POSTED BY Troy K., ON November 17, 2009, 6 COMMENTS

I enjoy playing chess, so one of my favorite objects in the Art Institute’s collection is the Man Ray Chess Set, in Gallery 396B in the Modern Wing.

Man Ray was a big chess fan, astutely observing that “while not all artists are chess players, all chess players are artists.” Although he was never as good at the game as his friend, artist Marcel Duchamp (a chess Master who called Man Ray a third-rate “wood pusher”), Man Ray enjoyed playing the game and was interested in designing new, modern forms for chess pieces. He designed his first set in 1920, which he later cast in brass and plated with silver and gold for collectors such as the maharajah of Indore, for whom the Art Institute’s set was made in 1927.

Studying the chess set in the Modern Wing, I was curious about the origin of the board layout. Stephanie D’Alessandro, the Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of Modern Art, related how the layout had changed over time. Years ago, the set was presented with only one pawn moved, more like a sculpture than a functional game. For the new installation of the collection in the Modern Wing, the curators wanted to improve the installation. After doing research, trying to determine what Man Ray might have preferred and without much luck, they selected the layout shown in a photo of another cast of the same chess set, presented on a table designed by Jean-Michel Frank and Man Ray specifically for the set, in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

The curators, however, were not completely satisfied with the new layout and had been trying to learn more from a different, historical source photograph: a c. 1921 self-portrait by Man Ray (illustrated above). The problem was that the slightly grainy image showed only part of the chess board.

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POSTED BY Jenny G., ON November 13, 2009, 0 COMMENTS

Over 337,000 people have visited Making Worlds, the 53rd Venice Biennale, since it opened this summer. Split into two main sections, the Giardini and the Arsenale, this biennale consists of national pavilions and sections curated by Daniel Birnbaum, along with numerous off-site pavilions and collateral events. When I was there a few weeks ago, it was readily apparent to me how many artists represented there have connections to the Art Institute; some have works in our collection, some have had exhibitions or have exhibited work at the museum, and others have given artists talks, presented by our Society for Contemporary Art.

Starting in the national pavilions, this year Bruce Nauman represents the U.S. and was presented with the coveted Golden Lion for Best National Participation. In the Art Institute’s Modern Wing, Nauman has a monographic room dedicated to his work. A few hundred feet away in the British Pavilion is Steve McQueen’s new film Giardini, a special commission for Venice. In 2002 McQueen had a focus exhibition at the museum, and the inaugural installation in the Modern Wing’s Donna and Howard Stone Gallery for Film, Video, and New Media was his film, Girls, Tricky. The Art Institute is also planning a 2013 exhibition of his work.

The curated exhibition in the former Italian Pavilion, renamed Palazzo delle Esposizioni, includes John Baldessari (who received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement), Wade Guyton, Sherrie Levine, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gilbert & George, Spencer Finch, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, whose film leaves clues about what visitors eventually find outside the Arsenale. For anyone familiar with our Artschwager Table with Pink Tablecloth there is also a fantastic recreation by Rachel Harrison of it playfully topped with a cardboard box and silver lobster. The Arsenale, which used to be a rope factory, features work by Pae White, Paul Chan, and additional installations by Spencer Finch.

It was great to be in Venice and see new work by these familiar artists.  I could go on at length about the specific history that each of these artists has with our museum, but instead I’ll direct you to a few links: to the Department of Contemporary Art and to the Society for Contemporary Art. And if you happen to be in Venice before the Biennale closes on November 22, keep an eye out for these artists. Or if you can’t attend, check out the Biennale website.

Bruce Nauman. Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square (Square Dance) , 1968. Gift of Society for Contemporary Art.

Richard Artschwager. Table with Pink Tablecloth, 1964. Gift of Lannan Foundation. © 2008 Richard Artschwager / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

POSTED BY Katie R., ON November 11, 2009, 0 COMMENTS

Full disclosure: my dream job at the Art Institute would be to give tours full time. I love talking to visitors about art and I love learning the history, context, and secrets about our collection.

Along the same lines, I’m really interested in the different types of tours at the museum: tours of our “big ticket” works, quick lunchtime talks, tours for school kids, tours of the architecture of the Modern Wing, tours about specific works or specific artists, and on and on. So I jumped at the chance to tag along with Jeff Nigro, Director of Adult Programs, on one of the Art and the Workplace tours—The Discerning Eye.

The Discerning Eye is a program for professionals—everyone from nurses to police academy students to managers from US Cellular have gone on the tours—that is designed to help people understand how they respond to visual cues and how various job skills like communication and teamwork can be enhanced by looking at and talking about art. Basically, we’re putting Goya to work. The rules are simple: no pointing and no sentences starting with “obviously” or “clearly.”

I followed Jeff and one of the groups one day recently, initially somewhat skeptical about how the museum’s collection would relate to modern-day office life. I also prepared myself for some awkward silences during the three-hour discussion, but was almost immediately proven wrong.

Our first stop was Frans Snyders’s Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market (above). The question Jeff asked the group was very simple: what’s the first thing you noticed? Answers ranged from the goose to the old man’s shirt to the cat eyes under the table, and the discussion continued for half an hour—an object lesson in dealing with a multitude of view points. No two people had answered the fairly simple question about one painting the same way, and what was self-evident to one was completely absent to another. Sound familiar?

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, the group animatedly discussed power dynamics in terms of a series of Goya paintings (above), dealing with assumptions and race relations as the themes related to a Brancusi sculpture, and how perceptions change over time—brought to the foreground by a Laurent de La Hyre painting.

Who says field trips are just for kids?

Frans Snyders. Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market, 1614. Charles H. and Mary F.S. Worcester Collection.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. El Maragato Threatens Friar Pedro de Zaldivia with His Gun, Friar Pedro offers shoes to El Maragato and Prepares to Push Aside His Gun, Friar Pedro Wrests the Gun from El Maragato, Friar Pedro Clubs El Maragato with the Butt of the Gun, Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off, Friar Pedro Binds El Maragato with a Rope. Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection.

POSTED BY Anne H., ON November 06, 2009, 2 COMMENTS

The Art Institute is well known for being the home of one-of-a-kind artistic masterpieces like Nighthawks, American Gothic, The Old Guitarist, and one of the best Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collections this side of the Atlantic. But the collection didn’t start out that way. It started out as many 19th-century museums do: with copies.

When the Art Institute of Chicago opened its doors on Michigan Avenue in 1893, the collection consisted of a “significant” group of reproductions of famous sculptures and plaster casts of architectural statuary, donated by the French government at the close of the Columbian Exposition.

Yes, you heard me right. Plaster casts. Reproductions of Venus de Milo and Winged Victory. We had tons of them.

We had so many because the Art Institute of Chicago was formed as a museum where School of the Art Institute students could study art. And at the time, “studying art” meant copying famous works of art. But also, at the time, plaster casts were actually quite the rage. They were intended to bring the history of art, in the pre-internet age, to the uncultured, non-European world.

This is not to say there is anything wrong with copies. Today, many artists appropriate or recreate works by other artists, as evidenced by this work by Sherrie Levine, which is on view right now in the Modern Wing.

POSTED BY Erin H., ON November 03, 2009, 1 COMMENTS

I give a lot of tours of the Modern Wing, and there are details about the building that most visitors like but that aren’t necessarily apparent to anyone going through the building on their own. So, here are some “secrets” of the Modern Wing.

The building that now sits on Monroe Street is actually the third version of the expansion that the museum planned. We started thinking about expanding in 1999, before Millennium Park was built. So the original idea was to put the expansion on the south side of the building, over the railroad tracks. But once Millennium Park started to become more than parking lots, broken bottles, and train tracks, the architect Renzo Piano and museum leaders decided to completely reorient the building to face north. This move was made in 2001. To “talk” to the park, and to test some proportional ideas for the façade, Piano designed the two Exelon Pavilions across the street from the Modern Wing. You may know these pavilions as the entrances to the parking garages under the park. Same materials, same ideas as those for the Modern Wing. Modest structures, big architect.

A guiding principle for the Modern Wing is Piano’s idea of “zero gravity”—that buildings should appear to levitate and lift. I had always heard about this idea, and I sense it when I’m in the building, but it was never quite sure of how the details—beyond lots of verticals—worked. But the key to it in the Modern Wing is that everything is designed to not quite meet the floor. Every wall has a one-inch “reveal” at the bottom of it. Piano designed all the benches, and they all sit slightly up off the floor on little pegs. Every sculpture pedestal and platform also sit up off the floor. The main staircase also “floats,” with an inch between what appears to be its base and the floor. Tiny detail, huge impact.

More to come!