Smart Museum exhibition to celebrate 40th anniversary of MacArthur Fellows Program
University of Chicago News
Toward Common Cause to open in summer 2021 with art from 28 MacArthur Fellows
Next summer, to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of the MacArthur Fellowships, the Smart Museum of Art will open an expansive multi-venue exhibition that will include the work of 28 MacArthur Fellows.
Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40 is being organized by the Smart Museum in collaboration with more than two dozen exhibition, programmatic and research partner organizations at the University of Chicago and across the city.
Opening in summer 2021, the exhibition will encompass a broad spectrum of contemporary artistic practice, including community-based projects realized in public spaces as well as solo and group presentations in multiple museum, gallery and community spaces. Participating artists include Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Nicole Eisenman, Wendy Ewald, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gary Hill, Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems among others.
The full list of artists and more details about the new exhibition are available at towardcommoncause.org.
“This project began three years ago with a sense of purpose that has only grown more urgent,” said Abigail Winograd, the MacArthur Fellows Program 40th Anniversary Exhibition Curator at the Smart Museum.
“In the midst of multiple calamities, I have been afforded the unimaginable privilege of working with this group of artists as they met and mentored youth, forged alliances to confront the disproportionate impacts of environmental pollution, and prepared to share their creative vision with all of us across Chicago. Their work has kept me from giving in to despair and offers a daily reminder that there is beauty and goodness in the world, that individual and collective action can change people’s lives.”
Toward Common Cause will use the idea of “the commons” to explore the current socio-political moment, in which questions of inclusion, exclusion, ownership, and rights of access are constantly being challenged across a wide array of human endeavors. It will be realized through collaboration with multiple exhibition sites as well as programmatic partners in neighborhoods across the city.
“Art is a vital social resource, especially in times defined by division, pandemic, and vitriol.” — Abigail Winograd
In addition to the Smart Museum, on-campus exhibition venues will include the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society. Other planned sites include the DuSable Museum of African American History, the National Museum of Mexican Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Newberry Library.
“The MacArthur Fellows Program is so pleased to support this ambitious exhibition as a way of connecting the work of MacArthur Fellows with local communities in the city of Chicago, MacArthur’s home city,” said Marlies Carruth, MacArthur Fellows program director. “Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the MacArthur Fellows Program, which recognizes and supports creative pursuits across all fields and disciplines, the exhibition will address themes and issues that reach across disciplines and approaches. In the face of today’s unprecedented challenges, Toward Common Cause makes a strong case for the vital role of creative thinking in imagining a better, more equitable future.”
“Toward Common Cause is a profoundly collaborative project and the Smart Museum is thrilled to move beyond its own walls in partnership with these exhibition, program, and research partners across Chicago,” said Amina Dickerson, co-interim director of the Smart Museum. “I hope that the exhibition will foster broader and deeper relationships between artists, institutions, and communities while creating a space for us to reflect on what it means to support a vibrant cultural community for all.”
Additional details about Toward Common Cause—including exhibition dates, visitor information for each venue, related programs, and a full checklist of works and projects—will be made available at a later date at towardcommoncause.org.
Courtesy of: UChicago News
