This summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) presents Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity, a selection of contemporary artworks that consider the form, technology, myth, and message of the modern skyscraper. The MCA brings this iconic building structure to life in Chicago, a city that is widely known as the birthplace of this architectural type. Over fifty international artists working in the 20th and 21st centuries are featured with works ranging from film and video to painting, sculpture, and photography.
Artists and architects, along with writers, filmmakers, and poets, have an enduring fascination with the human and spiritual desire to build farther into the skies, pushing technological limits. The Skyscraperexhibition is organized in sections that consider themes inspired by the skyscraper including: Verticality, Personification of Architecture, Urban Critique, Improvisation, and Vulnerability of Icons - which has a particular focus on the World Trade Center. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a gravity-defying new installation commissioned and built specially for the MCA's four-story atrium space by renowned Polish artist Monika Sosnowska. Her work, The Fire Escape is a steel structure in the form of a crumbling fire escape that hangs from the atrium ceiling.
Dates: from June 30 to September 23.
Location: 220 E Chicago Ave. Chicago IL 60611. USA.
Opening hours: from Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm. Tuesdays from 10am to 8pm.