Oct 24th 2019

Down Time: The Art of Retreat

@ Smart Museum of Art

5550 S Greenwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60637

Opening Thursday, October 24th, from 6:30PM - 8PM

On view through Sunday, December 15th

The artworks in Down Time present a range of public, private, and imagined settings—from lush gardens in France, to shadowy hallways, to kaleidoscopic landscapes—that point to realms of retreat. With particular attention to how artists have represented black subjects in places of respite, and how black artists have aspired to, imagined, performed, and created spaces for sustaining themselves at a remove from everyday life and extreme events, this exhibition asks: what drives the creation of these “other” spaces, how have artists envisioned them, and how does “getting away” shape an ultimate return?

A collaboratively produced exhibition organized through the Smart Museum of Art’s Feitler Center for Academic InquiryDown Time was conceptualized and curated by the University of Chicago graduate and undergraduate students of the Department of Art History’s course Exhibition in Practice taught by Leslie Wilson, with further support from two Summer Undergraduate Research Associates. The curatorial cohort worked closely with the Smart Museum’s team to shape all parts of this exhibition including selecting artworks from the Smart’s permanent collection and from private collectors, overall interpretation, design and layout, programming, and publications.

ARTISTS

Romare Bearden, Dino Campbell, Nick Cave, Roy DeCarava, Minnie Evans, Ja’Tovia Gary, Naima Green, Loïs Mailou Jones, Hughie Lee-Smith, Simone Leigh, Patric McCoy, Wayne F. Miller, Mario Moore, Faith Ringgold, Art Shay, Fazal Sheikh, Xaviera Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, Rosalind Solomon, John Szarkowski, James Van Der Zee, Carrie Mae Weems, Gerald Williams, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, and Derrick Woods-Morrow

 

FREE, open to all.

Image: Ja’Tovia Gary, Still from ‘Giverny I (Négresse Impériale),’ 2017, Video, 06:18. Courtesy the artist and galerie frank elbaz.

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