Art and Public Culture in Chicago

FAIN: EH-256849-17

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
Liesl Marie Olson (Project Director: February 2017 to December 2024)

A three-week institute for twenty-five college and university faculty to explore the role of the arts in urban life, using Chicago as a case study.

The Newberry Library proposes a 3-week summer 2018 institute for college and university faculty that will explore the role of the arts in the civic life of Chicago. Art and Public Culture in Chicago will look closely at the arts, their reception, and their civic import in Chicago from the 1893 World’s Fair through the present moment. We are particularly interested in artistic communities, small-scale venues, and vernacular expressions that developed against or alongside Chicago’s mainstream cultural institutions. We seek to understand how audiences are created out of cultural activity, and what kinds of civic participation the arts call into being. The institute will be led by experts in art history, literature, American studies, African American studies, and creative arts, and will include site visits to Chicago neighborhoods, arts organizations, museums, and archives. Participants will also engage with a rich array of primary sources in the Newberry’s collection.