African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce and the Politics of Race
October 27, 2018—March 3, 2019
Chicago Cultural Center • Exhibit Hall, 4th Floor North
Chicago Cultural Center > Visual Art Program > Exhibitions > Past Exhibitions > African American Designers in Chicago
(click on image to enlarge, photo credit: James Prinz Photography)
Featuring work from a wide range of practices including cartooning, sign painting, architectural signage, illustration, graphic design, exhibit design and product design, this exhibition is the first to demonstrate how African American designers remade the image of the black consumer and the work of the black artist in this major hub of American advertising/consumer culture.
This exhibition is funded in part by the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, as part of Art Design Chicago, an exploration of Chicago’s art and design legacy.
Exhibition Guides
Public Programs
Gallery Talk with Curator Daniel SchulmanThursdays, November 1, 12:15–1pm |
Symposium & Exhibition Opening: The Designs of African American LifeNovember 2–3 Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater, 2nd Floor North Friday, November 2
Saturday, November 3
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Saturday–Sunday, 10am–5pm
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Chicago Cultural Center
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Take CTA to Chicago Cultural Center
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Chicago Humanities Festival: Midcentury Design and OpportunitySunday, November 11, 3–4pm Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall, 3rd Floor South Art historian Maggie Taft, artist David Hartt, modern architecture and design historian Jonathan Mekinda and the exhibitions co-curator Chris Dingwall explore the social, artistic, entrepreneurial and political opportunities to be found within midcentury design in Chicago. |
Gallery Talk with Curator Daniel SchulmanThursday, November 15, 12:15pm |
Gallery Talk with Curator Daniel SchulmanThursday, December 6, 12:15pm |
Gallery Talk with Curator Chris Dingwall
Thursday, January 3, 12:15pm |
Panel Discussion: The Archive, the Gallery and the Practices of Public History
Saturday, January 5, 1:30–3pm Historians and archivists discuss the use of archival documents in an exhibition context. The panel will include Davarian L. Baldwin, Trinity College; Skyla S. Hearn, DuSable Museum of African American History; Chris Dingwall, Oakland University; Ashley Finigan, University of Chicago. Organized in association with the American Historical Association |
Gallery Talk with Curator Daniel SchulmanThursday, January 17, 12:15pm |
A Designers Life: Tribute to Charles HarrisonSunday, January 27, 2-3:30pm A celebration of the life and accomplishments of industrial designer Charles Harrison (1931-2018), in conjunction with the exhibition African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce and the Politics of Race, which features Harrison's sketches and finished products for Sears Roebuck and other manufacturers. |
Gallery Talk with Curator Daniel SchulmanThursday, February 21, 12:15pm |
Lecture: "Common Things Surprise Us: Black Chicago's Artists and Models Balls and the Politics of Middlebrow(n) Taste"Friday, March 1, 6-7:30pm Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater, 2nd Floor North Jacqueline Goldsby, Yale University, will discuss the South Side Community Art Center’s legendary Artists and Models Balls as enactments of Black middlebrow taste, as a practice of vernacular and high design and as evidence of Black Chicago’s special symbiosis of commerce and cultural production. |
Photo Gallery
(Photo credit: James Prinz Photography)
