Chicago: Read All About It

by | Jun 1, 2012 | Blog

This week’s newsbits

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While you were busy getting high on bath salts this week, it was announced that international badass and Chicago-based artist Jessica Stockholder is set to begin making Chicago’s largest public artwork…ever.

From the press release:

[The artist and a team of workers] will install, piece-by-piece, Color Jam, Stockholder’s three-dimensional vinyl artwork containing flashes of color and geometric shapes that spill from building facades onto the sidewalk and streets, commissioned by Chicago Loop Alliance.

The piece will be surrounding buildings, sidewalks and streets at the intersection of State and Adams Streets in the Chicago Loop.

The official “opening” of Color Jam will be on Tuesday, June 5th at 10 am.

Press release fun facts:

Color Jam is the largest public artwork in Chicago’s history and the largest contiguous vinyl project in the U.S. It is composed of over 76,000 square feet of colored vinyl—enough material to make 50,000 vinyl records, wrap over 130 city buses or cover one and a half football fields. Printing Color Jam on a standard HP home printer would require 2,100 ink cartridges and 180 hours of continuous printing.

Follow the live streaming at www.colorjamchicago.com. The public artwork will be at the intersection of State and Adams Streets from June 5 through September 30, 2012.

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Susanne Ghez, who has led The Renaissance Society since 1973, has informed the Board of Directors of The Renaissance Society of her intention to step down from her position as Executive Director and Chief Curator in January 2013.

Throughout her 40 year tenure, Ghez has introduced Chicago to many groundbreaking artists, including Robert Smithson Joseph Kosuth, Feliz Gonzalez-Torres, Arturo Herrera, Laura Letinsky, and Kara Walker. Understanding the necessity of the artist catalogue, she decided to expand the museum’s publication program and helped to facilitate the museum’s digital archive and website.

From 1999 to 2002, she served as co-curator of Documenta 11 and continued to widen the international scope on Chicago arts. In 2002, Ghez was awarded the 2002 International Lifetime Achievement Award for Curatorial Excellence from Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies.

The Renaissance Society is an internationally renowned non-collecting museum of contemporary art located on the campus of The University of Chicago, at 5811 South Ellis Avenue, 4th floor, Chicago, IL 60637. The board of The Renaissance Society has formed a transition committee that is working with executive search firm Phillips Oppenheim to identify the museum’s next leader.

Brit Barton
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