1.ART TO LIVE WITH

Art to Live With offers UChicago students the unique opportunity to borrow original works of art to display in their dorm rooms. Each fall, students will be able to select from specially designated artworks in the Smart Museum’s Art to Live With collection, including new acquisitions proposed by students in our Collections and Acquisitions Committee.

Contact Emily Edwards, Art to Live With Registration & Programming Coordinator, emilyedwards@uchicago.edu.

2. INTERNSHIPS + RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Each quarter, the Smart offers a range of paid internships where students can build museum and professional arts administration experience. Through the Smart Scholars program, the Museum supports student research opportunities resulting in an original creative work (of visual art, music, dance, writing), exhibition, program, or scholarly essay. Other undergraduate research opportunities provide direct experience working on Museum exhibitions and programs.

Contact Natasha Ritsma, Academic Engagement Coordinator, nritsma@uchicago.edu.

3. GET A JOB

Join our frontline staff! Students on our guest services team serve as ambassadors of the Smart Museum and help create a welcoming and comfortable space every day for everyone. Share the Smart’s art with the local community and make art a welcome part of everyone’s life.

Contact Kate Kelly, Guest Services and Operations Manager, kmkelly1@uchicago.edu.

4. LEAD TOURS + ENGAGEMENTS

Docents and Program Support Specialists serve as gallery teachers for a range audiences and facilitate programs, including family days, collaborative arts partnerships, and public programs addressing a range of critical contemporary issues.

Contat Jason Pallas, Manager of Community Engagement & Arts Learning, jpallas@uchicago.edu.

5. PROGRAMS + STUDENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Interested in planning events, meeting artists, visiting galleries, and getting exposure to the multifaceted art world? Every quarter, the Smart’s Student Advisory Committee presents creative and social programs and a dedicated study night in the galleries at the start of the reading period. The committee also helps acquire works for the Art to Live With collection.

Contact Erik Peterson, Manager of Student Engagement, eriklpeterson@uchicago.edu.

Welcome to the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art.

Located on campus and reflecting the intellectual, social, and artistic interests of our community, the Smart is a dynamic site of student-led discourse and action. From a creative commission series and an annual art loan program to paid internships and object-driven research opportunities through the Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry, the Smart offers UChicago students a distinct social, creative, and professional platform unlike anything else on campus.

5 Smart ways to make art a part of your University of Chicago experience

Welcome to your art museum.

SmartMuseum

smartmuseum.uchicago.edu@SmartUChicago

TARA DONOVAN: FIELDWORKJune 13–September 22, 2019This exhibition highlights the celebrated practice of Tara Donovan, whose sculptures, drawings and site-responsive installations transform everyday materials into the extraordinary. From plastic straws, index cards, rubber bands to Slinkys, Donovan deftly alters mundane materials into complex and beautiful works that border between the surreal and the sublime, often engaging and manipulating light and space in novel and unexpected ways.

CROSS CURRENTS / INTERCAMBIO CULTURALJuly 11–August 18, 2019This artist exchange explores the Latinx experience through artistic practices in the US and in Cuba, on the island at this moment of cultural change and political turmoil. Initiated by the National Museum of Mexican Art, the exhibition will open at the Smart in July 2019 and be on display in Havana in Fall 2019.

SAMSON YOUNGSeptember 18–December 29, 2019In his first US museum exhibition, Samson Young premieres a trilogy of animated music videos, drawings and objects that explore varying concepts of social progress and control. Loosely taking the idealism displayed at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago as a point of departure, this multimedia exhibition asks how do people adapt to societal changes that they have little control over.

THE CHICAGO SOUND SHOWSeptember 27–December 29, 2019Site-specific works by nine, Chicago-based sound artists will explore the thresholds, gates, and passageways on the University of Chicago campus.

MELEKO MOKGOSI: BREAD, BUTTER, AND POWEROctober 19–December 29, 2019Meleko Mokgosi’s large-scale episodic painting cycle Bread, Butter, and Power forms the newest chapter in his ongoing series Democratic Intuition, which seeks to explore ideas about the many ways that democratic concepts influence our lives, loves, and relationships on macro- and micro-levels. This twenty-panel installation interrogates the theme of feminism in the context of southern Africa, and considers the consequences of dividing labor practices by gender.

DOWN TIME: ON THE ART OF RETREATOctober 24–December 29, 2019Organized by UChicago students as part of a course “Exhibition in Practice,” this show focuses on the time and space of rest and considers how artists have represented retreat and respite, particularly in moments of exhaustion or in the wake of trauma.

THE ALLURE OF MATTER: MATERIAL ART FROM CHINAFebruary 6–May 3, 2020Since the 1980s, Chinese contemporary artists have cultivated intimate relationships with their materials, establishing a framework of interpretation revolving around materiality. Their media range from the commonplace to the unconventional, the natural to the synthetic, the elemental to the composite: from plastic, water, and wood, to hair, gunpowder, and Coca-Cola. This exhibition, co-presented at Wrightwood 659, features monumental works and installations that are complementary in form, material, and visual effect.

2019–2020 EXHIBITIONSDates are subject to change. For an up-to-date schedule, visit smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions