Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Mark your calendars for a reimagining of the symbols that shape our world! 🏛️ On January 21, join participants of the New Art School Modality for a thought-provoking conversation exploring how art and architecture can reshape public memory. The students will share their works in progress, which attempt to unpack how monuments can better reflect the complexities of our shared history and aspirations. ℹ️ go.mcachicago.org/nasm

Why settle for ordinary when you can host your next event at the MCA? 🌟 From intimate family dinners to corporate launches, our flexible spaces allow you to design a truly memorable event. Start planning your next event with us today: mcachicago.org/rentals

As an art lover, you understand the transformative power of museums and the importance of supporting them. This season, if your budget allows, consider making a donation to the MCA. 💚 Donate today: mcachicago.org/donate Your gift keeps us at the forefront of the art world, enabling us to bring thought-provoking exhibitions and programs to life. Plus, your donation is 100% tax-deductible.

We couldn't agree more: The Washington Post named "Nicole Eisenman: What Happened" a top exhibition of 2024. “Nicole Eisenman, the sarcastic, scabrous, funny and poignant painter and sculptor, provoked cutting laughter, tender communal feeling and deep worry at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.” Read more at: go.mcachicago.org/best-art

We are so proud to see our former Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator and Manilow Senior Curator Naomi Beckwith appointed to curate Documenta 16! This honor follows a long line of achievements for Beckwith, including curating the MCA major exhibitions "Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen," and "Nick Cave: Forothermore." Please join us in congratulating her!

25 years ago today we opened "At the End of the Century: 100 Years of Architecture." Cocurated by our former Chief Curator Elizabeth Smith, the exhibition presented a global perspective on 20th-century architecture. "Around each corner the viewer found yet another seminal treasure known previously only from illustrations."

Know a performance and theater lover? Gift them tickets to our "On Stage" series! Spanning four months and a variety of practices, you're sure to find the perfect performance for that certain someone. Visit: mcachicago.org/on-stage Save 20% when you buy tickets to two or more performances.

🥂 Celebrate the holidays with a festive Christmas Eve brunch at Marisol Chicago! Reservations are available 10:30 am–4 pm. The museum will be open until 5 pm and is free for Illinois residents—perfect for a visit before or after your meal! Book your table: https://lnkd.in/gW5hsA5W

Opening this Saturday! Dieter Roth and Björn Roth's "Balabild 5." Renowned multimedia artist Dieter Roth’s preferred form, and the one he spent his lifetime pursuing, was the "Gesamtkunstwerk," a German term for “total work of art.” Working across a diverse range of media, disciplines, and creative activities, Roth developed an artistic practice that dissolved the boundaries between art and life, upending traditional categories, hierarchies, and even timeworn notions of singular authorship. Often collaborating with other artists, including his son Björn, Roth produced an ever-expanding body of work that gestured toward the cumulative effects of a life spent making and remaking. The sculpture "Balabild 5" (c. 1975–2005), made in collaboration with Björn Roth, is a complex portrait of their shared creative life, expressed through an array of artifacts that passed through their family art studio in Iceland. Made of materials including wooden flooring from the original studio, canvas, paint and paint tubes, brushes, lightbulbs, photographs, and other found items, "Balabild 5" was developed over decades and is intended to look forever unfinished, as if the artists have frozen the energy of their studio and could step in at any moment to keep working. Björn Roth has called their studio “a laboratory, to search for beauty in nothing.” "Dieter Roth and Björn Roth: Balabild 5" is curated by Jason Foumberg, Daskalopoulos Collection Manager. ---- Image: Dieter Roth and Björn Roth, "Balabild 5" (detail), c. 1975–2005. Mixed-media collage. Gift of the D.Daskalopoulos Collection donated jointly to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2022.97. © Dieter Roth Estate, courtesy Hauser & Wirth. Photo: David Levene.

❄️ Looking for holiday break plans? Local critic Gareth Kaye recently named "The Living End" a must-see winter exhibition in @ArtBasel! 📰 go.mcachicago.org/artbasel ---- Image: Installation view, "The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970–2020," Nov 9, 2024–Mar 16, 2025. Photo: Ricardo Adame.