Exhibition
Commons Artist Project: blkHaUS studios
Documentation of blkHaUS studios, Sounding Bronzeville, 2016-present. Site-specific installation, Burnham Wildlife Corridor, Chicago.
Photo © Sandra Steinbrecher.
Human beings are natural collectors, be it of souvenirs found on vacations, heirlooms passed down from grandparents, or birthday cards received over the years. The items we hold on to reflect our social, cultural, and personal values. Likewise, museums tell stories by presenting all kinds of collected objects, which reflect the way they prioritize different social and cultural values.
In this Commons Artist Project, Folayemi Wilson and Norman Teague’s Chicago-based, socially focused design studio blkHaUS studios asks if understanding the stories of personal collections can transform the priorities of museums in forming their collections.
Historically, collections in contemporary art museums have preserved and revealed specific art historical lineages. These stories, however, are ultimately influenced by the social and political context in which museums collect. Over the last few years, some have deaccessioned works—a practice of collection care where some objects are routinely removed from their collections—with the specific intent to make room for works by artists whose ideas and art have been left out of the established canon, especially artists of color.
Over the course of the exhibition, blkHaUS brings together Chicago community members and local museums. Through thoughtfully constructed interactive experiences they collate and assess patterns of collecting, inviting audiences to share their personal objects and narratives around their modular artwork the Petal Table, focusing on key questions regarding collecting, archives, and museum practice. The Commons Table is structured as an open research model including four rotating exhibitions and five dinner discussions on topics related to collecting, community, and institutional practice. Each exhibition of The Commons Collection is preceded by a conversation that focuses on a question posed by blkHaUS studios. Events take place at sites throughout Chicago and are facilitated by community members whose work is related to these topics. At the end of the project, the artists share their findings with representatives from the MCA and other local museums to provide tools for museums to better reflect the communities with which they share space.
This exhibition is organized by Curator January Parkos Arnall and former Assistant Curator Christy LeMaster.
Rotating Exhibitions
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Exhibition Dates: Nov 12–Dec 8
Curators: Folayemi Wilson and Norman Teague
Conversation Leads: Lynne and Ty McDanielThis convening and exhibition consider how the potential for market value changes the ways we collect. What is it about modernism that has caught the imagination of design aficionados and collectors and elevated its aesthetic to elite, enduring status?
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Exhibition Dates: Dec 10–Jan 12
Curators: William Hill, artist and educator
Conversation Leads: Ann Lui, cofounder of Future FirmThis convening and exhibition consider how nature and the built environment coexist and whether natural forms might inform how we value designed objects. Are there ways that nature can help inform how we design 21st-century cities for 21st-century challenges?
From the Curator
The art of collecting is a way of establishing connections to objects on a personal and social level. Many of the objects collected here were based on the natural environment and personal journeys between the object and the collector. Overall, collectors’ insights united around meaningful experiences and reflected a shared sense of place, time, intergenerational connections, and projections of the global future.
The twenty-first century has allowed for an impetus, movement, or shift in collecting. New spaces that challenge institutional forums have surfaced and allow for the interjection of formally nuanced, silenced voices. These voices question traditional ways of collecting.
— William Hill, curator
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Exhibition Dates: Jan 14–Feb 9
Curator: Adero Knott, founder and CEO of AK Prosthetics
Conversation Lead: Bess Williamson, author of Accessible America: A History of Disability and DesignThis convening and exhibition consider how embracing a wider variety of perspectives and physical lived experiences might change our value structures for designed objects. How can we critique social constructions of disability and normalize bodily and sensory differences?
From the Curator
Disability is seen/unseen.
Disability is independent.
Disability is fashion.
Disability is resilient.
Disability is radical.
Disability is sexy.
Disability is infinite.In a time where able bodies control the built environment, that environment often excludes voices of people with disabilities. Disability and Perspective provides a glimpse into the lives of those forced to adapt to a world not designed for them and encourages the audience to consider how disability varies among individuals. The exhibition displays objects that are explicitly associated with disability, such as prosthetic devices, but also objects that are not, challenging the audience to see disability in a provocative light.
—Adero Knott, curator
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Exhibition Dates: Feb 11–Mar 1
Curators: Juarez Hawkins with TRACE, Teens Re-Imagining Art, Community & Environment
Conversation Lead: Paola Aguirre, artist and founder of Borderless StudioThis convening and exhibition consider how young people might reimagine collecting with their generation’s concerns at the forefront. What questions or issues are important to Chicago’s young people around art and design within institutional, social, and urban spaces?
From the Curator
What is “radical”? Participants in this conversation explored how radicalism encompasses the need for inclusion and connection—often to something greater than the individual—as well as a desire to reveal long-hidden truths. They examined the role of the radical as both revolutionary and visionary, an artist creating light out of darkness. Depictions of young people, especially youth of color, are often negative. These portrayals obscure the truth about their lives: keen intelligence, awareness, and a need to be seen in a more positive light. Radical Futures shares the stories of Chicago youth who are both revolutionary and visionary, actively working to make a meaningful impact on their communities.
The objects on display are signifiers of memory. Some invoke narratives of elders and ancestors, others speak to the wonder of creativity. Collectively, they remind us of our shared humanity.
—Juarez Hawkins with TRACE, Teens Re-Imagining Art, Community & Environment
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Participate
Open Hours, The Commons Collection
Conversations on Collecting
Due to the nature of the convenings and sites, events are limited to a small number of active participants. We welcome members of the public to join the conversation: pre-registration is required by emailing inquiries to publicprograms@mcachicago.org. Once confirmed, participants will receive the site address and additional instructions.
Conversation Dates
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Theme: Commodification of Modernism
Location: An Orange Moon and Tom Robinson Gallery
Conversation Leads: Lynne McDaniel, owner of An Orange Moon
Curators: Folayemi Wilson and Norman Teague
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Theme: Nature and Social Justice in Twenty-First-Century Cities
Location: Sherman Park
Conversation Leads: Ann Lui, cofounder of Future Firm
Curator: William Hill, artist and educator
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Theme: Disability and Perspective
Location: Arts of Life
Conversation Lead: Bess Williamson, author of Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design
Curator: Adero Knott, founder and CEO of AK Prosthetics
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Theme: Radical Futures
Location: Austin Town Hall
Conversation Lead: Paola Aguirre, artist and founder of Borderless Studio
Curator: Juarez Hawkins with TRACE, Teens Re-Imagining Art, Community & Environment
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Theme: Relationships between Collectors and Artists
Location: Home of Patric McCoy, art collector and environmental chemist
Conversation Lead: Patric McCoy
This convening considers how artists and collectors nurture meaningful relationships. What role does the collector play in helping to initiate and maintain the trajectory of an artist’s oeuvre, and how do relationships with artists help a collector to develop their collection of art?
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Theme: Conversations on Collecting: blkHaUS studios Final Report
Location: MCA Commons
Conversation Leads: Paola Aguirre, Ann Lui, Patric McCoy, Lynne McDaniel, Bess Williamson
This convening gathers insights from all of the previous dinner discussions and shares them with MCA staff and other local museum professionals.
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Related Events
Related Content
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Gallery Takeaway
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Video
Video Portraits
Watch stories behind the objects from the collectors themselves in these video portraits, produced by FCB in collaboration with the MCA, highlighting the works in the "Commons Artist Project: blkHaUS studios."
