Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity examines contemporary artwork that takes as its subject the form, technology, myth, message, and image of that iconic building structure, the skyscraper. While the exhibition has particular relevance to Chicago, the city that is widely known as the birthplace of this architectural type, artists throughout the worldin addition to authors, filmmakers, poets, and of course architectshave been enthralled by the human desire to build farther and farther into the sky, testing technological limits while also embodying a yearning for spiritual connection to the heavens. Artists endeavors to explore this desire have taken many forms, from video and film to sculpture, painting, and photography.
Skyscraper brings together a wide-ranging group of artists from around the world and across the 20th and 21st centuries to explore this enduring fascination. The exhibition features the work of Fikret Atay, Jennifer Bolande, Roger Brown, Jeff Carter, Roe Ethridge, Jonathan Horowitz, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Jakob Kolding, Vera Lutter, Abelardo Morell, Eliza Myrie, Ahmet t, Claes Oldenburg, Gabriel Orozco, Enoc Perez, Monika Sosnowska, Thomas Struth, Jan Tichy, Andy Warhol, Peter Wegner, H. C. Westermann, Wesley Willis, Catherine Yass, and Shizuka Yokomizo, among others.
Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity is curated by MCA James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator Michael Darling, and co-curated by MCA Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow Joanna Szupinska.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color catalogue.