Art in Chicago

There wasn't much time to see art while I was in Chicago last week for the College Art Association conference, but two world-class art museums were within walking distance of my hotel: The Chicago Art Institute and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago MCA), so I visited both. On view at the MCA is a provocative and convincing exhibition titled The Way of the Shovel: Art as Archaeology, organized by Dieter Roelstraete, Senior Curator at MCA, which presents artworks made since 2000 that in various ways excavate the past. This includes some of the most interesting artworks and artists of our time, so it's an important show and gave me much to think about. In this video, the curator and some of the artists discuss the exhibition and their artwork: The Way of the Shovel: Art as Archaeology

Looking at Michael Rakowitz, The Invisible Enemy
Should Not Exist (detail), 2007–present, at Chicago MCA
February 13, 2014, Way of the Shovel exhibition

The installation by Michael Rakowitz, The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, is one of the works that captured my interest. Rakowitz has made copies (in an ongoing process) of ancient works of art that have gone missing from museums in Iraq since the war began. He makes them out of pop detritus: packaging of popular commodities (like chewing gum wrappers) from the region.

Michael Rakowitz, The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist (detail), 2007–present

Ionit looking at details of Mark Dion's installation,
Concerning the Dig, 2013, in The Way of the Shovel

Mark Dion is well known in California and has shown in San Francisco recently, but in the context of this exhibition, his focus on the past - museums, archaeological digs, including the archaeology of everyday contemporary life (like the installation in the MCA show - fits a paradigm that includes many other artists and is presented here as a defining subject of our time.