Exhibition

Unfinished History

A dark vignette surrounds a person with female features cast in a blue light and passionately singing into a microphone

Shirin Neshat, Turbulent, 1998. Black-and-white video installation; dimensions variable. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Susan and Lewis Manilow, 2000.22. © 1998 Shirin Neshat.

© MCA Chicago

In the rush to mark the millennium, many artists have been expending their energies looking ahead rather than around. Unfinished History presents a different perspective on the approach of the year 2000, proposing that we focus on the present even as we take stock in the past and contemplate the future. The exhibition features the work of 23 artists contending with the realities and ambiguities of our century as it winds to a close.

Organized by Francesco Bonami and Douglas Fogle for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Unfinished History brings together contemporary artists from sixteen countries on five continents who work in architecture, film, photography, sculpture, installation art, video, and electronic music. These artists raise unsettling questions about our age in their powerful and humane works.

Funding

The Chicago presentation of Unfinished History is generously supported in part by Susan and Lewis Manilow; Donna and Howard Stone; Stefan Edlis and H. Gael Neeson; Judith Neisser; and Helen and Sam Zell.

Unfinished History was organized by Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The exhibition is made possible by major support from The Rockefeller Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Mondriaan Foundation, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the International Artists’ Studio Program in Sweden (IASPIS) in Stockholm, the Finnish Fund for Art Exchange (FRAME) in Helsinki, and Bahram Akradi.