“Sympathy for the Devil,” the new rock ‘n’ roll exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, is getting a distinctly unsympathetic response from certain quarters. Subtitled “Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967,” the show’s intended to examine the “dynamic relationship” between rockers and artists, and it includes art from all over the world. But it’s organized in geographic chunks, so it’s instantly clear that while there’s lots of art from Los Angeles, lots from New York, and a good deal from the United Kingdom, there’s very little from Chicago. While LA and New York command their own expansive sections, Chicago is lumped with Detroit and Rhode Island and the rest of the country in a single grab-bag category. In this group, Chicago’s represented by two Ed Paschke paintings and one Karl Wirsum. These are relatively small works hung cheek by jowl with muscular murals at least twice their size by members of the Michigan-based group Destroy All Monsters (most of whom now live in New York or LA).
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The few other pieces by Chicagoans in the show–Melanie Schiff photos, Funkadelic album covers by Pedro Bell, video by former Chicagoan Josh Mannis (who recently relocated to LA)–aren’t enough to alter the impression that the local scene has been dissed. Painter Wesley Kimler, who’s been stomping and shouting about Chicago’s neglect of its artists for years, says this exhibit, with its “pronounced anti-Chicago bias,” is just the latest and most blatant example of a chronic second-city problem.
Langford–who says he and his band the Mekons have been finding “ways to blur the lines between rock and roll and fine art for 30 years”–considers the omissions “a real slap in the face for the arts in Chicago.” Reached on tour, he hadn’t yet seen the exhibit, which opened September 29, but says he’s been curious about it since he was asked to be involved early on. “They wanted my band to play,” he says. “Nothing to do with the actual [art] show, which was already set.” Langford performed at the MCA last year and respects Peter Taub, who curates performances there, but says for this exhibit they missed what was going on under their noses. “I think it’s because they’re stuck in some kind of ivory tower, and they wish the tower was in Manhattan or LA,” he says. A Chicagoan since ’92, Langford says this city is exceptionally supportive of boundary crossing, a place where much of the music that’s come out on labels like Thrill Jockey, Touch and Go, and Bloodshot has been made by people who “are basically visual artists as well.” Langford wonders why artists like Archer Prewitt and Sam Prekop, musicians whose art has international followings, have been omitted too.
Through 1/6/2008: Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Sun 10 AM-5 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660. Admission is free every day through November 14 in celebration of the museum’s 40th birthday.
