Museums (395-0-1)

Topic

Block Party Tonight!: Art’s Impromptu Publics

Instructors

Jessica Ann Hough

Meeting Info

Locy Hall 303: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

Over the past century, Chicago has been the site of countless creative initiatives that have continually re-shaped the landscape of the city itself. In art classrooms and mural-adorned streets, at house parties, balls, shared meals, and committee meetings for grassroots social justice movements, artists in Chicago have engaged public spaces outside traditional museums and galleries to amplify marginalized voices, coalesce communities, and imagine alternate collective futures. Organized concurrently with several exhibitions on view during Fall 2025, this course will examine how art has influenced the formation of publics and counterpublics, and how artists have critiqued traditional forms of art's creation and exhibition through performances, installations, and community events. Visits to the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago History Museum, and the Block Museum's print collections will include conversations with curators, archivists, and exhibition designers. Students will explore how institutions preserve and present multimedia artworks outside their original contexts—namely, ephemeral and site-specific interventions into public space and civic life. Looking beyond the walls of the museum, we will speak with several such artists and educators to discuss how their practices have presented and preserved the city itself as both stage for and participant in art's political force. Assessment will be based on participation, short writing assignments, and a final research project that draws on Chicago-based artworks and collections. Off-campus site visits will occur during class time, but students should allow for commutes.

Class Attributes

Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area