How Chicago! Imagists 1960S & 70S
Goldsmiths CCA presents the first significant exhibition in the UK in almost 40 years of work by the Chicago Imagists. Igniting the Chicago art scene in the 1960s, the artists associated with 鈥楥hicago Imagism鈥� worked across painting, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking, creating distinctive works that were irreverent and often visceral. Variously featuring vibrant colours, distorted figuration, shimmering repetitions, puns and wordplay, the Imagists channelled a collision of art history, folk art, the urban fabric of Chicago, as well as vernacular material cultures such as comic books, pinball machines and advertising.
How Chicago! focuses on fourteen artists associated with Imagism, and features painting, objects, drawings, prints and ephemera. The exhibition concentrates on works from the 1960s when they first met, through to the late 1970s, when many of them moved away, both stylistically and geographically. All of the artists studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where teachers introduced them to non-Western and self-taught artists, and fostered delight in cast-off objects gleaning in the city鈥檚 thrift stores and street markets. How Chicago! highlights the affinities between a group of divergent artists who had a lasting impact on 20th century art.
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Goldsmiths CCA presents the first significant exhibition in the UK in almost 40 years of work by the Chicago Imagists. Igniting the Chicago art scene in the 1960s, the artists associated with 鈥楥hicago Imagism鈥� worked across painting, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking, creating distinctive works that were irreverent and often visceral. Variously featuring vibrant colours, distorted figuration, shimmering repetitions, puns and wordplay, the Imagists channelled a collision of art history, folk art, the urban fabric of Chicago, as well as vernacular material cultures such as comic books, pinball machines and advertising.
How Chicago! focuses on fourteen artists associated with Imagism, and features painting, objects, drawings, prints and ephemera. The exhibition concentrates on works from the 1960s when they first met, through to the late 1970s, when many of them moved away, both stylistically and geographically. All of the artists studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where teachers introduced them to non-Western and self-taught artists, and fostered delight in cast-off objects gleaning in the city鈥檚 thrift stores and street markets. How Chicago! highlights the affinities between a group of divergent artists who had a lasting impact on 20th century art.
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