Young Chicago
Info 312-443-3600
Rosa’s “Young Chicago” has similar ambitions, with the work of 16 designers cutting across all the disciplines–architectural, industrial, graphic, and fashion. On display is one of Nick Cave’s fantastical Soundsuits, described in the catalog as “static sculptures for exhibition…as well as ritualistic costumes for performance.” Also on display are the menus graphic designer Jason Pickleman did for Avec and the proposals architect Clare Lyster made to spur redevelopment–including agricultural–in Chicago’s Lawndale community. There’s not a single weak link, but the show still feels a bit sparse and disconnected.
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There was always a lot of socializing and cross-pollination among the artistic disciplines here. It’s no accident that Henry Fuller’s novel The Cliff-Dwellers revolves around one of the city’s iconic turn-of-the-century skyscrapers. Rosa notes that this dynamic was still alive in the 30s, when three European exiles united Chicago culture under the principles of the Bauhaus: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe reinvented the city’s architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy created what would eventually become the Institute of Design, and Herbert Bayer redefined graphic design as a consultant to the Container Corporation of America. But after World War II that unity slowly came apart. Moholy-Nagy died in 1946, Mies was eased out at IIT, and the CCA was eventually sucked up by Mobil.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
