Chicago and Art (The MCA)

 

Yesterday's August Art Adventure was to the Museum of Contemporary Art (The MCA) which is the one at Water Tower not the one that is part of The Art Institute downtown. 

The MCA is a wonderful source of art that is free every Tuesday for all of us who live in Illinois (The whole state not just Chicago.) 

Currently you can order your tickets online but I found it worked just as well just walking up though it would not hurt to double check the day of to make sure there is availability listed in case a particular day is a busy day. (The day I went I saw you could still get tickets for every time period so I assumed correctly that they were likely to have walk up tickets still available)

You now enter on the bottom floor near the theater (so the opposite side as the gift shop) and masks are required for everyone.

So now that you know all the details about going lets get to the art. 

I personally found the work by Christina Quarles to be challenging because it seemed to fit in an odd space of being both too abstract for me and not abstract enough for me at the same time. She morphed figures until they were hardly recognizable which I found a bit creepy.

I found Carolina Caycedo's From The Bottom of the River more interesting. She worked with a variety of mediums including a fascinating film called Apparitions which was a recording of a performance art piece, and sculptures made out of fishing nets, to represent the various social justice issues in South America around water, water use, and dams. 

There were several tiny exhibits I looked at including Grain of a Hand Drawings w/ graphite and while the Chicago Works: Caroline Kent was not officially opened (It opened at 5 yesterday but I was gone by then) it was small enough I could see it all from the doorway anyway.

The big exhibit was Chicago Comics 1960's to Now which was fun because I enjoy comics and one or two of the creator's works I recognized from other local comic event promotional materials. While it was enjoyable since I did not grow up on many if any of the artists represented I found I sometimes struggled to feel invested. I will say one of my favorite parts was Lilli Carre film Glazing (2021) which was a short film played on continuous repeat and was focused on all the people and identities we try on and discard throughout our lives.

So one of my Art Adventures this week was visiting an Art Museum. If you live in a large city look into what art museums are available and know that many have certain days/nights/random times which are free to the public which helps reduce the financial costs of being able to see art.