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Concrete Happenings
A UChicago Arts initiative, Concrete Happenings invites art-lovers and carlovers, artists and scholars, drivers and pedestrians to confront the power of public art—the strange power of a massive sculpture produced by Fluxus artist Wolf Vostell. In 1970, in Chicago, Vostell encased a Cadillac in concrete.
The product of that “happening,” Concrete Traffic, will be installed in a University of Chicago campus parking garage this fall. It will serve as the provocation for a comprehensive suite of exhibitions and interactive public programs—performances, screenings, talks, art workshops, happenings—that offer unique opportunities to engage with a crucial art historical moment and movement, and to explore the intensities with which an artwork can form and transform its publics.
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From Fall 2016 to Spring 2017, a range of free, interdisciplinary programs across campus will engage both scholarly and general audiences in the rich themes surrounding Concrete Happenings.
Concrete Traffic Procession to the University of Chicago
Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 11am–4pm
Methods and Materials to Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (220 E Chicago Ave) to Arts Club of Chicago (201 E Ontario St) to University of Chicago Campus North Parking Garage (5525 S Ellis Ave)Vostell’s Concrete Traffic makes several stops on its return to the University of Chicago campus. First, outside of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Concrete Traffic will be joined by a number of classic Cadillacs and cement trucks as a backdrop for a free public discussion with Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the MCA, and Christine Mehring, faculty director of Concrete Happenings and Professor and Chair, Department of Art History at UChicago. Afterward, a “happening” will take place at the sculpture’s original downtown site now across from the present-day Arts Club of Chicago. Finally, the sculpture will make its way past Midway Studios and the Logan Center for the Arts, site of its original location at the University of Chicago, before arriving at its new location in the Campus North Parking Garage.
Free.
Presented by the Arts Club of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Smart Museum of Art, and UChicago Arts.
