold, which was the artist's first solo show. In 1969, the museum served as the site of Christo's first building wrap in the United States. It was wrapped in more than 8,000 square feet (700 m²) of tarpaulin
and rope. The following year it hosted one-person shows for Roy Lichtenstein
, Robert Rauschenberg
, and Andy Warhol
.
The MCA has also played host to the first American and solo exhibitions of prominent artists such as Frida Kahlo
in 1978. Other exhibition highlights include the first solo museum shows of Dan Flavin
, in 1967, and Jeff Koons
, in 1988. In 1989, the MCA hosted Robert Mapplethorpe
, The Perfect Moment, a traveling exhibition organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art
in Philadelphia. This exhibition set a record for the highest attendance in the institution's history. Additional highlights of exhibitions organized or co-organized by the MCA include:
's Massive Change
exhibit, which concerned the social, economic, and political effects of design. Additional 2006 exhibitions featured photographers Catherine Opie
and Wolfgang Tillmans
as well as Chicago-based cartoonist Chris Ware
. The 2008 Koons retrospective broke the attendance record with 86,584 visitors for the May 31 – September 21, 2008 show. This was the culminating exhibit of the 2008 fiscal year, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the museum.
In 2009, the MCA presented Jeremy Deller
's exhibition It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq. The exhibition was organized by the New Museum, and it was a new commission by the New Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Hammer Museum
, Los Angeles.
Co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
and the Wexner Center for the Arts
, the MCA presented Luc Tuymans
from October 2010 – January 2011. Susan Philipsz
: We Shall Be All was presented at the MCA February – June, 2011. The Turner Prize
-winning artist's sound exhibition featured protest songs and drew from Chicago's labor history. The exhibition Eiko & Koma
: Time is Not Even, Space is Not Empty is the first series of stage performances and a gallery exhibition presented at the MCA. The Japanese-born choreographers and dance artists perform and exhibit at the MCA June – November, 2011.
Starting in 2002, the MCA began commissioning artists and architects to design and construct public art
for the front plaza. The goal of the program is to link the museum to its neighboring community by extending its programmatic, educational, and outreach functions. While artists have been exhibited intermittently on the MCA plaza since 2002, the summer 2011 plaza exhibit showcasing four works by Miami-based sculptor Mark Handforth
marks a revitalization of the plaza project.
From October through May, the MCA hosts monthly Family Days, which feature artistic activities for all ages. Each summer, the museum hosts Tuesdays on the Terrace, a jazz
performance series; Summer Studios, designed for families to experience the creative process; and a Farmers Market on the MCA plaza on Tuesdays from June through October.
. The MCA Stage
has featured local, national, and international theater, dance, music, multimedia, and film performances in its 15-year history. It is known as the "most active interdisciplinary arts presenter in Chicago" and partners with local community organizations for the co-presentations of performing arts.
The museum announced its 2011-2012 performance season, which includes performances by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Tsukasa Taiko
, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
, and Teatr Zar of Poland. Notable past stage appearances include performances by Trisha Brown
Dance Company, Abbey Theater of Ireland, Olafur Arnalds
, and Elevator Repair Service
.
limestone
and cast-aluminum structure was designed by Berlin
architect
Josef Paul Kleihues
. The building, which opened in 1996, contains 45000 square feet (4,180.6 m²) of gallery space (seven times the space of the old museum), a theater, studio-classrooms, an education center, a museum store, a restaurant-café, and a sculpture garden. The MCA building was Kliehues's first American structure. Its construction cost US$46.5 million ($ million today). The sculpture garden, which is 34000 square feet (3,158.7 m²), includes a sculptural installation by Sol LeWitt
and sculptures by George Rickey
and Jane Highstein. The floor plan of both the building and the sculpture garden is a square, on which the proportions of the building is based.
The building's main entrance, which is accessed by scaling 32 steps, uses both symmetry and transparency as themes for its large central glass walls that compose the majority of both the east and west façade
s of the building. Two additional entrances—into the education center and into the museum store—are located on either side of the main staircase. The monumental staircase with projecting bays and plinth
s that may be used as the base for sculpture is reminiscent of the propyleia of the Acropolis
in Athens
. The main level entry hall has an adjacent 55 feet (16.8 m) atrium
that connects it to a restaurant in the rear of the building. Two galleries for temporary exhibitions flank the atrium. The stairwell in the northwest corner is often cited as the buildings most interesting and dynamic artistic feature. The elevated views of Lake Michigan
are considered to be a rewarding feature of the building. The building's 56 feet (17.1 m) glass facade
sits atop 16 feet (4.9 m) of Indiana limestone. The building is known for its hand-cast aluminum panels adjoined to the facade with stainless steel
buttons. The building has two two-story gallery spaces and a smaller one-story gallery space on the second floor. The third floor has a gallery and exhibition space in its northwest section, and the forth floor has two large galleries, an exhibition space on the west side of the building, and a gallery in the southwest section.
The museum has a 296-seat multi-use theater with a proscenium
-layout stage. The seats are laid out in 14 rows with two side aisle
s. The stage is 52 by 34 ft (15.8 by 10.4 m) and elevated 36 inches (91.4 cm) above the floor level of the first row of seats. The house has a 12 degree
incline. The stage has three curtains and four catwalks.
like museums. Comparing the building to the Sullivan Center and the Art Institute of Chicago Building
, Kamin describes the museum as an homage to two of Chicago's architectural influences: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
and Louis Sullivan
. Other critics also note the presence of Mies van der Rohe's spirit in the architecture.
Chicago-based architect Douglas Garofalo has described the building as stark, intimidating and "incongruous with contemporary sensibilities". The interior atrium, which the architect claims links the city to the lake is part of a transcendent space that benefits from the sunlight
that enters through the high glass walls. The building is said to be designed to separate the art from other distracting services and functions of the venue. Kamin was also pleased with the separate entrances on the main floor for the museum store and accessibility entrances.
in June 2011, the MCA is in the process of reinventing its identity with new curator
s, a new floor plan
, and a new vision. MCA Director Madeleine Grynsztejn
says the museum seeks to be 50/50 artist-activated/audience-engaged. The main floor's north and south galleries will present exhibitions showcasing the museum's permanent collection and work by post-emerging contemporary artists. The third floor will be for the "Chicago Works" series. The fourth floor will have gallery spaces for the MCA Screen and MCA DNA series, while the main barrel-vaulted galleries will be for special exhibitions.
The museum's collection consists of about 2,700 objects, as well as more than 3,000 artist's books. The collection includes works of art from 1945 to the present.
Former MCA Chief Curator Elizabeth Smith provided a narrative of the museum's collection. She says the collection has examples of late surrealism
, pop art
, minimalism
, and conceptual art
from the 1940s through the 1970s; work from the 1980s that can be grouped under postmodernism
; and painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and related media current artists explore.
During the 2008 fiscal year the MCA celebrated its 40th anniversary, which inspired gifts of works by artists such as Dan Flavin
, Alfredo Jaar
, and Thomas Ruff
. Additionally, the museum expanded its collection by acquiring the work of some of the artists it presented during its anniversary celebration such as Carlos Amorales
, Tony Oursler
, and Adam Pendleton.
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
museum
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
near Water Tower Place
Water Tower Place
Water Tower Place is a large urban, mixed-use development comprising a shopping mall and 74 story skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The complex is located at 835 North Michigan Avenue, along the Magnificent Mile. It is named after the nearby Chicago Water Tower...
in downtown Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in Cook County
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues. The museum's collection is composed of thousands of objects of Post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
visual art.
The museum has hosted several notable debut exhibitions including Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
's first U.S. exhibition and Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
' first solo museum exhibition. Koons later presented an exhibit at the Museum that established the museum's current attendance record for an exhibition. Its collection, which includes Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
, Kara Walker
Kara Walker
Kara Walker is a contemporary African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes, such as The Means to an End--A Shadow Drama in Five Acts.-Biography:Walker was born in...
, and Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
, contains historical samples of 1940s–1970s late surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
, minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
, and conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
; notable holdings 1980s postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
; as well as contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and related media. The museum also presents dance, theater, music, and multidisciplinary arts.
The current location at 220 East Chicago Avenue is in the Streeterville
Streeterville
Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River in Cook County...
neighborhood of the Near North Side
Near North Side, Chicago
The Near North Side is one of 77 well-defined community areas of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located north and east of the Chicago River, just north of the central business district . To its east is Lake Michigan and its northern boundary is the 19th-century city limit of Chicago,...
community area
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
. Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues was a German architect, most notable for his decades long contributions to the "critical reconstruction" of Berlin...
designed the current building after the museum conducted a 12-month search, reviewing more than 200 nominations. The museum opened at its new location June 21–22, 1996, with a 24-hour event that drew more than 25,000 visitors. The museum was originally located at 237 East Ontario Street, which was originally designed as a bakery. The building is known for its signature staircase leading to an elevated ground floor, which has an atrium
Atrium (architecture)
In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...
, the full glass-walled east and west façades giving a direct view of the city and Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
.
History
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago was created as the result of a 1964 meeting of 30 critics, collectors and dealers at the home of Critic Doris Lane Butler to bring the long-discussed idea of a museum of contemporary artContemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
to complement the city's Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, according to a grand opening
Grand opening
Grand opening is a term used when a business, public office, or private association wishes to announce the official opening of a new location. This differs from just opening the doors on the first day, in that a grand opening is more of a celebration event, not just the first day having the doors...
story in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
. It opened in fall 1967 in a small space at 237 East Ontario Street that had for a time served as the corporate offices of Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. Its programming and content are available worldwide on television networks, Websites, mobile platforms and radio...
. Its first director was Jan van der Marck.
Initially, the museum was conceived primarily as a space for temporary exhibitions, in the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
kunsthalle
Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle is, generally, in German speaking regions a term for a facility mounting temporary art exhibitions. Some are run or supported by a local Kunstverein, an art association of local collectors and artists...
model. However, in 1974, the museum began acquiring a permanent collection of contemporary art objects created after 1945. The MCA expanded into adjacent buildings to increase gallery space; and in 1977, following a fundraising drive for its 10th anniversary, a three-story neighboring townhouse
Townhouse
A townhouse is the term historically used in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in many other countries to describe a residence of a peer or member of the aristocracy in the capital or major city. Most such figures owned one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year...
was purchased, renovated, and connected to the museum. In 1978, Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark was an American artist best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He is famous for his "building cuts," a series of works in abandoned buildings in which he variously removed sections of floors, ceilings, and walls.-Life and work:Both of Gordon Matta-Clark's...
executed his final major project in the townhouse. In his work Circus Or The Caribbean Orange (1978), Matta-Clark made circle cuts in the walls and floors of the townhouse next-door to the first museum.
In 1991, the museum's Board of Trustees contributed $37 million ($ million today) of the expected $55 million ($ million) construction costs for Chicago's first new museum building in 65 years. Six of the board members were central to the fundraising as major donors: Jerome Stone (chairman emeritus of Stone Container Corporation), Beatrice C. Mayer (daughter of Sara Lee Corporation founder Nathan Cummings
Nathan Cummings
Nathan Cummings was the founder of Consolidated Foods, which later became known by one of its product lines, Sara Lee Corporation.-Early life:...
) and family, Mrs. Edwin Lindy Bergman, the Neison Harris (president of Pittway Corporation) and Irving Harris families, and Thomas and Frances Dittmer (commodities). The Board of Trustees then weighed architectural proposals from six finalists: Emilio Ambasz of New York; Tadao Ando
Tadao Ando
is a Japanese architect whose approach to architecture was once categorized by Francesco Dal Co as critical regionalism. Ando has led a storied life, working as a truck driver and boxer prior to settling on the profession of architecture, despite never having taken formal training in the field...
of Osaka, Japan; Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues was a German architect, most notable for his decades long contributions to the "critical reconstruction" of Berlin...
of Berlin; Fumihiko Maki
Fumihiko Maki
is a Japanese architect and currently teaching at Keio University SFC.- Biography :After studying at the University of Tokyo he moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and then to Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1956, he took a post as assistant professor of...
of Tokyo; Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif.; and Christian de Portzamparc
Christian de Portzamparc
Christian de Portzamparc is a French architect and urbanist. He graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1970 and has since been noted for his bold designs and artistic touch; his projects reflect a sensibility to their environment and the town is a founding principal of his...
of Paris. According to Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin
Blair Kamin
Blair Kamin is the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune, a post he has held since 1992. Kamin has held other jobs at the Tribune and previously worked for The Des Moines Register. He also serves as a contributing editor of Architectural Record...
, the list of contenders was controversial because no Chicago-based architects were included as finalists despite the fact that prominent Chicago architects such as Helmut Jahn
Helmut Jahn
Helmut Jahn is a German-American architect, well known for designs such as the US$800 million Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, the Messeturm in Frankfurt and the One Liberty Place, formerly the tallest building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Suvarnabhumi Airport, an international...
and Stanley Tigerman
Stanley Tigerman
Stanley Tigerman is an American architect, theorist and designer. He studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Chicago Institute of Design, and Yale University. After serving several years in the United States Navy, he assumed the role of draftsman and designer in a series of offices...
were among the 23 semi-finalists. In fact, none of the finalists had made any prior structures in Chicago. The selection process, which started with 209 contenders, was based on professional qualifications, recent projects, and the ability to work closely with the staff of the aspiring museum.
In 1996, the MCA opened its current museum at 220 East Chicago Avenue, which was the site of a former National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
Armory between Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
and Michigan Avenue
Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
from 1907 until it was demolished in 1993 to make way for the MCA. The four-story 220000 square feet (20,438.7 m²) building designed by Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues was a German architect, most notable for his decades long contributions to the "critical reconstruction" of Berlin...
, which was five times larger than its predecessor, made the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago the largest institution devoted to contemporary art in the world. The physical structure is said to reference the modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
of Mies van der Rohe as well as the tradition of Chicago architecture
Chicago school (architecture)
Chicago's architecture is famous throughout the world and one style is referred to as the Chicago School. The style is also known as Commercial style. In the history of architecture, the Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century...
.
Operation
The museum operates as a tax-exempt non-profit organizationNon-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
, and its exhibitions, programming, and operations are member-supported and privately funded. It has a board of trustees consisting of four officers, 18 life trustees, and more than 40 trustees. The current board chair is Mary Ittelson, who was elected in 2008. The museum also has a director, who oversees the MCA's staff of about 100. Madeleine Grynsztejn
Madeleine Grynsztejn
Madeleine Grynsztejn is the Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Grynsztejn became director in 2008.-Life and Education:...
replaced 10-year director Robert Fitzpatrick during the 2008 fiscal year in this capacity, and she is the MCA's first female director.
The museum operates with three programming departments: curatorial, performance, and education. Peter Taub
Peter Taub
Peter Taub is the director of performance programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Taub has been at the head of the MCA’s performing arts program since its conception in 1996.-Education and career:...
is the director of performance programs, Erika Hanner is the Beatrice C. Mayer Director of Education, and Janet Alberti is the Chief Financial Officer
Chief financial officer
The chief financial officer or Chief financial and operating officer is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management...
and Deputy Director for Operations. The curatorial staff consists of Chief Curator Michael Darling
Michael Darling (curator)
Michael Darling is the James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago . Darling joined the MCA staff in July 2010. -Life and education:...
, Curator Naomi Beckwith
Naomi Beckwith
Naomi Beckwith is a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Beckwith joined the curatorial staff in May 2011. -Life and Education:...
, Curator Lynne Warren, and Associate Curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm. In 2009, the museum reported $17.5 million in both operating income, 50% of which came from contributions, and operating expense
Operating expense
An operating expense, operating expenditure, operational expense, operational expenditure or OPEX is an ongoing cost for running a product, business, or system . Its counterpart, a capital expenditure , is the cost of developing or providing non-consumable parts for the product or system...
s. Contributions were received from individuals, corporations, foundations, government entities, and fundraising.
The museum is closed Mondays. While the museum has no mandatory admission charge and operates with a suggested admission ($12 general, $7 students and seniors, free for MCA members, members of the military, and children 12 and under), it currently provides free admission every Tuesday, when it has extended hours of operation from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. During the summers, the museum provides free outdoor Tuesday Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
concerts. On the first Friday of most months, the museum hosts First Fridays, which is an event featuring local DJs, artists, and other activities. In addition to art exhibits, the museum offers dance, theater, music, and multidisciplinary arts. The programming includes primary projects and festivals of a broad spectrum of artists presented in performance, discussion, and workshop formats.
Past
In its first year of operation, the museum hosted the exhibitions, Pictures To Be Read/Poetry To Be Seen, Claes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
: Projects for Monuments, and Dan Flavin: Pink and Gold, which was the artist's first solo show. In 1969, the museum served as the site of Christo's first building wrap in the United States. It was wrapped in more than 8,000 square feet (700 m²) of tarpaulin
Tarpaulin
A tarpaulin, colloquially tarp, is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant or waterproof material, often cloth such as canvas or polyester coated with urethane, or made of plastics such as polyethylene. In some places such as Australia, and in military slang, a tarp may be known as a...
and rope. The following year it hosted one-person shows for Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
, Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
.
The MCA has also played host to the first American and solo exhibitions of prominent artists such as Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
in 1978. Other exhibition highlights include the first solo museum shows of Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...
, in 1967, and Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
, in 1988. In 1989, the MCA hosted Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...
, The Perfect Moment, a traveling exhibition organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
The Institute of Contemporary Art or ICA is a contemporary art museum located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The museum is associated with the University of Pennsylvania, and is located on its campus. The Institute is one of the country's leading museums dedicated to exhibiting the innovative...
in Philadelphia. This exhibition set a record for the highest attendance in the institution's history. Additional highlights of exhibitions organized or co-organized by the MCA include:
- Enrico BajEnrico BajEnrico Baj was an Italian artist and writer on art. Many of his works show an obsession with nuclear war. He created prints, sculptures but especially collage. He was close to the surrealist and dada movements, and was later associatied with CoBrA. As an author he has been described as a leading...
(1971) - Chuck CloseChuck CloseCharles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
(1972) - Lee BontecouLee BontecouLee Bontecou is an American artist who was born 15 January 1931 in Providence, Rhode Island. She attended the Art Students League of New York from 1952 to 1955, where she studied with the sculptor William Zorach. She received a Fulbright scholarship to study in Rome in 1957-1958 and the Louis...
(1972) - Richard ArtschwagerRichard ArtschwagerRichard Artschwager is an American painter, illustrator and sculptor, born in 1923 in Washington, D.C.. Artschwager is best known for his stylistic independence; although he has associations with the Pop Art movement, Conceptual art and Minimalism....
(1973) - Robert IrwinRobert IrwinRobert Irwin may refer to:* Robert Irwin , Canadian politician* Robert Irwin , American installation artist* Robert Irwin , British historian, novelist and writer on Arabic literature...
(1975) - Vito AcconciVito AcconciVito Hannibal Acconci is a Bronx, New York-born, Brooklyn-based designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist.-Education:...
(1980) - Magdalena AbakanowiczMagdalena AbakanowiczMagdalena Abakanowicz is a Polish sculptor. She is notable for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium. She was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poland from 1965 to 1990 and a visiting professor at University of California, Los Angeles in 1984...
(1982)
- Lorna SimpsonLorna SimpsonLorna Simpson is an African American artist and photographer who made her name in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as Guarded Conditions and Square Deal. Her work often portrays black women combined with text to express contemporary society's relationship with race, ethnicity and sex...
(1992) - Beverly Semmes (1995)
- Mona HatoumMona HatoumMona Hatoum is a video artist and installation artist of Palestinian origin, who lives in London.- Lebanon :...
(1997) - Tom FriedmanTom Friedman (artist)Tom Friedman American conceptual sculptor known for his work employing everyday material, such as toothpicks or sugar cubes in intricate geometric arrangements. Friedman was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended Washington University in St. Louis, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic...
(2000) - John CurrinJohn CurrinJohn Currin is an American painter. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and...
(2003) - Rudolf StingelRudolf StingelRudolf Stingel is an artist based in New York.Stingel was born in Meran. His work engages the audience in dialogue about their perception of art and uses Conceptual painting and installations to explore the process of creation...
(2007)
Recent
In 2006, the MCA was the only American museum to host Bruce MauBruce Mau
Bruce Mau is a Canadian designer. Mau is the creative director of Bruce Mau Design, and the founder of the Institute without Boundaries.-Life and career:...
's Massive Change
Massive Change
Massive Change is an exhibition and book by designer Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries.-Purpose:The exhibition, which was commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery and sponsored by Altria, looks at how design can be used as a methodology to address the problems inherent to our social,...
exhibit, which concerned the social, economic, and political effects of design. Additional 2006 exhibitions featured photographers Catherine Opie
Catherine Opie
Catherine Opie is an American artist specializing in issues within documentary photography. Throughout her work she has investigated aspects of community, making portraits of many groups including LGBT community; surfers; and most recently high school football players. She is also interested in...
and Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans is a German Fine-art photographer and artist. His comprehensive and diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer and also the first...
as well as Chicago-based cartoonist Chris Ware
Chris Ware
Franklin Christenson Ware , is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, widely known for his Acme Novelty Library series and the graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he resides in the Chicago area, Illinois...
. The 2008 Koons retrospective broke the attendance record with 86,584 visitors for the May 31 – September 21, 2008 show. This was the culminating exhibit of the 2008 fiscal year, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the museum.
In 2009, the MCA presented Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller is an English conceptual, video and installation artist. He is a Turner Prize winner.Deller is best-known for his Battle of Orgreave , a reenactment of the actual Battle of Orgreave which occurred during the UK miners' strike in 1984.-Life and work:Jeremy Deller was born in London,...
's exhibition It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq. The exhibition was organized by the New Museum, and it was a new commission by the New Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Hammer Museum
Hammer Museum
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California...
, Los Angeles.
Co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
and the Wexner Center for the Arts
Wexner Center for the Arts
The Wexner Center for the Arts is The Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art...
, the MCA presented Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.-Life:Tuymans...
from October 2010 – January 2011. Susan Philipsz
Susan Philipsz
Susan Philipsz is a Scottish artist who won the 2010 Turner Prize. In her youth, she sang with her sisters in a Catholic church choir in Maryhill. She studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee from 1989–1993 and then at the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1993-4. She was a...
: We Shall Be All was presented at the MCA February – June, 2011. The Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
-winning artist's sound exhibition featured protest songs and drew from Chicago's labor history. The exhibition Eiko & Koma
Eiko & Koma
Eiko Otake and Takashi Koma Otake, generally known as Eiko & Koma, are a Japanese performance duo. Since 1972, Eiko & Koma have worked as co-artistic directors, choreographers, and performers, creating a unique theater of movement out of stillness, shape, light, sound, and time...
: Time is Not Even, Space is Not Empty is the first series of stage performances and a gallery exhibition presented at the MCA. The Japanese-born choreographers and dance artists perform and exhibit at the MCA June – November, 2011.
Recurring programs
After a 10-year run, the exhibition series UBS 12x12: New Artists/New Work is moving from the second floor to the third floor, into a larger gallery space and will change its name to "Chicago Works." The exhibition series will still feature Chicago-area artists. Rather than each artist being displayed for one month, each exhibition in the series will now be displayed for three months.Starting in 2002, the MCA began commissioning artists and architects to design and construct public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
for the front plaza. The goal of the program is to link the museum to its neighboring community by extending its programmatic, educational, and outreach functions. While artists have been exhibited intermittently on the MCA plaza since 2002, the summer 2011 plaza exhibit showcasing four works by Miami-based sculptor Mark Handforth
Mark Handforth
Mark Handforth is a sculptor based in Miami, Florida. Some of his works are attributed to site-specific art. In 2007 he installed a sculpture titled Dallas Snake in the park of the Dallas Museum of Art...
marks a revitalization of the plaza project.
From October through May, the MCA hosts monthly Family Days, which feature artistic activities for all ages. Each summer, the museum hosts Tuesdays on the Terrace, a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
performance series; Summer Studios, designed for families to experience the creative process; and a Farmers Market on the MCA plaza on Tuesdays from June through October.
Performance
In 2011, the MCA celebrated its 15th anniversary of the MCA StageMCA Stage
The MCA Stage is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s performing arts program. Founded in 1996 with the opening of the MCA’s new building at Chicago, Illinois.-History:...
. The MCA Stage
MCA Stage
The MCA Stage is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s performing arts program. Founded in 1996 with the opening of the MCA’s new building at Chicago, Illinois.-History:...
has featured local, national, and international theater, dance, music, multimedia, and film performances in its 15-year history. It is known as the "most active interdisciplinary arts presenter in Chicago" and partners with local community organizations for the co-presentations of performing arts.
The museum announced its 2011-2012 performance season, which includes performances by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Tsukasa Taiko
Taiko
means "drum" in Japanese . Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming...
, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is an American dance company based in Chicago. HSDC performs in downtown Chicago and its metropolitan area and tours nationally and internationally throughout the year....
, and Teatr Zar of Poland. Notable past stage appearances include performances by Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown is a postmodernist American choreographer and dancer.Brown was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and received a B.A. degree in dance from Mills College in 1958. Brown later received a D.F.A. from Bates College in 2000. For several summers she studied with Louis Horst at the American Dance...
Dance Company, Abbey Theater of Ireland, Olafur Arnalds
Ólafur Arnalds
Ólafur Arnalds is a multi-instrumentalist and producer from Mosfellsbær, Iceland. Ólafur Arnalds mixes strings and piano with loops and edgy beats crossing-over from classical to pop....
, and Elevator Repair Service
Elevator Repair Service
Elevator Repair Service are a New York-based theater ensemble founded by director John Collins and a group of actors in 1991.ERS have performed in various New York including Performance Space 122, The Performing Garage, HERE, The Ontological at St. Mark's Church, The Flea, The Kitchen, and Soho...
.
New structure
The new five-storyStory
Story or Stories may refer to:*Story, a recounting of a sequence of events* Narrative* Bedtime story, a traditional form of storytelling, told to children to prepare them for sleep* Organization story, a narrative used in organization studies...
limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
and cast-aluminum structure was designed by Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues
Josef Paul Kleihues was a German architect, most notable for his decades long contributions to the "critical reconstruction" of Berlin...
. The building, which opened in 1996, contains 45000 square feet (4,180.6 m²) of gallery space (seven times the space of the old museum), a theater, studio-classrooms, an education center, a museum store, a restaurant-café, and a sculpture garden. The MCA building was Kliehues's first American structure. Its construction cost US$46.5 million ($ million today). The sculpture garden, which is 34000 square feet (3,158.7 m²), includes a sculptural installation by Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
and sculptures by George Rickey
George Rickey
George Rickey was an American kinetic sculptor.Rickey was born on June 6, 1907 in South Bend, Indiana.-Life and work:...
and Jane Highstein. The floor plan of both the building and the sculpture garden is a square, on which the proportions of the building is based.
The building's main entrance, which is accessed by scaling 32 steps, uses both symmetry and transparency as themes for its large central glass walls that compose the majority of both the east and west façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
s of the building. Two additional entrances—into the education center and into the museum store—are located on either side of the main staircase. The monumental staircase with projecting bays and plinth
Plinth
In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
s that may be used as the base for sculpture is reminiscent of the propyleia of the Acropolis
Acropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. The main level entry hall has an adjacent 55 feet (16.8 m) atrium
Atrium (architecture)
In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...
that connects it to a restaurant in the rear of the building. Two galleries for temporary exhibitions flank the atrium. The stairwell in the northwest corner is often cited as the buildings most interesting and dynamic artistic feature. The elevated views of Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
are considered to be a rewarding feature of the building. The building's 56 feet (17.1 m) glass facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
sits atop 16 feet (4.9 m) of Indiana limestone. The building is known for its hand-cast aluminum panels adjoined to the facade with stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
buttons. The building has two two-story gallery spaces and a smaller one-story gallery space on the second floor. The third floor has a gallery and exhibition space in its northwest section, and the forth floor has two large galleries, an exhibition space on the west side of the building, and a gallery in the southwest section.
The museum has a 296-seat multi-use theater with a proscenium
Proscenium
A proscenium theatre is a theatre space whose primary feature is a large frame or arch , which is located at or near the front of the stage...
-layout stage. The seats are laid out in 14 rows with two side aisle
Aisle
An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of seats on both sides or with rows of seats on one side and a wall on the other...
s. The stage is 52 by 34 ft (15.8 by 10.4 m) and elevated 36 inches (91.4 cm) above the floor level of the first row of seats. The house has a 12 degree
Degree (angle)
A degree , usually denoted by ° , is a measurement of plane angle, representing 1⁄360 of a full rotation; one degree is equivalent to π/180 radians...
incline. The stage has three curtains and four catwalks.
Critical review
Complaining that the structure has a more fortress-like exterior than its predecessor, Kamin viewed the architectural attempt as a fumbled work. However, he considered the interior to be serene and contemplative in a manner that complements the contemporary art and compact and organized in a manner that is an improvement on the more traditional mazeMaze
A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...
like museums. Comparing the building to the Sullivan Center and the Art Institute of Chicago Building
Art Institute of Chicago Building
The Art Institute of Chicago Building houses the Art Institute of Chicago, and is located in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The building is also located in Grant Park on the east side of Michigan Avenue, and marks the third...
, Kamin describes the museum as an homage to two of Chicago's architectural influences: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
and Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
. Other critics also note the presence of Mies van der Rohe's spirit in the architecture.
Chicago-based architect Douglas Garofalo has described the building as stark, intimidating and "incongruous with contemporary sensibilities". The interior atrium, which the architect claims links the city to the lake is part of a transcendent space that benefits from the sunlight
Sunlight
Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total frequency spectrum of electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the Earth's atmosphere, and solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon.When the direct solar radiation is not blocked...
that enters through the high glass walls. The building is said to be designed to separate the art from other distracting services and functions of the venue. Kamin was also pleased with the separate entrances on the main floor for the museum store and accessibility entrances.
New Vision
Announced by the Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in June 2011, the MCA is in the process of reinventing its identity with new curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
s, a new floor plan
Floor plan
In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan, or floorplan, is a diagram, usually to scale, showing a view from above of the relationships between rooms, spaces and other physical features at one level of a structure....
, and a new vision. MCA Director Madeleine Grynsztejn
Madeleine Grynsztejn
Madeleine Grynsztejn is the Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Grynsztejn became director in 2008.-Life and Education:...
says the museum seeks to be 50/50 artist-activated/audience-engaged. The main floor's north and south galleries will present exhibitions showcasing the museum's permanent collection and work by post-emerging contemporary artists. The third floor will be for the "Chicago Works" series. The fourth floor will have gallery spaces for the MCA Screen and MCA DNA series, while the main barrel-vaulted galleries will be for special exhibitions.
Collection
  |
The museum's collection consists of about 2,700 objects, as well as more than 3,000 artist's books. The collection includes works of art from 1945 to the present.
Former MCA Chief Curator Elizabeth Smith provided a narrative of the museum's collection. She says the collection has examples of late surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
, minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
, and conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
from the 1940s through the 1970s; work from the 1980s that can be grouped under postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
; and painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and related media current artists explore.
Notable Works
- Study for a Portrait, 1949, by Francis BaconFrancis Bacon (painter)Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...
- Les merveilles de la nature (The Wonders of Nature), 1953, René MagritteRené MagritteRené François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
- Polychrome and Horizontal Bluebird, 1954, by Alexander CalderAlexander CalderAlexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
- In Memory of My Feelings - Frank O'Hara, 1961, by Jasper JohnsJasper JohnsJasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
- Retroactive II, 1963, by Robert RauschenbergRobert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
- Jackie Frieze, 1964, by Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
- Untitled, 1970, Donald JuddDonald JuddDonald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...
- Untitled Film Still, #14, 1978, by Cindy ShermanCindy ShermanCindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
- Rabbit, 1986, by Jeff Koons
- Cindy, 1988, by Chuck CloseChuck CloseCharles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
- Presenting Negro Scenes Drawn Upon My Passage through the South and Reconfigured for the Benefit of Enlightened Audiences Wherever Such May Be Found, By Myself, Missus K.E.B. Walker, Colored, 1997, by Kara WalkerKara WalkerKara Walker is a contemporary African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes, such as The Means to an End--A Shadow Drama in Five Acts.-Biography:Walker was born in...
During the 2008 fiscal year the MCA celebrated its 40th anniversary, which inspired gifts of works by artists such as Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...
, Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives in New York. He was born in 1956 in Santiago de Chile. He is mostly known as an installation artist, often incorporating photography and covering socio-political issues and war - the best known perhaps being the 6-year long...
, and Thomas Ruff
Thomas Ruff
Thomas Ruff is an internationally renowned German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf.-Life:...
. Additionally, the museum expanded its collection by acquiring the work of some of the artists it presented during its anniversary celebration such as Carlos Amorales
Carlos Amorales
-Biography:Amorales studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam from 1992 to 1996.-Works:Amorales works in a variety of media, including video animation, painting, drawing, sculpture, and performance...
, Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler is a multimedia and installation artist.- Tapes, Installations: 1977-1989:Tony Oursler is known for his fractured-narrative handmade video tapes including The Loner, 1980 and EVOL 1984. These works involve elaborate sound tracks, painted sets, stop-action animation and optical special...
, and Adam Pendleton.
See also
- Chicago architectureChicago architectureThe architecture of Chicago has influenced and reflected the history of American architecture. The city of Chicago, Illinois features prominent buildings in a variety of styles by many important architects...
- Visual arts of ChicagoVisual arts of ChicagoVisual arts of Chicago refers to paintings, prints, illustrations, textile art, sculpture, ceramics and other visual artworks produced in Chicago or by people with a connection to Chicago. Since World War II, Chicago visual art has had a strong individualistic streak, little influenced by outside...
- List of museums and cultural institutions in Chicago
- Museum of Contemporary Art (disambiguation)
- MCA StageMCA StageThe MCA Stage is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s performing arts program. Founded in 1996 with the opening of the MCA’s new building at Chicago, Illinois.-History:...