EXPO CHICAGO, an annual gathering of contemporary art galleries at Navy Pier, kicked off at South Side Night on April 22. In collaboration with UChicago Arts and Block Club Chicago, 10 venues across the South Side opened late with special programming.
Head Arts Editor Nolan Shaffer and Arts Reporter Jessalin Nguyen give a play-by-play of the night as they visit three venues. Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity. Comments added afterwards are italicized.
Smart Museum of Art
Shortly before 6 p.m., we begin South Side Night at the Smart Museum of Art. Currently on display through July 13 is Expanding the 50th: Shared Stories, a revamped presentation of the institution’s permanent collection.
Jessalin Nguyen: Walking into the Smart, I immediately felt a sense of incongruity. The lobby, featuring an installation by South Side artist Robert Earl Paige titled Give the Drummer Some! is decorated with a zebra print, circular monochrome cutouts, and eccentrically-colored bean bags. Walking into the exhibit hall, the first thing I was drawn to was a giant screen on the right-hand side: Ever Blossoming Life—Gold, a 2014 digital piece by teamLab with ever-moving leaves and petals. At one point, the screen flooded into a blossoming pink; by the time we left, the piece had cycled back into a scene of budding brown twigs.
Nolan Shaffer: It strikes me that these works are very “transmedium.” There’s sculpture, painting, and digital work, and it [all] really highlights the breadth of the collection. Given that the collection has so many different styles, different mediums, different periods, how do you think the curation choices have leaned into that, without it just being a hodgepodge of things? Do you feel any sense of continuity between the works?
JN: I feel like it makes spectators choose what they want to see. The way I’m navigating this feels more like a choose-my-own-adventure. Whatever catches my eye, whatever medium I enjoy interacting with more, is the one I go towards. So it feels less like a hodgepodge and more like you get to explore it.
NS: It is striking to see pieces from literally hundreds of years apart sitting right next to each other. It inevitably puts them in conversation with each other, which is kind of weird.
JN: I think it makes it circular, you know? There’s a sense of continuity with this older [oil painting]. [It’s a work from 1848, and] people are still practicing these art styles today. We might look at it as a more antique, traditional way of art, but it’s still practiced now.
NS: What might feel isolated, like an antiquated method of art, becomes modern and relevant again when presented in this context. As a viewer, I’m thinking, how far have we gone in 150 years? And how can we use the latest tools in art-making and inquiry to get more out of these older works? This exhibition really does feel in line with Smart’s mission of “rigorous inquiry and exchange that encourages the examination of complex issues through the lens of art objects and artistic practice.”
NS: Another thing that strikes me is how different the framing is on all of these pieces. I don’t think I would have realized that if they were part of a consistent collection. It’s like there’s a lot of latent assumptions in a style or period of art that you don’t realize until it’s put on display against other styles.
First Presbyterian Church of Chicago
At 7 p.m., we make our way south of campus to the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago for a Toast to the South Side, and a group performance by Margaret Crowley about basketball, titled Milking It.
JN: I’m surprised at how big [the space is]. I’m also surprised at how many people are here, considering that there [are] so many EXPO locations [tonight]. This is a really successful event in terms of turnout.
NS: There’s a lot of people and a lot of excited energy. The crowd is pretty diverse: there are a few people from the University that I recognize and some people who tell me they’re from the South Side, but it seems like most people here are from Chicago’s broader art scene.
JN: I think it’s nice that there is such a mix [of people]. It doesn’t seem like this is geared towards only one type of person. There are children, older people, and people in between who seem like they have just gotten off work. It seems like there is a really big community here.
NS: And there is a lot of cool art too, through the church, through the space.
JN: Even just heading up to the performance itself.
We follow a throng of people into a gymnasium upstairs for the performance. It’s packed, and there’s not enough seats for everyone, but the atmosphere is energetic.
JN: The lights dim to only the candles perched in the middle of the gym. All the actors, half wearing red and half wearing blue, start at one side of the stage and run up one by one to blow out the candles. The rest of the performance seems to be split into sections, with movements becoming more and more akin to a real game of basketball—actors even mime passing a basketball to each other by the end.
JN: What did you think of the performance?
NS: I thought that some of the visuals were a bit captivating or at least intriguing. It felt like a lot of the performance was about this interplay and relationship between the two teams, red and blue.
JN: Do you think you understood it off the bat? Because we came in not getting any sort of foreword or program. I think that threw me off coming in, [and] I didn’t know what to expect. When the two teams came out, I didn’t understand that it was going to be a sports metaphor.
NS: I thought the site specificity was cool, [since] it was a performance piece about basketball. If it weren’t in a gym, if [it were instead] on a stage, I don’t know if that message would have come across as clearly. [The whole thing] felt like the essence of basketball.
JN: Watching people move around back and forth on a court… in the end, [it’s] all just movement. Like the beginning of the piece (with abstract movements that felt like basketball warmups)—even though that was funky, that’s just movement. And at the end, when they’re going back and forth around the court with the imaginary ball, that’s also just movement. But one is normal to me (the game of basketball) and the other is “othered.”
NS: I think the performance was questioning basketball as performance, or games as performance. It’s like, if this were a basketball game, you wouldn’t have been thinking about the [outfits or shoes]. The fact that they called this a performance, we sat down, and they had the candles blowing out at the beginning added an element of ritual to it.
JN: Because I was thinking of it in a more artistic perspective, I was more critical of choices, like fashion, how people were choosing to move, [and] how some people had more energy in their movements than others. But you’re right—if it were in a sports arena, I wouldn’t be critical about every detail. In fact, I’d likely support this differentiation because it would make each player unique. In that way, the sport could become more individualized, whereas this performance seemed to get at the anonymity of individual players in team sports.
Before we left, we spoke briefly to Christine Matthews, arts liaison at First Presbyterian.
NS: Is there anything that you want students or University community members to know about arts on the South Side or arts at [First Presbyterian]?
Christine Matthews: The arts of First Presbyterian Church are focused on specifically South Side artists that aren’t really accepted in… places like the Logan Arts Center or other places in the UChicago campus or outside of it. This church is more of an accessible space [with] this idea of showcasing the arts that are happening right here on the South Side, outside of any other purview, or what is deemed as “South Side arts.”
NS: Do artists submit pieces? Do you reach out to them?
CM: It’s a mixture of both. [We have] an Artist-In-Residence program… [where we can showcase] artists from the South Side.
You can find works from the Artist-In-Residence program in the GO TOGETHER exhibit, on view through June 30.
Arts Block
To wrap up the night, we went to the Arts Block at 8 p.m., an initiative of UChicago Arts + Public Life that bills itself as “a vibrant collection of cultural and commercial spaces along Garfield Boulevard.”
At A Listening Space on 305 East Garfield Boulevard, anyone can enjoy a free cup of tea and listen to selections from an extensive collection of records.
NS: This space is beautiful. And there’s literally thousands of records [and] massive speakers. We’re sitting at a wood table, there’s this beautiful retro couch over there, a piano, and a DJ deck. This whole space has been so well curated. [There are] very comforting and cozy colors.
NS: So if you’re curious about the record collection, you can come here and it’s completely free. I’m still a bit shocked by the model here… I was like, “How do you pay?” And [the server] was like, “It’s free.” I’m like, “Oh, because of this South Side event.” And he’s like, “No, all the time.”
JN: [This place] feels so based in the community. You can just come in and vibe. We’re missing third spaces and this feels like an answer to that.
We headed next door to Arts + Public Life for the undercommons, on view through August 30.
NS: This exhibit features a collection of paintings. What stands out the most to me is the compelling narrative work and self-reflection that Carlton is doing in these pieces.
JN: I think the curator did a good job with the utilization of the [small] space.… You have 3D art, hanging canvases, and then [these other] canvases on every surface space. So you are able to really get different layers [of art].
NS: We got to speak with the artist and the curator, which was pretty cool.
NS: Carlton was very honest with us, and he was clearly very excited about his work. He has only been painting for about six years, and he’s already developed a unique visual style. In the future and in his most recent work, he’s looking to experiment with incorporating more elements of realism.
JN: The colors are very vibrant, which [is] usually something I lean towards. Carlton was amazing to talk to because we could gain insight to the different choices that were made—why a certain character of his was highlighted, for instance. One of the most striking pieces that we saw was a 2020 acrylic on wood piece titled Stolen Culture, featuring two sets of hands with two different complexions reaching for the same stack of books. It felt very dynamic in the curation space due to its dimensions, with parts of it sticking out and creating a semi-floating effect.
