Renaissance Society
| The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1915 |
| Location | 5811 S. Ellis Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 |
| Coordinates | 41°47′21″N 87°36′04″W / 41.7892°N 87.6010°W |
| Type | Art museum |
| Director | Susanne Ghez |
| Website | http://www.renaissancesociety.org |
The Renaissance Society is a non-collecting contemporary art museum in Chicago, Illinois. It is located on the campus of the University of Chicago, although it is a fully separate entity.
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Overview [edit]
The Renaissance Society is a non-collecting museum founded in 1915 to encourage the growth and understanding of contemporary art. The Society presents four or five exhibitions each year, featuring both internationally and locally renowned artists. Located on the campus of The University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, it is one of the nation's oldest museums devoted exclusively to contemporary art.[1]
History [edit]
From 1929 to 1935, the Society was led by important photographer and artist Eva Watson-Schütze, who helped create groundbreaking exhibitions of modernists including Braque, Arp, Brancusi, Miró, and Picasso. Important one-person exhibitions organized by the Society included Henri Matisse (1930); Alexander Calder (1934); Fernand Léger (1936); László Moholy-Nagy (1939); John Sloan (1942); Käthe Kollwitz, Paul Klee (1946), Mies van der Rohe (1947); Diego Rivera (1949); José Clemente Orozco (1951); Marc Chagall (1958); Réné Magritte (1964) and Henry Moore (1967). A distinguished history of educational programs featured luminaries such as Sergei Prokofiev, Alfred Barr, Leonard Bernstein, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neale Hurston, and Paul Tillich.
Since 1974, Executive Director and Chief Curator Susanne Ghez has led The Renaissance Society to focusing on the forefront of the visual arts, maintaining an international reputation as one of the finest resources for contemporary art. Since the mid-1970s, Ghez has introduced Chicago audiences to leading contemporary artists such as Robert Smithson, Louise Bourgeois, Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, Daniel Buren, On Kawara, Gunther Forg, Juan Muñoz, Hanne Darboven, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Thomas Struth, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Kara Walker, Arturo Herrera, Darren Almond, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Mark Manders.[2]
Hamza Walker, Associate Curator and Director of Education, was called one of the "seven most influential curators in the country" by The New York Times, which also described him as "one of the museum world's most talented essayists." Walker won the Ordway Prize in 2010, in recognition of his innovative curatorial work as well as his wide-ranging thinking and writing about contemporary art.
Today, The Renaissance Society also sponsors concerts, performances, film and video screenings, poetry and fiction readings, and lectures by noted contemporary artists, critics and scholars.
External links [edit]
- The Renaissance Society's Official Website
- The Renaissance Society on Facebook
- The Renaissance Society on Twitter
- The Renaissance Society on Vimeo
- The Renaissance Society on Tumblr
References [edit]
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