GalleryX

September 27, 2014–June 21, 2015

GalleryX is a flexible, open space at the center of the Museum that will serve as a hub for creative discussions and experiences of all sorts during the Smart's 40th anniversary exhibitions Carved, Cast, Crumpled (September 27–December 21, 2014) and Objects and Voices (February 12–June 21, 2015).

It will be home to informal displays of art, public discussions, programs, experiments, and a new project by Interpreters in Residence 500 Clown. It also will provide a space for groups to convene, talk, share ideas, dream, and scheme.

Through these activities, the Smart will encourage visitors to explore the Museum and its collection in new ways. The lessons we learn from the GalleryX initiative will inform our future approaches to interpretation and visitor engagement, and will help us to redefine the Smart’s role as a teaching museum in the twenty-first century.

GalleryX is designed by the Chicago-based Range Design.

An invitation

The Smart invites you to fill GalleryX with your own meetings, classes, get-togethers, rehearsals, and ideas.

The gallery is designed to be a free resource for groups and individuals to make use of during the Smart’s public hours. We welcome book clubs, student organizations, music groups, professors, co-workers, school teachers, artist groups, theatre troupes, and community partners—anyone and everyone—to use GalleryX as a forum to meet, create, and collaborate.

Interested in using works in our collection during your program, project, get-together? Drop us a line and let us know what you’re up to. We’d be happy to help you find art that matches your interests.

Resources

Flexible seating for up to 25
Flatscreen monitor
Wi-fi
Display space for objects from the Smart’s collection

Guidelines

Available only during public hours*
To help protect the artwork, all regular visit guidelines apply (that means no food or drink)
We intended to be as flexible as possible, but each request is contingent on the approval of the Museum.

*Contact us to learn more about after-hour event rental options.

Office hours

Come muse with us! Between noon and 1:30 pm, the Smart offers daily drop-in experiences—part discussion, part tour, and partly undetermined—that invite new perspectives on art and ideas.

Organized by Museum staff, educators, and special guest artists in collaboration with you, our visitors, these informal experiences begin in GalleryX and explore select artworks from the collection. The facilitated experiences range from close looking at a single work of art and playing The Art of Experience: The Smart Museum to unconventional musical interventions and more.

Office hours are held daily (Tuesday–Sunday) between noon and 1:30 pm in GalleryX. Please call 773.702.0200 for more information.

How to Make a Smart Museum

The Smart Museum’s 40th anniversary season (2014–2015) is nestled within a period of tremendous debate over the function and future of museums. Questions of audience engagement and access, technology, institutional sustainability, cultural representation and authorship, creative placemaking, and responsible stewardship—all permeate the museum landscape.

During the course of its 40th anniversary year, the Smart will be speculating on the future of museums (and ours in particular) in five public forums. Those panels are documented here.

The Museum Proposition

The first panel on October 23 invited creative thinkers to explore the question: what is the one thing, above all others, that must sit at the heart of an engaged art museum?

Panelists: René De Guzman (Oakland Museum of California); Carroll Joynes (Cultural Policy Center, The University of Chicago); Lisa Junkin (Jane Addams Hull-House Museum); Faheem Majeed (University of Illinois at Chicago); Elizabeth Merritt (Center for the Future of Museums, American Alliance of Museums)

Arts, Agency, and Creativity, part 1

The second program on December 6, 2014 featured presentations and breakout sessions that explored the question: How can art inspire students and other learners to critically and creatively engage with the world?

Presenters: Therese Quinn (Associate Professor of Art History and Director of the Museum and Exhibition Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago); Christopher Kennedy (Teaching Artist; Organizer; and Assistant Professor, Art and Design Education, Pratt Institute); Design Apprenticeship Program, Arts + Public Life, University of Chicago, with a presentation by teaching artists Grace Needleman and Quenna Lene Barret and DAP participants; Caroline Woolard (Artist, organizer, and co-founder of OurGoods and Trade School); Christine Gaspar (Executive Director, Center for Urban Pedagogy); and Sydney Chatman (Director, Tofu Chitlin’ Circuit and Performing Arts Teacher at UChicago Charter School North Kenwood/Oakland Campus)

Arts, Agency, and Creativity, part 2

Arts, Agency, and Creativity breakout sessions

How can art inspire students and other learners to critically and creatively engage with the world?

The Technology Question, part 1

On April 23, 2015, the Smart Museum of Art hosted a panel discussion and debate around technology in museums. The event was presented as part of the Smart's 40th anniversary How to Make a Smart Museum program series and considered the questions: Does technology play a role in creating authentic experiences with works of art? If so, what role?

In part 1, panelists Peter Samis (Associate curator of interpretive media, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), Deborah Seid Howes (museum educator and consultant), and Tiffany Holmes (artist and professor of art and technology studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) framed and historicized the question of technology in museums.

The Technology Question, part 2

In part 2, the question was opened to debate with case studies presented by Ricardo Philips, Charles Crable, Lucianne Walkowicz and Kayla Lewis, and Jessica Abra Sandy.

The Act of Participating: Participation for What Purpose?

On March 5, 2015, the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago and the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University hosted a dinner and conversation at the Chicago Cultural Center. The event was presented as part of the Smart's 40th anniversary How to Make a Smart Museum program series and considered the question: "How do museums foster and support active participation?"

Prerana Reddy, Director of Public Programs and Community Engagement at the Queens Museum, shared a few case studies. Group discussion followed.

The Act of Participating: Public Wondering

Ariana Jacob, an artist and educator, shared some case studies and posed further questions for the group.

The Act of Participating: An Artists' Congress

Susy Bielak, Associate Director of Engagement/ Curator of Public Practice, Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, shared a few case studies from her work and posed further questions for the group.

Support

The GalleryX initiative has been made possible with support from Pamela and R. Christopher Hoehn-Saric and the Smart Family Foundation, University of Chicago Arts Council, and Ariel Investments.

The How to Make a Smart Museum programming series was made possible by the Efroymson Family Fund. Additional support was provided by the Illinois Humanities Council, and the Franke Institute for the Humanities.

Presented in the Richard and Mary L. Gray Gallery

Smart Museum of Art

The University of Chicago

Sat. January 11 • 1 PM - 4 PM

Family Day: Exquisite Things

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