The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

near Water Tower Place in downtown

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in Cook County,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues. The museum's collection is composed of thousands of objects of Post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...

. The museum is run gallery-style, with individually curated exhibitions throughout the year. Each exhibition may be composed of temporary loans, pieces from their permanent collection, or a combination of the two. The museum has hosted several notable debut exhibitions including

Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...

's first U.S. exhibition and Jeff Koons' first solo museum exhibition. Koons later presented an exhibit at the museum that broke the museum's attendance record. The current record for the most attended exhibition is the 2017 exhibition of Takashi Murakami work. The museums collection, which includes Jasper Johns,

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, and Alexander Calder, contains historical samples of 1940s–1970s late

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

, pop art,

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

, and

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

; notable holdings 1980s

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

; as well as contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and related media. It also presents dance, theater, music, and multidisciplinary arts. The current location at 220 East Chicago Avenue is in the

Streeterville Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River. It is bounded by the river on the south, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue on the west, and ...

neighborhood of the Near North Side community area. Josef Paul Kleihues designed the current building after the museum conducted a 12-month search, reviewing more than 200 nominations. The museum was initially located at 237 East Ontario Street, which was originally designed as a bakery. The current building is known for its signature staircase leading to an elevated ground floor, which has an atrium, the full glass-walled east and west façades giving a direct view of the city and

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

History

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago was created as the result of a 1964 meeting of 30 critics, collectors and dealers at the home of critic Doris Lane Butler to bring the long-discussed idea of a museum of

to complement the city's

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, according to a

grand opening An opening ceremony, grand opening, or ribbon-cutting ceremony marks the official opening of a newly-constructed location or the start of an event.

story in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. It opened in fall 1967 in a small space at 237 East Ontario Street that had for a time served as the corporate offices of Playboy Enterprises. Its first director was Jan van der Marck. In 1970 he invited

Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...

to make the ''Concrete Traffic'' sculpture in Chicago. Initially, the museum was conceived primarily as a space for temporary exhibitions, in the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

kunsthalle A kunsthalle is a facility that mounts temporary art exhibitions, similar to an art gallery. It is distinct from an art museum by not having a permanent collection. In the German-speaking regions of Europe, ''Kunsthallen'' are often operated by ...

'' model. However, in 1974, the museum began acquiring a permanent collection of contemporary art objects created after 1945. The MCA expanded into adjacent buildings to increase gallery space; and in 1977, following a fundraising drive for its 10th anniversary, a three-story neighboring

townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...

was purchased, renovated, and connected to the museum. In 1978,

Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Matta-Clark (born Gordon Roberto Matta-Echaurren; June 22, 1943 – August 27, 1978) was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art. ...

executed his final major project in the townhouse. In his work ''Circus Or The Caribbean Orange'' (1978), Matta-Clark made circle cuts in the walls and floors of the townhouse next-door to the first museum. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

In 1991, the museum's Board of Trustees contributed $37 million ($ million today) of the expected $55 million ($ million) construction costs for Chicago's first new museum building in 65 years. Six of the board members were central to the fundraising as major donors: Jerome Stone (chairman emeritus of

Stone Container Corporation Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation was a global paperboard and paper-based packaging company based in Creve Coeur, Missouri, and Chicago, Illinois, with approximately 21,000 employees. In 2007, Smurfit-Stone was ranked 13 in PricewaterhouseC ...

), Beatrice C. Mayer (daughter of Sara Lee Corporation founder

Nathan Cummings Nathan Cummings (born Komiensky; 14 October 1896 – 19 February 1985) was a Jewish-Canadian-American businessman, investor and philanthropist. He was the founder of Consolidated Foods, which later became known by one of its product lines, Sara Le ...

) and family, Mrs. Edwin Lindy Bergman, the Neison Harris (president of Pittway Corporation) and Irving Harris families, and Thomas and Frances Dittmer (commodities). The Board of Trustees then weighed architectural proposals from six finalists:

Emilio Ambasz Emilio Ambasz (born June 13, 1943, in Resistencia, Chaco, Argentina) is an Argentinian-US architect and award-winning industrial designer. From 1969 to 1976 he was Curator of Design at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. Ambasz has been labele ...

of New York;

Tadao Ando is a Japanese autodidact architect whose approach to architecture and landscape was categorized by architectural historian Francesco Dal Co as "critical regionalism". He is the winner of the 1995 Pritzker Prize. Early life Ando was born a few m ...

of Osaka, Japan; Josef Paul Kleihues of Berlin;

Fumihiko Maki is a Japanese architect who teaches at Keio University SFC. In 1993, he received the Pritzker Prize for his work, which often explores pioneering uses of new materials and fuses the cultures of east and west. Early life Maki was born in Tokyo. A ...

of Tokyo; Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif.; and Christian de Portzamparc of Paris. According to ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

-winning architecture critic

Blair Kamin Blair Kamin was the architecture critic of the ''Chicago Tribune'', for 28 years from 1992 to 2021. Kamin has held other jobs at the Tribune and previously worked for ''The Des Moines Register''. He also serves as a contributing editor of ''Archit ...

, the list of contenders was controversial because no Chicago-based architects were included as finalists despite the fact that prominent Chicago architects such as Helmut Jahn and

Stanley Tigerman Stanley Tigerman (September 20, 1930 – June 3, 2019) was an American architect, theorist and designer. Biography Early years Tigerman was born into a Jewish family, the only child of Emma (Stern), a typist for the federal government, and Sam ...

were among the 23 semi-finalists. In fact, none of the finalists had made any prior structures in Chicago. The selection process, which started with 209 contenders, was based on professional qualifications, recent projects, and the ability to work closely with the staff of the aspiring museum. In 1996, the MCA opened its current museum at 220 East Chicago Avenue, which was the site of a former National Guard Armory between

and Michigan Avenue from 1907 until it was demolished in 1993 to make way for the MCA. The four-story building designed by Josef Paul Kleihues, which was five times larger than its predecessor, made the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago the largest institution devoted to contemporary art in the world. The physical structure is said to reference the

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

as well as the tradition of Chicago architecture. The museum opened at its new location June 21–22, 1996, with a 24-hour event that drew more than 25,000 visitors. For its 50th anniversary in 2017, the museum unveiled a $16 million renovation by architects Johnston Marklee, which redesigned 12,000 square feet within the existing footprint of the original Joseph Paul Kleihues design.

Operation

The museum operates as a

tax-exempt Tax exemption is the reduction or removal of a liability to make a compulsory payment that would otherwise be imposed by a ruling power upon persons, property, income, or transactions. Tax-exempt status may provide complete relief from taxes, redu ...

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

, and its exhibitions, programming, and operations are member-supported and privately funded. The board of trustees is composed of 6 officers, 16 life trustees, and more than 46 trustees. The current board chair is Michael O'Grady. The museum also has a director, who oversees the MCA's staff of about 100.

Madeleine Grynsztejn Madeleine Grynsztejn (born 1962) is the Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Grynsztejn became director in 2008. Life and education Grynsztejn was born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and London, England ...

replaced 10-year director Robert Fitzpatrick during the 2008

fiscal year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...

in this capacity, and she is the MCA's first female director. The museum operates with three programming departments: Curatorial, Performance, and Learning and Public Programs. The curatorial staff consists of James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator Michael Darling, Senior Curator Naomi Beckwith, Adjunct Curator

Lynne Warren Lynne Warren an American curator and writer who worked from 1977 to 2020 at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago. She is a scholar of the Chicago Imagists, conceptual photography, Alexander Calder, and Chicago art from the mid-twenty-fir ...

, Associate Curator of Performance Tara Aisha Willis, and Assistant Curator Grace Deveney. In 2009, the museum reported $17.5 million in both operating income, 50% of which came from contributions, and

operating expense An operating expense, operating expenditure, operational expense, operational expenditure or opex is an ongoing cost for running a product, business, or system . Its counterpart, a capital expenditure (capex), is the cost of developing or provid ...

s. Contributions were received from individuals, corporations, foundations, government entities, and fundraising. In 2016, the museum reported $23 million in both operating income and operating expenses. 60.3% came from contributions. The museum is closed Mondays and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with extended hours of operation on Tuesdays and Fridays until 9 p.m. While the museum has no mandatory admission charge, suggested admission is $15 for adults and $8 for students, teachers and seniors. Admission is free for MCA members, members of the military and all youth 18 and under. It currently provides free admission to Illinois residents every Tuesday. During the summers, the museum provides free outdoor Tuesday

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

concerts. In addition to art exhibits, the museum offers dance, theater, music, and multidisciplinary arts. The programming includes primary projects and festivals of a broad spectrum of artists presented in performance, discussion, and workshop formats.

Exhibitions

Past

In its first year of operation, the museum hosted the exhibitions, ''Pictures To Be Read/Poetry To Be Seen,'' '' Claes Oldenburg: Projects for Monuments,'' and ''Dan Flavin: Pink and Gold'', which was the artist's first solo show. In 1969, the museum served as the site of Christo's first building wrap in the United States. It was wrapped in more than 8,000 square feet (700 m²) of tarpaulin and rope. The following year it hosted one-person shows for

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

, and

. The MCA has also played host to the first American and solo exhibitions of prominent artists such as

in 1978. Other exhibition highlights include the first solo museum shows of Dan Flavin, in 1967, and Jeff Koons, in 1988. In 1989, the MCA hosted ''

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...

, The Perfect Moment,'' a traveling exhibition organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. Additional highlights of exhibitions organized or co-organized by the MCA include: *

Enrico Baj Enrico Baj (October 31, 1924 – June 15, 2003)June 15 according to the Guardian, June 17 according to the-artists.org was an Italian artist and writer on art. Many of his works show an obsession with nuclear war. He created prints, sculptur ...

(1971) *

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

(1972) *

Lee Bontecou Lee Bontecou (January 15, 1931 – November 8, 2022) was an American sculptor and printmaker and a pioneer figure in the New York art world. She kept her work consistently in a recognizable style, and received broad recognition in the 1960s. Bont ...

(1972) *

Richard Artschwager Richard Ernst Artschwager (December 26, 1923 – February 9, 2013) was an American painter, illustrator and sculptor. His work has associations with Pop Art, Conceptual art and Minimalism. Early life and art Richard Artschwager was born to Europe ...

(1973) *

Thomas Kovachevich Thomas Kovachevich (born March 11, 1942) is an American contemporary visual artist and physician. Kovachevich's art practice is multi-faceted; exhibitions of paintings, sculptures, installations and performances have represented the lexicon of thi ...

(1973) * Robert Irwin (1975) * Vito Acconci (1980) *

Magdalena Abakanowicz Marta Magdalena Abakanowicz-Kosmowska (20 June 1930 – 20 April 2017) was a Polish sculptor and fiber artist. She was known for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium and her outdoor installations. She is widely regarded as one of Poland ...

(1982) *

Lorna Simpson Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as ''Guarded Conditions'' and ''Square Deal''. Simpson is most well-known for her work in c ...

(1992) *

Beverly Semmes Beverly Semmes (born 1958) is an American artist based in New York City who works in sculpture, textile, video, photography, performance, and large-scale installation. She studied at the Boston Museum School, Tufts University, and at the Yale Un ...

(1995) * Mona Hatoum (1997) * Tom Friedman (2000) * John Currin (2003) *

Rudolf Stingel Rudolf Stingel (born 1956) is an artist based in New York City. Stingel was born in Merano, Italy. His work engages the audience in dialogue about their perception of art and uses Conceptual painting and installations to explore the process of cr ...

(2007)

Recent

In 2006, the MCA was the only American museum to host

Bruce Mau Bruce Mau D.Litt. (born October 25, 1959) is a Canadian designer and educator. He began his career a graphic designer and has since applied his design methodology to architecture, art, museums, film, eco-environmental design, education, and conc ...

Massive Change Massive Change is an exhibition and book by designer Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries, co-authored by Jennifer Leonard from her edited interviews. Purpose The exhibition, which was commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery and spons ...

exhibit, which concerned the social, economic, and political effects of design. Additional 2006 exhibitions featured photographers

Catherine Opie Catherine Sue Opie (born 1961) is an American fine-art photographer and educator. She lives and works in Los Angeles, as a professor of photography at University of California at Los Angeles. Opie studies the connections between mainstream and i ...

and

Wolfgang Tillmans Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. Tillmans was the first photog ...

as well as Chicago-based cartoonist Chris Ware. The 2008 Koons retrospective broke the attendance record with 86,584 visitors for the May 31 – show of September 21, 2008. This was the culminating exhibit of the 2008

, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the museum. In 2009, the MCA presented Jeremy Deller's exhibition ''It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq''. The exhibition was organized by the New Museum, and it was a new commission by the New Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

, Los Angeles. Co-organized by the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

and the

Wexner Center for the Arts The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art". The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limite ...

, the MCA presented ''

Luc Tuymans Luc Tuymans (born 14 June 1958) is a Belgian visual artist best known for his paintings which explore people's relationship with history and confront their ability to ignore it. World War II is a recurring theme in his work. He is a key figure ...

'' from October 2010 – January 2011. '' Susan Philipsz: We Shall Be All'' was presented at the MCA February – June 2011. The

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

-winning artist's sound exhibition featured protest songs and drew from Chicago's labor history. The exhibition ''

Eiko & Koma Eiko Otake and Takashi Koma Otake, generally known as Eiko & Koma, are a Japanese performance duo. Since 1972, Eiko & Koma have worked as co-artistic directors, choreographers, and performers, creating a unique theater of movement out of stillness ...

: Time is Not Even, Space is Not Empty'' is the first series of stage performances and a gallery exhibition presented at the MCA. The Japanese-born choreographers and dance artists perform and exhibit at the MCA June – November 2011. In 2014, the MCA was the only US venue to mount the David Bowie Is... exhibition, which broke previous attendance records for the museum. To date, the most attended exhibition is the 2017 ''Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg'' exhibit, which broke the ''David Bowie Is...'' record set in 2014 with over 193,000 attendees. Following ''David Bowie Is...'', the MCA debuted the critically acclaimed exhibition '' Kerry James Marshall: Mastry'' in 2016. ''Mastry'' later traveled to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York, and the

Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's or ...

. In 2017, the MCA curated a show by the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami which set attendance records, and in 2019 the museum launched a mid-career retrospective for the work of the American designer Virgil Abloh, a sometime collaborator of Murakami's. In 2020, the MCA opened "Duro Olowu:Seeing Chicago", a curated exhibition by Duro Olowu of over 350 artworks from Chicago which marked the first time the museum had hired a guest art curator.

Recurring programs

After a 10-year run, the exhibition series ''UBS 12x12: New Artists/New Work'' is moving from the second floor to the third floor, into a larger gallery space and will change its name to "Chicago Works." The exhibition series will still feature Chicago-area artists. Rather than each artist being displayed for one month, each exhibition in the series will now be displayed for three months. Starting in 2002, the MCA began commissioning artists and architects to design and construct public art for the front plaza. The goal of the program is to link the museum to its neighboring community by extending its programmatic, educational, and outreach functions. While artists have been exhibited intermittently on the MCA plaza since 2002, the summer 2011 plaza exhibit showcasing four works by Miami-based sculptor

Mark Handforth Mark Handforth (born in Hong Kong 1969) is a sculptor based in Miami, Florida. Some of his works are attributed to site-specific art. In 2007 he installed a sculpture titled ''Dallas Snake'' in the park of the Dallas Museum of Art. Four works are ...

marks a revitalization of the plaza project. From October through May, the MCA hosts monthly Family Days, which feature artistic activities for all ages. Each summer, the museum hosts Tuesdays on the Terrace, a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

performance series, and a

Farmers Market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or ...

on the MCA plaza on Tuesdays from June through October. Year round, the MCA offers a Tuesday evening series, In Progress, that explores the creative process, in addition to a Friday evening series led by local artists in the museum's public engagement space, the Commons.

Performance

The

MCA Stage The MCA Stage is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s performing arts program. Founded in 1996 with the opening of the MCA’s new building in Chicago, Illinois. History In 1996, Peter Taub was appointed as the MCA director of Performance P ...

has featured local, national, and international theater, dance, music, multimedia, and film performances. It is known as the "most active interdisciplinary arts presenter in Chicago" and partners with local community organizations for the co-presentations of performing arts. Notable

appearances include performances by

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...

, eighth blackbird, Peter Brook, Marie Chouinard, Merce Cunningham,

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She wa ...

, Akram Khan,

Taylor Mac Taylor Mac Bowyer (born August 24, 1973) is an American actor, playwright, performance artist, director, producer, and singer-songwriter active mainly in New York City. In 2017, Mac was the recipient of a "Genius Grant" from the John D. and Cath ...

, and

Twyla Tharp Twyla Tharp (; born July 1, 1941) is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966 she formed the company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music. Fr ...

New structure

The new five-

storey A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

and cast-

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

structure was designed by

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Josef Paul Kleihues. The building, which opened in 1996, contains of gallery space (seven times the space of the old museum), a theater, studio-classrooms, an education center, a museum store, a restaurant-café, and a sculpture garden. The MCA building was Kleihues's first American structure. Its construction cost

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

46.5 million ($ million today). The sculpture garden, which is , includes a sculptural installation by

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

and sculptures by George Rickey and Jane Highstein. The floor plan of both the building and the sculpture garden is a square, on which the proportions of the building is based. The building's main entrance, which is accessed by scaling 32 steps, uses both symmetry and transparency as themes for its large central glass walls that compose the majority of both the east and west

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

s of the building. Two additional entrances—into the education center and into the museum store—are located on either side of the main staircase. The monumental staircase with projecting bays and plinths that may be used as the base for sculpture is reminiscent of the propyleia of the

Acropolis An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens, ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

. The main level entry hall has an adjacent atrium that connects it to a restaurant in the rear of the building. Two galleries for temporary exhibitions flank the atrium. The stairwell in the northwest corner is often cited as the buildings most interesting and dynamic artistic feature. The elevated views of

are considered to be a rewarding feature of the building. The building's glass facade sits atop of Indiana limestone. The building is known for its hand-cast aluminum panels adjoined to the facade with

stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...

buttons. The building has two two-story gallery spaces and a smaller one-story gallery space on the second floor. The third floor has a gallery and exhibition space in its northwest section, and the fourth floor has two large galleries, an exhibition space on the west side of the building, and a gallery in the southwest section. The museum has a 296-seat multi-use theater with a

proscenium A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

-layout stage. The seats are laid out in 14 rows with two side

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

s. The stage is and elevated above the floor level of the first row of seats. The house has a 12

degree Degree may refer to: As a unit of measurement * Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement ** Degree of geographical latitude ** Degree of geographical longitude * Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathematics ...

incline. The stage has three curtains and four catwalks. For its 50th anniversary in 2017, the museum unveiled a $16 million renovation by architects Johnston Marklee, which redesigned within the existing footprint of the original Joseph Paul Kleihues design. In 2017, the MCA commissioned architects Johnston Marklee to redesign select public spaces of the museum to create three major new offerings: Marisol, the ground-floor destination restaurant with an immersive art environment by international artist Chris Ofili; a social engagement space called the Commons on the second floor with an installation by Pedro y Juana; and a new third floor with classrooms and a flexible meeting space that puts learning at the very center of the museum. This major $16-million renovation converted of interior space and coincided with the MCA's 50th anniversary.

Critical review

Complaining that the structure has a more fortress-like exterior than the museum's earlier home, Kamin viewed the architectural attempt as a fumbled work. However, he considered the interior to be serene and contemplative in a manner that complements the contemporary art and compact and organized in a manner that is an improvement on the more traditional

maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...

like museums. Comparing the building to the

Sullivan Center The Sullivan Center, formerly known as the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building or Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Store, is a commercial building at 1 South State Street at the corner of East Madison Street in Chicago, Illinois. Louis S ...

and the

Art Institute of Chicago Building The Art Institute of Chicago Building (1893 structure built as the ''World's Congress Auxiliary Building'') houses the Art Institute of Chicago, and is part of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District in the Loop community are ...

, Kamin describes the museum as an homage to two of Chicago's architectural influences:

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

and Louis Sullivan. Other critics also note the presence of Mies van der Rohe's spirit in the architecture. Chicago-based architect Douglas Garofalo has described the building as stark, intimidating and "incongruous with contemporary sensibilities". The interior atrium, which the architect claims links the city to the lake is part of a transcendent space that benefits from the

sunlight Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when t ...

that enters through the high glass walls. The building is said to be designed to separate the art from other distracting services and functions of the venue. Kamin was also pleased with the separate entrances on the main floor for the museum store and accessibility entrances.

New vision

Announced by the ''

'' in June 2011, the MCA is in the process of reinventing its identity with new

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

s, a new floor plan, and a new vision. MCA Director

says the museum seeks to be 50/50 artist-activated/audience-engaged. The main floor's north and south galleries will present exhibitions showcasing the museum's permanent collection and work by post-emerging contemporary artists. The third floor will be for the "Chicago Works" series. The fourth floor will have gallery spaces for the MCA Screen and MCA DNA series, while the main barrel-vaulted galleries will be for special exhibitions.

Collection

The museum's collection consists of about 2,700 objects, as well as more than 3,000 artist's books. The collection includes works of art from 1945 to the present. Former MCA Chief Curator Elizabeth Smith provided a narrative of the museum's collection. She says the collection has examples of late

, pop art,

, and

from the 1940s through the 1970s; work from the 1980s that can be grouped under

; and painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and related media current artists explore.

Notable works

* ''Study for a Portrait'', 1949, by

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

* ''Les merveilles de la nature (The Wonders of Nature)'', 1953, René Magritte * ''Polychrome and Horizontal Bluebird'', 1954, by Alexander Calder * ''In Memory of My Feelings - Frank O'Hara'', 1961, by Jasper Johns * ''Retroactive II'', 1963, by

*''Jackie Frieze'', 1964, by

*''Untitled'', 1970, Donald Judd *''Untitled Film Still, #14'', 1978, by Cindy Sherman *''Farmer's Dream'', 1980, by Richard Hunt *''Rabbit'', 1986, by Jeff Koons * ''Cindy'', 1988, by

*''Presenting Negro Scenes Drawn Upon My Passage through the South and Reconfigured for the Benefit of Enlightened Audiences Wherever Such May Be Found, By Myself, Missus K.E.B. Walker, Colored'', 1997, by Kara Walker During the 2008 fiscal year the MCA celebrated its 40th anniversary, which inspired gifts of works by artists such as Dan Flavin,

Alfredo Jaar Alfredo Jaar (; ; born 1956) is a Chilean-born artist, architect, photographer and filmmaker who lives in New York City. He is mostly known as an installation artist, often incorporating photography and covering socio-political issues and war—t ...

, and

Thomas Ruff Thomas Ruff (born 10 February 1958) is a German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He has been described as "a master of edited and reimagined images". Ruff shares a studio on Düsseldorf's Hansaallee, with fellow German ...

. Additionally, the museum expanded its collection by acquiring the work of some of the artists it presented during its anniversary celebration such as Carlos Amorales, Tony Oursler, and Adam Pendleton. In 2022, collector and entrepreneur

Dimitris Daskalopoulos Dimitris Daskalopoulos ( el, Δημήτρης Δασκαλόπουλος; born 1957, Athens) is a Greek entrepreneur who is known as founder and chairman of DAMMA Holdings SA, a financial services and investment company. He served as the Chairman ...

gifted to the MCA Chicago 100 works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection. The Museum acquired joint ownership of the pieces with the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

References

External links

Official website
{{Good article Art museums and galleries in Illinois

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Art museums established in 1967 Museums in Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Modern art museums in the United States Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Streeterville, Chicago

History

Operation

Exhibitions

Past

Recent

Recurring programs

Performance

New structure

Critical review

New vision

Collection

Notable works

See also

References

External links