For a few decades at the beginning of the twentieth century, between the collapse of its fading colonial empire and the eruption of a civil war that led to 39 years of dictatorship, Spain saw a brief period of intense cultural revival. The painter Picasso and the philosopher Ortega y Gasset are internationally known, but other figures from this burst of Spanish modernism, including some of the most innovative composers of the twentieth century, have faded from popular memory. Their music and the contexts that produced it are the center of the festival, “Beyond Flamenco: Finding Spain in Music,” which takes the stage at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

On one wall, a woman cradles her dead child in her arms. On another, bloody birds are tacked to a barn door. Turn around and you will find—if your eyes are sharp enough to see across the dimly lit gallery—soulless corpses hovering above a dark Parisian skyline, victims of a cholera epidemic. You’ve been warned: “The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850-1900,” the new exhibit at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum, is not for the faint of heart. Read the rest of this entry »

Considered an essential component in the education of young English aristocrats, the Grand Tour’s objective was to broaden the mind, to polish one’s command of foreign languages, and to establish valuable personal and diplomatic connections by means of a lengthy stay abroad. The Tour’s standard itinerary included visits to all the major European capitals. The concept developed in earnest in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and peaked in the eighteenth century until travel was disrupted (as it was in other times of lawlessness) by the outbreak of the French Revolution. When tourism resumed in popularity to some degree in the early nineteenth century, the new efficiency of railroads meant the lapse of the Tour in its traditional form. However the legacy of its golden era is lasting. During that time Rome was the marquee destination of the Grand Tour, and it is now the focus of a new exhibit at the Smart Museum, “Sites to Behold: Travels in Eighteenth-Century Rome.” Read the rest of this entry »

A tall man from Mississippi stands in the doorway to his little house near 95th and Colfax. Across the tracks from Lake Calumet and a couple miles from the Indiana-Illinois border, he invites our 44-person group in with an enthusiastic wave.

The man’s name is Travis, and he is a visual artist, musician, Vietnam veteran, and resident of the Jeffery Manor neighborhood. He offers us chicken gumbo, collard greens, and cornbread. Then he tells us about the young people who moved into the neighborhood after the Robert Taylor Homes closed and about the old women who keep them in line. Read the rest of this entry »

At the Smart Museum’s student sneak preview of “Heartland,” curator Stephanie Smith asked the audience what they had expected from the title. Quilts, admitted one woman, shrugging. The title recalls images of hard-working, humble, and devout farm families working to feed all of America, their art limited to hand-stitched flags and corncob sculptures. In popular consciousness, Americana, or even the less kitschy but just as stereotyped American Regionalist style, represents the sum of Midwestern artistic achievement and thus makes it safely dismissible. But the show, organized by a collaboration between the Smart and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, presents art which is as politically informed, educated—and yes, hip—as anything on the coasts, albeit less narcissistic. “Heartland” emphasizes the communal aspect of many art projects in the Midwest, displaying objects and performances made by collaboration, but the modern small town includes black, female, and even foreign artists who help to redefine the heart of the country. Read the rest of this entry »

Photographs are an interesting thing: since their debut in the middle of the 19th century, they’ve promised the perfect vision of the world, entirely truthful and unaffected by human biases. Yet we have always tried to manipulate this medium to present ourselves in certain ways, to present a certain vision of the world. This is the premise of “Malleable Likeness and the Photographic Portrait,” a new exhibit at the Smart Museum. Developed by Michael Tymkiw, a PhD candidate in art history at the University of Chicago, along with the Smart Museum, the exhibit features rare works from private collections. Though it’s small, the exhibit’s drive is clear and its scope spans centuries. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, the Smart Museum of Art held the Yours Truly Letter Writing Workshop, inspired by the museum’s current exhibit, “Your Pal, Cliff: Selections from the H.C. Westermann Study Collection.” Drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, the exhibit contains over 800 letters Westermann wrote to others in addition to about 1000 letters the sculptor and printmaker collected and received over his lifetime. Jennifer Adams, a professor at DePauw University in Indiana, gave an enthusiastic lecture entitled “The Materiality and Lost Art of Letter Writing” about the history and function of letter writing. Read the rest of this entry »

Walking through the H. C. Westermann exhibit now showing at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art means embracing a certain degree of sensory overload. Its title “Your Pal, Cliff,” references the artist’s prolific letter writing, and the exhibit features an enormous collection of his personal and professional correspondence along with sculptures, prints, drawings, sketchbooks, tools, and printing blocks. The extensive presentation of Westermann’s artwork and paraphernalia gives the exhibit a circus atmosphere, which makes for a frenetic viewing experience. To their credit, the curators structure the exhibit around persistent motifs in his work. Despite this, and Westermann’s bawdy, morbid humor, it’s a challenging exhibit. Read the rest of this entry »