Exhibitions
Collection Galleries
Exhibitions Archived in: 2010
The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850-1900
February 11 – June 13, 2010
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Paris reigned as the city of light and Impressionism captured the bustle of its lively streets and cafés. But there is another dimension to the period, one captured by less well known, sometimes enigmatic, and often melancholy imagery.... more »
"People Wasn't Made to Burn": Ben Shahn and the Hickman Story
May 11 – August 29, 2010
In early 1947, a fire ripped through the one-room attic of a tenement building on Chicago’s West Side, killing four children. Stricken by grief, the father of the victims, James Hickman, subsequently shot and killed the building’s landlord, who had threatened to burn the property down.... more »
Mid-Century: "Good Design" in Europe and America, 1850-1950
July 8 – September 5, 2010
Between 1850 and 1950, progressive artists, designers, and architects decisively reshaped the everyday world of objects. Advocating for design reform—and by extension, social reform—they promoted a host of competing ideologies that embraced aesthetic revolution and technical innovation.... more »
Darkness Revisited: A Collection of Private Pleasures
September 7 – December 5, 2010
Organized by University of Chicago students, this intimate exhibition of prints from the Smart Museum's collection revisits the themes of The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850–1900 and offers a new look at the shadowed interiors and private introspections of late nineteenth-century art.... more »
Anna Kunz: Eidolon
September 10, 2010 - August 2011
The first art-banner commission in the Smart Museum's Threshold series is Ediolon, a large vinyl collage by Chicago-based artist Anna Kunz.... more »
Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan
September 30, 2010 – January 16, 2011
Carved into the mountains of northern China, the Buddhist cave temples of Xiangtangshan (響堂山, pronounced “shahng-tahng-shahn”) were the crowning cultural achievement of the sixth-century Northern Qi dynasty. Once home to a magnificent array of sculptures—monumental Buddhas, elaborate attendant figures, and crouching monsters framed by floral motifs—the limestone caves were severely... more »
Bingyi: Cascade
November 18, 2010 - December 11, 2011
The Chinese-born artist Bingyi inaugurates the Threshold series with the specially commissioned Cascade, an enormous painting that fills the central wall in the Smart’s reception hall.... more »
Upcoming Exhibitions
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June 27 – August 25, 2013
The Land Beneath Our Feet: American Art at the Smart Museum -
February 13 – June 15, 2014
Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture
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